Where is Window Buttons properties dialog?

Jerry3904 · 2015-10-27 16:47:05

In what has to be one of the most hidden items in Xfce4, the user has to know to open the Panel Preferences, click on the Icons tab, double-click the Windows Buttons entry and--voilà enfin!--there is the properties dialog box that allows one to select to show windows from all workspaces.

We are interested to see if we can get that into an expanded Settings Manager, on the Menu or somewhere else discoverable by the user, but I have been unable to find the executable.

Any one know? TIA.

MountainDewManiac · 2015-10-27 19:13:08

It'd be more sensible to explain to their users how to use the panel preferences. Or does your expanded Settings Manager contain all the other settings that the panel preferences dialog box contains, as well (including any/all other panel applets' preferences)?

I mean... If I walked into a kitchen and saw a guy beating on a can with a hammer trying to get the beans out, I wouldn't bother to go to the trouble of customizing his hammer so that it was better at opening cans - I'd tell him to use the can opener.

Now, if I was really bored, wanting to customize a hammer, and was looking for problems that I could use yo justify the time... I'd go spend the time on another facet of the hand-tool universe; hammers being pretty well fine at this point and in no way a necessary tool when it comes to opening cans.

YMMV, of course. I cannot really guess at the average intelligence level of your distro's users.

Regards,
MDM

Jerry3904 · 2015-10-27 19:58:49

Thanks, but my question is about the location of the dialog box not about what we might do with it. Sorry if I was unclear.

To your question: there was a post here (crossed from the Mint Forum IIRC) some time ago about how to get expanded content in the default Settings Manager, and we would start by looking at using that.

ToZ · 2015-10-27 21:24:24

There is a remote-event function exposed in some plugins, e.g.:

xfce4-panel --plugin-event=directorymenu:popup:bool:true

...will popup the directorymenu directory listing at the pointer location.

However, I can't seem to find anything in the tasklist code where it utilizes the remote-event functions. So, here is a patch that will add this functionality for you (patch created off of current git master code):

diff --git a/plugins/tasklist/tasklist.c b/plugins/tasklist/tasklist.c
index fdea304..e4e1285 100644
--- a/plugins/tasklist/tasklist.c
+++ b/plugins/tasklist/tasklist.c
@@ -69,6 +69,9 @@ static void     tasklist_plugin_nrows_changed           (XfcePanelPlugin    *pan
 static void     tasklist_plugin_screen_position_changed (XfcePanelPlugin    *panel_plugin,
                                                          XfceScreenPosition  position);
 static void     tasklist_plugin_configure_plugin        (XfcePanelPlugin    *panel_plugin);
+static gboolean tasklist_plugin_remote_event            (XfcePanelPlugin     *panel_plugin,
+                                                             const gchar         *name,
+                                                             const GValue        *value);
 static gboolean tasklist_plugin_handle_expose_event     (GtkWidget          *widget,
                                                          GdkEventExpose     *event,
                                                          TasklistPlugin     *plugin);
@@ -92,6 +95,7 @@ tasklist_plugin_class_init (TasklistPluginClass *klass)
   plugin_class->nrows_changed = tasklist_plugin_nrows_changed;
   plugin_class->screen_position_changed = tasklist_plugin_screen_position_changed;
   plugin_class->configure_plugin = tasklist_plugin_configure_plugin;
+  plugin_class->remote_event = tasklist_plugin_remote_event;
 }
 
 
@@ -274,6 +278,37 @@ tasklist_plugin_configure_plugin (XfcePanelPlugin *panel_plugin)
 
 
 static gboolean
+tasklist_plugin_remote_event (XfcePanelPlugin *panel_plugin,
+                                    const gchar     *name,
+                                    const GValue    *value)
+{
+  TasklistPlugin *plugin = XFCE_TASKLIST_PLUGIN (panel_plugin);
+
+  panel_return_val_if_fail (value == NULL || G_IS_VALUE (value), FALSE);
+
+  if (strcmp (name, "configure") == 0
+      && GTK_WIDGET_VISIBLE (panel_plugin)
+      && panel_utils_grab_available ())
+    {
+      if (value != NULL
+          && G_VALUE_HOLDS_BOOLEAN (value)
+          && g_value_get_boolean (value))
+        {
+          /* popup the configuration dialog */
+          tasklist_plugin_configure_plugin (plugin);
+        }
+      
+      /* don't popup anything else */
+      return TRUE;
+    }
+
+  return FALSE;
+}
+
+
+
+static gboolean
 tasklist_plugin_handle_expose_event (GtkWidget *widget,
                                      GdkEventExpose *event,
                                      TasklistPlugin *plugin)

After applying the patch and re-building xfce4-panel, simply execute:

xfce4-panel --plugin-event=tasklist:configure:bool:true

...to popup the window buttons configuration dialog.

---------------------------------------

You can also create your own script/program to use xfconf-query to change in the button properties.

xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -lv | grep tasklist

...will identify the plugin number of the tasklist (Window Buttons) plugin:

/plugins/plugin-1 tasklist

xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -p $(xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -lv | grep tasklist | awk '{ print $1 }') -lv

...will list all of the properties and settings currently in effect:

/plugins/plugin-1 tasklist
/plugins/plugin-1/flat-buttons true
/plugins/plugin-1/grouping 1
/plugins/plugin-1/include-all-monitors true
/plugins/plugin-1/include-all-workspaces true
/plugins/plugin-1/middle-click 0
/plugins/plugin-1/show-handle false
/plugins/plugin-1/show-labels false
/plugins/plugin-1/show-only-minimized false
/plugins/plugin-1/show-wireframes false
/plugins/plugin-1/sort-order 1

Then you can use xfconf-query again to set the values. e.g:

xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel -p /plugins/plugin-1/flat-buttons -s true

Jerry3904 · 2015-10-30 09:00:31

OK, one of our packagers recompiled it and it works after a reboot. Thanks a lot.

We will probably place that in an expanded Settings Manager, but by concept and parallelism with every other Xfce plugin it should be accessible via the context menu where the user expects to find it. Any real point in passing this up to the Devs?

ToZ · 2015-10-30 10:24:13

If you choose to display the handle, then you can right-click the handle and can easily get to the properties. However, if the handle is not displayed, then it requires a quite a few clicks to get to the properties dialog.

If you feel you that you want the Devs to improve on it, then by all means create a bug report. I just don't know how high this will be on their priority list.

MountainDewManiac · 2015-10-30 13:59:16

ToZ wrote:

If you choose to display the handle, then you can right-click the handle and can easily get to the properties.

I did not know this. So the solution might be (for those distro developers who are interested) to just ship your distro with it set to display the handle? I personally have no use for the handle, but understand where it might be helpful, and just enabled it and saw that it was not annoying (lol), so I would not be opposed to seeing that behavior as the default in a new version of my distro - I'd just turn it off. Err... Just a voice from the "dissenting" side of the peanut gallery stating that it's fine if you want to set things up so it is pre-enabled, lol. Its presence isn't intrusive.

Regards,
MDM

Jerry3904 · 2015-11-03 15:13:14

I didn't know that either. But the handle is so small that I doubt any user would ever see it much less think of using it. Now with the patched xfce4-panel Window Buttons shows up in the menu (after creating a desktop file), and we have it in the expanded Settings Manager as well.

I will post the two files and the patched xfce4-panel in a couple of days in case anyone else is interested.

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#1 2015-10-27 16:47:05

Where is Window Buttons properties dialog?

#2 2015-10-27 19:13:08

Re: Where is Window Buttons properties dialog?

#3 2015-10-27 19:58:49

Re: Where is Window Buttons properties dialog?

#4 2015-10-27 21:24:24

Re: Where is Window Buttons properties dialog?

#5 2015-10-30 09:00:31

Re: Where is Window Buttons properties dialog?

#6 2015-10-30 10:24:13

Re: Where is Window Buttons properties dialog?

#7 2015-10-30 13:59:16

Re: Where is Window Buttons properties dialog?

#8 2015-11-03 15:13:14

Re: Where is Window Buttons properties dialog?

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