Xfce 4.2 includes many new features and several new applications, as you can see here. You can download the test it here and rate the desktop environment here. Xfce Window Manager also includes an embedded compositing manager for the newer X.org 6.8.x (screenshot).
XFce 4.2-beta1 Released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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This screenshot is extraordinary. I use XFCE4 in my office and my only complaint is that its dock looked plain ugly and boring with a solid gray. Now it is transparent. Way to go.
I have to aggre with the first poster here. The shot looks very good! Settings manager has a plenty of new features and wm theme looks so sweet. What to say, I am impressed, waiting for debs
Proud to be a XFCE translator!
Hmmmm… reading over this blog entry,
http://blog.xfce.org/index.php?p=72
It seems as though the vanilla 4.2 beta 1 package doesn’t include the compositor. I’ll pull it and compile it later, but can anyone confirm this or am I just reading what he said wrong?
Sorry for making your life miserable ;^). The xfce-4.1.90 was not announced yet officially as this story went live. To take my own and other’s confusion away I can confirm:
The screenshot linked is xfwm4 v4.1.90, and thus includes the compositor support displayed in it (transparent panel). The link in the xfce devblog is older, and in that version the compositor code had not been merged in it yet. You’ll need to explicitly enable it when compiling xfwm4 though.
The official xfce4 4.1.90 announcement should be out within the hour now I think.
Where is that transparent dock?
The screenshot i mean?
Thanks for clearing that up. Now excuse me while I go indulge myself in some xfce composite goodness =)
XFCE 4.2 is great ! If you want to test drive it with minimal fuss check out Xfld ( http://www.xfld.org/Xfld/en/index.html ) , the ‘xfce live demo’ cdrom.
feels snappy, but a bit less snappy with compositing. There should be an option in the settings to enable/disable it, instead of a compile-time option. I’m sure that’ll come. didn’t figure out how to make hte dock transparent except by using xorg’s transset util.
Start xfwm4 with –disable-compositor to disable compositing even if xfwm4 was compiled with –enable-compositor.
HTH,
benny
does it support drag and drop from filemanager to KDE/GNOME applications ?
Most applications should work fine.
HTH,
benny
The file manager gets “functional double pane”. I love Xfce4 but the first third party apps to go in are rox-filer and mc. I never could wrap my head around xffm, powerful though it appears. The tree-type GUI just isn’t intuitive or efficient.
I am using Ubuntu linux, and I managed to install and run XFce 4.0.5 very easily on it. One problem is that the menus from GNOME are not imported at all, and I have to manually add them to the panel somehow… is there a way to do this automatically?
Cheers!
Xfce 4.2 includes support for the freedesktop.org menu-spec, therefore your gnome/kde menus will be merged in automagically.
benny
Thanks for the VERY quick reply! I will try 4.2 as soon as it is out of beta.
Running xfce4-session in my .xinitrc, or using the long complicated xinitrc from the development webpage – can’t start xfce with that. But if I run just a terminal and start xfce4-session from it everything runs fine. Anybody else get this, or shall I file a bug report?
try inserting an & in the end of xfce4-session ath you .xinitrc
I would love to use “xfce4” but it just doesn’t work with my dual head support. Xinemera support doesn’t cut it.
When it supports dual head, I will use it.
Well the first linked page does say “native multihead support”
I just installed Xfce 4.2-Beta1 and it is pretty neat, at least on the surface – haven’t had time to play around too much
I would love to see XFCE do away with the Window panel at the top and instead do it the way CDE does it, when you minimise the window it appears as an icon on the desktop.
I have to disagree I hate having the mimimised icons on the desktop. You have to minimise everything to get to them. I was going to switch cde on our solaris boxes to xfce for that very reason. Though part of my problem is that we use TightVNC from our windows boxes to access them and ALT -TAB does not get sent with out having to click things in the VNC client.
Xfce 4.2 fully supports multihead – both Xinerama and multi screen – configurations, you might want to give it a go.
benny
This looks great. I remember trying to use Xfce 4.0 and I loved the speed, but I didn’t like that I have to setup all my icons. I can hardly wait for this to come out
🙂
the installer is great!
GNOME is extremely modular, if u don’t like it, just try X+gnome-panel
Because gnome-panel isn’t a desktop environment
I’ve been running Xfce CVS for about 2 weeks now. I’ve been using the installer on my Slackware 10 box flawlessly. The menus and session support are great improvements! Once xfdesktop gets icon support, Xfce will simply be the BEST light desktop environment ever. However, Rox is filling the hole very well.
Excellent work by the Xfce team! Congrats and keep up the amazing work!
isnt that what the “lil star iconbox” does? I’m pretty sure that minimizes it to icons sorta like WindowMaker does.
‘”don’t set background” option to allow apps such as xplanet to be displayed correctly’
ok, maybe with xplanet, but not with Rox-Filer. I want to have the XFCE right/middle-mouse-menu if I’m not in an icon area from Rox-Filer’s icons.
Rox-Filer does have an option “pass all backdrop mouse clicks to window manager” and “override window manager control of the pinboard and panels” to have what I want: it works fine with IceWM or fluxbox or fvwm, because these WMs manages the middle/right mouse button.
But in XFCE, the xfdesktop program handle these mouse buttons.
So I hoped really, that this “don’t set background” feature solves my “problem”.
It’s really useful to implement this feature:
if I’m over an icon from Rox-Filer, I want to do something with this icon, so I have a context menu from Rox.
If I want to do something in an empty areo, I want mostly start programs (eg. terminal…) so this is handled by XFCE/xfdesktop
Ok, one negative side: I can only change background image if I’m over an icon 😉
But I don’t change my background every day 😉 … but I open some terminals often once a day.
So pleeeeease implement this feature in xfdesktop, so that xfdesktop behaves like IceWM & co w/ Rox-Filer!
Btw, really impressive release of XFCE!!! After the plugin with a taskbar in the panel, XFCE is the way to go with Rox-Filer for a small and fast Linux Desktop!!!!!
Honestly, there’s no good chance that this will ever be implemented, since both xfdesktop and ROX-Filer create a desktop window and only one such window can be displayed at a time. It would require some non-trivial event proxying to get this to work.
benny
> It would require some non-trivial event proxying to get this to work.
Sorry, I think it’s easy and require some minor steps (which I can’t program myself)
Please try following:
– Install XFCE 4.2beta, Rox 2.1.3
– start XFCE with xfdesktop disabled and Rox as DE enable
(Rox handles your icons on your desk)
– now open the options menu from Rox to have a “window” from rox, because:
– now start xfdesktop and your Rox Desktop is gone but not the opened options window from Rox
– do something in this Rox option Window and your Rox Desktop is back with Rox icons
– now start from a terminal “xfdesktop -menu” and voila:
*Rox is your desktop _and_ you see the xfdesktop menu*
So I think it’s a easy task for the XFCE/xfdesktop developers not to draw the desktop but handles the middle/right mouse button, with can Rox pass to the windows manager (in this case to xfdesktop)
I think, XFCE+Rox should be more supported against for lightweight complete desktop!
Well thats a really hacky work-around, not what I’d consider a solution after all. It’d even require us to change xfwm4, which is very unlikely to happen, as Olivier has a very strict policy about what will be added to xfwm4.
benny
> Well thats a really hacky work-around
sad, I try so much time yesterday to find this “feature” 😉
I do really like icons on my desk (but the nice context menu from xfdesktop too 😉
Ok, a nice background w/o icons looks nicer, but if I look on my real desk, I can’t imagine someone not allow me to place something on it.
Since Amiga days I placed everything on my desktop, so I think I can’t imagine not to do it.
If xfdesktop/XFCE handles this completely I’m very pleased, but I read I must wait for 4.4?
Is there no hack around? It is ok for me/others(?) to link these icons to a very simple one liner (start programs, open folders with Rox…)
Hi, installed the Beta but I am have problems running eclipse3.01 and ddd anyone had similar problems – other than that – I can’t wait for a gold release
HI I just installed this beta and think it brilliant.
1 Problem: I like the standard windows way with the taskbar and panel in one (as also done in fedora core 2 gnome), with menu buttons on left, taskbar in centre and date etc on right. Any way of doing this?
I am using XFCE4.2 Beta1 on Fedora core 3Test2.
For me the only thing that’s missing in XFce is a decente keyboard shortcut support.
I really don’t like using the mouse that much, it’s the lack of this feature that keeps me away from XFce
installer
what installer
is there an easy way to intall this
an rpm or something ?
also how do u run it in fc2 once u install it or add it to the session menu when u login
Here’s the installer!
ftp://www.os-cillation.de/installers/xfce4-4.2beta1-installer.bin
Taskbar plugin and other goodies also in the same directory:
ftp://www.os-cillation.de/installers/
Enjoy!
yup, there’s a plugin for the panel which lets you put a task manager in there. then you can edit xfce’s startup and stop it launching the separate task manager.
Hi I used the rpms from http://www.gnomefiles.org/app.php?soft_id=468
To install xfce 4.2beta1. Now how do I use the installer to add the desktop plugin? Sorry I am pretty much a n00b.
What command do I use to run xfce4-taskbar-plugin-20040720-installer.bin ?
I only installs for a single user, not all, even when run as root. (had to “bash *.bin” to run)
Next problem: I cannot seem to disable the current taskbar (I edited xinitrc in both /etc/xfce4 and /etc/xdg/xfce4), but it still starts. Also how do I add it to the panel? there seems to be no option. I have restarted several times to see if it changes anything whilst exploring possibilities.