MX Linux Forum

JmaCWQ

How could I ever forget a nice Linux helper like you. :-)

Actually I have been thinking about getting back to you for a long time about icon- and theme modding.
As I remember it you save icons in the sudo zone and restore them when you upgrade.
And I wanted to ask you if you couldn't just use ~/.icons for it instead.?
Then they will just be restored directly with your other data and maybe work immediately.
I do that with some panel icons and it works very well.
Do you see the idea about MX users sharing Xfce Panels almost like wallpaper?

It might not look like it but I still try to keep the configuration minimalistic and very close to default settings.
For me messing with themes has mostly been .. a mess.. lol
But when I look at Gimp and it's default settings today I can see I am not the only one who is able to make a mess, and I might someday also be forced into it because of something like that and this.

The MX borders in general are really thin.

And by advice from a Oracle video I took the huge step and changed:

mx-comfort

To:

mx-comfort-thick-border


But that doesn't help making the title bar buttons bigger.

So now you suggest to look at all of them and I recon you have a strong point:

Kokodi

It makes a blue title bar but not a wider one.

Among all of them I find:

Default-xhdpi

It does a great job on Terminal but in Gedit and Firefox nothing happens.

It confirms my experience with themes. If it is a hobby playing with them there can be hobby enough to last for a very long time. ;-)



CharlesV

Thank you.
It looks like a bit too much for me at the moment but I will save it and look at it later.

Thank you for your kind words Jakob.

I probably could use ~/.icons and I think it works ok but I've never tried to be honest.
I found what I did at the time worked when I was learning to change things to how I wanted, so I've kept doing things the same way.
It takes very little time to paste in my modded stuff from backups to a new system.
I usually just use whatever folder the system uses for things like that that I change, that's why I rename the folders for what I change so I know exactly which ones they are when looking with a file manager.
And I also rename them in the theme's index file so they show the names I give them in the Appearance and Window Manager or whatever's settings, plus they don't get overwritten with an update which I think the default named themes etc. can occasionally do.
I always change and work on copies of the originals, so when I make a mess of things it's easy to just make another copy and start again.

The folders I put changed things in are /usr/share/themes for my Appearance and Window Manager themes, /usr/share/icons for my custom icon theme and cursor theme, /usr/share/pixmaps for the custom icons I make, like the red MX icon I use for my Applications Menu icon, the light blue shutdown button and the custom folder icons I made with the names on them etc., /usr/share/fonts for the custom font I use on the Title Bar.
Or as you call it, the sudo zone

What I've modded...
Appearance: darkcold-gtk-theme - in MX Package Installer, darkcold 5.0.0 I believe is the one I changed.
Window Manager: black-night-blue - no idea where I got that from, maybe one of the Gnome theme sites or perhaps Github, it's an X-GNOME-Metatheme and "Yet Another Theme Based on Arc".
Cursor: DMZ-Black - I liked the Knoppix pointer so created my own as an experiment in GIMP, learning as well how and where to set the 'hotspot', and replaced the default pointer in a copy of the DMZ black theme with the one I made.
Title Bar Font: UKIJSaet.ttf - freely available on the web, put it in the truetype folder inside /usr/share/fonts.
Icons: I modded the "Sky" set of the fs-icons-ubuntu icon pack that I got years ago, liked it and used them ever since.

Yes I saw the idea of sharing Panel configs, not sure how it would go and how much would be tied into each individual setup that might break things on someone else's setup, things like screen resolutions being different, that sort of thing.
I do know that the live USB made from the system my screenshot above is from, which has a 1920x1080 resolution doesn't look too great on a 1366x768 screen, half the icons don't appear and what does appear isn't in the correct place etc..
I guess if users were sharing configs for the same resolution screens it might not be such an issue.
I imagine there'd also be problems with different users having different apps installed, having launchers for things on one system for things that don't exist on another.

JmaCWQ

You might have modded too much in the sudo zone (that's what I call the zone where you need root permissions to do the mod) to participate in panel sharing, or maybe not if all the original stuff is still there.
I am thinking to prepare a panel for sharing it can be a good idea to make a new profile just for that. And when you have all panel icons in the folder ~/.icons then you have them ready to share. And the panel backup is in ~/.restore - All in the home folder away from affecting other users away from sudo zone. :-)





In this picture you can see what the "Default-xhdpi" theme does to the Terminal to the left and Gedit to the right:
.


The panel configuration is aiming for one click for everything.
Most of the icons in the right panel are launching scripts that automatically will provide the internet connection if needed for Firefox.
The red square icon with the white "X" is also launching a script doing some stuff before shutting down the whole computer. Just by one click. Maybe it is not the best way to impress a Windows user but sometimes it works.

Yes all the original stuff is still there, the process goes like this - copy whatever desired for editing from it's location to somewhere else, edit, add edited copy to location, naming it as such.

I shall refrain from the panel sharing initiative

Some of the buttons, borders etc. in those default themes are very bland and don't impress me at all.
Nowdays I have a modded theme, modded window manager theme, modded icon set, modded mouse cursor and different font for the title bar.
I'm happy with those as I've made them to suit my tastes and use them permanently on every install I have.

If I set up a new system for someone, especially a first time Linux user, I usually always change the Window Manager theme to Kokodi, it just looks better than the default in my opinion.

Gedit is a Gnome app, it's probably using the dreaded CSD (Client Side Decorations) that I dislike and so do many others.
I tolerate it with Archive Manager and I see it also appears with Task Manager, both of which I don't use all that often.

I am still testing, and the right panel on a wide screen still feels all right to me. :-)

My intention was to make a prototype user with all the panels I would ever need, and then, if something was too much in a specific profile, it could just be erased there.
But by accident I have also found another dirty little trick that might work. If I for instance get tired of the two unlocked pop up panels in the bottom, I can just throw them out to the right. That will hide them under the right panel.
And it looks like I can only get them out again by using Panel Preferences.



JmaCWQ

I don't know if it is too much copyright, a change of culture or modesty, or what is holding people back from wanting to share panels but you are not the only one.
I got the idea about sharing because it is easy in MX, and I recently found out my Panel could work much better. That can initiate thoughts about maybe many users still driving a 3 wheel bike when a real car could be just a few clicks away.
But if someone for instance wants to make a profile for his grandchildren to show what MX Xfce can do, and he wants something like this to do it, we won't have it for share, and he will likely have to make it all by himself from scratch:

agashamu
My old fashioned desktop...
https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?pid=65684#p65684

I hope he gets it done and has a lot of fun doing it.

JmaCWQ wrote: Wed Aug 30, 2023 11:55 pm Gedit is a Gnome app, it's probably using the dreaded CSD (Client Side Decorations) that I dislike and so do many others.
I tolerate it with Archive Manager and I see it also appears with Task Manager, both of which I don't use all that often.

Are you not getting it from Firefox also.?

Parts for a 3 wheel bike that has 2 wheels at the front and 1 wheel at the back may not fit on a 3 wheel bike that has 1 wheel at the front and 2 wheels at the back

Because my setup has custom launchers, custom icons, 1920x1080 screen etc. it may not work on other people's setups.
The reason I said I'd refrain is you mentioned I might have modded too much in the Sudo zone, which is probably correct, and anyone wanting to use my config might find it doesn't work for them, they'd possibly get a lot of blank icon launchers to apps that don't exist if they don't have the same apps, or they don't launch from the same locations.

I've attached my ~/.config/xfce4/panel folder in the .zip if you want to have a play around with it, don't forget to make a backup of yours first.
Some things will probably work as they are, others might need paths editing in the .desktop files as my username on this system is 'home', others might partially work but won't look right because backgrounds I've created for them are missing.
Some probably won't work at all as they'll be for things not installed, or the scripts they refer to are missing, that sort of thing.

. EDIT: With regards to Firefox and CSD, no, mine uses the same title bar and buttons as the settings in Window Manager.
There's a setting in FF that has something to do with the system themes, menus buttons etc., perhaps that stops it using CSD?
Tools > Add-ons and Themes > Themes

. .

JmaCWQ

Thank you. I think it is interesting about the panel sharing procedure.
You know a lot more about panels than I do, and I don't know how to restore the zip file.
In MX tools (tweak) there is a place where we can backup the panel and it will be saved as a file in ~/.restore
I don't know if we have to be concerned about versions but I imagine the file can be restored on any MX Xfce computer with the same tool. That is what makes it simple. And if it doesn't work we can just restore another.
But if we put all the icons for it in ~/.icons and send them along I believe they will be there.
Then there should only be the launchers left to give trouble and joy.
I suggest we get back to the details later if it becomes more relevant but I am actually already using the paradigm for spare computers and my client, so I know it works well at least up to a point.

If you want to try my panel config on a system just to have a look, right click and extract the .zip file to wherever you want, it contains a single folder named panel.
Replace the current ~/.config/xfce4/panel folder with the one from the .zip file, then logout and login again.

Before you do that though, use the MX Tools > MX Tweak to backup the current panel configuration so it's easily replaced again if required.

My configurations in the panel folder are made on a 1920x1080 screen so things probably won't be in the right positions on screens of other resolutions.

With the icons, yes having them all in ~/.icons would probably work, launchers being edited and icons set from ~/.icons instead of /usr/share/icons and /usr/share/pixmaps as they are now, there'd have to be copies of all the relevant required icons and icon themes in ~/.icons.

As mentioned previously, some launchers may work, others will not, some might even have icons displayed correctly, others may not.

I also think there may be too many variables between different systems for panel config sharing to be useful on an everyday basis.
People probably won't want to spend the time it takes having to do a whole lot of other things just to get a shared panel configuration working on their particular system.
Then there'll always be some who want things one way and some who want it another etc. etc., all requiring differences each time to suit the individual's tastes.
I imagine this is why MX ships with it's default panel configuration which works on all resolutions out of the box, and it's then up to users or admins to modify things as they see fit.

Mx Snapshot I guess also has possibilities for sharing these mods, but again, if anything but the default panel config is required, then there might be issues with different screen resolutions etc. etc....

Thank you very much for the explanation. - I am still chewing on it and I will get back to it. I think we ought to put the MX-tool to the test and use the files it builds in ~/.restore for sharing directly. You might be surprised about how compatible it is. :-)








Now with thanks to Stevo
viewtopic.php?p=747293#p747293
something more is starting to happen in the right side.
In the upper right corner I have added a 5. panel.
It comes out when the mouse is moved to the corner, and it provides the user with a screensaver icon.
This far there is only one, and as a screensaver it might be the worst I have ever seen but it is a good clock. And more important it is the first screensaver that works close enough to the way I want it to work.
So to me it is a good big step forward and I wanted to share it for inspiration. :-)

You can broaden your 'perspective' and try different panels and launcher tools as well...

FWIW. personally I use polybar, rofi, j4-dmenu-desktop, xsetroot, jgmenu, and dmenu most of the time.

EDIT: Here's a scrot of Debian-Sid running Herbstluftwm with 2x Conkies; Polybar (top); j4-dmenu-desktop with rofi (center); dmenu (bottom).



All except the top panel (bar)- polybar disappear when not in use. Use of any/all menus are invoked by keybinding(s).