xfce4-panel version 4.4.0.
Last updated: June 2006
Copyright © 2006 Jasper Huijsmans
Table of Contents
The Xfce 4 panel is part of the Xfce 4 Desktop Environment and features program launchers, panel menus, a clock, a graphical pager and more. Many aspects of the panel can be configured through graphical dialogs. This manual should provide you with all necessary information on how to adjust the panel to your liking.
You will usually start the panel as part of your Xfce session. For
convenience Xfce provides the startxfce4
script. The command for the panel is xfce4-panel.
When you start the panel you will see a bar appearing at the top of the screen and a smaller one at the bottom, looking like this:
The figure above shows the default panel configuration. Hovering the mouse over an item will show a tooltip. The Xfce Panel makes extensive use of left and right mouse buttons. Left clicking performs the default action of an item, while right-clicking usually brings up a context menu. Ctrl + left click may commonly be used instead of a right-click. Note that this manual assumes the use of a right-handed mouse.
The panel comes with several items that may be added to the panel. The available items are are described in the "Panel Items" section.
Right-clicking on an item will popup a menu from which you can configure the item, move it to a new location, or remove it from the panel. The menu also allows you to configure the panel or add new items.
When you want to add an item, a dialog is opened showing all available panel items. Some items can appear only once in the panel, e.g. the system tray, and they will appear greyed out when one is already present.
Configuration of the panels, as well as adding and removing panels can be done from the Panel Manager.
The Panel Manager can be opened from the Xfce 4 Settings Manager or from the right-click menu on one of the panel items.
The current active panel is selected by default or the one that was last active if there is no active panel. You can choose another panel from the option menu. Next to this menu are two buttons to add a new panel or remove the current panel.
- Size
Choose the size in pixels for the panel. This is the height for horizontal panels and the width for vertical panels.
- Transparency
If your system and the window manager support it, you can set the transparency level of the panel. You can also choose if you would like the panel to become fully visible when the mouse moves over it.
There are two ways to choose the position of a panel: use a fixed position or make a panel freely moveable.
- Fixed Position
A panel can be placed in one of twelve positions on the edge of the screen. You can choose whether the panel should be stretched to fit the entire width or height of the screen. When the autohide option is selected the panel will collapse to a small line and reappear when the mouse is moved over it.
- Freely Moveable
A freely moveable panel has one or two move handles by which you can drag the panel anywhere on the screen. You can select the orientation and where to put a move handle (on one or both sides of the panel).
The Xfce 4 panel has the possibility to load external plugins as well as builtin ones. In this section we will only describe panel items that are installed with the panel.
The most common panel item is the launcher item. It allows you to start programs from the panel. The properties dialog allows you to edit or add one or more programs.
When more than one program is added to the list a small arrow button will appear next to the panel button that will open a menu with the other programs.
Every item has several option you can edit:
- Name
The label to show in a menu item.
- Comment
Additional information that will be shown in a tooltip.
- Icon
The icons you choose from the icon button will follow the icon theme you choose from the User Interface settings dialog.
Of course you can also choose a custom icon, either by browsing the file system from the button next to the entry or by dragging an image on the icon button from a file manager.
- Command
You can type the command to run or browse the file system. There is an option to start in a terminal and one to use startup notification. This last option means that the window manager can show an hourglass while the program is loading. But, the application has to support it as well. Programs build with Gtk 2.2 should support it.
The Xfce Clock has a number of options to change the way it looks. There are three clock types available: analog, digital and LED. There is an option to show seconds and for the digital and LED clock types you can choose whether the clock will be in 24 hour mode, 12 hour mode, or 12 hour mode with AM/PM indication. The clock shows the current date as a tooltip.
The graphical pager shows a miniature view of the desktops and even allows you to move windows to another workspace by dragging the mini-window in the pager. The pager also allows you to change workspaces by using the mouse scrollwheel. You can set the number of rows to use, or columns when the panel is in vertical orientation.
This item shows one or two buttons which can perform special system actions. The buttons follow your panel icon theme. There are two buttons available:
- Lock
Runs the
xflock4script that will attempt to lock the screen using either xscreensaver or if that fails xlock.- Exit
This will popup a logout dialog to end your Xfce session.
This item simply adds a separator line to the panel. You can choose to draw a separator line and if the item should expand to fill the available space (for full width panels).
Xfce now uses the Basedir Specification as defined on Freedesktop.org to locate its data and configuration files. This means that file locations will be specified as a path relative to the directories described in the specification.
- ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}
The first base directory to look for configuration files. By default this is set to
~/.config/.- ${XDG_CONFIG_DIRS}
A list of system directories that contain configuration data. By default the panel will look in
${sysconfdir}/xdg/and/etc/xdg/. The value of ${sysconfdir} depends on how the program was build and will often be/etc/for binary packages.- <basedir>/xfce4/panel/panels.xml
This is the location of the xml configuration file that describes the contents of the panel, relative to the base directories metioned above.
- <basedir>/xfce4/kiosk/kioskrc
Kiosk Mode configuration file. See below for an explanation.
None of the configuration files, except
kioskrc , are designed to be edited by hand; in
fact the changes will be overwritten if you edit them while the panel
is running.
The Xfce Panel will look under the data directories specified by the Basedir Specification for data files, such as panel plugin description files.
- ${XDG_DATA_HOME}
The first base directory to look for panel plugin files. By default this is set to
~/.local/share/.- ${XDG_DATA_DIRS}
A list of system directories that contain data files. By default this is
/usr/shareand/usr/local/share.
The panel now has support for Kiosk Mode, that will prevent users
from making changes to their panel configuration. To use it you have to
edit or create the file
${sysconfdir}/xdg/xfce4/kiosk/kioskrc.
The best way to explain the format of this file is by using an example. The xfce4-panel section of your kioskrc might look like this:
[xfce4-panel] CustomizePanel=%powerusers,foo
This allows only users in the group powerusers and the user foo to customize their panels.
xfce4-panel was written by Jasper Huijsmans
(<jasper@xfce.org>). To find more information, please visit
the Xfce web site.
To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding this application or this manual, use the bug tracking system at http://bugzilla.xfce.org/.
If you have questions about the use or installation of this package, please ask on the xfce mailing list. Development discussion takes place on the xfce4-dev mailing list.
xfce4-panel is distributed under the terms of the
GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.