Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Enlightenment E17 Alpha 5 Works On Its Default Theme

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Enlightenment E17 Alpha 5 Works On Its Default Theme

    Phoronix: Enlightenment E17 Alpha 5 Works On Its Default Theme

    New Enlightenment E17 Alpha releases are coming out at a record pace considering that it's taken a decade to get to the first alpha stage. E17 Alpha 4 came just three days ago and there's already a fifth alpha now available...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Originally posted by phoronix View Post
    Phoronix: Enlightenment E17 Alpha 5 Works On Its Default Theme

    New Enlightenment E17 Alpha releases are coming out at a record pace considering that it's taken a decade to get to the first alpha stage. E17 Alpha 4 came just three days ago and there's already a fifth alpha now available...

    http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTIzNDg
    e17 is really cool, but it would be nice if they could give it a theme that doesn't look like it was puked out from the 90's.

    Comment


    • #3
      I have been experimenting with E17 (using PPA on Linux) but it is rather strange. There an inordinate amount of configuration settings all over the place. I use multiple monitors, but when changing workspaces only the first monitor changes! And I never could find a way of display all my windows in taskbar like interface. It is very normal for me to have two emacs, two chrome and about 10 terminals open. A taskbar has turned out the least worst way of selecting them (providing you can drag and drop to change order).

      It seems like all the desktop environments are optimising for a single tiny tablet screen interacting with one full screen app at a time, and making life absolutely miserable for those using multiple apps, non-trivial sized screens etc. But the kicker is that they fail at the tablet style. Android or iOS do a far better job, have better APIs and are far more suited to that kind of usage model.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by bwat47 View Post
        e17 is really cool, but it would be nice if they could give it a theme that doesn't look like it was puked out from the 90's.
        The new black one is miles ahead from the B&W. And while some of the details (lamp starting effect in some places) are not what i would like, in general its rather nice if you like dark themes.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by grotgrot View Post
          I have been experimenting with E17 (using PPA on Linux) but it is rather strange. There an inordinate amount of configuration settings all over the place. I use multiple monitors, but when changing workspaces only the first monitor changes! And I never could find a way of display all my windows in taskbar like interface. It is very normal for me to have two emacs, two chrome and about 10 terminals open. A taskbar has turned out the least worst way of selecting them (providing you can drag and drop to change order).

          The screens. You haven't gone deep enough into the configuration, you can customize that by going to Settings -> Input -> [ Key Bingings | Mouse Bindings ] and changing the desktop-change bindings from "Flip Desktop Linearly..." to the "Flip Desktop Linearly... (All Screens)" a bunch of lines below.

          Well that's it for the mousewheel/keyboard desktop flipping, I'm not sure if you can configure that for the pager, should probably fill in a feature request if it can't.

          For me personally the default configuration is a godsend that I really love of Enlightenment vs. the competitors. On my main screen I am working and change desktop at 1,000 per hour, but on my secondary screen I want to put non-context-related apps that I want to always be there such as meters and IM windows. On other DEs I have to manually "stick to all desktops" every window that I happen to drag there and manually unstick it when I drag it off. Not nice.

          The taskbar. There used to be a normal taskbar module but it's not included in the alphas so I'm not sure if it's going to be released, or for that matter about it's current status, it never seemed to work quite right and it didn't look like it was being mantained particularly actively.

          I have similar work needs to your's: I need to identify windows by name and not by icon or image, so what I did was go to Settings -> Input -> Edge Bindings and added a binding "Bottom Left Edge (left clickable)" and set the action to Menu -> Show Clients Menu which is a plain list of windows. The contents of the list can be configured at Settings -> Windows -> Window List Menu.
          This way I just slam my mouse into the corner and click, an extremely fast move which takes negligible time, and I have a textual list of windows which in a way is even better than the standard taskbar because it doesn't have to cut the titles of the windows no matter how long the title or how crowded it gets.

          I also make liberal use of the virtual desktops to minimize the amount of minimized windows. I have 16 virtuals and usually only 2 or 3 are idle, if that.

          Enlightenment's configuration can be daunting... They really could use a better design for the control panel but I don't think that's on their plans right now.
          Last edited by Raver; 24 November 2012, 06:15 PM.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Raver View Post
            Well that's it for the mousewheel/keyboard desktop flipping, I'm not sure if you can configure that for the pager, should probably fill in a feature request if it can't.
            Thanks for the tip. Of course I use both the pager and the keyboard so this is a serious problem. (Gnome 3 randomly has it broken too although I suspect Ubuntu is partly responsible.)

            Originally posted by Raver View Post
            For me personally the default configuration is a godsend
            I'm personally in favour of good default configurations, and removing lots of options (right up till the point that one I use is taken away of course). To a large extent having lots of configurability is how the developers/designers can abdicate responsibility for making the hard decisions. It is also why Gnome 3's approach of lots of extensions shows that they too have screwed up.

            Originally posted by Raver View Post
            The taskbar. There used to be a normal taskbar module but it's not included in the alphas so I'm not sure if it's going to be released, or for that matter about it's current status, it never seemed to work quite right and it didn't look like it was being mantained particularly actively.
            A taskbar is a deal breaker for me at the moment, until someone can come up with something better. I need to be able to do two things - one is make a choice from a variety of otherwise identical appearing windows (the name alone is nowhere near enough) and it needs to be made based on position in the list that I can change. For example if I have two emacs windows open then the leftmost one in my taskbar is on my left screen and rightmost is on my right screen. For terminals they follow function - eg building things, testing them, monitoring logs. I'll have zero or more of each and arrange them in logical order in the taskbar and on the screens for the projects I am working on. Showing me a list or window thumbnails to choose from is about the most useless thing possible.

            Comment


            • #7
              Of course there is a taskbar. It is called "Tasks" and can be loaded from Settings -> Modules -> Utilities. After loading, add it to the shelf (if it is not automatically added).

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by ppurka View Post
                Of course there is a taskbar.
                Sadly it is barely functional. You cannot change the order of items. It also does not bring windows to the front if you do a drag over their button.

                One peeve I have with enlightenment is how many new meaningless words there are: modes, gadgets, modules, shelves, panel. Hopefully the UI to all that can be cleaned up so a user doesn't have to know (or care) about what each means and the distinction between them.

                Comment

                Working...
                X