Xfce 4.14 Desktop Officially Released

[Remote User]

Bar/panels on unfocused monitors rendering over everything else, even if they are set to autohide and/or you have a fullscreen program running.

Add this on startup. I have 11 panels - adjust your count. Install wmctrl if you haven't already.

#!/bin/bash
# x is the number of panels to hide
for x in {1..11};do

# Wait for xfce4-panel to load
while [ "$(wmctrl -l | grep -c panel)" -lt $x ];
do
sleep 0.05s
done

# Determine identifier
ID=$(wmctrl -l | grep panel | sed -n "$x"p | awk '{ print $1 }')

# Place panel at desktop-level
wmctrl -i -r $ID -b add,below
done

echo
echo $x "Struts Disabled"
echo

[birdie]

That's why we have TDE

TDE is on life-support for all intents and purposes and there's no fresh software for it. TDE could be revived by porting it to Qt 5/6 but it's a mammoth effort and the three people who are still working on TDE in their free time just won't ever be able to finish this transition.

Also, their inclination towards renaming classes and procedures has made their code less usable and attractive for other C++ coders who know KDE/Qt.

Lastly, no major distros include TDE nowadays.

[schmidtbag]

Bar/panels on unfocused monitors rendering over everything else, even if they are set to autohide and/or you have a fullscreen program running.

I personally am not encountering that problem, and didn't have to do anything special for it to behave as expected.

[Danielsan]

and XFCE 4.16 will be released in 2023/2024/2025!!

I was a hardcore fan of XFCE until 1.5 year ago but stopped using it due to its old stack/technology, poor applications and lack of advanced features that GNOME and KDE provide, I think with a little tweak, GNOME Shell session and specially GNOME Flashback can be as much lightweight as XFCE.

GTK4 soonlly will be released and GNOME has finished its initial move to GTK4, now XFCE finally has been ported to GTK3 which was released seeral years ago!

Gnome 3 hasn't even a decent multi monitor support out of the box...

By the way Xfce4 would be perfect with a decent expose function (may them port Gala from Elementary?) and an integrated dock plugin for the panel (may them port it from Mate?) and they had better to fix the xfce4-windowck-plugin; this latter is one is amazing but it is unable to work on a multi-monitor, I was looking a working around to make this possible forking the plugin to make several version one for each monitor you need but eventually I dropped off the idea for lacking of time...

[wizard69]

Exactly, I would say that there are *no* usable desktop environments on Linux.

CDE and Gnome 2.14 would have been contenders if they were properly maintained.

It really isn’t that bad. I went default Fedora and can’t really complain. One can always wis for more powerful solutions for the 1A% of the time you need the power but for general use GNOME is pretty good. Besides the command line is never far away.

[wizard69]

I have to wonder why people get so wrapped up in DE selection. It is the apps that make or break Linux for me. In that regard, I don’t care if the App is built with KDE, Motif, GNome or some DE from a devil worship cult. Nothing is perfect so why focus on the least used part of your system.

[Caffarius]

So far the update's behaving well for me on Arch. My only gripe with XFCE was that my Battle.net systray icon would end up with a black background if I ran any other Wine apps. This seems to be resolved in 4.14.

[QwertyChouskie]

It's really annoying to go to a conference room with my laptop and a mouse and have my palm/fingers accidentally activate the touchpad while I'm typing during a meeting. If I've got a mouse plugged in, I'd rather be able to let that take input priority and disable the trackpad. If I want to use the trackpad in this situation, I wouldn't plug the mouse in in the first place.

There is an option to disable the touchpad while typing, with a configurable duration. Maybe this could work for you?

[muncrief]

The Windows 8 and 10 GUIs have been widely, and rightly, panned by the Linux community.

And yet everything except XFCE, Gnome Flashback, and LXDE/LXQT have essentially followed the same paradigm.

Over complexity, obscuring of functionality, typing in text like good old DOS to find things, etc.

In fact for many the whole idea of GUI efficiency seems to have been forgotten. Yet there was a time when measuring efficiency was quite simple and widespread - How many clicks and scrolls does it take to get to applications?.

But now with most Linux GUIs, just like with Windows 8 and Windows 10, efficiency can no longer actually be measured. It's such a hodge-podge of various disparate elements it's simply not possible.

Of course I'm all for choice, and happy that Linux offers something for most every taste. I just don't understand why some disparage Windows 8/10 GUIs while embracing their Linux counterparts.

[royce]

Yeah. I wouldn't be able to work or do my day to day on Windows 10, but I have it on my music production PC. I only use DAWs and music apps in there and a browser, but it works well enough.