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Xfdashboard

Introduction

Short: Maybe a Gnome shell and macOS Expose like dashboard for Xfce

Longer: xfdashboard provides a GNOME shell dashboard and macOS Mission Control (Exposé and Spaces) like interface for use with the Xfce desktop. It can be configured to run with any keyboard shortcut and when executed provides an overview of applications currently open enabling the user to switch between different applications. The search feature works like Xfce's app finder which makes it convenient to search for and start applications.

xfdashboard

Required packages

  • libwnck >= 3.0
  • clutter >= 1.12
  • glib >= 2.38
  • gio >= 2.38
  • gio-unix-2.0 >= 2.38
  • xfconf >= 4.10.0
  • garcon >= 0.2.0
  • gtk+ >= 3.2
  • libxfce4util >= 4.10.0
  • libxfce4ui >= 4.10.0

… and the dependencies of these libraries of course ;)

The following libraries are semi-optional:

  • dbus-glib >= 0.98 (required if xfconf < 4.13)

The following libraries are optional and configurable:

  • libXcomposite >= 0.2 (for live windows)
  • libXdamage (for live windows)
  • libXinerama (for multi-monitor support)

On debian based distros, all requirements are installed with: 

    apt-get install xfce4-dev-tools build-essential glib2.0 libglib2.0-dev 
    xorg-dev libwnck-3-dev libclutter-1.0-dev libgarcon-1-0-dev 
    libxfconf-0-dev libxfce4util-dev libxfce4ui-2-dev libxcomposite-dev 
    libxdamage-dev libxinerama-dev

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Latest Release

  • xfdashboard 0.8.0 released (2020/12/23 10:36)
    xfdashboard 0.8.0 is now available for download from

  https://archive.xfce.org/src/apps/xfdashboard/0.8/xfdashboard-0.8.0.tar.bz2
  https://archive.xfce.org/src/apps/xfdashboard/0.8/xfdashboard-0.8.0.tar.bz2?sha1
  https://archive.xfce.org/src/apps/xfdashboard/0.8/xfdashboard-0.8.0.tar.bz2?sha256


What is xfdashboard?
====================

xfdashboard provides a GNOME shell dashboard like interface for use with
Xfce desktop. It can be configured to run to any keyboard shortcut and
when executed provides an overview of applications currently open
enabling the user to switch between different applications. The search
feature works like Xfce's app finder which makes it convenient to search
for and start applications.

Website:
  https://docs.xfce.org/apps/xfdashboard/start


Release notes for 0.8.0
=======================
xfdashboard-0.8.0 "Xfce 4.16 is out ... and me too :)" was released on
2020-12-23.

This is a stable release.

* NOTE: Raised minimum version of Glib to 2.38 for replacements
  of deprecated function g_type_class_add_private()

* New feature: New application icon which follows rDNS naming
* New feature: Implement pop-up menu which is currently only used by
  icons in quicklaunch when right-clicking at them.
* New feature: The windows in windows view gained support to show also
their
  child windows, e.g. open/save dialogs etc. This feature is themable
and enabled
  by default in default theme. But it can also be disabled at all by the
user
  in xfdashboard settings application, e.g. for performance reasons. The
user's
  decision to disable this feature in the settings overrides anything
defined
  at the theme used. (GH #132)
* New feature: All windows can now be drag'n'drop from any actor to any
  other window-related actor. So it is now possible to move a window
  from a workspace to another workspace directly via the workspace
  selector without the need to change the workspace to the one
containing
  the window first. You can also drag'n'drop windows from workspace to
  windows view to move a window to the current workspace. (GH #79)
* New feature: The window tracker and all other related classes are now
  interfaces to support multiple window systems, like X11, GDK and
wayland.
  Currently only X11 is support as it did all the time but preparation
  work is done to support GDK as well and maybe wayland some day. (GH
#129)
* New feature: Added a fine-grained controllable debug system. If debug
is
  enabled in configure script the user can use the environment variable
  XFDASHBOARD_DEBUG to enable categories to debug. But also classes
like
  XfdashboardActor can be set in this environment variable to debug a
  specific class. Classes are case-sensitive and must be in camel-case.
  You can mix categories and classes in enviroment variable. You can
set
  multiple categories and/or classes to debug by separating them by
commas.
* New feature: At a theme's layout xml file you can now specify which
  actor of the focusable ones should be selected on theme load.
Therefore
  a new optional attribute to , a sub-node of , was
  added which is called "selected". This attribute "selected" is a
boolean
  attribute and expects to be set to either "true" or "false". If set
to
  "true" this actor will be selected instead of the search box which is
  the default. If set to "false" it has no impact and handled as this
  attribute does not exist. This new attribute should only be used once
  over all layout xml files. A warning will be printed if it used more
  than once but the theme will load successfully. The user can also
  configure in the setting if this selected focus should be re-selected
  also when the application resumes at daemon mode (GH #144)
* New feature: New actions "selection-move-next",
"selection-move-previous",
  "focus-move-first", "focus-move-last" and "focus-move-to" for use at
  custom key bindings were added. They are not bound at the default key
  bindings file installed. (GH #144, GH #145)
* New feature: Window tracker interface now supports a new experimental
  backend for GDK. The backend to use can be controlled with the new
  environment variable XFDASHBOARD_BACKEND. It can be either set to
  "x11" or "gdk". If this environment variable does not exists or is
  not set then the X11 backend is enforced as it is the known default
  behaviour of xfdashboard and GDK backend is marked as experimental.
  (GH #129)
* New feature: Allow user to override CSS files of themes to apply
  user favourite settings. This cChanged the way and order how CSS
  files of themes are loaded: First the CSS resources defined in
  theme's theme file (xfdashboard.theme) are loaded, then user's
  global stylesheet ($HOME/.config/xfdashboard/themes/global.css) is
  loaded if it exists and at last user's theme related stylesheet
  ($HOME/.config/xfdashboard/themes/user-[THEME_NAME].css) is loaded
  if it exists. This should make user changes to themes more
  convinient as the user does not need to copy the whole theme to
  $HOME/.themes or $HOME/.local/themes and then make his changes.
  The user also does not need to update its theme each time the
  origin theme changes and re-copy and re-apply its changes. (GH #152)
* New feature: Big sorry to all translators who did all the hard
  work to translate xfdashboard to their language but their hard
  work was never included. It was my fault as I was to stupid to
  use Transifex client tool correctly :( Now I do not only update
  all locales already included but I will also fetch new ones. So
  the number of supported languages raised from 8 to 13. New ones
  are: da, de, kk, pl and tr (GH #155)
* New feature: GDK backend is now optional and it will be enabled
  automatically if Clutter backend is available, i.e. FreeBSD does
  not install Clutter with GDK backend. (#13766, #13860)
* New feature: Support also current xfconf versions (4.13.x).
  New xfconf version support native GPtrArray (from glib) for
  string lists and make dbus-glib deprecated. dbus-glib is only
  needed (and checked by configure script) if current stable xfconf
  (4.12.x) is used as its GPtrArray is still needed in this case.
  (#13824)
* New feature: Support for touch screen which supports "clicking"
  buttons for now. Thanks to TheToq2 (GH #157)
* New feature: Support of application actions defines at desktop
  entries which get listed in the pop-up menus of application
  buttons. These application actions are already known as action
  in so-called "Jumplists" or "Quicklists" (GH #158, GH #160)
* New feature: Support of "Keywords" of desktop entries which
  are taken into account when searching (GH #159)
* New feature: Support for animations. Currently only one actor
  (XfdashboardCollapseBox) trigger an animation signal to open
  or close the collapsed area. All default themes of xfdashboard
  will slide in or out the collapsed area smoothly when animation
  is enabled (which is enabled by default).
* New feature: The user can turn on or off animations in the
  settings application.
* New feature: Support of more animations. So an actor can
  request an animation when a class or pseudo-class is added
  or was removed. Also an actor requests an animation when
  it was created and shown for the first time. Currently at last
  an animation is requested when the actor was moved and or resized.
* New feature: Support of animation if an actor is destroyed. It
  will be marked as destroyed by adding a CSS pseudo class 
  "destroying". The actor will be destroyed finally when animation
  ends.
* New feature: Introduced a new signal 'actor-created' emitted at stage
  where a newly created actor was placed on. Plugins can connect to
this
  signal to detect new actors they are interested in and to modify
them.
* New feature: Introduced a new signal "initialized" in
XfdashboardApplication
  which is emitted when primary instance is fully initialized, that
means
  all managers and the stage were set up successfully.

* New plugin 'middle-click-window-close' which allows the user
  to close windows in windows view with a middle click. This plugin
  is not configurable. (GH #128)
* New plugin: Added dummy example search provider plugin. It's
  main purpose is to provide a skeleton for creating new search
  provider plugins.

* Enhancement: Changed loading key bindings to one-or-nothing to
  incremental loading. The default behaviour how bindings are loaded
  has been changed. Previsouly it tried to the first bindings
  configuration file from these location (in this order): The full path
  defined at environment variable XFDASHBOARD_BINDINGS_POOL_FILE (if
  debug mode was enable at configure script), the user's configuration
  folder (usually $HOME/.config/xfdashboard) and at last the
  system-wide folder. Now it tries to load the system-wide one
  first, then the one at user's configuration folder and merges
  all bindings loaded from there to the one already loaded. At
  last it check if the environment variable is set (no need for
  debug mode anymore) and loads the bindings from this file and
  merges them too. (GH #167)
* Enhancement: Added '--version' command-line parameter to determine
  the version of xfdashboard running.
* Enhancement: Followed main Xfce project by switching to
  "foreign" mode at automake
* Enhancement: Added blue theme screenshot. Thanks to gsantner (GH
#152)
* Enhancement: The plugin 'hot corner' support also additional monitors
  and not primary monitor only. This option is configurable by user.
* Enhancement: Use xfce library function instead of implementing own
version
* Enhancement: Enviroment varible XFDASHBOARD_PLUGINS_PATH supports now
  more than one additional path with a colon-seperated list
* Enhancement: Improved loading performance of images and icons at
  XfdashboardImageContent as it will only start loading when the actor
  using this icon or image is mapped. Previously the image or icon
  might have been loaded before the actor is mapped resulting in
loading
  it multiple time as the size of the actor and/or icon or image
changed
  a lot before mapping the actor. The performance was improved to stop
  loading images or icons unneccessaryly. All actor will benefit of
this
  change automatically, like XfdashboardLabel.
* Enhancement: Improved CSS parser to determine recursion at theme CSS
file
  which causes the application to crash due to run out of memory (GH
#143)

* Changed themes/CSS: Rewrote XfdashboardButton by splitting it into a
  XfdashboardLabel class and make XfdashboardButton a sub-class of it.
  XfdashboardLabel is exactly the same what XfdashboardButton was but
  it does not emit the "click" signal.
* Changed themes/CSS: Splitted XfdashboardLiveWindow into two classes.
  XfdashboardLiveWindowSimple just shows a live preview of a window
when
  possible and XfdashboardLiveWindow is a sub-class of it but adds a
  title and controls layer (close button) on top of it.
* Changed themes/CSS: Remove themable property 'show-window-content'
  from XfdashboardLiveWorkspace. Just replace the following CSS:
    XfdashboardLiveWorkspace
    {
      show-window-content: ;
    }
  with:
    XfdashboardLiveWorkspace XfdashboardLiveWindowSimple
    {
      display-type: ;
    }
* Changed themes/CSS: The CSS class "primary-monitor" will be added to
  or removed from XfdashboardStageInterface depending on the primary
  state of associated monitor. With this CSS class the stage interface
  of the primary monitor could be themed different as the other
non-primary
  (secondary) ones.
* Changed themes/CSS: Made XfdashboardDynamicTableLayout stylable
  and added a new stylable property named "fixed-columns" to
  disable dynamic allocation of columns depending on largest width
  of a visible child found and enforce a fixed number of columns.
  Setting this property to 0 (default) will disable this feature.
  (GH #168)
* Changed themes/CSS: Properties 'margin-top', 'margin-bottom',
'margin-left'
  and 'margin-right' of ClutterActor are now themable.
* Changed themes/CSS: Allow windows view to filter windows which are at
  current workspace via a new themable property called
  'filter-workspace-windows'. This new option is set to TRUE by default
  so that all themes will still work as they did before. (GH #126)

* Replace URLs from goodies.xfce.org to docs.xfce.org (#16229)
* Lots of larger and smaller bug-fixes
* Lots of new API documentation

* Translation: Reduced number of translatable strings drastically
* Translation: New translations for bg, ca, el, id, ja, nb, nl,
  pt, pt_BR, sl, sq, sv, zh_CN
* Translation: Updated translations for da, de, es, fr, gl, he,
  it_IT, kk, lt, pl, ru, sr, tr

* Thanks to all translators and contributors

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Source code repository

The latest development version is hosted on Xfce Git. You can browse it using the web interface at the following URL:https://gitlab.xfce.org/apps/xfdashboard

Here you find the documentation for theming and settings of the latest development version.

For older development releases or stable releases look at the release archive.
http://git.xfce.org/apps/xfdashboard/

Reporting Bugs

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