This page details all the settings available for the Application Finder. To edit settings, open up the application in it's expanded mode and select Preferences.

Remember last selected category

Select this option to make the Application Finder select the last selected category in the expanded view. If this option is disabled, the category All Applications is selected.

Always centre the window

By default, Xfwm4 might position the window in a place that isn't in the centre of the screen (see the section Placement under Window Manager Tweaks to change this behaviour). Select this option to always centre the Application Finder screen on startup, regardless of Window Manager settings.

Keep running instance in the background

Keeps Application Finder running in the background to speed up opening times. You might want to disable this to reduce memory usage.

Single window

This option in only active if Keep running instance in the background is enabled. Only keep one instance of the application open at a time.

View items as icons

Select this option to show the applications and commands as icons rather than in a list view.

Text beside icons

This option in only active if View items as icons is enabled. Select this option to position the application name or command beside the icon rather than below.

Item icon size

The size of the icons in the item view.

Hide category pane

Hides the category side pane when in expanded mode.

Category icon size

The size of the category icons in the side pane.

Clear custom command history

Use this option to remove the history of “Custom Commands” you've entered in the collapsed mode that did not match any of the installed application commands.

Custom actions can be used to match commands entered in the collapsed view and use them to quickly perform tasks.

It can for example be use the make shortcuts to commands, but also to send arguments to a website, for quick searching.

By default 4 custom actions are predefined, but you can change this to anything you like. See also the xfce4-appfinder - Custom Action Examples in the dedicated wiki page.

You can add a new (empty) action by clicking on the Add (+) button and remove the selected action by pressing the Delete (x) button.

Strings in the Application Finder by the type and pattern or the action. If there is a match, the command is executed as a replacement for the entered string.

Type

There are two types of pattern matches.

Prefix

If this type is selected, there is a match if the entered string starts with pattern.

Regular Expression

For complex matches you can write a Perl-compatible regular expression that is matched against the entered string.

Pattern

Depending on the selected type it will describe the matching prefix or regular expression.

Command

The command that is executed when the pattern is matched. To include (parts) of the match the following variables are available:

Prefix

%s

Include the string after the matched pattern. So if the prefix-pattern is abc and the entered command abcdef, %s will be replaced with def.

%S

Include the complete string after the matches pattern. So if the prefix-pattern is abc and the entered command abcdef, %s will be replaced with abcdef.

Regular Expression

During the process of matching, the match results of subpattern between parentheses ( ) are recorded for later use. \ plus a number to refer to the corresponding substring. \1 refers to 1st pair of parentheses' match result, \2 refers to 2nd pair of parentheses' match result. A special case is \0 which will be replaced with the entire match.

If the pattern is ^ab(.*)fg$ and the entered command abcdefg, \1 will be replaced with cde.