Rox Panel Applets

[jemimah]

RoxPanel is an excellent alternative to the JWM panel and it rocks with alternative window managers. I'm posting here all the applets you need for a full-featured panel. This is the sum-total of all the rox-panel applets I could find that do not depend on python.

To enable the rox panel, first disable the jwm-panel (if you're running jwm) by renaming the /root/.jwmrc-tray file. Then edit /root/.xinitrc.

Change this line:

rox -p /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin

to

rox -p /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin -b /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPan1 -r /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPan2

This will turn on two panels like in the attached screenshot. Rox supports up to 4 panels.

Then install the following pet files. They will create a new directory called /root/my-panel-applets and put the applets in it. To run an applet, simply drag it to the panel. To configure an applet, right-click on it. To move an applet, middle click (or click with both buttons) and drag. You can also drag pinboard icons, directories, and applications to the panel.

I'm also including as an added bonus, Vattery, a very simple battery monitoring applet for the systray.

[trapster]

Very nice.
This has been way overdue.

[magerlab]

i want to try these on eee pc( although, fbpanel covers everything i need:)
the main thing i want to know is : does the panel autohide?

[mikeb]

Not to mention rox has a nice wallpaper setter built in but is hidden by the desktop click through setting

mike

[jemimah]

The panel stays under everything. It sort of autohides,the autohide function only works if you put the mouse along an edge where there are no icons. Anyway I prefer things not to autohide, because they are always unhiding when I don't want them. I've been using a tool called xwit with xbindkeys to bring the panel to the top using a hotkey. I'll post a pet for that later today or tomorrow.

[magerlab]

my eee pc has only 7 inch screen.....
so i need autohide function:)

also maybe a small python version ( i saw tiny py once in barry's blog ) will work with some applets ?

[jemimah]

I have an Eee too; try my hotkey packages when I post them. My panel pops up when I press F9 and only then. It's great!

Incidentally, I'm working on an netbook puplet that you might find interesting. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=47192

[jemimah]

Ok Rox Panel hotkeys, as promised.

Install the two attached pets. This puts a script in /root/Startup that should start xbindkeys automatically when you login. Restart the xserver, then edit /root/.xbindkeysrc and add these lines.

"xwit -raise -property WM_CLASS -names ROX-Panel"
F9
"xwit -raise -property WM_CLASS -names ROX-Pinboard"
F8

This will raise the panel when you press F9 and raise the pinboard when you press F8.

[musher0]

Rox supports up to 4 panels.

Hi, jemimah, and the bunch.

Just for the record:

I don't think that per se, the number of ROX-panels is limited. You're right if we consider that logically, only 4 ROX-panels can be shown at one time, one on each side of the screen. (:-)

I actually have 5 rox-panels that I can load in turn at the top (for example; it could be on any side of the screen).

Through aemenu, this is how it can be done:
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
-wide config file for aewm clients

cmd "---=> Barres <=---" ""
menu "En haut"
# On top
cmd "Barre ROX en haut" "rox -t=en-haut"
# Put Rox-panel "on-top" on top
cmd "2e barre ROX en haut" "rox -t=2e_barre"
# Put "2nd_panel" on top
cmd "Retirer barre ROX en haut" "rox -t="
# Remove any Rox-panel that's on top
cmd "------------------------------" ""
end
menu "En bas"
# At bottom of screen
cmd "Barre ROX en bas" "rox -b=en-haut""
cmd "2e barre ROX en bas" "rox -b=2e_barre"
cmd "Retirer barre ROX en bas" "rox -b="
cmd "------------------------------" ""
end
(similarly for the left and right sides of the screen)
### end ###
=-=-=-=
With your innate talent and your "golden pen" , jemimah, I'm sure you can do better than me!

=-=-=-=
Another example from within the rxvt console:
rox -t=writing-apps
rox -t=2nd-panel
rox -t=drawing-apps
rox -t=4th-panel
rox -t=music-apps
# the second panel takes the place of the first, and so on.
# If you want to clear the top of your screen again, you type:
rox -t=
# This last command removes any panel on top.

If you like you can have clearly labeled thematic panels, on which you position the corresponding apps, one for writing apps, or drawing, music, etc. Even the default puppy icons in the PuppyPin can be transfered to a ROX-panel; then you'd have a very spacious screen, with no icons on it, if that's what you like.

=-=-=-=-=

You can also texture or color your ROX-panels by adding and configuring a gtkrc.mine file in /root. Here is an example from what I use.

=-=-=-=-=
pixmap_path "/usr/share/backgrounds"
# Note the path above: that's where you'd put your textures or pictures for the ROX-filer and the ROX-panel.
# gtkrc.mine (example)
style "rox" = "default"
{
bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = "lignes-gris2.png"
# Un-comment this if you want to use a texture or small picture as a background in the ROX-Filer window.
# "flute_smooth1a4.png"
}
widget_class "*Collection*" style "rox"

style "panel-style" {
bg_pixmap[NORMAL] = "Lejeunehommeetlamer-16x-2.png"
# This would be for a small square picture (16x16) or for a strip of your current desktop at the top of your screen (say, a strip of 1024x16 pixels)
# "calm-waters-Rickydavid-haut.png"
# The choice of another picture can be commented and stay in the file for easy modification if you change the background picture.
# bg[NORMAL] = "#AABFD7"
# Un-comment the above line if you want your ROX-panel to be of a single color, but then be sure that you comment with a # the "bg_pixmap" line above. You can't have both at the same time!
# It can be the name or the number of a color.
# "DarkGoldenrod4" # for example
font_name = "Liberation Sans 14"
# The name says it all! You can define a font here as well, from the fonts you have in /usr/share/fonts/Default/TTF.
# "Georgia 11" # Again, an alternative can be at the ready within the file.
}
widget "rox-panel.*" style "panel-style"
### end ###
=-=-=-=-=
Ending notes:
Don't touch the structure ( the labels and the {} ) of the gtkrc.mine file, or you'll be in trouble.

Some gtk themes might have a color or a texture for the ROX-panel already. The "ichigo" theme comes to mind. But most do not.

If you want to see the effect, I have put illustrations of ROX-panels at the top in the wmx and echinus forums.

=-=-=-=-=
Sources :
http://roscidus.com/desktop/node/181 (background of filer)
http://roscidus.com/desktop/node/182 (ROX-panel)

BFN.

[jemimah]

That's a very interesting idea, swapping out the panels. I'm going to have to put that in my puplet.

If anyone's interested, I've also patched Rox to remove the auto-raise functionality from the panel. If you are using my xwit trick, this makes the panel much better behaved. The attached patch is for the version of ROX that's in 4.3.1. Just decompress it and replace the one in /usr/local/apps/ROX-Filer.

[musher0]

Thanks for the compliment.

Thanks also for the trouble of the new code, and I'm sure someone will grab it in need. It's nice to have this feature. But me, I actually like the auto-raise feature of the ROX-panel.

For example, when I use the echinus wm, I also use the ourico panel that comes with it. I like to have a ROX-panel on top and the ourico bar on top too. But I specify the width of the ourico bar at 92 %. From the remaining space of 8 % I can raise the ROX-panel over the ourico panel if I need to, to launch this or that program that I have put on the ROX-panel.

Of course, instead of dragging my cursor in that space, I could hit one of your xwit key combinations!

[amigo]

How about a copy of the patch for the sources?

[musher0]

@ amigo.

Euh... I suppose you're talking to jemimah?
I don't have clue about what you're asking!

[jemimah]

Yeah I'll make a real patch. There's actually a ton of source code I need to post for various projects. I'll post when it's ready.

[amigo]

Yes, Jemimah, thank you very much. As you probably know by now, I'm always interested in getting the sources and I've noticed you doing some interesting things, so I look forward to having access to any work you have or are doing. Also, if you need a more reliable or permanent place to deposit sources, you can send me anything you like and I'll add it to my collection here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... /download/
Anything you post that I find interesting will wind up there anyway...
I've done quite a lot of patching to the ROX sources, so I'm always 'game' for even small mods to those sources. I use the old GTK-1.2 version of ROX, but have back-ported several features from the later versions into those sources.

[jemimah]

Thanks for the offer amigo! How did you get access to ibibio anyway?

If you, or anyone, is looking for an interesting project to work on, I'm starting to get more traffic on the Puppeee thread than I can reasonably deal with by myself. I think a very solid puplet for netbooks based on Puppy could become high profile very fast since most other netbook offerings are bloated and slow - heavy on eye candy, light on functionality. I have about a thousand ideas for it, but it's slow going since it's only me. I do have a lot of excellent beta testers, but I'm starting to feel overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the project.

[amigo]

I've been working for quite a while now on putting together a system for netbooks and similar platforms. The idea began as a small system meant to be booted from an external device like USB stick, etc. One idea was to build it as a 'liveUSB' implementation -with the idea that it could be used to boot from any hardware you came across -with the help of a small CD for machines that don't boot natively from USB.
One of the main ideas was to eliminate some of the drawbacks of liveCD like the need for lots of RAM and the longer startup times from using large initrds. Instead, it would focus on fast boot-time, accept a small penalty of slower *program* startup, but with the advnatge of being read-write without any tricks like save files, union mounts, etc. And instead of using squashfs or other highly-compressed, but read-only file system, it might use e2compr filesystem or other newer fs like UBIFS.
Progress has been very slow as I have been sidelined with development of src2pkg which makes it possible to maintain the distro for several arches without a lot of trouble or help.

Building a distro involves an incredible amount of work -as you have seen even modifying an existing distro is a lot of work. But, I still belive that the only way to create and maintain any special-purpose system like a liveCD or netbook distro is to build everything from scratch -but having *very* clear goals and concepts to guide you. Most small distros suffer from a lack of maintenance -instead of fixing bugs and perfecting the implementation of core concpets/goals, they move onto another 'cool idea' leaving their former users and their own ideas in the dust. Does this sound familiar?

About ibiblio, it's pretty easy to get space there -you only need to own a non-profit *.org domain and they'll give you space for free. They've never even hinted at limiting my space. There have been a couple of times when nearly everything was lost due to hardware failures, but I always have backups anyway.

[jemimah]

I've uploaded the source code for my various projects. Amigo, feel free to mirror if you like.

http://drop.io/jemimah/

[amigo]

Excellent, many thanks.

[morgonzola]

sorry to revive an old thread but do you think you could post that scrip to get xkeybinds to start up automatically jemimah?