Xfce 4 Panel

The Xfce 4 panel is part of the Xfce 4 Desktop Environment and features program launchers, panel menus, a clock, a desktop switcher and more. Many aspects of the panel can be configured through graphical dialogs. This manual should provide you with all necessary information on how to adjust the panel to your liking.

You will usually start the panel as part of your Xfce session, using the startxfce4 script. The command that will be run for the panel is xfce4-panel.

When you start the panel you will see a bar appearing at the bottom of your screen, looking like this:

Figure 1. Default Xfce panel

The figure shows the default panel configuration with one open panel menu. Hovering the mouse over an item will show a tooltip. The Xfce Panel makes extensive use of left and right mouse buttons. Left clicking performs the default action of an item, while right-clicking usually brings up a context menu. Shift + left click may commonly be used instead of a right-click. Note that this manual assumes the use of a right-handed mouse.

There is a move handle on each side of the panel. You can use it to drag the panel anywhere on the edges of the screen. Dragging over half of the screen will move the panel to the opposite screen edge. Clicking with the right mouse button on one of them shows a popup menu ... Go on, try it ;-)

Figure 2. Move handle popup menu

The area between the move handles contains panel items. The available items are are described in the "Panel Items" section. Most items perform an action when clicked. Right-clicking on an item will popup a menu from which you can open a properties dialog, remove the item or add a new item. Items can also be added from the right-click menu on one of the move handles (see above).

Figure 3. Item popup menu

When you want to add an item, a dialog is opened showing all available panel items. Some items can appear only once in the panel, e.g. the system tray, and they will appear greyed out when one is already present.

Figure 4. Add item dialog

Global panel preferences can be changed from the Xfce 4 Settings Manager, which can be started either from a panel launcher, or by running xfce-settings-show. See "Panel Preferences" for an explanation of the available options.

The Xfce 4 panel has the possibility to load external plugins as well as builtin ones. In this section we will only describe panel items that are installed with the panel.

The properties dialog for a panel item can be opened from the right-click menu on the item. Each type of panel item has its own configuration dialog. Every dialog offers at least these options:

Launcher

The most common panel item is the launcher item. It allows you to start programs from the panel. The properties dialog offers the following options:

Icon

The icons used by the panel will follow the icon theme you choose from the user interface settings dialog. Of course you can also choose a custom icon, either by browsing the file system from the button next to the entry or by dragging an image on the preview area from a file manager.

Command

You can type the command to run or browse the file system. There is an option to start in a terminal and one to use startup notification. This last option means that the window manager can show an hourglass while the program is loading. But, the application has to support it as well. Programs build with Gtk 2.2 should support it.

Tooltip

The panel item will show this tooltip if you hold the mouse over it.

Menu

A launcher can have a panel menu attached to it. When this option is selected a small button with an arrow will appear next to the item. Look here for more info on panel menus. The position of the menu button can be changed from the global settings dialog.

Figure 5. Launcher item

Xfce Clock

The Xfce Clock has a number of options to change the way it looks. There are three clock types available: analog, digital and LED. There is an option to show seconds and for the digital and LED clock types you can choose whether the clock will be in 24 hour mode, 12 hour mode, or 12 hour mode with AM/PM indication. The clock shows the current date as a tooltip. Clicking on the clock will not perform any action.

Figure 6. Clock item

Mail checker

The mail checker monitors a mailbox for incoming mail. The mailbox can be in mbox or Maildir format.

The mailbox icon will follow your icon theme. You can choose the location of the mailbox, the command to run when you click on the button and the interval between checks. The command has the same options as the launcher item command (see above). You can also choose a command to run when new mail arrives.

Figure 7. Mail checker item

For advanced usage you can also provide a remote POP3 mailbox if you use the following format for the mailbox entry: pop3://user:password@server:port. If you omit the port it will default to 110.

Note that this feature is still experimental. Before using it, make sure you have a good network connection, because when the mail check fails it can block the panel.

Desktop Switcher and Graphical Pager

The panel provides two items that deal with virtual desktops. A CDE-like desktop switcher, that shows buttons with the desktop name and a graphical pager that shows a miniature view of the desktops and even allows you to move windows to another workspace by dragging the mini-window in the pager. The graphical pager also allows you to change workspaces by using the mouse scrollwheel.

For the graphical pager you can set the number of rows to use, or columns when the panel is in vertical mode.

Figure 8. Graphical pager

System Buttons

A systembuttons item shows one or two buttons which can perform special system actions. The buttons follow your panel icon theme. There are four buttons available:

Lock

Runs the xflock4 script that will attempt to lock the screen using either xscreensaver or if that fails xlock.

Exit

This will popup a logout dialog to end your Xfce session.

Info

The info button will show the About Xfce 4 dialog.

Setup

Pressing the setup button will open the Xfce settings manager dialog, from which you have access to the settings for all Xfce components as well as some system settings, such as mouse behaviour and user interface settings.

Figure 9. Systembuttons item

Separator

This item simply adds a separator line to the panel. It has no options to set except its position.

Note that it may be a bit hard to popup the right-click menu, because you only have a small area to click on.

Figure 10. Item without options

Panel launcher items can have a menu associated with it, which can be opened by clicking on the small arrow button next to the item. The actual position of these popup buttons is configurable from the global preferences dialog. You can also open the menu by pressing the launcher button and holding it down. After a short delay the menu will open.

Use the 'Add launcher' item at the top of a panel menu to add a new item or drag an executable to this item from a file manager. To remove items from a panel menu use the 'Remove' button in the properties dialog.

A special feature of panel menus is that they can be detached from the panel and live in their own window. To detach a menu click on the small line at the bottom of the menu (see the screenshot of the default panel).

The properties dialog for a menu item is opened immediately when clicking the right mouse button. The dialog itself is very similar to the dialog for launcher type panel items.

Figure 11. Menu Item

The properties dialog for the Xfce 4 Panel can be opened from the Xfce 4 Settings Manager or from the right-click menu on one of the panel move handles.

Figure 12. Panel Settings

xfce4-panel was written by Jasper Huijsmans (<jasper@xfce.org>). To find more information, please visit the Xfce web site.

To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding this application or this manual, use the bug tracking system at http://bugzilla.xfce.org/.

If you have questions about the use or installation of this package, please ask on the xfce mailing list. Development discussion takes place on the xfce4-dev mailing list.

xfce4-panel is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.