Quod Libet controller for Xfce Panel

I was planning to create a new standalone plugin, but I decide that that was way too much work. So, I used an existing plugin, quicklauncher, to do the job (i.e. control quodlibet) for me. Here's what it looks like:

And as far as I can tell it works fine. If you like Quod Libet and Xfce, you'll probably like this too. All you have to do is add a quicklauncher to your panel. In Debian you can get this plugin by installing the xfce4-quicklauncher-plugin package. Don't do anything to it. Next, download the following RC file and save it in ~/.config/xfce4/panel/ (and make sure it's named quicklauncher-quodlibet.rc) :

http://sites.google.com/site/danielbarrettbolton/files/quicklauncher-quodlibet.rc

Next, quit your Xfce session and log into a different one (failsafe terminal will work, we just can't have the Xfce session manager or other utilities running). Open ~/.config/xfce4/panel/panels.xml and find the line that looks like:

<item name="quicklauncher" id="123789689">

The number doesn't matter (unless you have multiple quicklaunchers, in which case you're on your own!), but we need to change the id to "quodlibet". Save the file, log back into Xfce, and voila. Now you can edit the laucher to your liking with a right-click.

themeinfo script for Linux

A versatile python script that prints information about your Linux desktop theme in the terminal.

read more | digg story

themeinfo

themeinfo is now a registered project on Sourceforge. Its homepage is http://themeinfo.sourceforge.net

I need people to test it, make suggestions, and request features. If anyone is interested in helping out, send me an email: dbbolton at users.sourceforge.net

Theme Info Script

I cooked up a little python script to print basic theme info. Here is what it looks like:



You can download the script here: https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=233270 . Alternatively, you can check out the latest version from cvs:

$ mkdir themeinfo
$ cd themeinfo
$ cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@themeinfo.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/themeinfo login
$ cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@themeinfo.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/themeinfo co -P trunk

You must make it executable and use python to execute it::

chmod +x themeinfo.py
python themeinfo.py

There are a few prerequisites to get the script to work. First, check the options around line 28. You need to set them up to match your system. The default setup is for GNOME. There are a few other options, but I am working on support for KDE, Xfce, and Fluxbox. If you have any tips or suggestions, please leave a comment!

GTK and Icons

Unless you are using gnome-settings-daemon , you must specify your GTK and icon themes in your .gtkrc.mine file with the following formatting:

include '/home/daniel/.themes/MurrinaAurantium/gtk-2.0/gtkrc'
gtk-icon-theme-name = "Crashbit"

It doesn't matter where these lines are in the file, but if you include multiple external gtkrc files or specify different icon themes in different styles, the script will only print the first one as the theme name.

Wallpaper

In order to get the wallpaper function to work, you must either set the background with nautilus or feh.

Colors

Changing colors is fairly easy. There are a few color names defined in the colors section (line 12). Just add one of these names before the string containing the text that you want to colorize in the print info section. The default is "orange", and "end" is used to reset the color to the terminal default.

Screenshot

Finally, there is an option to take a screenshot after the script had executed at the very end of the file. It requires scrot. If you want the script to take a screenshot automatically, uncomment the line:

call("scrot")

Also, you can delay the screenshot by tweaking the second parameter of the previous line:

call(["sleep", "x"]) where "x" is the number of seconds to pause before taking the screenshot

. You should leave this at at least "1" (the default), otherwise the screenshot will be taken before the text shows up in the terminal.

MurrinaDark Suite

My latest theme endeavor:

How innovative is Leopard?

According to Apple, Mac OS X version 10.5 (codenamed "Leopard") "features 300+ innovations." However, some of those seem to be more plagiarism than innovation.

First, I invite you to look at the new "Spaces". This feature has been standard in GNOME, KDE, and Xfce for years. I even had multiple desktops on Windows XP in 2003, thanks to the nVIDIA software that came with my HP Pavilion a320n. I would normally give Apple kudos for making it look better, but that had already been taken care of by Compiz.

Examples of GNOME's default Workspaces:








Second, take a look at the "Stacks." The default GNOME Panel has a nifty applet called a drawer, which allows the user to put other applets, shotcuts, and what have you into a collapsible container. Sound familiar? However, this is one idea with which Apple was able to make significant aesthetic improvement.

Examples of the GNOME Drawer (with links to my documents, music, and photos):








Stuff that you can add to the Drawer (the Custom Application Launcher allows you to add virtually anything):

The Linux iPhone?

OpenMoko