systray

hugin · 2006-12-10 21:53:59

OK, I do know this has been brought up about a zillion times, but I still can't find one that truly suits my wants. What I'm looking for is a system tray that is small (16 pixel size icons), transparent, and I can push it to the "Desktop" layer, so it can be maximized over.

Something a la this litestep theme: Screenshot

I found this litestep theme when I was in a simulation class, and couldn't find a comparable piece of software, that would run the syntax from the other language. Anyway, upon my return to Linux after the semester, I started using gnome, for a variety of reasons. Now I've got the urge to get a minimal setup going again, and I'm looking for a tray that is like that. (if it supports icon only task bar, with the same properties, that is also a major plus).

What each one does well (and not so well):
pypanel, handles transparency great, but I can't push it icons to the right side of the screen. It also will shrink down to the right size, but it clips icons, rather than shrinking (may be the icon's fault not pypanel.) Also can't seem to set it to be on the very bottom layer (with the background)
fbpanel, can't drop it to the desktop by default, but with a properly configured WM, it will stay there, once I manually put it there. Also, the transparency leaves much to be desired, as it won't make the background of the icons, transparent like pypanel does.
hpanel and fspanel, both are too simplistic, and lxpanel has many of the same problems as fbpanel.

Are there any other options you guys know of? If it comes down to it, I'll have to write it, but I'm not that good of a programmer yet.

iphitus · 2006-12-11 09:52:57

there's always gnome-panel and kicker too.

i know you're probably using a lightweight window manager, but if you already use apps that utilise gnome/kde libs, their respective panels aren't much weight -- not enough to worry about on any remotely modern system anyway. ram is to be used reasonably not preserved

chrismortimore · 2006-12-11 10:19:04

Depends what WM you use. Doesn't Fluxbox's slit work as a systray? Perhaps Blackbox's slit as well? Maybe that'd do it for you.

fk · 2006-12-11 15:52:24

visibility

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?d … s=0&SeB=nd

hugin · 2006-12-11 16:02:37

iphitus wrote:

ram is to be used reasonably not preserved

I know this, and I do have more than enough ram to use full gnome, azureus, eclipse, and amarok all at the same time (not that I've tried or anything ). I actually just like the look and feel of the lightweight stuff; no 3d-desktop, no shadows, to wobbly-windows, just plain panes of information. The art in computers comes not from how pretty your UI is, but if you can find new/interesting things to code, or discover a more ingenious way to accomplish some task. At least for me, an aspiring programmer.

For the record, I am using sawfish; a more elegant WM from a more civilized age. I've never liked kde, probably because it got associated with a bad distribution experience (red hat 8 or 9), so I didn't really even realize that the kicker was a separate program (even though I've read all those other posts.) gnome-panel can get down to almost what i want, but it's transparency is only for the non-widget space and the empty space left by the task bar.

I used to run some gnome apps (gnome-volume-manager, gnome-terminal, and gnome-settings daemon) I really like the automation of gnome, but prefer the look and feel of the feather weights. I've run gnome with sawfish, I've run gnome with openbox, hell, I've even run gnome with fluxbox once. I just find that I don't use the panels for anything but the system tray and some of the background apps from the DE. But since starting here with arch, I've found better solutions than running gnome for that stuff, while i do lose some ease of control with my themes, writing a custom index.theme for a gtk theme is comparatively much easier than writing the LISP configs for sawfish, and either I never knew udev could be written to "auto mount" drives (rules with persistent /dev symlinks, and fstab entries) for me or it just got the ability, and well, as much as I love the tabbed terminals, I can't justify loading the gnome-libs for a terminal emulator, so rxvt-unicode won out there. The thing about the minimal setups is that it forces me to learn the command line for everything. It's the reason I love Linux and started using it as a desktop, not just a server. It was after I got to liking it, that I started with the whole philosophical reasons to run it. Other than Firefox, Gaim, Azureus, and GVIM, 75% of my apps are CLI. It's the most customizable way to get things done, plus if X ever breaks I'm not shit out of luck, as I have CLI backups for all those apps bar one (azureus, but that is only because I need the encryption so I can break 3k/s).

Oh and I don't run Amorok, I just tried it and didn't like the UI, I've been using winamp since about 2.4something and like that UI while playing. I wish there was a player that still had a winamp-esque UI, and a Library, but alas, there is not. So my directory structure has become my library and audacious my player, again. I like MPD, but that is a whole other ball of wax.

chrismortimore: no the slit is not a system tray. However, there is a application called Docker, written by the OpenBox guys, that does put a system tray into the slit (this features some of the limitations as before). I'd rather stick with sawfish, as I can't center windows by default in openbox, and sawfish's solution for matched windows, is the most superior one I've encountered. Also fluxbox has a system tray in it's "bar" thing, if I remember correctly.

There, that is the life story of why I would be running a UI set that I could have run on a bargain basement machine from >=5 years ago, on a nice new amd64 machine. I do apologize for the length.

/swogs

Arch Linux

#1 2006-12-10 21:53:59

systray

#2 2006-12-11 09:52:57

Re: systray

#3 2006-12-11 10:19:04

Re: systray

#4 2006-12-11 15:52:24

Re: systray

#5 2006-12-11 16:02:37

Re: systray

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