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#1 2008-10-24 08:13:34

Llama
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From: St.-Petersburg, Russia
Registered: 2008-03-03
Posts: 1,379

E17 primer

Hi,

I installed e17 (alongside kdemod3), but can't really start getting the hang of it. The official User's Guide isn't very useful, and I still have trouble finding sensible introductory info. Any suggestions?

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#2 2008-10-24 08:31:06

Riklaunim
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Registered: 2005-04-09
Posts: 106
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Re: E17 primer

e17 is pre-alfa software for a long time. The base libs may be more or less stable, but the extra software isn't. The UI also needs a lot of usability polish wink

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#3 2008-10-24 08:37:30

Llama
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From: St.-Petersburg, Russia
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Posts: 1,379

Re: E17 primer

I don't want more that it can probably offer. All I want now is some practical guide.

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#4 2008-10-24 20:44:30

skottish
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Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: E17 primer

No offense to Riklaunim or anyone else, but E17 is near release. It is not pre-alpha.

Llama,

Is this the guide that you're referring to?

http://wiki.enlightenment.org/index.php/E17_User_Guide

What are you having trouble with? There are a bunch of us here that use E17 daily, including myself who has it as my only WM.

Last edited by skottish (2008-10-24 20:50:02)

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#5 2008-10-25 19:32:16

Llama
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From: St.-Petersburg, Russia
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Posts: 1,379

Re: E17 primer

Thank you, skottish! The guide I tried without much success is different:

http://www0.get-e.org/E17_User_Guide/English/

Whether it's better or not remains to be seen.

Meanwhile I tell you about my situation smile . I use kdemod3; why?
(1) because I definitely prefer KDE's suite of applications, if not KDE itself.
(2) KDE4 still isn't quite usable, to my taste; frankly speaking, I'm tired of waiting smile

So I installed e17 alongside kdemod3, experimentally. Entrance login manager instead of kdm is doing fine, but I kind of don't know what to do next. When I log in into e17, there are icons on the desktop which I don't want; they are unusable, anyway. Most of the itstalled apps are there (main menu), but some are missing (krusader), some crash on quitting (mplayer), some won't start (VLC). That's about it smile . I've heard somewhere about eap files, but don't know what to do with them smile .

I see my bright future as e17 + (qt4) apps (mostly), but I don't even know if my vision is reasonable. Any feedback is extremely welcome!

Last edited by Llama (2008-10-25 19:42:24)

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#6 2008-10-25 19:57:00

skottish
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Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: E17 primer

Llama wrote:

Thank you, skottish! The guide I tried without much success is different:

http://www0.get-e.org/E17_User_Guide/English/

Whether it's better or not remains to be seen.

Meanwhile I tell you about my situation smile . I use kdemod3; why?
(1) because I definitely prefer KDE's suite of applications, if not KDE itself.
(2) KDE4 still isn't quite usable, to my taste; frankly speaking, I'm tired of waiting smile

So I installed e17 alongside kdemod3, experimentally; Entrance login manager instead of kdm is doing fine, but I kind of don't know what to do next. When I log in into e17, there are icons on the desktop which I don't want; they are unusable, anyway. Most of the itstalled apps are there (main menu), but some are missing (krusader), some crash on quitting (mplayer), some won't start (VLC). That's about it smile . I've heard somewhere about eap files, but don't know what to do with them smile .

I see my bright future as e17 + (qt4) apps (mostly), but I don't even know if my vision is reasonable. Any feedback is extremely welcome!

Figuring out how to get rid of the desktop icons in E17 is one annoyance that many people experience. If you're not going to use E17's file manager (which I highly recommend that you don't), unload the module and the desktop icons should go away. If you are going to use it, go to Configuration-->Configuration Panel-->File Manager-->File Manager and uncheck 'Show Desktop Icons'. Thankfully this is one of the few areas of E17 that's not intuitive.

gmplayer, the normal GTK front end to MPlayer, has always had this problem with E17. The only workarounds that I can think of are good ones. You can use SMplayer which is way nicer and will integrate with your KDE apps (it's QT4). Another option is gnome-mplayer for something very minimal. If you're going to do that, uninstall mplayer-plugin and install gecko-mediaplayer; it's far superior. Anyway, you can permanently lose the gmplayer front end by building one of the MPlayer no GUI options from AUR. 

VLC's GUI and E17 don't like each other. They never have. There's some experimental stuff going on at E17 to use a different front end for VLC. Since I use gnome-mplayer I don't follow that.

If programs are missing in the menus, launch them from a terminal. There should be a little icon on the top corner of the window. Click that. Go to 'Edit Icon', push the icon button, and then choose an icon to use. When finished push 'Apply' or 'OK' and a desktop file is created. It will be in the menus from there. You can edit where it goes in the menus either by going back to that screen, or manually by editing the respective file in ~./local/share/applications.

I would have to know what the eap files are for in order to help with that.

Last edited by skottish (2008-10-25 19:58:44)

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#7 2008-10-25 20:27:02

Llama
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From: St.-Petersburg, Russia
Registered: 2008-03-03
Posts: 1,379

Re: E17 primer

You are extremely helpful, thanks!

I would have to know what the eap files are for in order to help with that.

?
Here: http://linux-blog.org/enlightenment-17-review/
Specifically:

The only major hurdle facing a new user of E17 is the creation of eap files, which are essentially small files consisting of an icon plus basic information about a program,

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#8 2008-10-25 21:29:48

bgc1954
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From: Edmonton, AB, Canada
Registered: 2006-03-14
Posts: 1,160

Re: E17 primer

That article is quite old and e17 has moved away from .eap files.  You'll also see reference to engage which is a dock-like application which used to be used in elive--a debian and enlightenment distro and maybe others--but the ibar, ibox are used now.

Like skottish said, you can create desktop files which basically replaced the eap's by either the method he described or you can use the Menu ->Configuration->Configuration Panel->Applications->New Application and fill in the boxes.  If you want the application to be in a specific menu location just click on Advanced in the new application window and put something in Categories box like Application;System;AudioVideo...etc. or like skottish said edit ~/.local/share/applications/app_name.desktop file.

The Configuration Panel is a good tool to do alot of stuff in e17 so play around with it to see what you can do with it. smile


Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils ... - Louis Hector Berlioz

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#9 2008-10-25 21:37:25

skottish
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From: Here
Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: E17 primer

Llama wrote:

You are extremely helpful, thanks!

I would have to know what the eap files are for in order to help with that.

?
Here: http://linux-blog.org/enlightenment-17-review/
Specifically:

The only major hurdle facing a new user of E17 is the creation of eap files, which are essentially small files consisting of an icon plus basic information about a program,

The good news is is that article is very old. To make application launchers you only need a shelf with an IBar in it.

Configuration-->Shelves-->Add

Right click on the shelf and go to Shelf Configuration to place it where you want. Then right click on the shelf again and Configure Shelf Contents. Add an IBar. Then Configuration-->Applications-->IBar Applications. You'll be presented with a list of every program that has a desktop file on your system. You can add anything you want from there.

Another solution which is probably somewhat better is to install ITask-NG; It's all sorts of eye candy:

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=14420

Hopefully this helps. I don't use application launchers, so I'm not up on configuring any of this stuff.

--EDIT--

Hiya bgc1954. Welcome!

Last edited by skottish (2008-10-25 21:37:56)

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#10 2008-10-26 02:22:45

Llama
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Posts: 1,379

Re: E17 primer

What are shelves?

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#11 2008-10-26 02:29:39

skottish
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Posts: 7,942

Re: E17 primer

Llama wrote:

What are shelves?

They're simply containers to hold things like application launchers, clocks, and the like. When you first start up E17, there is shelf on the bottom in the middle with a menu button on your left, then (if memory serves me correctly) launchers for Firefox, xterm, and xmms.

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#12 2008-10-26 10:09:41

Llama
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From: St.-Petersburg, Russia
Registered: 2008-03-03
Posts: 1,379

Re: E17 primer

Figuring out how to get rid of the desktop icons in E17 is one annoyance that many people experience. If you're not going to use E17's file manager (which I highly recommend that you don't), unload the module and the desktop icons should go away.

Unloaded the File Manager succesfully smile .

VLC's GUI and E17 don't like each other. They never have. There's some experimental stuff going on at E17 to use a different front end for VLC. Since I use gnome-mplayer I don't follow that.

Discovered that the current VLC is based on qt4. It runs, too. Probably, I messed the path or something.

If programs are missing in the menus, launch them from a terminal. There should be a little icon on the top corner of the window. Click that. Go to 'Edit Icon', push the icon button, and then choose an icon to use. When finished push 'Apply' or 'OK' and a desktop file is created. It will be in the menus from there.

I tried this left top corner icon thing and loved it very much. Simple, intuitive and powerful indeed! I started with the krusader and put it into iBar easily enough, but made some slip and lost the icon. Now in the top left corner of the running krusader it shows a blank icon, and a blank space in the iBar. Fortunately, the tooltip is where it shoud be.

So these are my questions (random enough):

(1)How to get the icon back? The select icon dialog isn't intuitive enough for me smile .

(2)No signs of automounting my flash stick. The HAL should be running, as the startup scripts are the same for KDE and e17. There's a way, I believe...

(3)Configuring modules. I can load/unload them all right, but what about configuring? I want to switch between English and Russian keyboard layouts, for instance. The Language module is loaded, but all I appear to be able to do with it is to unload it. The relevant entries in the User's guide seem to be under construction.

First impressions: a very, very nice approach, but certanly unlike anything else I've ever seen. I hope I'm not taxing you with my questions too much; it would be possible to make this thread into a Wiki article later on...

Last edited by Llama (2008-10-26 10:58:49)

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#13 2008-10-26 11:06:27

Llama
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From: St.-Petersburg, Russia
Registered: 2008-03-03
Posts: 1,379

Re: E17 primer

(3)Configuring modules. I can load/unload them all right, but what about configuring? I want to switch between English and Russian keyboard layouts, for instance. The Language module is loaded, but all I appear to be able to do with it is to unload it.

Ah!.. There is the Configuration Panel. But the language settings seem to be inadequate.

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#14 2008-10-26 15:49:47

skottish
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Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: E17 primer

Llama wrote:

Figuring out how to get rid of the desktop icons in E17 is one annoyance that many people experience. If you're not going to use E17's file manager (which I highly recommend that you don't), unload the module and the desktop icons should go away.

Unloaded the File Manager succesfully smile .

VLC's GUI and E17 don't like each other. They never have. There's some experimental stuff going on at E17 to use a different front end for VLC. Since I use gnome-mplayer I don't follow that.

Discovered that the current VLC is based on qt4. It runs, too. Probably, I messed the path or something.

If programs are missing in the menus, launch them from a terminal. There should be a little icon on the top corner of the window. Click that. Go to 'Edit Icon', push the icon button, and then choose an icon to use. When finished push 'Apply' or 'OK' and a desktop file is created. It will be in the menus from there.

I tried this left top corner icon thing and loved it very much. Simple, intuitive and powerful indeed! I started with the krusader and put it into iBar easily enough, but made some slip and lost the icon. Now in the top left corner of the running krusader it shows a blank icon, and a blank space in the iBar. Fortunately, the tooltip is where it shoud be.

So these are my questions (random enough):

(1)How to get the icon back? The select icon dialog isn't intuitive enough for me smile .

(2)No signs of automounting my flash stick. The HAL should be running, as the startup scripts are the same for KDE and e17. There's a way, I believe...

(3)Configuring modules. I can load/unload them all right, but what about configuring? I want to switch between English and Russian keyboard layouts, for instance. The Language module is loaded, but all I appear to be able to do with it is to unload it. The relevant entries in the User's guide seem to be under construction.

First impressions: a very, very nice approach, but certanly unlike anything else I've ever seen. I hope I'm not taxing you with my questions too much; it would be possible to make this thread into a Wiki article later on...

1) The icons are in different places depending on what program it's for. Most of the icons on my system are in /usr/share/icons and to a lesser degree /usr/share/pixmaps. I have no idea where the KDE stuff goes because I have nothing from KDE installed. You'll just have to go through the process again and find one that you like.

2) Automounting in E17 can be done through EFM (Enlightenment File Manger) which you just disabled! I'm using pcmanfm for mounting pluggable devices. You can use Thunar with the thunar-volman plug in too. Or you can set up udev rules. I prefer file mangers personally.

And lastly no, not only are you not taxing me, I actually enjoy it. Once you get the hang of E17, it's really simple. And best of all most of the configuration you'll just forget about once it's set up.

If the fonts in Enlightenment's GUI are looking ugly, go to Configuration-->Configuration  Panel-->Appearance-->Fonts. Select the Advanced option on bottom, then on the top right there is an area called Hinting. Select Automatic.

If you want the advanced GUI to be the default, go to Control-->Control Panel-->Advanced-->Dialogs and select Advanced Mode.

We can even talk themes when you're up to it...

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#15 2008-10-26 15:51:47

bgc1954
Member
From: Edmonton, AB, Canada
Registered: 2006-03-14
Posts: 1,160

Re: E17 primer

Llama wrote:

(1)How to get the icon back? The select icon dialog isn't intuitive enough for me

When you click on the icon box you get the dialog so alot of the icons are located in /usr/share/pixmaps so if you click on Root in the left panel then double click on usr in the right panel, then share, then pixmaps you can select an icon.  But wait a minute,,,krusader is a kde app so it might be located in opt somewhere--can't remember where cause I haven't used kde in a long time.

Edit: Darn you skottish.  I still think and type too slow. wink

Last edited by bgc1954 (2008-10-26 15:53:09)


Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils ... - Louis Hector Berlioz

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#16 2008-10-26 18:43:33

Llama
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From: St.-Petersburg, Russia
Registered: 2008-03-03
Posts: 1,379

Re: E17 primer

Thank you very much!

I have to repeat one question, though: keyboard layout selection. This one is absolutely critical. I need both en,us and ru,winkeys.

As to cyrillic characters: I always use just one locale: en_US.UTF-8. It's been enough to show cyrillic in the terminal and in file names on all sorts of partitions - all the places where I really need them. I expect the same with e17; meanwhile, I'm getting rectangles in the VLC title bar, for instance, while in KDE the same VLC title bar shows cyrillic. I suspect that to put things to rights some CLI is in order smile .

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#17 2008-10-26 20:48:13

skottish
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Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: E17 primer

Unfortunately I only speak English, so I don't know really anything about locales. I do know that in E17 you can go to Configuration-->Configuration Panel-->Language-->Language Settings and do some stuff. But I'm sure it's working with the known locales in Linux.

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#18 2008-10-28 15:30:51

Llama
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From: St.-Petersburg, Russia
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Posts: 1,379

Re: E17 primer

There's a development: after the last upgrade I did a clean reinstall (probably removing ~/.e would have sufficed). Among other things, the Russian language got better! I see the characters; all I want to start actually using the e17 DE is a keyboard layout switcher (gadget?) . I didn't find any; it could be my inexperience. Any ideas? Please smile ...

One can edit the xorg.conf, of course, but that means messing up the KDE configuration. There must be a cleaner way...

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#19 2008-10-28 15:59:38

b9anders
Member
Registered: 2007-11-07
Posts: 691

Re: E17 primer

Llama wrote:

There's a development: after the last upgrade I did a clean reinstall (probably removing ~/.e would have sufficed). Among other things, the Russian language got better! I see the characters; all I want to start actually using the e17 DE is a keyboard layout switcher (gadget?) . I didn't find any; it could be my inexperience. Any ideas? Please smile ...

One can edit the xorg.conf, of course, but that means messing up the KDE configuration. There must be a cleaner way...

You can edit xorg.conf without ruining the kde setup.

From Archwiki wrote:

To be able to easily switch keyboard layouts, for example between a US and a Swedish layout use this instead:

Option "XkbLayout" "us, se"
Option "XkbOptions" "grp:caps_toggle"

This makes your Caps Lock key switch between the different layouts. This is mainly useful if you run don't run a Desktop Environment which takes care of keyboard layouts for you.

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#20 2008-10-28 16:11:16

skottish
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Re: E17 primer

You can try the language module.

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#21 2008-10-28 16:44:04

Llama
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From: St.-Petersburg, Russia
Registered: 2008-03-03
Posts: 1,379

Re: E17 primer

Language module doesn't concern itself with this. Yet I tried something (a plagiarism from KDE), not without success:

$ setxkbmap -model pc104 -layout us,ru
$ setxkbmap -option -option grp:caps_toggle

After that CapsLock toggles layouts.
There's one remaining question: where am I to put this script so it gets executed on login into e17 session?

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#22 2008-10-28 18:57:57

b9anders
Member
Registered: 2007-11-07
Posts: 691

Re: E17 primer

why not just put the proper options in xorg.conf?

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#23 2008-10-28 19:17:34

Llama
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From: St.-Petersburg, Russia
Registered: 2008-03-03
Posts: 1,379

Re: E17 primer

It will affect KDE installation. Besides, it's good to know where to put startup executables smile .

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#24 2008-10-28 19:21:20

skottish
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Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: E17 primer

Make sure the script is executable and launch it from ~/.bashrc. You'll simply need a line like this:

./PATH_TO_YOUR_SCRIPT

It will be read every time you log in.

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#25 2008-10-28 19:31:45

b9anders
Member
Registered: 2007-11-07
Posts: 691

Re: E17 primer

Llama wrote:

It will affect KDE installation. Besides, it's good to know where to put startup executables smile .

save the script wherever and make it an executable. Then open the configuration panel and under Applications click New application. Then give it a name and point it to your script and apply.

Then, also in Applications, click Startup Applications. You should then have your newly created application in the selection menu to add.

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