qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

karabaja4 · 2011-04-27 19:43:16

Here's what it looks like for me (the top panel, not bottom):

1.

2.

3.

4.

1 from 3 happen in 3 seconds (1 second for each frame), and 3 becomes 4 when I move the mouse to the menu.

I should mention I'm not using compositing (it's disabled), WM is Openbox.

Last edited by karabaja4 (2011-04-27 19:44:02)

Mad Fish · 2011-04-27 20:22:26

karabaja4 wrote:

I should mention I'm not using compositing (it's disabled), WM is Openbox.

I tested this configuration and it works flawlessly here. I'm not sure, can be driver related. I'm using NVIDIA blob on both my test machines.
Maybe the key is the different behavior with translucent background when no compositing. Try commenting out lines 60 and 61 in panelwindow.cpp.

Last edited by Mad Fish (2011-04-27 20:25:31)

Mad Fish · 2011-04-28 00:05:55

cf8 wrote:

Also i tried qtpanel on openbox: placement is correct there, but it always stays at one workspace. Very weird.

This is fixed now, thanks.

Mad Fish · 2011-04-30 15:11:30

New big feature landed: notification area aka system tray.
Now it is usable standalone. Currently I'm running openbox + feh for desktop background + qtpanel as user interface.
Here is how it looks like:

lamiska · 2011-05-03 15:23:21

I like this panel so much, i am using this as main panel in my xfce. looking forward to more options. thx for great work

fabertawe · 2011-05-03 18:11:48

I didn't come across this when ditching Gnome and have been using the Xfce4 panel. I'm glad I've found it now though, it's gorgeous! It's working beautifully here with Compiz.

Looking forward to some configureability (hopefully ) with the clock display (no seconds and a tooltip date would be nice). Also, would be great if you could add some transparency or change of colour to the menu - I'm using a dark theme but the outright black's a bit much for me. Oh, and maybe "Applications" could be editable or replaceable with an icon?

Many thanks, love it.

Mad Fish · 2011-05-03 19:31:56

fabertawe wrote:

Looking forward to some configureability (hopefully ) with the clock display (no seconds and a tooltip date would be nice). Also, would be great if you could add some transparency or change of colour to the menu - I'm using a dark theme but the outright black's a bit much for me. Oh, and maybe "Applications" could be editable or replaceable with an icon?

All that is planned. Just needs time (which is a scarce resource for me right now).

moljac024 · 2011-05-04 00:28:48

karabaja4 wrote:

Here's what it looks like for me (the top panel, not bottom):
1.
http://andromeda.kiwilight.com/~dule/upload/2011-04-27--1303932631_1680x1050_scrot_thumb.png
2.
http://andromeda.kiwilight.com/~dule/upload/2011-04-27--1303932638_1680x1050_scrot_thumb.png
3.
http://andromeda.kiwilight.com/~dule/upload/2011-04-27--1303932649_1680x1050_scrot_thumb.png
4.
http://andromeda.kiwilight.com/~dule/upload/2011-04-27--1303932655_1680x1050_scrot_thumb.png
1 from 3 happen in 3 seconds (1 second for each frame), and 3 becomes 4 when I move the mouse to the menu.
I should mention I'm not using compositing (it's disabled), WM is Openbox.

What is that bottom panel? Is that tint2?

karabaja4 · 2011-05-04 00:53:09

moljac024 wrote:

What is that bottom panel? Is that tint2?

No, bmpanel2 with bmpanel2-themes package (both in AUR).

fabertawe · 2011-05-04 17:28:49

Mad Fish wrote:

All that is planned. Just needs time (which is a scarce resource for me right now).

Of course, just a prod, certainly not demanding anything!

How does qtpanel assemble its Applications menu? I'd like to edit this but I've no idea where to start.

Thanks.

Mad Fish · 2011-05-04 17:48:09

fabertawe wrote:

How does qtpanel assemble its Applications menu? I'd like to edit this but I've no idea where to start.

It parses .desktop files in /usr/share/applications, and sorts them into categories. Categories are specified in .desktop file, for example gedit.desktop contains this:

Categories=GNOME;GTK;Utility;TextEditor;

Applications menu applet searches for known categories, and put it in appropriate menu. In gedit case, determining category was "Utility", which corresponds to "Accessories" menu.
Right now, a list of menus with their corresponding categories is hardcoded (see ApplicationsMenuApplet constructor, applicationsmenuapplet.cpp, lines 70-80). It also assembles list only on start (it doesn't watch directory for changes yet).

fabertawe · 2011-05-05 15:27:01

Thanks for the info Mad Fish, I'll take a look into this.

EDIT: From having a quick nose around it seems Gnome (for instance, from what I can gather) sets up its menu as a combination of

/etc/xdg/menus/applications.menu
"$HOME"/.local/share/applications
"$HOME"/.config/menus/applications.menu

In the AUR I found the alacarte-xfce-devel menu editor, which is the Gnome editor but used for Xfce. By changing the "exo-devel" dependency to "exo" it's lighter on dependencies (I'm not sure of the dependencies exactly as I've already got a few xfce bits installed).

Would it be possible to alter the way you generate the Applications menu to take advantage of this existing editor? Apologies if this sounds simplistic, I'm bumping around in the dark here! I realise you're putting a lot of work into qtpanel already and that is really appreciated

Last edited by fabertawe (2011-05-05 16:53:10)

Mad Fish · 2011-05-05 19:46:48

Status update:

It is now possible to close windows in taskbar from context menu.
Urgency hint is now supported.
Started configuration system (using QSettings) - icon theme and font are no longer hardcoded. To open configuration dialog, right click on panel's empty space and select "Configure..." from context menu.

Mad Fish · 2011-05-08 15:28:25

Status update: Applications for menu are now gathered in background worker thread (to avoid delay on startup due to icon loading), and changes in applications (installing/removing) are now tracked and reflected in menu.

Last edited by Mad Fish (2011-05-08 17:21:18)

cubespace · 2011-05-08 20:41:12

Mad Fish wrote:

Status update: Applications for menu are now gathered in background worker thread (to avoid delay on startup due to icon loading), and changes in applications (installing/removing) are now tracked and reflected in menu.

Thanks Mad Fish! qtpanel is nice looking, easy to understand and a great project for Qt beginners like me to hack on . I converted it to a Qt Creator project and I'm having great fun playing with it. Are you planning to make more things configurable, ie clock format, panel height etc? Any idea how to make applications only from the current workspace appear in the panel instead of all applications?

Mad Fish · 2011-05-08 21:22:45

cubespace wrote:

I converted it to a Qt Creator project and I'm having great fun playing with it.

You don't need to convert it. Qt Creator works with CMake projects natively. Just open CMakeLists.txt with Qt Creator, specify build directory, and you're good to go.

cubespace wrote:

Are you planning to make more things configurable, ie clock format, panel height etc?

Configurability is already considered a priority task. Right now I'm working on it.

cubespace wrote:

Any idea how to make applications only from the current workspace appear in the panel instead of all applications?

Watch for _NET_WM_DESKTOP property on window. This option is planned for inclusion anyway, I just need to have some configuration framework in place.

P.S. Does anybody know how to get generic property grid like in Qt Designer? Would be cool for configuring applets.

Japanlinux · 2011-05-14 18:03:28

This looks pretty nice. I've always wanted another panel than KDE's, if only because i wanted a choice. Sadly, my desktop is light-colored, so the black stands out. However, I'd love to use this down the road

ctarwater · 2011-05-25 17:43:04

I know customizations are still in development (and it's truly appreciated) but is it possible to move the panel to the bottom? Also, to get the systray working do I need to edit something somewhere? (those are really the only things preventing me from replacing tint2)

Thanks!

Mad Fish · 2011-05-25 17:47:30

ctarwater wrote:

I know customizations are still in development (and it's truly appreciated) but is it possible to move the panel to the bottom? Also, to get the systray working do I need to edit something somewhere? (those are really the only things preventing me from replacing tint2)
Thanks!

Right now my time is very limited, and development stalled a bit (and I'm the only developer, unfortunately), so don't expect a lot of progress with customization soon (unless somebody wants to join, of course). As for now, you can move it to bottom by editing source code. Uncomment line 75 in panelapplication.cpp:

    //panelWindow->setVerticalAnchor(PanelWindow::Max);

and recompile.

System tray should work out of the box, however, it won't start if there is one already. Be sure to shut down your existing tray before starting qtpanel.

Last edited by Mad Fish (2011-05-25 17:48:23)

ctarwater · 2011-05-25 17:56:53

Got it - thanks for the quick reply. I really like QT and have been wanting to learn some coding - I'll poke around a bit and see if I can provide any help at all...

myname · 2011-05-27 15:54:22

I have a feature request I am searching for on severel panels for now (and still don't know if something like this exists):
1. Make it possible to have the output of a program as an element in the panel (e.g. a script that calls fuzzytime every five minutes so one could use that as main clock)
2. As an addition to the first make something possible like "if script x returns/outputs 1 load picture a, if 2 load picture b ..." that would make one able to make small things like battery or volume notification on his own

xunil9025 · 2011-05-27 19:23:17

This is the best panel if ever seen. I hope it doens't get heavy like other panels, u did very well it looks very nice!

Last edited by xunil9025 (2011-05-27 19:26:35)

xunil9025 · 2011-05-27 20:07:35

karabaja4 wrote:

Here's what it looks like for me (the top panel, not bottom):
1.
http://andromeda.kiwilight.com/~dule/upload/2011-04-27--1303932631_1680x1050_scrot_thumb.png
2.
http://andromeda.kiwilight.com/~dule/upload/2011-04-27--1303932638_1680x1050_scrot_thumb.png
3.
http://andromeda.kiwilight.com/~dule/upload/2011-04-27--1303932649_1680x1050_scrot_thumb.png
4.
http://andromeda.kiwilight.com/~dule/upload/2011-04-27--1303932655_1680x1050_scrot_thumb.png
1 from 3 happen in 3 seconds (1 second for each frame), and 3 becomes 4 when I move the mouse to the menu.
I should mention I'm not using compositing (it's disabled), WM is Openbox.

I like the wallapepr could u share it.
Thank u!

Mad Fish · 2011-05-28 11:57:05

myname wrote:

I have a feature request I am searching for on severel panels for now (and still don't know if something like this exists):
1. Make it possible to have the output of a program as an element in the panel (e.g. a script that calls fuzzytime every five minutes so one could use that as main clock)
2. As an addition to the first make something possible like "if script x returns/outputs 1 load picture a, if 2 load picture b ..." that would make one able to make small things like battery or volume notification on his own

This approach is very limited and will require duplicating of work for every user. It's better to just make a good usable applet once and merge it upstream so that anyone can use it.
I'm pretty much sure that you can achieve what you want with minimal environments like awesome, xmonad, etc. My goal is to have a full-featured and convenient thing right out of the box, and not the thing you have to spend days just to make it do something usable.

myname · 2011-05-28 14:41:57

Mad Fish wrote:

myname wrote:
I have a feature request I am searching for on severel panels for now (and still don't know if something like this exists):
1. Make it possible to have the output of a program as an element in the panel (e.g. a script that calls fuzzytime every five minutes so one could use that as main clock)
2. As an addition to the first make something possible like "if script x returns/outputs 1 load picture a, if 2 load picture b ..." that would make one able to make small things like battery or volume notification on his own
This approach is very limited and will require duplicating of work for every user. It's better to just make a good usable applet once and merge it upstream so that anyone can use it.
I'm pretty much sure that you can achieve what you want with minimal environments like awesome, xmonad, etc. My goal is to have a full-featured and convenient thing right out of the box, and not the thing you have to spend days just to make it do something usable.

well, you are right, but it's work that can be done by more people than writing an applet
maybe you can do this with awesome and other wms, but i don't want a tiling wm (at least not now)
one solution may be an applet that does what i want, but i'll look around, maybe i find something that fits my needs

good luck with your project

Arch Linux

#26 2011-04-27 19:43:16

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#27 2011-04-27 20:22:26

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#28 2011-04-28 00:05:55

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#29 2011-04-30 15:11:30

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#30 2011-05-03 15:23:21

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#31 2011-05-03 18:11:48

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#32 2011-05-03 19:31:56

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#33 2011-05-04 00:28:48

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#34 2011-05-04 00:53:09

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#35 2011-05-04 17:28:49

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#36 2011-05-04 17:48:09

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#37 2011-05-05 15:27:01

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#38 2011-05-05 19:46:48

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#39 2011-05-08 15:28:25

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#40 2011-05-08 20:41:12

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#41 2011-05-08 21:22:45

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#42 2011-05-14 18:03:28

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#43 2011-05-25 17:43:04

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#44 2011-05-25 17:47:30

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#45 2011-05-25 17:56:53

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#46 2011-05-27 15:54:22

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#47 2011-05-27 19:23:17

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#48 2011-05-27 20:07:35

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#49 2011-05-28 11:57:05

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

#50 2011-05-28 14:41:57

Re: qtpanel - a project to create useful and beautiful panel in Qt

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