Monday, December 12, 2022

Re: Fedora XFCE Spin Improvements

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------- Original Message -------
On Wednesday, November 23rd, 2022 at 8:14 PM, Kevin Fenzi <kevin@scrye.com> wrote:


> Just my thoughts... would love to hear from more folks on these...
>
> On Sun, Nov 20, 2022 at 10:05:23PM +0000, exDragon945 wrote:
>
> > Description of problem:
> >
> > Default interface needs to be more usable. The following improvements should be made.
> >
> > 1) Change the default menu from Application Menu to the Whisker Menu with name showing. Whisker Menu Icon only is to small to click on.
>
>
> We do ship whisker menu, I don't know that I think it should replace the
> default or not tho. Size might be due to hidpi? what sort of monitor do
> you have?
>

17 inch monitor. Compared to start icon from most OSes, this one is small which is why I recommended having the name next to it. That at least increases its width. Increasing its height would mean you have to increase the height of the application bar and I suspect increasing its width is the better trade off.

Also, I know you ship the Whisker Menu but the default one deployed on onn this XFCE OS install is the Application Menu. I am suggesting this change to improve the new install experience as that is what people with less technical knowledge be using. They will not be adding the Whisker Menu after the fact.


> > 2) Set Whisper menu to open by default on Windows Key. Most people are use to that.
>
>
> Thats also the key for xfdashboard.
>

The windows key "Super L" has no binding at all on Fedora XFCE default setup. I am suggesting you make the Whisker Menu its default setup.


> > 3) Fedora logo for the Whisker menu would probably look nice as a default
>
>
> That runs into problems... remixes or the like would have to change it,
> but it wouldn't be obvious or easy to change.
>

What do you mean by this? I am suggesting that the Fedora XFCE spin be set like this.


> > 4) Screen casting needs to be built in. Perhaps an implementation that can go on the XFCE4 menu as an icon that can be pressed to open a menu option. I am not aware of any casting solution in Linux that works on Fedora.
>
>
> gnome-network-displays works fine in gnome, but I am pretty sure it
> doesn't work in Xfce. It needs wayland and pipewire.
>

I will have to try that on Gnome but I am talking about what to do for the XFCE spin of Fedora. Casting has been around for around a decade and there are still issues with it being broken.


> > 5) There needs to be a way to handle programs freezing up that doesn't lock up the interface. Right now, a program ran in Wine that freezes up will lock up the computer so you can't do anything. Alt+Tab does not work. Alt+Tab needs to work in no matter what program freezes up.
>
>
> Thats... really beyond what Xfce can do I think. That depends on much
> deeper layers.
>

I believe there are linux distros that don't freeze up when wine freezes up. Isn't there something that can be added to the interface of Fedora XFCE such that it will continue to operate during this freezing state? Then it can be used to terminate the process frozen process.



> > 6) Open Directory buttons in browsers need to actually open a directory and not open some search tool.
>
>
> Not sure what you mean on this one, can you elaborate?
>

If you go into Firefox -> Three bar menu -> Help -> More Trouble Shooting information .

Your see a button on the page that says "Open Directory". Pressing this opens the search tool Catfish. It is suppose to open a folder at that location.


> > 7) Folders need to have a built in File search by default. The light weightness of XFCE needs to be maintained in this new file explorer.
>
>
> We have catfish... does that do what you want here?
>

Maybe this is just a matter of getting use to it. I was thinking most people would be familiar with a search bar built into the folder. This is probably the smallest of the items mentioned. I guess I was use to other OSes where you can select the file directory to search in by navigating to that folder and performing a search. It might be best to leave it as it is unless your trying to solve some other problem. I do wonder why the problem in 6) ends up opening Catfish.


> > 8) Consider having default tools installed so people more unfamiliar with Linux have some default they can use and learn things on. For example, have Gimp and Kdenlive installed by default. I don't know if those are the best defaults but that is an idea.
>
>
> The problem is, if we add more things to the default install, the larger
> it gets and the more it has things that many people don't want or use.
>
> gnome-software works fine in Xfce, so you can easily use that to install
> applications after the initial install.
>

Perhaps it needs some system to allow people discover software available and make that a default application. Only reason I knew what to install was because I came over from Mint XFCE.



> > 9) It needs to come with an software manager that can handle the installation and updates of FlatPaks.
>
>
> gnome-software does so.
>

Consider installing it as part of the base OS then. There needs to be something. Gnome-Software doesn't seem to handle showing all the RPM packages like DNFDragora. It would be best if there was one unified updater program that does everything but I don't know of any. Does Gnome-Software even keep transaction history and reversal options likes DNFDragora?


> > 11) Transferring files should not lock up the interface.
>
>
> It shouldn't do that.
>

It doesn't seem to do it when I connect two external hard drives and transfer from one external hard drive to another. It also does not do it when I transfer from a phone to an external hard drive. It does lock up the interface when I connect a phone and transfer from the internal system hard drive to the phone. I wonder if it is related to read/write on the internal hard drive.

> kevin

Ryu

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