Part 2

A Writer's Desktop - Part 2

In Part 1, I gave an overview of why XFCE is a good fit for my writing desktop. In Part 2, I will show you how to add and modify panels.

Modifying the Panels

If this is a fresh install of your distribution, I recommend you do an “Update” followed by an “Upgrade.” That will ensure you have the latest updates. The easiest way to do that is to open a terminal and type:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

This is a good time to install the XFCE Whisker Menu, if not already available by default. You can install the “xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin” by the command:

$ sudo apt-get install xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin

Reboot for all the updates to be effective.

We will shortly see how to replace the Applications Menu with the Whisker Menu.

A fresh installation of XFCE has two panels by default, Panel 1 on the top and Panel 2 at the bottom. Although XFCE allows you to make several panels, we are content with two. 

First, we will remove the bottom panel, as we will be replacing it later with another on the left hand side.

Making up the Top Panel

Right-click on the top panel, select Panel and then Panel Preferences. This will open up the Panel menu, where you can add or delete panels. Click on the triangle beside Panel 1 (this is the top panel), and you will be able to select Panel 2 (the bottom panel). Click on the adjoining Minus sign and delete Panel 2.

Click on the Items label. It lists all items within the top panel. We will arrange these to our advantage. First, select the Action Buttons and use the Down Arrow to move it to the bottom of the list. As all the functionality provided in the Action Buttons is already available in the Applications Menu, I choose to remove it – click on the Minus button (fourth from top). We do not want the Workspace Switcher button on the top panel, so we remove that as well. Next, we also remove the Applications Menu, and replace it with the Whisker Menu (use the Add button, third from top). The icon on the top panel will change.

Also, add a Separator button and position it just below the Whisker Menu entry in the list. Select the Separator entry and change its properties by selecting the Edit button (fifth from top) – tick on Expand and close.

At this point, you may also add a few useful buttons such as Weather Updates, Audio Mixer (Volume control), Network Monitor and any others you regularly use. Position them on the right hand side, before the Clock. Click on the Close button on the Panel menu. I prefer to display complete date and time information. Therefore, right-click on Clock and choose properties.

This opens the Clock dialog. Keep the Layout as Digital and the Tooltip format as “Tuesday 14 April 2015” and tick on Show frame. Select Custom Format for Clock Options Format and in the dialog box immediately below, enter -

%a %d %b, %I:%M %p

Click on Close in the Clock dialog.

At this stage, your panel will be looking somewhat clunky, but do not worry we will be taking care of that later. Your top panel should effectively look like -

 

Creating a new Side Panel

Right-click on the top panel, select Panel and then Panel Preferences. This will open up the Panel menu, allowing you to add a new panel. Click on the Add button beside Panel 0 (this is the top panel), and a small new Panel 1 will be visible.

Click on the label Display and under General Mode, select Deskbar. This will change the orientation of the new Panel 1 to vertical. Drag it by the handles on the top or the bottom of the Panel to the extreme left side of the desktop. For Measurements enter -

Row Size = 48 pixels

Number of rows = 1

Length = 10%

Add a tick for Automatically increase the length.

Click on the Items label. Click on the Add button (third from top), and add 7 Launcher buttons, 2 Separators and 1 Workspace Switcher button. Arrange these as shown.

Select the topmost Launcher button and click on the Edit button (fifth from the top). Within the resulting Launcher dialog box, click on the Add button. This opens the Add New Item dialog, where you need to search for Browser (type it in), and select your favorite browser from the list. Closing the Add New Item dialog box will add the selected browser label to the Launcher dialog box. Closing the Launcher dialog box will embed the Browser icon to the top of Panel 1.

Similarly embed the following icons to the balance six Launchers on the Panel 1, starting from the top (after the Browser):

Terminal Emulator

File Manager

Text Editor

Calculator

LibreOffice Writer

Oracle VM VirtualBox.

The new side panel, Panel 1 should now look like -

 

Adding More Icons

Some more work is required on the side panel to make it more effective for writers. At present, you can only launch LibreOffice Writer. However, you can have additional icon launchers within the panel without increasing its length. We will hide the additional icons beneath the LibreOffice Writer, but you can do the same with any other icon as well.

Start by right-clicking on the icon LibreOffice Writer and select Properties. This opens the Launcher properties dialog where you can add more application icons with the Add button or remove them with the Minus button.

Add icons for as many more applications as you like. On the left panel on my desktop, I have icons for LibreOffice Calc, LibreOffice Draw, LibreOffice Impress, GnuCash, Gnu Image Manipulation Program and Inkscape – these I use most. You can choose according to your requirements. Click to Close the Launcher dialog after you have finished adding your icons.

As soon as you add application icons below the first icon, you will see a small triangle appear below the LibreOffice Writer icon on the panel. To access the extra icons you just added, click on the triangle. Another panel opens up beside the left panel, showing all the newly added icons. You can add icons to any other application icon on the panel as well. This feature in XFCE provides a very convenient way of having large number of icons in the panel, but without extending the panel length.

In Part 3 of this series, I will show you how to use workspaces and beautify the panels.