Theming XFCE - Plasma Apps and Transparency (Dolphin Background) etc

I'm still playing with Theming XFCE and using Plasma Apps and Transparent Dolphin Background

I was trying to get a much faster uniformly themed XFCE that gave me most of the things I missed when I made the move back from Plasma.  I've said often that my biggest gripe with Plasma was that it is so much slower across the board than even KDE4, and the difference is ridiculous between Plasma and XFCE.  But I loved some of the little things KDE and Plasma did with theming.

In the screenshot above I have Mint 19.3 XFCE, with VLC themed to match Kcalc and K partitionmanager.

I dislike the current craze of 'flat' themes.  I also don't mind when some programs themes don't actually match each other - even within qt programs, (all Plasma apps use qt widgets).

With that in mind, when I wanted Dolphin File Manager to have a completely translucent view pane, and opaque files and folders, I had to use a different version of the theme I used for VLC and the others, because I changed a setting and forgot what it is !

Ok, after a little thought I have Dolphin themed with the buttons to match the apps above and a 50^ transparency in the panes.

Transparent Dolphin File Manager Background

The next thing is what I want the rest of my XFCE desktop to look like.  I already like the modified Azenis-One theme I am using.  And it gives a nice patterned background to text input fields like this one on LibreOffice.

Included in that is a very distinct 3D curved effect on the buttons which, while it is very different from the KvCurves3D I use in my KDE Apps, follows the general 3D and curved idea.
Here's an example:

my LibreOffice Writer looks like this now, with lots of bumpy bits

I guess I was just so sick of something as customizable as Linux, starting to look the same on every distro.
And, I was missing the little things I had going in Plasma, but lost because I hated being able to take a shower while I waited for it to load or shut down.

Of course, in all this, I still have my video wallpaper happening, but this time I am restricted to using a oval viewport so I can access the icons on the Desktop.

I almost forgot - the Azenis-One theme also has a nice flashy Shutdown Dialog:

Dolphin File Manager scrolls too fast.  This is a bug that has been around for ages.  And I could not find a solution when I was using Plasma.  I searched forums and all I found was bug reports and confirmations that there is still a problem.  And lots of discussions about how the coding is too complex to fix it.  But if you have access to mouse configuration that lets you set the scroll speed, you can do something.  Unfortunately, I don;t seem to have that in XFCE.

Also it may have been fixed already in the latest Dolphin or Plasma, but it was still a problem using Dolphin in XFCE.  However, somewhere along the line I installed a couple of Qt configuration editors.  I accidentally found a fix after installing Qt5 Settings.

So if Dolphin scrolls too quickly.

Open Settings > Qt5 Settings
Open the Interface Tab
Look at the Bottom and change Mouse wheel scroll lines
From 3 To 1

It won;t give 'smooth scrolling', but one line at a time is a huge improvement !!

Mint 19.3 XFCE Current Desktop pics at 22/03/2020

Linux Mint XFCE vs Plasma 5 again

I was switching back and forth between Xfce and Plasma 5 on the M93p today, just out of curiosity to see which one I REALLY like most.  As I probably mentioned many times, the Plasma 5 is left over on my original 500GB drive from the BRIX after I replaced it with an SSD.  Because it had a lot of useful stuff on it, I plugged it into a spare USB 3 port.  It also has KDE 4 .12 on it, and since they both showed up automagically in GRUB I thought I may as well see if they would boot.

So, my preferemces.
For real day to day use, I like KDE 4.12 BEST.  It was the peak of KDE development and does everything more or less perfectly.  Other than the eventual progression path to Wayland, I think that KDE 4.x should have been continued.  Fast to boot, fast to shut down and snappy performance, with features that never made it into Plasma 5.

If it wasn't that I can cook a bacon and egg breakfast while Plasma 5 is booting, and make coffee while I wait for it to shut down, I'd class Plasma 5 as 'almost as good as KDE 4.  It can;t do all the things that KDE 4 can do, but it will be able to do Wayland.

XFCE can't compete with KDE or Plasma for 'Desktop Appeal'.  It does almost nothing in as polished and polite a way.  It is like living aboard a yacht, compared to living in an apartment.  I think that is why I like it though.  It isn;t as cosy and warm feeling.  It is functional in a spartan sort of way.  But if I have to turn the computer on just because I have one thing I forgot to do before I head away for the day - XFCE is what I boot.  I turn on the monitor (a 55 inch screen TV), switch on the wireless keyboard and hit Alt P (turns the m93p lenovo ON), switch on the wireless mouse and take them to my seat. By the time I sit, the screen is on and a print test has been sent to the wireless printer.

It is just that good.  If I know I will not be rebooting the computer during the day I sometimes like the 'plush feeling' of Plasma 5.  Sometimes I'll use it just for the plush feeling and stuff the long boot time.  But the 20 to 30 second boot time of XFCE just feels slick, despite people saying startup time means nothing.

Linux Mint - XFCE Theme Mods updated

I had the chance to do some more work on my window decorations for XFCE today.  In addition to the Wide Borders around the windows and the other things I mentioned yesterday, see the cursor at bottom left below:

I changed the Title bar buttons so that the Maximise / Restore button is small when the window is Maximised, but normal large size when the window is not Maximised.  And I mage it glow when the mouse moves over it.

The whole thing is looking quite nice now, and I like having Squared Buttons.  For some reason it looks better to me than the round ones.

I also added a custom action in Thunar file manager to give me a Right Click menu option to Toggle hidden file visibility.  That saves going to the menu or doing CTRL - h.

Linux Mint XFCE on the Lenovo m93p Tiny - Themes

So the second hand Lenovo Tiny is still chugging along nicely, and so far worth every bit of the $200 it cost me.  It looked like replacing the BRIX would cost me an arm and a leg - if I could get a decent replacement with the specs I like.  This m93p is exactly what I needed for now.

I am not missing KDE / Plasma as much as I thought I might, and I have themed Mint XFCE using a combination of stock or downloaded themes, and my own mods.

My overall theme in Settings > Appearance > Style is called Pop-slim-dark.
My Window Decorations are in Settings > Window Manager > Style and called WM-RAD-OS
My Icon Theme at present in Settings > Appearance > Icons is 'learning-to-fly'

I modified a couple of themes to combine the Wide (grab-able) Borders I like, with the translucent and slightly 3D Titie bar.  Then I modded some buttons from Aeonflux to get some big squared buttons for Minimize-Max/Restore-Close.  Perhaps a bit rough and ready, but it works for me.

The rest of the theme provides a nice translucent panel in the Mint Menu, and with XFCE ticking along nicely, all is good with the world.

Coffee grinder spraying coffee Everywhere?

I've been using a Sunbeam EM0480 Coffee Grinder for many years to grind fresh beans for my various beans.  I also have a hand turned grinder for times when I am away from electricity and want to make an espresso or cappuccino.

The one thing that has annoyed me since the day I got the Sunbeam is how messy it is.  Sure, I could grind into a container rather then directly into the portafilter basket, but I like to measure my dose, and the simplest way to do that is directly.

I have got around the problem sometimes by grinding into a deeper basket, then filling the Breville Duo-Temp Pro basket from that.  I always end up spilling ground coffee.

So I thought abo tit and one business card, a pair of scissors and some electrical insulating tape later, I had a solution.

I cut the business card in half and joined it in a circle the size of the inside of the filter basket using some tape, then covered the card completely with tape.

It fitted snugly into the top of the basket.

I simply slip the guide into the basket before I grind the beans

And after I have weighed my 18 gram dose into it, I bash the crap out of it on the counter to settle the coffee evenly, then when I remove the guide I have a nice flat basket of coffee to tamp.

And much, much less cleaning to do.

I thought I was pretty clever coming up with the idea, but then I saw a picture of someone grinding into a Rancilio Silvia portafilter with a metal one.

A quick look on YouTube shows I could have bought one from China for about $7 including freight

Not a problem.  Mine was about 10 cents and some time.

Mint XFCE 19.3 and Wide Borders - again

Friday 17th January 2020
Another milestone in the transition back from Plasma 5 to something that works much more like a computer Operating System again.

I didn't like the default buttons in the WideBordersBigButtons theme for XFCE.  But there was another theme that was supposed to just add a speecific Tittie Bar and Buttons, that simply would not show as an option in Settings > Window manager.  And even if it had, it would likely have replaced the Wide Borders theme.

So I did some modifications to combine both themes into the 'Clearlooks' theme.  I called the new effort 'Clearlooks-RAD-AR'.

Here is what I ended up with.  The Minimize, Max/Restore and Close buttons glow as the mouse hovers over them.  The Tittle Bar has a nice curved look and is a translucent smoke colour.

I'm fairly happy with it.

First pic shows the nice Wide 'grabable borders for resizing windows..

Pic below shows the Buttons at Right as they usually appear..

And this next pic shows the Max/Restore button when the cursor hovers over it.

The theme modification is not perfect, but for now it serves its porpoise.

My other bit of excitement for the computers is that while the BRIX is still running its 500GB Crucial SSD, I got hold of a brand new Samsung EVO 860 1TB SSD in one of those 'too good to ignore' offers.

It is now installed in the M93p Tiny, and happily chugging along on Linux Mint 19.3 XFCE.

Linux MInt - XFCE - Wide Borders - UPDATE

More about Wide Borders

After discovering the Wide Borders and Big Buttons theme for XFCE, I looked a little further into the whole theme design thing, and discovered that adding a .themes folder in /home/user would let me install a theme without having to mess with root access in /usr/share/themes

I also found that a lot of the standard themes have their borders and buttons defined as .png and .xpm files for each part of the image that makes up a folder.  Sort of like a weird jigsaw puzzle.
So I wondered what would happen if I copied the folders with the png and xpm files into the /xfwm folder of one of the standard themes.
I copied the WideBordersBigButtons theme folder from /usr/share/themes to /home/user/.themes and also copied the Clearlooks theme folder and renamed it to Clearlooks-RAD.  Then I copied the .png and .xpm files into the appropriate places in the /Clearlooks-RAD/xfwm4 folder, opened Settings > Appearance and checked that I had a 'Clearlooks-RAD theme showing.

It worked!  I could swap from the WideBordersBigButtons theme to the Clearlooks-RAD theme, and while it changed the colours etc to those of Clearlooks, it kept the Wide Borders and the Big Buttons in the top right corner.

But there was more.  Out of curiosity I checked some other themes, Like Mint-Y and Mint-Y Dark.  They changed, and for some reason they kept the wide borders and different buttons.
And after several reboots no matter what theme I apply, it has wide borders.
I don;t know how, or why, but the change has persisted even though I only installed one theme (by copying its files to the /usr/share/themes folder) and changed files in one theme in /hom/user/.themes.

OK, I finally worked out why my thick borders became persistent across themes.
Choosing a 'Style' in Settings > Appearance > Style, changes the looks of a particular Window theme.
Choosing a 'Theme' in Settings > Window Manager > Theme  Changes to a particular THEME.

Where I was getting lost is that some Styles or Themes are listed in BOTH Appearance > Style and in Window Manager > Theme.  Which is a little weird.

However choosing WideBordersBigButtons in Settings > Window Manager > Theme  will apply the wide border persistently and let you change 'Styles' in Appearance.

Linux Mint - XFCE - Wide Borders - Resizing Windows

Just a quick UpDate on my move back to XFCE.

XFCE Wide Borders Themes for Resizing Windows

One of the small annoyances about not only XFCE, but some other desktops, particularly in Linux Mint (but defintely NOT limited to Mint)  is that for some reason  the writers of 'Themes' have decided that people no longer want to use the Mouse to resize windows on the desktop.
So rather than clicking a button on a corner of a window holding the left button down and dragging to resize, we are forced to use the 'Right Click somewhere within a third of the distance to a corner, Hold the ALT key, then drag, because the default border on most themes seems to be only about 1 pixel wide.

This is ridiculous on modern higher DPI displays where users find themselves spending half an hour or so trying unsuccessfully to grab a side or corner of a window.

Luckily, there are still a few people in the computing world who have a functioning brain.

One of these people is darktrick who added a handy XFCE theme at  pling .com that provides considerably more than the 1px border common on most themes these days.

This is what that theme adds (my mouse cursor is 'Red' and on the bottom corner where two nice, wide, easy to grab borders meet.

Works well and saves so much time and frustration!

Things I like about XFCE.

As I mentioned previously I have decided to use Linux Mint XFCE as my desktop environment for the second hand Lenovo M93p Tiny computer.  For a long time I have preferred the KDE Desktop, and until the shift from Plasma 4.x to plasma 5.x, KDE was more or less everything one could ask for in a Desktop operating system.

It was Fast.  It seemed infinitely configurable.  It seemed to have a wonderful selection of programs and applets that worked seamlessly with it, some of which felt nicer than those of other environments like Gnome, Cinnamon, Mate etc.

But then came Plasma 5 by KDE.  Having gone through the transition form KDE 3 to KDE 4 I knew that for a while KDE 4 got horribly slow and clunky before it magically got back to its old 'snappy' self.
So I 'knew' Plasma 5 would do the same thing - eventually.

But it didn't!  It was only when I was setting up the M93p Tiny, that GRUB picked up the Plasma 5 entries on my 500GB SATA HDD that had been in the Brix before I bought the SSD, and let me boot into them, that I began to realise just how slow and cumbersome Plasma 15 or 16 or whatever it is now, is.

I had been playing with the idea of Elementary OS when the accidental dual boot thing happened.  I found Elementary to be still so bad that I tried Peppermint Linux out of curiosity.  It was really horrible.  And that was the point where I noticed GRUB had picked up the Plasma entries.  So I booted into one.

First, it took forever to boot.  After it booted, I rebooted, and it was just as bad.  Then I went through the thing where I clicked on something and waited for it to load.  I really had become used to all this simply because I had persisted.  And there was still an entry on the old drive for KDE 4.
I booted into that and it was fast, everythign opened as soon as I clicked it.  WOW!!  This was the KDE I loved.  Back into Plasma 5 and aaarrrggghhh!!!!!

So I sat back and thought about Linux Distros I has played with.  I still use Raspberry Pis for fun, and I like the responsiveness of LXDE.  But I don't like that I can't personalise it.  However I did test out Manjaro Linux on the Pi and it was quite a lot of fun, and it allowed me to set things up my way, a lot more then I could with LXDE.

So maybe an XFCE distro would be good on the M93p Tiny.  I decided to try an old favourite - Mint XFCE.
And I am pleased to say I am very happy with it.  Sure there are things KDE does better.  But many of the things KDE used to do better, are so much slower these days.  It is no good having some fancy compositing tweaks, then sacrificing all your responsiveness for cutesy stuff.

If KDE ever gets Plasma 5 to the sale level of useability as Plasma 4, maybe I will go back.  In the mean time, I am enjoyiing tweaking XFCE.

And all the things like my desktop Video Wallpapers?

Well, they don;t work full screen like they did on Plasma 5.  But they do work nicely in an oval window.   So I can still have a video playing through a port hole on my desktop, and if I want to click on desktop icons I just place them around the port hole.

I'm sure I'll remember the fix to show icons on full screen video.

BIGGEST Waves Ever!!! 4 Days Living At Sea

I found this on YouTube.
Made me a bit homesick for living aboard...

Lenovo M93p Tiny PC

For a lot of my computing life between about 1990 to 2007 I was heavily involved in IBM computers after working for them and with them in the 80s.

My computers here leftover from my businesses are mostly IMB Lenovo, the a small scattering of Compaq and an old Acer 5315 laptop I acquired for one of my yachts.

A few years ago I wanted something affordable with USB 3 ports, so I acquired the Gigabyte Brix, with its quad core Celeron and 4 x USB 3 ports.  For quite a while I've wanted a second small form factor computer to supplement the Brix should anything happen to it.  I looked at the various Intel NUC boxes, but they were all pretty pricey.

This year, while my son was visiting he saw some Lenovo M93p Tiny computers advertised on eBay for a little under $200 including post.  They are all about 4 years old and ex-lease.  We ordered one each.

The Lenovo Tiny is a little under 200mm each side and about 40mm thick.  My M93p has an Intel Haswell  i5-4590T  CPU with a clock speed of 2GHz and Turbo of 3GHz.  There was an option of a 4570T, ut despite being consoderably faster at clock and turbo speeds, it is only 2 cores, and it has a considerably slower GPU.

For my use, especially with lots of video and graphics editing, I thought the 4 cores and faster graphics performance was the best decision.

It came with a 128GB SSD installed, and once it arrived I hooked up the original Brix 500GB SATA HDD through a USB port.  While I was messing around deciding which operating system i was going to use, I discovered GRUB had picked up the old operating systems I'd had on the Brix before I bought the 500GB Crucial SSD for it.

So in between tests of a few Linux operating systems, I could boot the old drive and run lots of my old stuff.  I tried Elementary OS HERA (the latest release) and while it is pretty and fast, I soon realised why I stopped using it.  It is simply too inflexible.

I tried a new one called Peppermint.  It was awful.  After checking out those fast operating systems, and in between, booting into my old Kubuntu and Mint systems with Plasma 15 and 16 on them, I realised how much I like the snappy response of some of the light weight desktops.

One that I had not used in a long time, but I had liked a lot in the old days, was XFCE.  I downloaded Mint 19.2 FCE and booted from a live USB 2 thumb drive.  It was great, so I installed it.  I had forgotten how easy it is to configure.  I soon had it set up almost as nice as Plasma, and even had my video desktop wallpaper (all the shell scripts were on my old HDD).

A bonus is that the 4 core i5 4590T processor is quite fast enough for running 2160p (4k) videos in webm format.  It looks incredible on the $500  Big W -  EKO brand UHD TV.

The Lenovo M93p Tiny has a couple of interesting little tricks.  One is that if you set it up properly, one of the USB 3 ports is specially designed to turn the computer ON using the Keyboard.  Leaving the computer plugged in after shutting down, a simple ALT + p  on the keyboard will turn the computer ON for you.  The correct USB 3 port has a tiny emblem of a keyboard next to it. (The middle USB port next to the VGA port).

There is another neat thing available if you are leaving the computer plugged in.  On the front face, one of the USB ports is Yellow instead of the usual Blue for USB 3.

The Yellow port (on the Right) stays LIVE.  You can plug a Phone or other USB powered device, to charge it.

Lots of these very small computers are available at the moment as they come off lease from big corporate environments,

Display is via one VGA port, and two 'Display Port' sockets.  You need to buy a DPI to HDMI adapter cable to use this computer with HDMI, but they are only a few dollars.

The display on a 55 inch UHD TV is fantastic.