• ZAP
  • #! Junkie
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  • Registered: 2009-01-31
  • Posts: 292

Topic: Xfce Shell

I had an idea that I thought might interest others who - like me - find Gnome Shell interesting but have decided to use Xfce because it's much more stable and customizable: To what extent can the design principles of Gnome Shell be applied to an Xfce system? Is it possible to create an Xfce Shell?

I have a spare installation of Xfce Statler x64 on my testing partition. I think I'm going to see how far I can get with this idea. I've never really tried to customize Xfce radically before, so I'd appreciate any ideas or suggestions that folks here have about how to achieve the Gnome Shell design principles (not necessarily in an identical implementation) in Xfce.

First thing I'll do is switch to the sid repos and upgrade to Xfce 4.8. Then I'll try to create panels that mimic the general behavior of Gnome Shell. But I don't think that will quite get me to where I want to go, since I won't be able to move windows among workspaces in that panel, etc.

Other things I think Xfce Shell would need:

  • A Gnome Do-like launcher

  • Notifications bottom center

  • Integrated chat (answering in the notifications is probably out of the question, tho)

  • Exposé-like window and workspace views (or at least workspaces) triggered by both the mouse and keyboard

I'd want to try to do all this without adding a bunch of Gnome libraries and bloat, however...

What do folks think of the idea?

EDIT: Oh, and something that I'd really like to have in general in Xfce is a better calendar than Orage (or perhaps just a way to customize it so that it's not so bleeping fugly).

EDIT #2: Looks like you can use Gnome panel applets in Xfce using xfapplet, so perhaps the best way to get a Gnome Shell-like calendar would be to use the Gnome calendar applet, like so:
http://goodies.xfce.org/_detail/project … let-plugin

Last edited by ZAP (2011-04-30 18:11:20)

  • Registered: 2011-02-08
  • Posts: 516

Re: Xfce Shell

I think most of this is doable with either compiz standalone or openbox maybe with a tint2 panel.
Cairo comp-manager has an expose like window picker (not sure about desktop switching, though this can be done easily through the panel.)
Compiz has the desktop switching stuff built in.
Launchy is comparable to gnome-do and much more customizable (also less dependencies, I believe) - though the base install of #! already has similar functionality by pressing alt-F3.

regarding integrated chat, pidgin has some similarities. 

you could also try xfce with compiz, which would give you expose style desktop switching.

  • ZAP
  • #! Junkie
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  • Registered: 2009-01-31
  • Posts: 292

Re: Xfce Shell

bobrossw wrote:

I think most of this is doable with either compiz standalone or openbox maybe with a tint2 panel.
Cairo comp-manager has an expose like window picker (not sure about desktop switching, though this can be done easily through the panel.)
Compiz has the desktop switching stuff built in.
Launchy is comparable to gnome-do and much more customizable (also less dependencies, I believe) - though the base install of #! already has similar functionality by pressing alt-F3.

regarding integrated chat, pidgin has some similarities. 

you could also try xfce with compiz, which would give you expose style desktop switching.

Compiz might actually be the best way to get a lot of the fancier aspects of Gnome Shell, I agree. I didn't want to rush to install Compiz if there might be a lighter-weight way to accomplish the same things, but it was the first thing that I thought of also. I'd probably still want one Xfce panel, though.

  • ZAP
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  • Registered: 2009-01-31
  • Posts: 292

Re: Xfce Shell

So just a report-back...

I upgraded to sid/Xfce 4.8 and installed Compiz and Synapse. I was able to get my desktop to function a lot like Gnome Shell (mostly by using the Scale, Expo, and Grid Compiz plugins), and there's an Adwaita GTK3 theme if I'd wanted to install that. But I still think that the experiment was kind of a bust, because even though I could achieve roughly the same actions and effects, the whole thing felt a bit clunky and distinctly lacking in the one thing that really impresses me about Gnome 3: the sense that it's all one seamless, integrated system.

So I set out to create an Xfce version of Gnome Shell, but to my horror I'd given birth to something more like Xfce Unity!

Last edited by ZAP (2011-05-05 19:57:51)