SliTaz Desktop

Introduction

The default SliTaz desktop is brought to you by many different components. JWM (Joe's Window Manager) and LXPanel combine to provide a Desktop providing simplicity and functionality.

JWM - Joe's Window Manager

Joe's window manager, written in C is quick, simple, clean, stable and efficient. JWM proposes a taskbar, a menu of icons and a pager for the management of virtual desktops, the taskbar can also act as a dock. In addition it is easily configurable with a single text file that can change the menu, fonts and their sizes and different colors.

Use and configure JWM

The application of Joe's Window Manager is very fast. To view the menu just click somewhere on the desktop. You can resize a window through the edges or corners, minimize or pass a virtual desktop to another via a pager. You also have configurable keyboard shortcuts for faster access to the applications that you use the most. On SliTaz the system configuration file is /etc/jwm/system.jwmrc. Apart from this file, each user can use its own configuration file hidden in ~/.jwmrc. This is a text file using XML syntax, it can edited with a simple text editor - lines beginning with: <!-- are comments that let you understand what each tag does.

To facilitate the customization of the desktop, SliTaz automatically copies at the launch of the first (graphical) session, a system configuration file to the root directory of the user. You can directly modify this file and test without risk. To edit with your favorite text editor:

 $ geany $HOME/.jwmrc &

To retrieve an original configuration file, you can copy the system configuration file and rename it .jwmrc in your home directory:

 $ cp /etc/jwm/system.jwmrc $HOME/.jwmrc

The tag RootMenu corresponds to the menu displayed by clicking on one of the (three) buttons on the mouse. To add a category, you must use the tag: Menu - this contains entries for various programs. Any entry in the JWM menu can fit on one line. Example using the GQview image management application:

<Program icon="gqview.png" label="GQview">gqview</Program>

There are still many opportunities to configure RootMenu according to the mouse buttons, the choice of method to move windows, create groups, etc. The Manual is available online at the official website of the project. To view a list of command-line options, just type jwm -h in a terminal.

Create your own JWM style

Creating your own graphical style with JWM is relatively quick and easy, the tags are clear and the attributes possible are given in the comments. When preparing your work, you can see your amendments by restarting the window manager from the menu or via the jwm -restart command. In the configuration file, style tags start after the <!-- Visual Styles --> comment. To begin, here is a short list of the main style tags with a short description:

The colors can be defined by their name or RGB number, such as #3A4956. To use colors in their gradient mode, you must specify the two colors separated by a colon, example #6C0023:#3E1220. You can change fonts and their sizes by using the Font tag. There are still some small things that you can change to customize your desktop, such as the name of a menu item and its icon. Before restarting JWM with your new configuration file, you can check its syntax by using the command: jwm -p. To explore further, the official handbook describes all the tags, options and valid attributes. You can view it online at the JWM website.

JWM website

LXPanel

LXPanel is part of the LXDE project and follows the Freedesktop standards. Menus are dynamically generated by adding .desktop files to the /usr/share/applications directory.

*.desktop files

A single .desktop file can contain eight lines with respectively:- the name (Name), generic name, comment, the command to execute (Exec), icon, type and Freedesktop categories. Example of a .desktop file:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=XTerm
GenericName=Terminal
Comment=Run commands in a shell
Exec=xterm -bg black -fg white -cr orange -sb -bd violet -rightbar
Icon=xterm.png
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;Terminal;

Note that the icons are located in /usr/share/icons or /usr/share/pixmaps directory. The Categories entry states where the program will sit in the menu.

The system configuration file is located in /etc/lxpanel and can also be stored locally in ~/.config though it is recommended that you configure LXPanel graphically by using the preferences entry in the main menu.

LXPanel configurator

The LXPanel configurator has 3 tabs:-

The official website for the LXDE project and LXPanel can be found here.

Copyright © 2008 SliTaz - GNU General Public License;
Documentation is under GNU Free Documentation License and code is valid xHTML 1.0.