Wbar: a fancy launchbar (using Imlib2)

Window managers, icon programs, widgets, etc.
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richard.a
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#61 Post by richard.a »

Wolf Pup wrote:Made wbar into a .pet package (overwrites any .wbar in /root , so backup if you dont.)
Needs imlib2-1.4.0 to work.

wbar-1.3.3.pet
md5sum

imlib2-1.4.0.pet
md5sum
Works very nicely, and thank you for the opportunity to try it out.


I've tried it on 2.16ez, 2.16 without ez, and 2.15ce, and 3.00, and it's on the basis of seeing it in operation on those, I make the following observation, nothing to do with your packaging of the product, though, but on the product itself.

I believe it would look and behave appropriately on a system that uses the KDE desktop with "Zoom Icons" enabled (like the Mac taskbar has).

I think it looks out of place when run in conjunction with the Ice-Wm or JWM desktops that puppy uses because it isn't harmonious with their operation.

Richard
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Jaybekay
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#62 Post by Jaybekay »

Wolf Pup wrote:Made wbar into a .pet package (overwrites any .wbar in /root , so backup if you dont.)
Needs imlib2-1.4.0 to work.
Wow! Does wbar ever make a big difference to JWM. Thanks for the .pet packages. It made wbar super easy to get going.

I'm not big on eye candy other than a decent wallpaper and icons. But since I always line up my most used application icons along the top of the screen anyway, wbar is a nice addition. My brother in law loves the dock in OS X, now my little Puppy gets something dock-ish.

Image

wolfwatcher51
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#63 Post by wolfwatcher51 »

Hello Jaybekay, nice job with wbar.

I was wondering if you have tried it with a dark, but not absolute black background? When i tried darker backgrounds than the blue one like yours, I got a black rectangle around wbar. When you first change the background the rectangle looks like a snapshot of the blue background until you reboot.

I have set my codes for wbar to be like those from prit1, earlier in the thread, except I put them in .inixtric (sp?). Thanks, Chris.

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prit1
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#64 Post by prit1 »

@wolfwatcher51: I just replied on your other thread.

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Jaybekay
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#65 Post by Jaybekay »

Hi wolfwatcher
Is this what you are talking about? (picture is worth a thousand words)
Image
Mine does this when I change backgrounds. I just right click around the wbar to turn it off (with the old background) and then left click to turn it on with the new background. It would be nice if it could auto update like conky does

wolfwatcher51
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#66 Post by wolfwatcher51 »

Jaybekay and prit1,

Thanks for the replies.

Prit1, I got your input on my other thread, thanks so much.

Jaybekay, yes that is it.

To all, the information on this and one of my other threads is right on. I do not know why, but when I get the large colored block, light blue in jaybekay's pic, I find that if I just right click on it, it appears to take a new snapshot and looks transparent without doing anything else. I follow the procedure anyway.

What I did see was that with each reboot the colored block comes back and you have to right click each reboot. Then I went into .wbar to change an icon and guess what, wbar seems to have remembered the snapshot, or took a new one, and further reboots did not require the right click.

Maybe there is something in its program that gets it to automatically take a new snapshot on the first reboot after the .wbar file is edited. If the developer of wbar could edit it so that it took a new snapshot with each reboot, then that would be cool. "No job is too difficult for somebody else to do", one of my favorites from previous corporate employment. :lol: :lol:

I hope this helps somebody else and thanks for the help, Chris.

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prit1
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#67 Post by prit1 »

@wolfwatcher51: Which window manager are you using? You can put a sleep before auto-starting the wbar in such a way that wbar loads only after the window manager/wallpaper etc are loaded completely. This way, the first time wbar comes up - will not have any black background. It will appear transparent. Mine works with sleep 3.

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Jaybekay
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#68 Post by Jaybekay »

wolfwatcher51

My screenshot was after changing from a light wallpaper to the blue one. I'm pretty sure I had your problem with the black area too. Have you changed your wallpaper since the problem fixed itself? I think I had the problem disappear, until I changed wallpaper. Then the next reboot it was messed up again.

Eventually, I edited the .xinitrc file so (I think) the background comes up first, then wbar starts. Since the wallpaper is already up, the first "snapshot" is a good one. Here's what I changed to:

Code: Select all

qiv -z /root/Choices/ROX-background.jpg
conky
wbar -jumpf 0 -pos top -nanim 3 -zoomf 1.25 -idist 10 -isize 48 -bpress -balfa 0  &
#exec $CURRENTWM

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Meshica7
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#69 Post by Meshica7 »

In my on going attempt to make my Teen Pup look OS Xish,I have been doing some mods to the Wbar.
I gave the backbar a bit of a perspective tweek ala OS X Leopard and use scalable icons so they won't pixelate too much when they bloat.Let me know what ya think.

Image
Thanx!

[url=http://juanrleon.tripod.com/]Juan[/url]
Teen Pup 2008,Wbar, OSX Icons."Teen Mac Pup"?
TigerPup on usb stick with modded Wbar & Mac4Lin Emerald theme
OS X Tiger on a Power Mac G3
System 7 on a Macintosh Plus (old skool baby!)

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WhoDo
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#70 Post by WhoDo »

Meshica7 wrote:In my on going attempt to make my Teen Pup look OS Xish,I have been doing some mods to the Wbar.
I gave the backbar a bit of a perspective tweek ala OS X Leopard and use scalable icons so they won't pixelate too much when they bloat.Let me know what ya think.
8) Please explain exactly what you did to Wbar to get the backbar in perspective like that. Enquiring minds want to know! :P
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prit1
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#71 Post by prit1 »

Is this gOS with Awn or Puppy with Wbar?
(I was working on the same thing at the same time as Meshica7 was. Great minds think alike ... :). I will let Meshica7 explain.
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trapster
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#72 Post by trapster »

I would think that the "shelf" would have to be included the background with wbar sitting on it.
The partial reflections are a little strange.
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Meshica7
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#73 Post by Meshica7 »

WhoDo wrote: Please explain exactly what you did to Wbar to get the backbar in perspective like that. Enquiring minds want to know! :P
Here's what I did to get that perspective look on my Wbar's backbar.

Go to: usr/share/wbar/wbar.icons

Open the osxbarback.png (yours may be called "barback.png") with Gimp.

Note: Make a copy of this file before you mod it and put it somewhere safe in case something gets screwy.

Once you open the file,choose the Perspective tool (looks like a blue trapezoid) and click on the image. You should now see "handles" at the four corners of the image.Use them to tweek the image until you achieve the desired effect (the image has a checkered grid in the background,use it as a guide). There will be a pop up window showing you numerical values of what you have done.Click the Transform button to apply your changes.Now save the file (it will save to the right folder unless you moved it).Note: At this point a dialog box will appear asking you to Export the file.Just go ahead and click the Export button.Quit Gimp,restart X server,and "Shazam"! Fancy OS X like Wbar!

Note: I have the -balfa value set to 85 in my .xinitrc doc.

Or I can post a copy of the file and you can replace it yourself :) .

prit1: The backbar in your screenshot looks like the backbar that Dreamlinux uses by default in the dock app.I am not sure if it is Wbar or something else.I was thinking about grabing a copy of the backbar png. file from my Dreamlinux CD and giving it a whirl in my Teen Pup.I'll keep you all posted.
BTW: In Dreamlinux,the dock icons are animated to great effect with cool prefs such as Spin,Bounce,Bloat,Glow,and Fade. It is some serious eye candy :D !
Thanx!

[url=http://juanrleon.tripod.com/]Juan[/url]
Teen Pup 2008,Wbar, OSX Icons."Teen Mac Pup"?
TigerPup on usb stick with modded Wbar & Mac4Lin Emerald theme
OS X Tiger on a Power Mac G3
System 7 on a Macintosh Plus (old skool baby!)

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Eyes-Only
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#74 Post by Eyes-Only »

Thanks for explaining that Juan! That was fascinating!

When I stop and ponder about the programming and artistic talent we have around here---and that's just mentioning two of the multitude of qualities/talents found in people at this forum!---it just boggles my mind! :shock: The things we achieve with this little 87meg distro (plus variants) are just truly astounding in scope people. I wonder how many of us here really understand and fully appreciate this?

Well, for me to say more would be akin to me getting onto a soapbox and start yet another great ramble session so I best stop. ;)

Great website by the way Juan. Fellow Native American I see? Only from the other side of the "imaginery border"? LOL! (I'm way up here in the cold northeast. -BRRR!-)

Amicalement!/iHasta la vista me hermano!

Eyes-Only
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prit1
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#75 Post by prit1 »

Yeah my result also achieved exactly as Juan mentioned using the Perspective tool in Gimp. And the icons are reflective icons downloaded from kde-look.org. These icons were already being used in Macpup. :)

Juan - BTW... forgot to mention - Great job. Looking forward to see many more such creations from you. The animations (in Dreamlinux, gOS and the like) are achieved using 3D dock's like Awn, Cairo Dock etc. If you have a 3D enabled graphics card, then you can try downloading wNOP (I dont know if you already did) and the Cairo Dock.

Links to both:
wNOP - http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=163087
Cairo Dock - http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=26488

Infact if you have Xfce (like in wNOP, NOP, Happy etc), you may be able to get more Mac looking themes from http://xfce-look.org.

wolfwatcher51
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#76 Post by wolfwatcher51 »

Hey all,

Sorry for the delay in responding, bad couple of days followed by more of the same.

prit1,
I am using icewm and start wbar from .xintric. I had sleep 3 at the beginning of the line when I was still getting the block. Following your success, I changed it to sleep 6 and it worked just fine. WhoDo had me use sleep 6 to get blinky to behave also. Now both look good. I noticed Meshica7 used 85 for his -balkfa value. Did you use something similar for your setup?

Meshica7,
Could you please post a copy of the file so I can replace it myself? I am using fatfree puppy and I have no experience with GIMP at all. I like your results and doubt I will live long enough to learn enough gimp to duplicate them. I can not even draw stick figures.:) Off Topic, please excuse. Did you ever get your graphical interface from CatDude working? Mine works, but the website where the various screens are hosted just goes into a continious load/reload. I hope you faired better.

WhoDo,
Nice new avatar. Sometimes you just gotta shake things up. Nice work, did you create it?

Thanks all, Chris.

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Meshica7
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#77 Post by Meshica7 »

Wolf..

Sure,I will post it later this eve when I get home.
And no,I did not fair any better with the graphical interface.Sorry!
:cry:
Thanx!

[url=http://juanrleon.tripod.com/]Juan[/url]
Teen Pup 2008,Wbar, OSX Icons."Teen Mac Pup"?
TigerPup on usb stick with modded Wbar & Mac4Lin Emerald theme
OS X Tiger on a Power Mac G3
System 7 on a Macintosh Plus (old skool baby!)

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prit1
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#78 Post by prit1 »

@wolfwatcher51: Am glad it worked for you. I used -balfa 80. You can play around with the values and settle for the one you think looks the best.

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WhoDo
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#79 Post by WhoDo »

wolfwatcher51 wrote:Nice new avatar. Sometimes you just gotta shake things up. Nice work, did you create it?
Nope. Got it online as the result of a ttuuxxx post about cute tux icons.
[i]Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't![/i]
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Meshica7
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#80 Post by Meshica7 »

Here's the OS X Wbar backbar as promised.
Just right click on the image below and "save image as" to your hard drive.Then replace the osxbackbar.png file in /usr/share/wbar/wbar.icons with the new file.
Note:You can download it directly to the wbar.icons folder if you wish and accept the "replace" option when prompted,Just remember to save a copy of the original backbar png somewhere safe in case you don't fancy the new one 8) .
Attachments
osxbarback.png
Wbar OSXBackbar.png (9130 bytes)
(8.92 KiB) Downloaded 2923 times
Thanx!

[url=http://juanrleon.tripod.com/]Juan[/url]
Teen Pup 2008,Wbar, OSX Icons."Teen Mac Pup"?
TigerPup on usb stick with modded Wbar & Mac4Lin Emerald theme
OS X Tiger on a Power Mac G3
System 7 on a Macintosh Plus (old skool baby!)

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