Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[sc0ttman]

[loubapache]

Thanks, I'll give Akita a try. Will report back.

[starhawk]

Hey, started a thread elsewhere for this, but asked the way wrong question. That thread will live on for others who need it more.

Is there a way to get Puplite 5 to skin the desktop tray *without* going into ROX Desktop mode?

[technosaurus]

puplite has become akita linux. Scottman has transitioned to using my jwm_tools package (slightly modified) in recent versions, but you can try it out:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=70804
All of the tools write the jwmrc in accordance with this:
http://joewing.net/programs/jwm/config.shtml
(You can add backgrounds manually to the jwmrc)

[starhawk]

Thanks, technosaurus.

I did help some small amount with the testing on Akita beta6

However, Puplite5 runs faster on this particular system than Akita does, which is why I'm wanting to use Puplite. I haven't enabled puppy5 compatibility on my install, either... I hope your tools work with puppy4 stuff...

[technosaurus]

they _should_ ... I tried to make them compatible with all distros (even multiuser) ... even minimized the bashisms for distros that symlink dash or ash as sh instead of bash

just a quick note: it completely replaces the need for fixmenus - just run jwm_menu_create and jwm -restart
(the rest of the tools, like the image viewer and notification etc... are pretty much hacks for a _really_ base system with only jwm - like my 1mb nanosaurOS that runs in ram on an 8mb 486)

[starhawk]

They do not. I'll get you the details later -- I haven't bothered with a savefile on this system yet! (I'll do that once there's something worth saving...)

[starhawk]

...actually, it doesn't really matter (I think). Looks like those tools, good as I'm sure they are, only work on the menus.

My problem is the tray from which the menus appear -- what in Windblows would be the taskbar. Basically: whenever I apply a JWM theme, it applies to everything BUT the "taskbar".

[technosaurus]

sorry I took "skin the desktop" as "set the background"
I started adding tray support, but there is a lot - you can just manually modify/add stuff to /root/.jwmrc-tray

[starhawk]

/etc/xdg/templates/_root_.jwmrc-tray

Also, IIRC from looking at the file, there's no provision for manually applying the theme

Specific theme is JWMSlate from the puppylin.freehostia site.

[technosaurus]

umm no, not for the tray - .jwmrc-tray is a separate file and not an xdg template and it doesn't get modified by fixmenus - it is an include file that _is_ referenced in the jwmrc template... still not sure exactly what you are asking though, but here is a likely scenario

if tray attributes are changed in 2 different include files the latter one takes precedence ... so if your theme-applier-program-thingy-that-remains-nameless modifies include file 2 and those same configs appear in include file 3, then you can change it all you want and nothing will happen unless you remove them from the other include file or swap the order of includes (likely accidently tweaking something else by overriding something else) ... btw this is why all of my tool modify the jwmrc directly ... I have been annoyed with this kind of PITA before - I would love for all of those hodge-podge bolt-ons using separate include files (personal, personal2, theme, ... who knows what else ) to eventually bit-rot.

[starhawk]

I'm using the JWM theme changer in the default JWM config manager built into Puplite 5 (and a lot of other puppies). Forget exact names right now, it's 1am here and I'm about to go to bed.

If I apply a skin/theme/thing-that-changes-what-JWM-looks-like, then the window titlebars and borders change, but the "taskbar" does not change (it should, but it doesn't). It stays the default Puplite look.

I'm trying to apply this --> http://puppylin.freehostia.com/jwmslate.htm

[technosaurus]

should it?
the tray properties:
http://joewing.net/programs/jwm/config.shtml#tray
are separate from the window properties:
http://joewing.net/programs/jwm/config.shtml#window
so it may not mess with the tray at all, you'd have to check the source

If it does you'd have to go through all of the include files to fix it by removing redundant/unwanted options and changing/adding new ones to an appropriat spot (its pretty easy to create a theme in jwm_menu_create ... just modify corresponding values in the /root/.jwm/JWMRC and remove all the unnecessary extra include files ... I may try to make it even easier to theme in the next version though)

[starhawk]

I feel a little frustrated here. If you'd clicked the link in my previous post, you would have noticed that the "taskbar" in the posted screenshot of the applied theme looks noticeably different from what is in Puplite5. So yes, it should change the "taskbar".

I don't see why going through a whole bunch of stuff to make sure a theme did its job should be necessary on the user's end... that should be (with good programming) not an issue.

The issue is that in this case there is something overriding that theme, in one single case. That's what I'm after: what is overriding the theme, and how can I keep it from doing that?

EDIT: for the record, when I apply the DeepThought theme (which is included in Puplite5) it has the same behavior. I think tray theming is all-round broke in Puplite5. That tray is stuck on ClearLooks.

[technosaurus]

you should feel frustrated, all of those programs are built around various puppy-specific and sometimes version specific extras that try and modify xml assuming it is in a specific format not required by xml standards. I have gone through them all and they basically use sed to replace a "known" (actually assumed) line of code in a file that is not standardized to jwm (using one of the <include>-ed files) Few of them _actually_ contain the file in their packages either much less try to generate one if not found. ... thus the reason I started jwm tools -

fortunately it will only be one or two lines of code for me to allow overriding themes and they should be fairly easy to convert since I use variable names similar to the jwm tag