Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[rarsa]

I've been playing with IceWM. I had no idea it was so configurable.

Now my puppy looks as attractive as any other big distro with eye candy.

Here is a snapshot of my desktop. I took the ElbergGreen theme as base, I changed the start menu icon from the default to the second option, and I took several Icons from other themes.

I also configured my mrxvt and torsmo to match the general green theme.

The background is one of the standard backgrounds that come with Xfce. (from my Fedora)

I will keep modifying it and replacing this image as I improve it.

So.. here it is (I reduced the resolution so to fit the forum, I use it at 1024x768, this image is 800x600.

[Lobster]

Very nice.

Icewm is very pleasing emotionally. I feel it was best implemented in Pizzapup which booted into IceWm by default . . .

Please implement this tip before doing screenshots and for your satisfaction
----------
in Rox options (you can right-click
a desktop icon and select Rox-Filer, Options)
... click the Pinboard tab
... select Text Style: No Background
... use apply to see the effect
... click the Save button (important for a permenant effect)
-----------
by using outline and black and white
you will be able to use the text on
dark and light backgrounds

[Bruce B]

[Alienx]

very very nice !

please, post the wallpaper to download

[rarsa]

Oh, and talking about eye candy. For the people that still don't know:

Here are some interesting links
- IceWM project home page http://www.icewm.org/
- Themes for many different window managers http://themes.freshmeat.net/
- KDE art (you can use the backgrounds and the icon collections) http://www.kde-look.org
- GNOME art (you can use the backgrounds) http://art.gnome.org/
(Actually if you know how to convert svg to pixmap let me know to be able to use the icons)

And here some tips

Setting a new background
To use a background from one of the collections:
1. Download the background. (I recommend downloading all of your backgrounds to a common folder to make it easy to switch between backgrounds)
2. From the start menu select "Control Panel | Change Desktop Image"
3. Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the background. (If the file selector is already in that folder, sometimes it only shows the current background. Double click the 'path selection' drop down box and you'll be able to see all the images.
4. Select the image and click OK
5. Select how you want to resize the image and click OK

Install a new theme
To install one of the iceWM themes from http://themes.freshmeat.net/:
1. Download the corresponding <theme>.tar.gz file
2. From the start menu select "Utilities | guiTAR archiver"
3. Open the downloaded file
4. Extract the file. It extracts to a new folder.
5. Move the whole folder to the following location:
/root/.icewm/themes
6. Your new theme will appear in the 'Themes' menu of the start menu.

It's that easy.

Replace the default icons
To use the icon collections in iceWM do the following:

1. Set the theme that's closer to what you want
2. Then download the icon collection and extract it somewhere.
3. Rename the icons you want to match the icons you want to replace. (you can rename the .png to .xpm)
For example, if you find a nice folder pixmap size 16x16, you just rename it to folder_16x16.xpm
4. Copy to the following folder (replace <yourtheme> with the name of your theme's folder)

~/.icewm/themes/<yourtheme>/icons

Or if you want to make it the default for all themes, move it to:
~/.icewm/icons

========
I hope you find this usefull. Please let me know if you find a mistake in my instructions or if they are not clear enough. Once it's refined, I will add a wiki page.

Thank you

[Bancobusto]

Very clear and concise instructions rarsa. Good job.

I feel like an idiot asking this, but what would you call that "monitoring" thing that's going on in the background, that shows CPU usage etc.?



If I were to look for one that I could use with fluxbox, what would my stumbling fingers be typing into the search-box on Google?

BTW, you have good taste in colours, at all looks really nice!

[rarsa]

[Bancobusto]

Thanks rarsa (I almost called you arrsa ).

EDIT: Hey, that was painless, and looks pretty nice as well.... Thanks again.

[Flash]

Thanks rarsa, I've added your excellent post to the Beginners sticky index under Window Managers.

[Lobster]

added to wiki - more formatting required?

http://www.goosee.com/puppy/wikka/IcewmTips

meanwhile do we need our own backgrounds - should be done in Puppy
with sodipodi or inkscape

We have some upcoming Puppy graphic requirements for

Puppy Chiwawa
Puppy KDE
Puppy 1.0.5

[Nathan F]

This isn't in puppy but it shows a little more of what can be done using icewm. This is FC4 running Adobe Photoshop with wine. There is a built in run line in the task bar-yuo just type in the application you want and hit enter. I also have added several popup menus down there and increased the size of the cpu and network monitors. I don't even consider this stuff "eye-candy" anymore, as a lot of it really increases my productivity.

Personally, I think icewm gives you almost everything anybody could ever want in a window manager. I'm a strong proponent for making it the default in Puppy. The only problem I see is that there are way too many options for people to find all of them.

http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?t=1545

This is a thread on icecc, with an aside on icewmcp. Both are interesting tools for configuring icewm. Unfortunately, both require python and either pyqt or pygtk. Even with python and pyqt/pygtk, I haven't gotten all of the features of either to work, but I've still had a lot of fun.

Just remember to back up your old config and preferences files before you get into any kind of editing, whether you do it by hand or with one of these tools. It's easy enough to make changes that you don't like and not be able to figure out how to go back. These files are both pretty long.

[Lobster]

Very interesting Nathan.

Photoshop is one of those crucial progs for some people (I decided to learn the Gimp way but Photoshop is more powerful and easier to use - or so I am told). However there is a way of making Gimp look and behave in a similar way to Photoshop.

What is the speed comparison like running PS on Wine?

Can we Puppy this?

[Rich]

I find Gimp does just as well as Photoshop in most areas. Don't use either very much lately, but once you know how to use one then the other is virtually identical.

If anyone's interested, there are some excellent tutorials in the link below. Admittedly they are for PS and not Gimp - and they are all for customising cars, but the techniques can be transferred to any subject you choose.

http://www.digimods.co.uk/tutorials/tutorials.htm

[Guest]

I have tried very hard to get wine running in puppy but no success so far. (This really should be under a seperate thread.) The main problem seems to be that wine and any associated tools want to run as a non-priveledged user, and puppy runs as root. I've tried running wine as spot, and as a new user that I created. However, spot cannot access certain crucial functions of puppy, such as the xserver. Try exiting to a prompt, su spot, and then run xwin. It doesn't work.

I also tried using Crossover Office and can only get a small way into the install, and then only if I start it from the command line.

Supposedly some future version of wine will be able to be used by root. We need either that or a way to give another user some more priveledges. I know it can be done, but I'm not that knowledgeable about it.

The main thing I wanted to show was some of the neat stuff that can be done with the taskbar in icewm. I certainly don't want to hijack this post and get into a deep discussion on getting wine going in puppy. If I ever do get it going I will post a lengthy tutorial and/or make a package.

I also find gimp to be comparable to photoshop for most uses. I also use cinepaint quite a bit, and encourage others to try it. In fact the only reason I started messing with wine at all was just to appease my wife a little. Photoshop has a few minor bugs running under wine but is actually more usable with wine as opposed to crossover office, which is wierd. The speed is near that of running it natively under windows for most tasks.

There is a neat hack of gimp which make it look and behave much more like photoshop titled appropriately "gimpshop". Go here to see it-
http://plasticbugs.com/index.php?p=241
I've considered compiling this for puppy, but I really don't see the point. The main branch of gimp is much more stable and is getting better all the time.

[Nathan F]

That was my post above.