Setting up antiX with IceWM to make it more comfy for ex Windows folks

[Member PPC]

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@BobC – I’m too tired to make the official announcement on my thread: version 095 final is out, with minor changes:
– The option to toggle tiles on and off on the Menu manager window only shows up if the Tilled menu layout is being used (so not to confuse users, that may think clicking it makes the tiles appear in the Categories Menu layout)
– I redid the volume and calendar applets – they pop up a bit higher, always on the bottom right side of the screen (where usually windows notifications show up)
– Now the script “ft10-news.sh” – to read news headlines (initially international news, can be configured to dozens of countries, selecting the right web site from the provided list, via a GUI)
– PT and PT-BR localization are almost 100% done (only the very short message that shows up when you chose to enable/configure Ft10 shows up in English)

If no bugs are found (problems in JWM are known to me- don’t use the “+/-” icon to add/remove toolbar icons; also the “Show desktop” toolbar option does not seem to work in JWM), I’ll bump it to version 1 and ask the dev team to include it in the Repo (making it trivial for any user to install and activate FT10)…

I’m going to relax a bit, now
P.

[Moderator BobC]

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I installed the 9.5 version. It was labeled pt-br, but since the unlabelled one was 9.4, I figured 9.5 would be newer, so I should install it, instead.

No problems installing. I will test this evening.

[Moderator BobC]

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To get this to work on the first try, the download and install instructions need to be different, now. It’s all working here. There are other things I would want personally (as I mentioned in the thread above), but this works for the basic install:

1. Run: Menu>Applications>antiX>antiX-updater
2. Download newest jgmenu (amd64 or i386 version) from: 
   https://gitlab.com/antix-contribs/jgmenu-antix/-/tree/main/deb-package
3. Download newest ft10 from: 
   https://gitlab.com/antix-contribs/ft10-transformation/-/tree/main/packages
4. Install jgmenu (amd64 or i386 version) and ft10: 
   Menu>Terminal
   cd ~/Downloads
   ls -l
   #enter whatever filename you downloaded
   sudo apt install ./jgmenu-antix_4.3.1~contribs1_amd64.deb 
   ls -l
   #enter whatever filename you downloaded
   sudo apt install ./ft10-transformation_0.9.5final-pt-ptbr_all.deb
5. Enable ft10: Menu>Applications>Preferences>Ft10- Enable Ft10 or Toggle Menu templates

Good Job, PPC

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by BobC.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by BobC. Reason: cleaned up to minimize potential problems

[Moderator BobC]

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PPC, One improvement possibility would be to turn off volumeicon in ~/.desktop-session/startup since your tint2 tray already includes a slider to set the volume. One odd thing about the tint2 one is that I found myself trying to figure out how to make the slider go away after setting the volume. I’m not sure the correct answer, nor is it critical, but it seemed odd. Actually, since it uses no memory vs 7 mb for volumeicon, I’m surprised anticapitalista hasn’t decided to use it in the distro by default. Anyway, removing it offsets almost all the memory needed for tint2.

I like your setup best running the icewm desktop with the preferred file manager set to zzzfm instead of roxfiler.

[Member PPC]

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@BobC – thanks for the How-to install and configure FT10, I hope you don’t mind if I use (steal it) 🙂
On the”volume” window- to close it, right click the volume icon or click any other window (if you have desktop icons, I think you can click the desktop too, to close it- I can make it like a regular window (with window decorations) if you think it better, but I like the “applet” style look and feel of the volume and calendar (in yad-calendar, I added a close button).
I’ll probably add the “manage toolbar” script to a right click in the “+/-” icon, so users can manage the toolbar without needing to enter the menu or add it’s .dekstop icon to the toolbar, taking up space.

My original transformation pack did perform all needed changes (it forced min-fluxbox), so I did not have to manually disable volumeicon, or the keyboard thingie on the system tray, or Conky.

I do think that antiX running in zzzfm-icewm, with volumeicon an conky disabled, with the “recycle bin/trash can” and bookmarks to the most used folders (like downloads) is probably one of the best distros for ex Windows 10 users. Add the user’s default web browser corectly configured to have sound (Chrome, Edge, Brave non ESR Firefox), and even a wrapper to run Office on-line (I adapted a .deb package I found on-line so it uses free Office on-line accounts) At first glance, this antiX setup will look and feel a lot like what they are used to- sure “configuring” it- stuff like adding icons to the desktop, menu and toolbar is done differently, but I tried to make managing menu and toolbar entries as easy to use as possible. antiX FT10 is, at least to me, as usable for newbies as say Mint, and all that on about 100mb of idle RAM (with volumeicon and conky disabled)

The only real big to-do I’ll try to implement before version 1 is an option to switch between the default dark toolbar/menu to a light setup- I do have the tint2rc file ready, I just have to adapt it so the “tooltips” are automatically localized (that would not be of any significance for you, as an English speaking user).
There’s also going to have a “show/hide window titles on the toolbar” button- the script is already done!

I also noticed a tiny regression- the calendar no longer loads the yad-calendar.txt events – I like that “hidden” feature, that allows users to see their events in the default calendar- I even considered adding my yad-agenda, but I found it irrelevant, since antiX 21 comes with SeaMonkey suit, that includes s fully fledged Calendar app.

Thanks for the kind words. As always I’m still open to new productive ideas (as long as I can implement them, with my “learn on the fly” bash scripting).

EDIT: probably yad-volume is not used by default because it’s not as powerful as volumeicon- it does just one thing- change the volume, it doesn’t even include a mute button). Also, it can’t run in the system tray- it’s just a “normal hardcoded” icon, that does not change to reflect the volume’s level. All that make yad-volume just a small tool that allows the default volume to be changed and that’s it- but I found it’s enough for my daily needs (and I bet, most user’s too). And also a tip: when you the yad-volume you don’t need to use the on screen slider- you can set the volume with your mouse/trackpad slider button, or the arrow keys (if using the keyboard, ESC exits yad-volume)

EDIT2: I forgot to add the new (experimental) oneliner “show desktop” script (you can edit tint2rc and, in “Button 9” (show desktop), make sure that right click points to this (once again I hope that the forum does not mangle the code)- this works on all 3 window managers, including JWM, and also does not “minimize” the tint2 toolbar nor conky:

for window_id in $(wmctrl -l |sed '/ -1 /d'); do xdotool windowminimize $window_id; done

P.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by PPC.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by PPC.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by PPC.

[Member PPC]

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@Bobc- based on your input, I reworked v, 0.9.6 so all “pseudo system tray” icons so left clicking them toggles the related windows on/off (ex: click the volume icon to change the volume, click the volume icon again to close the volume window- the same for connman, the calendar, lx-taskmanager, etc). Also fixed the regression that disabled using ~/yad-calendar.txt as a source do display events on yad-calendar) (I forgot about the calendar, so the current version is 0.9.6.1). Also right clicking the system resources toggles on/off a reworked yad window that displays info on disk usage.
This newest version is just to fix this details, I did not address any localization problems or included a .desktop file to the ft10-news.sh app (I’m currently under the weather, with a cold)

Based on your input, I’ve been thinking on (way) later adding a new package, something like FT10-pro, that changed system defaults- like default file manager, etc- converting it back to a single way to completely configure the system without any need to perform changes one by one… With some work most of the changes proposed on your OP can be automaticly performed.

P.

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