1gdesklets(1) General Commands Manual gdesklets(1)
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6 gDesklets - provides an advanced architecture for desktop applets
7
11 gdesklets open [ display ]
12
16 gDesklets provides an advanced architecture for desktop applets -- tiny
17 displays sitting on your desktop in a symbiotic relationship of eye
18 candy and usefulness.
19 Populate your desktop with status meters, icon bars, weather sensors,
21 news tickers... whatever you can imagine! Virtually anything is possi‐
22 ble and maybe even available some day.
23
27 You can find an entry in the GNOME menu after a successful installa‐
28 tion. This will start the gDesklets Shell where you can install and
29 run desktop applets. When you log out or quit 'gDesklets', the settings
30 will be remembered for the next session.
31
35 The command line tool gdesklets lets you perform all administration
36 tasks from the command line.
37 Display files can be opened using
39 $ gdesklets open <displayfile>
41 If the gdesklets-daemon wasn't running, this will start up the daemon
43 as well. You can only have one daemon per X-display. The daemon can be
44 stopped again by calling
45 $ gdesklets stop
47 Usage of the command line frontend:
50 gdesklets [option] <command> [arguments...]
52 <command>: open <files> (Opens the given display files)
54 start (Runs the gDesklets daemon)
55 stop (Stops the gDesklets daemon)
56 list (Lists open displays)
57 restart (Restarts the gDesklets daemon)
58 profile <profile> (Switches to the given profile)
59 profile (Shows the current and the available
60 profiles)
61 shell (Opens the graphical shell)
62 slay (Kills the daemon -- use in emergency)
63 status (Checks daemon status)
64 about (Prints information about gDesklets)
65 version (Prints gDesklets version)
66 configure (Opens the configuration dialog)
67 help (Displays this text)
68 check (Dependency check for python bindings)
69 [option]: --no-tray-icon (disables the systray icon)
72 If you don't pass a command, the script will fall back to
74 gdesklets start which is the default.
75
79 The shell is a graphical frontend for managing your desklets. You can
80 start it either by selecting it from the GNOME menu (Accessories ->
81 gDesklets), by selecting it from the tray icon popup menu, or by call‐
82 ing:
83 $ gdesklets shell
85 The shell currently lets you create and switch between profiles,
87 install new desklets and search for desklets. New desklets can be
88 installed by dragging links from your web browser or files from the
89 file manager into its window, or by selecting the menu item "File ->
90 Install package...".
91 Displays (as we call the applets) will usually appear in the top left
94 corner of your screen when you first run them. You can move displays
95 around by pressing and holding down the middle mouse button.
96 'gDesklets' will remember the new position of the display for the
97 future.
98
102 If you press the right mouse button over a display, a popup menu will
103 open. It depends on the display what you will see there, but the fol‐
104 lowing items are always available:
105 Configure desklet
107 Opens the configuration dialog for this display. It depends on
109 the display what you can configure.
110 Move desklet
112 Attaches desklet to cursor for moving it around. Click to
114 release it.
115 View Source
117 Lets you view the desklet's source file (.display).
119 Restart desklet
121 Restarts this display. This menu item is mainly for sensor
123 debugging.
124 Remove desklet
126 Removes this display from your desktop.
128 About
130 Lets you view desklet's "About" information, license and readme
132 file.
133
136 The gdesklets-daemon writes a log file. That file can be found in
137 ~/.gdesklets/logs/gdesklets<display>.log where <display> is the name of
138 the X-Display.
139 You can select the item View log in the popup menu of the tray icon to
141 view the log messages.
142
146 In order to run on as many desktops as possible, gDesklets relies on
147 the EWMH specification from freedesktop.org. This specification is
148 respected among many window managers. We currently know of the follow‐
149 ing EWMH compliant window managers:
150 * metacity
152 * xfwm4
154 * openbox
156 * enlightenment (>= 0.16.6)
158 * fvwm (2.5.x, see http://www.fvwm.org/features.php)
160 * sawfish
162 * kwin
164 * evilwm
166 * fluxbox (recent versions)
168 * waimea
170 * ...and certainly some others which we forgot here.
172
175 This is taken seriously. In every release we're addressing these
176 issues. Unfortunately, gDesklets is relying on libraries which contain
177 their own bugs or leaks. In some places it's possible to create a work-
178 around. Sometimes, we
179 have to wait until an issue in bugzilla is fixed. gDesklets itself
181 shouldn't leak. We've checked the relevant C code to make sure of that.
182 At startup the program claims approximately 16 MB of RAM. In the future
184 we're going to decrease that number. Some people in the GNOME and GTK+
185 community are also addressing these problems at a lower level (gtk+ and
186 gnome libraries). gDesklets will automatically benefit from these
187 efforts.
188
192 The site 'http://www.gdesklets.de' is the place where you can get new
193 desklets or upload your own creations for sharing them with other
194 users.
195 Discussion and Help http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gdesklets-
197 list
198 gDesklets Developer's Book (for developing on the gDesklets platform)
200 http://develbook.gdesklets.de
201 A printed reference in German language is available from 'Software &
203 Support Verlag GmbH'. The book 'Exploring Python' covers desklet devel‐
204 opment on 34 pages.
205 You can meet the 'gDesklets' developers and other fans on the IRC chan‐
207 nel #gdesklets on GIMPnet (irc.gimp.org).
208
212 gDesklets was written by
213 * Martin Grimme <martin@pycage.de>.
215 * Christian Meyer <chrisime@gnome.org>.
217 * Jesse Andrews <jdandr2@cs.uky.edu>.
219
221 I'd like to thank all people who supported (and are still supporting)
222 me so well with 'gDesklets'. Please complain if I forgot you... ;)
223 * Christian Meyer -- ideas and sensor programming
225 * Jesse Andrews -- sensor programming
227 * Johannes "Waldgeist" Rebhan -- artwork
229 * Christian Neumair -- installation
231 * Sebastien Bacher -- man page and lots of other stuff
233 * Luke Stroven -- gdesklets.gnomedesktop.org and 'gDesklets' forum
235 * James Henstridge -- excellent GTK bindings for Python
237 * Joe Sapp -- documentation
239 * Bjoern Koch -- additional programming, documentation
241 * Robert Pastierovic -- additional programming, documentation
243 * Lauri Kainulainen -- additional programming, gdesklets website
245
249 If you encounter bugs which are not listed here, please post a bug
250 report at https://launchpad.net/gdesklets/+filebug for gDesklets.
251 Please don't report useless bug reports, like "gDesklets crashes" with‐
252 out checking the log file first, because that doesn't tell us much.
253 Also make sure, that you have all the necessary dependencies installed.
254 If the log says: "ImportError: No module named X" then you clearly
256 don't have the python module "X" installed on your system. We are
257 going to close useless bug reports immediately(!), so please save your
258 time and ours and be smart!
259
263 This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
264 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHAN‐
265 TIBILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the file 'COPYING'
266 for more details.
267 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
269 with this software; if not, write to the
270 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 390, Boston, MA
272 02111-1307 USA
273 This software is provided "as is" and the author is not and cannot be
275 made responsible for any damage resulting from the use of this soft‐
276 ware.
277
280 gdesklets is copyright (c) 2003 - 2007 by
281 * Martin Grimme <martin@pycage.de>,
283 * Christian Meyer <chrisime@gnome.org>,
285 * Jesse Andrews <jdandr2@cs.uky.edu>
287 * Benoît Dejean <tazforever@dlfp.org>
289 glibtop Python wrapper in libdesklets is copyright (c) 2003 - 2005 by
291 * Benoît Dejean <tazforever@dlfp.org>
293 The latest version of gDesklets can be found at
295 http://www.gdesklets.de/ The Desklets bzr repository can be found at
296 https://code.launchpad.net/gdesklets/
297 March 29, 2008 gdesklets(1)