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 about (Prints information about gDesklets)
64 version (Prints gDesklets version)
65 help (Displays this text)
66 check (Dependency check for python bindings)
67 [option]: --no-tray-icon (disables the systray icon)
70 If you don't pass a command, the script will fall back to
72 gdesklets start which is the default.
73
77 The shell is a graphical frontend for managing your desklets. You can
78 start it either by selecting it from the GNOME menu (Accessories ->
79 gDesklets), by selecting it from the tray icon popup menu, or by call‐
80 ing:
81 $ gdesklets shell
83 The shell currently lets you create and switch between profiles,
85 install new desklets and search for desklets. New desklets can be
86 installed by dragging links from your web browser or files from the
87 file manager into its window, or by selecting the menu item "File ->
88 Install package...".
89 Displays (as we call the applets) will usually appear in the top left
92 corner of your screen when you first run them. You can move displays
93 around by pressing and holding down the middle mouse button.
94 'gDesklets' will remember the new position of the display for the
95 future.
96
100 If you press the right mouse button over a display, a popup menu will
101 open. It depends on the display what you will see there, but the fol‐
102 lowing items are always available:
103 Configure display
105 Opens the configuration dialog for this display. It depends on
107 the display what you can configure.
108 Restart display
110 Restarts this display. This menu item is mainly for sensor
112 debugging.
113 Remove display
115 Removes this display from your desktop.
117
120 The gdesklets-daemon writes a log file. That file can be found in
121 ~/.gdesklets/logs/gdesklets<display>.log where <display> is the name of
122 the X-Display.
123 You can select the item View log in the popup menu of the tray icon to
125 view the log messages.
126
130 In order to run on as many desktops as possible, gDesklets relies on
131 the EWMH specification from freedesktop.org. This specification is
132 respected among many window managers. We currently know of the follow‐
133 ing EWMH compliant window managers:
134 * metacity
136 * xfwm4
138 * openbox
140 * enlightenment (>= 0.16.6)
142 * fvwm (2.5.x, see http://www.fvwm.org/features.php)
144 * sawfish
146 * kwin
148 * evilwm
150 * fluxbox (recent versions)
152 * waimea
154 * ...and certainly some others which we forgot here.
156
159 This is taken seriously. In every release we're addressing these
160 issues. Unfortunately, gDesklets is relying on libraries which contain
161 their own bugs or leaks. In some places it's possible to create a work-
162 around. Sometimes, we
163 have to wait until an issue in bugzilla is fixed. gDesklets itself
165 shouldn't leak. We've checked the relevant C code to make sure of that.
166 At startup the program claims approximately 16 MB of RAM. In the future
168 we're going to decrease that number. Some people in the GNOME and GTK+
169 community are also addressing these problems at a lower level (gtk+ and
170 gnome libraries). gDesklets will automatically benefit from these
171 efforts.
172
176 The site 'http://www.gdesklets.de' is the place where you can get new
177 desklets or upload your own creations for sharing them with other
178 users.
179 Discussion and Help http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gdesklets-
181 list
182 gDesklets Developer's Book (for developing on the gDesklets platform)
184 http://develbook.gdesklets.de
185 A printed reference in German language is available from development on
187 34 pages.
188 You can meet the 'gDesklets' developers and other fans on the IRC chan‐
190 nel #gdesklets on GIMPnet (irc.gimp.org).
191
195 gDesklets was written by
196 * Martin Grimme <martin@pycage.de>.
198 * Christian Meyer <chrisime@gnome.org>.
200 * Jesse Andrews <jdandr2@cs.uky.edu>.
202
204 I'd like to thank all people who supported (and are still supporting)
205 me so well with 'gDesklets'. Please complain if I forgot you... ;)
206 * Christian Meyer -- ideas and sensor programming
208 * Jesse Andrews -- sensor programming
210 * Johannes "Waldgeist" Rebhan -- artwork
212 * Christian Neumair -- installation
214 * Sebastien Bacher -- man page and lots of other stuff
216 * Luke Stroven -- gdesklets.gnomedesktop.org and 'gDesklets' forum
218 * James Henstridge -- excellent GTK bindings for Python
220
223 If you encounter bugs which are not listed here, please post a bug
224 report at bugzilla.gnome.org for gDesklets. Please don't report useless
225 bug reports, like "gDesklets crashes" without checking the log file
226 first, because that doesn't tell us much. Also make sure, that you have
227 all the necessary dependencies installed.
228 If the log says: "ImportError: No module named X" then you clearly
230 don't have the python module "X" installed on your system. We are
231 going to close useless bug reports immediately(!), so please save your
232 time and ours and be smart!
233
237 This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
238 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHAN‐
239 TIBILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the file 'COPYING'
240 for more details.
241 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
243 with this software; if not, write to the
244 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 390, Boston, MA
246 02111-1307 USA
247 This software is provided "as is" and the author is not and cannot be
249 made responsible for any damage resulting from the use of this soft‐
250 ware.
251
254 gdesklets is copyright (c) 2003 - 2007 by
255 * Martin Grimme <martin@pycage.de>,
257 * Christian Meyer <chrisime@gnome.org>,
259 * Jesse Andrews <jdandr2@cs.uky.edu>
261 * Benoît Dejean <tazforever@dlfp.org>
263 glibtop Python wrapper in libdesklets is copyright (c) 2003 - 2005 by
265 * Benoît Dejean <tazforever@dlfp.org>
267 The latest version of gDesklets can be found at
269 http://www.gdesklets.de/ The Desklets bzr repository can be found at
270 https://code.launchpad.net/gdesklets/
271 August 16, 2007 gdesklets(1)