Linux chat about LXDE and Desktops

[lmuserx4849]

I've been trying to understand the state of LXDE.

This is my understanding so far. LXDE is based on GTK2, but has some GTK3. I don't know if active development is using GTK2 or GTK3, or how much is GTK3. But unhappy with GTK3, a fork or separate project was created that was written using QT, LXQT (now LXDE-QT) which will ultimately became LXDE at some unknown future date.

The desktop wiki currently lists them separately.

On a separate note, it looks like Xfce is pretty close to all GTK3.
If, for example, you want to make a change to Xfce window border, would that be in .config/gtk-3.0 file? Are changes like this done manually or via app or gtk editor?

Since Xfce is GTK3 does that mean Cinnamon and MATE apps can run on Xfce or Xfce apps can run on them?

[xenopeek]

There are no such limitations to what program you can run on what desktop environment (DE). You can run Gtk3 programs on a Gtk2 based DE. You can run Gtk2 programs on a Qt based DE. You can run Qt programs on a Gtk3 based DE. And so on and so on. Gtk and Qt are just toolkits to write graphical programs.

LXDE can be built with Gtk3 but I've read that while it mostly works, there are some known issues with gpicview, lxappearance-obconf, lxlauncher and lxpanel.

If you look at their GitHub projects (https://github.com/lxde) it looks like almost all recent activity is on LXQt components. As I understand it, LXQt is still the future replacement of LXDE—it's just not set when that will happen and LXDE will continue to be maintained/developed in the mean time.

[TeaSwigger]

On a separate note, it looks like Xfce is pretty close to all GTK3.
If, for example, you want to make a change to Xfce window border, would that be in .config/gtk-3.0 file? Are changes like this done manually or via app or gtk editor?

By default, xfce uses xfwm4. xfwm4 themes, thus xfce window borders, may be found (in Mint 18 xfce) /usr/share/themes/[name of theme]/xfwm4 (global) or ~/.themes or ~/.local/share/themes (for user only). I don't know where (or if) xfwm4 theme related points are fully documented. The xfwm4 default theme in Mint appears to be of a traditional hand coded config file, themerc, w/graphics assembled from various bitmap image files.

[Hoser Rob]

I've been trying to understand the state of LXDE.... I don't know if active development is using GTK2 or GTK3, or how much is GTK3. ...

I don't think the words "active development" fit very well with LXDE. As far as I can tell their development staff is one guy. And all he really does with LXDE is work on the file manager. The rest of the time he's trying to finish LXQT. But that's been going on for so long that I no longer give a flying frak.

Too bad, because I've had Lubuntu installed and I really like LXDE. But Lubuntu 14.04 was a complete bug fest ... IMO a real stain upon Ubuntu's reputation.

As mentioned, it isn't an issue re GTK 2 or 3 apps. Though if you're running KDE may GTK apps won't look as nice and may be buggy (and vice versa if you use a GTK based DE). If you're installing from the repos or using gdebi the packaging system handles the dependencies.

[lmuserx4849]

But that's been going on for so long that I no longer give a flying frak.

Funny. It can feel like that. I want to do something in the real near future. When I type in the google search box, "is lxde" the first result is "dead". I'm think'n it must be a question on folk's minds.

Configuring these light-weight systems is kind of a culture-shock coming from mainly using kde. Not that they aren't configurable, it's just usually manual, which is okay once you figure how to do it and where the doc resides. I know gconf was available to gnome2, but was replaced in gnome3 with GSettings and dconf. I'm assuming any DE that is based on gnome3 (mate, lxde, xfce?) could use those later tools... which I think just updates the files in .config/gtk-3.0. I'm not aware of any tools in QT like those. It seems you manually edit ini-type or xml files. The things I'm look'n at changing are window border width, margin and scroll-bar width in lxde. Finding how and where has been challenging.

I like the text editor Kate. I suppose if I go with a light DE and install kate I'll get a bunch of kde qt libraries, and then if I install gimp I'll get a bunch of gnome libraries.

[lmuserx4849]

Where do you make lxde/openbox theme changes? I was looking at .config/gtk-2.0 (after I determined it is gnome 2 not 3, I think ), but after a lot of searching and reading it seems the place to change the window properties is not in the DE by maybe the window manager?? At openbox, it says ~/.themes. I'm assuming it's looking for $HOME/.themes/themerc. So I added window.active.title.bg.color: #ff0000 to themerc as a test and I ran openbox --reconfigure. No change. Just to make sure I rebooted. I then copied the system themerc to .themes and modified it, but no change. Anyone else make changes to lxde theme, if so, where?

Update:
The files shown below are in my $HOME directory. These were the resources I've used so far to learn about customizing windows, keys, and actions in LXDE.
I'm not sure how one is suppose to know the names of these files, but once you start configuring, there is a definite pattern. I used grep, find and locate a lot

• Keybindings, application specific windows: .config lxde-rc.xml
• Gnome window components: .gtkrc-2.0.mine
• Theme colors, width: .theme/X/themerc (where X is the same name as the system theme)
• Application settings: .config X.conf (where X is the specific application)
• Startup: .config/lxsession/LXDE/autostart
• Helper commands: openbox --reconfigure, obxprop|grep '^_OB_APP", xwininfo
• https://wiki.gnome.org/Attic/GnomeArt/T ... GtkThemes/
  http://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201107/page08.html