How to add desklets to MATE desktop on Qiana

[Jerry]

Hi,
I am running the latest Mint desktop- MATE.
I have Googled a bit to try to find how to have appelets and desklets start automatically. For instance, according to cinnamon spices @
"http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/desklets" I am to place desklets in .local/share/cinnamon/desklets. No problem. As there was the existing .local/share folder I had to create folders inside the .local/share for /cinnamon/desklets.

After downloading and extracting the desklet contents to .local/share/cinnamon/desklets and then restarting ( I had to restart as Qianna is missing the simple logout function that existed with Mint 15 that I was using before) the desklets that I was expecting to start up in fact did not start up nor was there even an error message of any kind to indicate that Mint couldn't start-up the desklets I downloaded, extracted/decompresed to said folder structure path.

Please could you tell me how to do this more correctly as most obviously I had done something wrong with the install of desklets. Thanks in advance for your response.

[WinterTroubles]

Hi Jerry

I'm slightly confused, your subject line says cinnamon, but, your opening line says you are running mate?

If you are indeed running cinnamon the I will walk you through the easy way, if, however, you are running mate then cinnamon desklets, I believe, won't work.

[Jerry]

Hi WinterTroubles. Terribly sorry, my bad. Yes, I have MATE running on Linux Mint 17. My bad entirely. The Cinnamon in the subject line I edited out and replaced. Regardless, you mentioned that there isn't a way to add Desklets while running Mint 17 under Mate. Why is that so, if I may ask?

Can a user install gdesklets in the place of cinnamon desklets instead? I also read some of the comments on a gdesklets site here on the Linux Mint website that it might not be for Qianna. And Gnome-look.org is only for the Gnome desktop.

[WinterTroubles]

Of course you may ask..

As you probably know Cinnamon and Mate are different desktop environments, but, the differences are more than just appearance. They are both built on different different bases(gnome 2 for Mate and gnome 3 for cinnamon), with Cinnamon being based upon a newer and more demanding (system wise) base than Mate. That's not to say that Mate is somehow inferior to Cinnamon, it's just different.

There are many ways to customize Mate, and many ways to achieve similar things to those you can achieve with Cinnamon.. You just have to go about them in a different way. Unfortunately, as I use Cinnamon, I can't tell you how to customize Mate as you'd like, however, there are plenty of people here who do use Mate and can tell you how to achieve those things.. In fact there is a whole forum here dedicated to Mate, in the Desktops and Windows manager section.

I hope I managed to explain that in a way that made some kind of sense

WT

[WinterTroubles]

Can a user install gdesklets in the place of cinnamon desklets instead? I also read some of the comments on a gdesklets site here on the Linux Mint website that it might not be for Qianna. And Gnome-look.org is only for the Gnome desktop.

I'm afraid I just don't know the answers to the above, I can give you the link to the Mate website though, http://mate-desktop.org/, and hope that if you don't find your answers on this site you may find them there.

Hopefully now you've corrected the topic title someone more knowledgeable about Mate than me will be able to help

[WinterTroubles]

A little research later and this post looks extremely relevant http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 18#p749294 , it seems that with Mate the term is screenlets, rather than desklets. The post mentions how to install the screenlets accessory,, It's from last year, but, I know of no reason why it wouldn't still be valid.

[Jerry]

thanks WinterTroubles. Your posts were very imformative.

[WinterTroubles]

You're welcome