Hello! In XFCE’s settings panel, I see that I can put both of the above and my complete “Top Bar” on the top or the left side of my screen. I don’t see anywhere to put either the “Top Bar” or just the Task Bar or the App Menu button on the bottom of my screen, or on the right side of my screen, though. Am I missing something, or is this functionality not present?
Using 4.0 on an old Thinkpad, thx! 
Hi Nina!
So, on XFCE you have a panel system. To customize the panel you can either go through “Settings Manager” » Panel. Or righ-click on an empty space on the panel » Panel » Panel Preferences
I’m not sure I understand exactly the configuration you want but you should be able to do it. XFCE is pretty flexible on this. I’ll detail here some of the things you can do.
At the top of the Panel Preferences there is a drop-down menu with the panels. If you only have one you can click on the + icon to add another one.
In this case if I understood correctly you wanted to move just the task bar to the bottom of the screen. On this other panel we’ll add the “notifications area” (XFCE lingo for task bar, I think) by going into the “items” tab on our second panel and ckicking the + button there and adding the “notificaitons area”. If it’s greyed out it’s because only one instance of that can exist so you need to remove it from the other panel.
By un-ticking the “Lock panel” on the “display” tab, some little draggable dots with show up on the left side of the panel. You click these and drag the panel wherever you want.
You can also use this to move the entire default panel to the bottom (like windows).
After you’re done, don’t forget to “lock panel” again so those drag-able dots go away.
Anyways, I hope this helps.
@deeplow Hi, thanks for the thoughtful comments! Yes, I’ve poked around those panels, a lot. And could not figure-out how to get my appmenu button on the bottom of my screen—which I see you did in the last screen. I will go back to try and figure that out, thank you!
And could not figure-out how to get my appmenu button onthe bottom
of my screen—which I see you did in the last screen.
In the panel preferences uncheck the “lock panel” entry. Then with your
mouse grab (aka click and hold) a little to the left of the appmenu
(basically at the left border of your screen). You can now drag the
whole panel to where you want it. When done, go back and lock the panel
again so you don’t move it by accident.
OMG DEEPLOW THAT WAS SO HELPFUL!! I want to do cartwheels, I am SO happy you so thoughtfully spelled-out for me how to do that! I’d had NO idea any of that was an option, nor that I could right-click those objects to edit settings—vs aimlessly navigate menu items in that loooong Settings dropdown. Yes, I am new to Linux—but so are most of the users I am working to support.
Thought: I did poke around the docs to see if I could find anything on this, and I could not. Between this and the Whisker Menu stuff, and the potential to clearly identify everything on the Qubes desktop environment (eg: how most non-tech and non-CLI users will experience Qubes) for people new to Linux… it seems like the docs could use a “Navigating Qubes” or “Desktop Environment” section in the docs, to introduce all of the key widgets and how to customize things? aka, stuff that’s probably too obvious for Linux folks to think anybody else might need help with, hehe. @HackerNCoder am I correct that there is currently no such section to support non-Linux-native folks in orienting us to Linux desktop environments (and maybe also some basic Linux concepts, like what “a distro” is)?
It seems like that would also be a great place to introduce things specific to Qubes that require use of desktop widgets, like “Want to use a USB or Bluetooth device? You need to “attach” it to a Qube, first!” Heck, “Isolation 101” even seems like it could be helpful.
9 posts were split to a new topic: Creation of a “Qubes for Dummies” Guide
