The Xfce4 Desktop

The Mouse in Unix uses 3-buttons. The left button is the Select button. Essentialy everything you do is done with the left button. The right button is the Menu button. Holding down the right button over any window or part of a window, or even the desktop background, will give you a context-dependent menu. The Center button is the paste button. If you select a block of text in one place, you can move the cursor to another place, press the center button, and the selected text will be copied into the new location. This is sometimes a DANGEROUS button, because it is very easy to accidentally select and past a large block of text! On some mice, the center button is also a wheel that can be used for scrolling.

Note: Some mice  are two-button mice. You can emulate the third button by holding down both buttons at once. Sometimes tapping the gap between the two buttons also works.

Window focus

In the Window Manager window, click on the Focus tab.

The Windows menu governs the 'focus' of the screen, ie. where the keyboard and mouse take effect. By default, the 'active' window is chosen by clicking on a window. This will also bring that window to the front. However, the extra clicking required with these default settings can get tedious.

The best starting choices are to choose "Focus follows mouse" . The combination of these two settings is usually the most convenient, and certainly the least frustrating for new users.

Turn off annoying window behavior

Choose Window Manager.

Make sure both boxes under Windows snapping are NOT checked. Window snapping is one of those features that seems designed to annoy users. When turned on, moving a window near an edge of the screen causes the window to suddenly take up the full screen.

Also make sure that Wrap workspaces when pointer reaches the screen edge is NOT checked. If turned on, this feature suddenly shifts you to a different workspace if the mouse gets too near the edge of the screen.

Finally, scroll to the bottom of the Advanced tab, and change Double click action to "Nothing" (not shown). This feature will cause a window to maximize when you double click on its header bar. However, in some cases, it will maximize even if you just hold down the mouse as you begin to drag a window.

Create a launcher for the file manager

The control panel at the top of the screen contains a set of icons for launching applications. To add a launcher for the file manager, do the following:

Open the menu for the upper panel by right clicking on the blank area of the panel.

In Panel Preferences, open the Items tab and click on plus (+) to add an item. Choose Add to New Items --> Launcher (do NOT choose Custom Application Launcher).

Select the launcher, and click on the Edit Button .

Now, Open Add New Item and choose Thunar File Manager. Click on +Add, and then Close. The File Manager icon will appear on the upper control panel.

By default, the File Browser displays each file as a large icon, giving no further information. It is much more useful to have detailed information about each file appear.

Open the File Browser by clicking on the File Browser icon.

Next, choose Edit –> Preferences. In the Display tab, under Default View, set View new folders using: Detailed List View.

Choose Nedit as the default text editor

This will be done is two steps. First, we'll create an empty Plain Text File. Then we'll tell the Thunar File Manager to use Nedit as the default application for opening plain text files.

If your File Manager is showing files as Icons, rather than displaying details, change the View widget in the upper right hand corner of the File Manager to View Detailed List.

In the File Manager, choose File --> Create document --> Empty file. A file called new file will appear in the File Manager. To remind us to delete it later, it is a good idea to name this file to 'junk.txt'. The .txt extension will ensure that the File Manager recognizes this as a text file.

Next, select 'junk.txt' file and right click to bring up a menu. Choose Properties. Click on the “Open With” tab and choose Nedit. This will cause plain text files to be opened with Nedit when you double click on them.

Q: What is a Plain Text File?

A: A Plain Text File, or ASCII text file is a file containing simple text, consisting of only letters or numbers. These files don't contain special formatting such as fonts, underlining, pagination, graphics, italics etc. While most application programs such as word processors, spreadsheets, or graphics programs store data in complex binary formats, most scientific programs store data in simple text. One of the consequences is that any text file can be opened for examination or editing by a generic class of programs known as text editors. On Xfce4, gedit is the default text editor. On Windows, Notepad is the default text editor.

Q: Why don't we just use the default editor, gedit?

A: First Nedit is far more powerful than gedit.  Gedit has been dumbed down to the extent that it has almost no functionality. Secondly, gedit is threaded, and when you have several files open at the same time, it is impossible to get them to appear in separate windows. Gedit will force multiple files into tabs within a single window. Nedit lets you view several files in independent windows: a very important capability when working with data.