Enable Multi Display Wallpaper on XFCE (Xubuntu)

Have you ever visited DeviantArt especially in multi display wallpaper section? If yes, you should know what I mean with "Multi Display Wallpaper". It is just like usual wallpaper but designed to be used in multi display. I have written an article about setting up dual monitor on XFCE (Xubuntu), by default XFCE uses single wallpaper for each monitor, so you must set up wallpaper one by one for each monitor. With this trick you can use one wallpaper which automatically stretched to another monitor as the figure below:

As you can see, first screen has a part of the wallpaper and the rest is given to another. OK! Let's get started doing that.

Open XFCE Settings Editor from "Applications Menu > Settings > Settings Editor", on the left pane navigate to "xfce4-desktop" and on the right pane select "backdrop > screen0". Add a new property by clicking the "New" button and fill in the form with the following entries:

• Name: xinerama-stretch
• Type: Boolean
• Value: (check the checkbox)

Click "Save", logout and login back. Now you can configure wallpaper from the main display. If you want to download many multi display wallpapers, please visit DeviantArt.

Regards.

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Install and Configure Slingshot Launcher on Xubuntu (XFCE)

Hello readers! I have written two articles about XFCE on how to configure dual monitor and enable Dropbox "Copy Public Link" on Thunar File Manager. Today I'd like to show you how to install and configure Slingshot Launcher on Xubuntu (XFCE). For your information, Slingshot Launcher is an application launcher created by Elementary OS team that provides full screen and eye catching launcher. Please take a closer look at the below picture.

As an application developed by Elementary OS team, Slingshot Launcher is definitely fast and lightweight. I have tried to install it on my Xubuntu and bingo! Everything goes well.

Install Slingshot Launcher on Xubuntu (XFCE)
Please download the *.deb file of Slingshot Launcher here. Once downloaded, type the following command:

• sudo dpkg -i slingshot-launcher_0.0.1~pre-0~48~natty1_i386.deb
• sudo apt-get -f install

OK! Please try your newly installed Slingshot Launcher by running command "slingshot" on the Terminal.

Configuring Slingshot Launcher
The purpose of this section is to create a shortcut for Slingshot Launcher on XFCE panel. Now, right click on the panel and select "Panel > Add new items ...". On the "Add New Items" windows, add "Launcher" to the panel.

New icon has been added to the panel, now right click on the icon, select "Properties". On "Launcher" properties window click on icon indicates "Add a new empty item" and fill in the from so it looks like the below picture.

Of course, you can choose a custom icon for the launcher. Now when you click on the custom launcher, it should execute Slingshot Launcher and display full screen menu on the screen.

Regards.

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Get Dropbox "Copy Public Link" Works on Thunar File Manager [XFCE]

In my previous post, I shared my experience using XFCE on how to setup dual-monitor. Today, I'd like to share another XFCE trick on how to enable Dropbox "Copy Public Link" on Thunar File Manager. If you have never heard before, Dropbox is online storage service that offers 2GB disk space for free account, while Thunar is default file manager for XFCE desktop, it's like Nautilus in Gnome desktop. Okay, before we jump into the trick, please let me show you what will we do in this post.

Installing requirement
You have to install an application called "xclip" that can be installed by typing the following command:

• sudo apt-get install xclip

Downloading script
Download the script called "dropbox.py" here and place in "/usr/bin". Once downloaded and placed well, please type the following command to make it executable:

• sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/dropbox.py

Setting Up Thunar File Manager
Now, you have to add custom action in Thunar File Manager which will get the public url using dropbox.py and then copy it to the clipboard using xclip:

1. In the Thunar menu, go to Edit/Configure Custom Actions...
2. Press the uppermost button in the left (the + button).
3. In the dialog which appears, fill the following entries:
Name: Copy Dropbox public URL Command: bash -c "dropbox.py puburl %n | xclip -i -selection clipboard"
4. In the Appearance Conditions conditions page, mark every checkbox but the Directories one.
5. Accept, and then close

Now, you can copy Dropbox Public URL from Thunar's context menu as shown in the first picture above.

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How to: Dual Monitor Setup on XFCE (Xubuntu)

Dear readers! Recently, I have switched to XFCE (Xubuntu) because my Unity interface runs very slow on my computer, especially when running Netbeans IDE to do my college assignment. XFCE is a lightweight desktop environment for Linux, compared to Unity, XFCE is more and more faster! So today, I'd like to share my experience using XFCE to you. OK, let's start with dual monitor setup on XFCE (Xubuntu).

I have two monitors: main display on my notebook has 1280x800 pixels resolution, and my second display (LCD monitor) has 1366x768 pixels resolution. We are going to place the second monitor at the right of the main display (as seen at the picature above). OK! Let's do this.

Open the "Settings Editor" by clicking the application menu > Settings > Settings Editor (see the image below).

In the Settings Editor window, select "display > Default > VGA1 (may be differ from yours) > Position" and double click do the "X" item. Please fill in the form to match your screen resolution. In this case, the width of my main display (laptop monitor) is 1280, so I fill "1280" in the value field. Please "Save" and check if everything is done well.

Now, please log out, plug your second monitor to the PC or Laptop, and do login action. If you did it well, you should have second display on the right of your main display.

Enjoy :)

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