Idesk
Idesk is a simple program for adding icons to your X desktop. It can also manage your wallpaper with a built in changer similar to that found in Windows 7.
Installation
Install idesk from the official repositories. Then copy the necessary configuration files to your home directory as shown below:
$ mkdir ~/.idesktop $ cp /usr/share/idesk/dot.ideskrc ~/.ideskrc
optional:
$ cp /usr/share/idesk/default.lnk ~/.idesktop/
(This adds the default icon which just runs Xdialog to display a welcome message. It can be used as a template for other icons.)
Configuration
The idesk package does not come with a man page, but it does come with a readme file: /usr/share/idesk/README
. There is also documentation on SourceForge.net however most of the configuration options should be self-explanatory.
Background options
If you are using another wallpaper setter such as Feh or Nitrogen, Idesk's background settings do not need to be modified.
If you are using Idesk's own background setter, supported wallpaper formats include JPEG, PNG, GIF, and XPM. Using either Background.File
or Background.Source
, specify the path to the image file you wish to use as a wallaper.
Icons
Idesk looks in ~/.idesktop
for files which names end with .lnk
for icons. Each file should define one icon If you attempt to define a second icon it will be silently ignored. Aside from ending with .lnk
, the files' names are not important.
Example for Chromium:
chromium.lnk
table Icon Caption: Chromium ToolTip.Caption: Google's OSS Web Browser Icon: /usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/apps/chromium.png Width: 32 Height: 32 X: 977 Y: 369 Command[0]: chromium end
Width
and Height
should match the actual dimensions of the icon. X
and Y
will be modified by idesk to reflect the icon's actual position.
Idesktool
The idesk-extrasAUR package in the AUR provides a graphical configuration tool for Idesk. It can be started by running the idesktool
command. Users can use Idesktool to create and remove icons, modify settings and restart Idesk.