Ilmu Telekomunikasi    
   
Daftar Isi ☛
(Sebelumnya) X-fast trieXfe (Berikutnya)

Xfce

Xfce
Xfce logo.svg
XFCE-4.10-Desktop.png
Screenshot of Xfce 4.10 with panel, Settings window, default file manager and Xfce theme.
Developer(s)Multiple developers.[1]
Stable release4.10 / April 28, 2012; 10 months ago (2012-04-28)
Development statusActive
Written inC (GTK+ 2)
PlatformUnix-like
TypeDesktop environment
LicenseGNU General Public License, GNU Lesser General Public License and BSD License
Websitewww.xfce.org

Xfce (pronounced as four individual letters)[2] is a free software desktop environment for Unix and Unix-like platforms, such as Linux, Solaris, and BSD. It aims to be fast and lightweight, while still being visually appealing and easy to use. It consists of separately packaged components that together provide the full functionality of the desktop environment, but which can be selected in subsets to create the user's preferred personal working environment.

Contents

Features

Xfce is based on the GTK+ 2 toolkit (the same as GNOME 2.x). It uses the Xfwm window manager, described below. Its configuration is entirely mouse-driven, with the configuration files hidden from the casual user.

It is possible to run Xfce with 40 MB of memory using Alpine Linux.[3] On Ubuntu, tests show that Xfce 4.6 has lower memory usage than GNOME 2.29 and KDE Plasma Desktop 4.4, but higher than LXDE 0.5.[4]

History

Olivier Fourdan started the project in 1996.[5] The name "Xfce" originally stood for "XForms Common Environment", but since that time Xfce has been rewritten twice and no longer uses the XForms toolkit. The name survived, but it is no longer capitalized as "XFCE", but rather as "Xfce". The developers' current stance is that the initialism no longer stands for anything specific. It has been nicknamed "Cholesterol Free Desktop Environment",[6][7] even in some of its man pages.[8]

Early versions

An Xfce 3 Desktop

Xfce began as a simple project created with XForms, meant to be a free Linux clone of CDE. Fourdan released the program, a simple toolbar, to ibiblio (then "SunSITE").[9]

Fourdan continued developing the project, and in 1998, Xfce 2 was released with the first version of Xfce's window manager, Xfwm. He requested to have the project included in Red Hat Linux, but was refused because the project was based on XForms. Red Hat only accepted software that was open source and released under either a GPL compatible or BSD compatible license, but, at the time, XForms was closed source and free only for personal use.[9] For the same reason, Xfce was not in Debian before version 3. Xfce 2 was only distributed in Debian's contrib component.[10]

In March 1999 Fourdan began a complete rewrite of the project based on GTK+, a non-proprietary toolkit whose popularity was increasing. The result was Xfce 3.0, which was licensed under the GNU GPL. Along with being based completely on free software, the project gained GTK+'s drag-and-drop support, native language support, and improved configurability. Xfce was uploaded to SourceForge.net in February 2001, starting with version 3.8.1.[11]

Modern Xfce

A typical Xfce 4.4 desktop. Various Xfwm effects are visible (drop shadows behind windows, alpha-blended windows and panel).

In version 4.0.0, Xfce was upgraded to use the GTK+ 2 libraries. Changes in 4.2.0 included a compositing manager for Xfwm which added built-in support for transparency and drop shadows, as well as a new default SVG icon set.[12] In January 2007, Xfce 4.4.0 was released. This included the Thunar file manager, a replacement for Xffm. Support for desktop icons was added. Also, various improvements were made to the panel to prevent buggy plugins from crashing the whole panel.[13] In February 2009 Xfce 4.6.0 was released. This version had a new configuration backend, a new settings manager and a new sound mixer, as well as several significant improvements to the session manager and the rest of Xfce's core components.[14]

In January 2011, Xfce 4.8.0 was released. This version included changes such as the replacement of ThunarVFS and HAL with GIO, udev, ConsoleKit and PolicyKit, and new utilities for browsing remote network shares using several protocols including SFTP, SMB, and FTP. Window clutter was reduced by merging all file progress dialog boxes into a single dialog. The panel application was also rewritten for better positioning, transparency, item and launcher management. 4.8 also introduced a new menu plugin to view directories. The 4.8 plugin framework remains compatible with 4.6 plugins. The display configuration dialog in 4.8 supports RandR 1.2, detecting screens automatically and allowing users to pick their preferred display resolution, refresh rate and display rotation. Screens can be configured to either work in clone mode or being placed next to each other. Keyboard selection has become easier and more user-friendly. Also, the manual settings editor has been updated to be more functional.[15]

The 4.8 development cycle was the first to use the new release strategy formed after the "Xfce Release and Development Model" developed at the Ubuntu Desktop Summit in May 2009. A new web application was employed to make release management easier, and a dedicated Transifex server was set up for Xfce translators.[16] The project's server and mirroring infrastructure was also upgraded, partly to cope with anticipated demand following the release announcement for 4.8.

Xfce 4.10, released April 28 2012, introduced a vertical display mode for the panel and moved much of the documentation to an online wiki (http://docs.xfce.org). The main focus of this release was on improving the user experience.[17]

Applications

Xfce provides a development framework for applications. Other than Xfce itself, there are third-party programs which use the Xfce libraries, such as Terminal. One of the services provided to applications by the framework is a red banner across the top of the window when the application is running with root privileges warning the user that they could damage system files.

Other Xfce components include:

  • Xfmedia, a xine-based media player for Xfce; unmaintained since November 2006 (version 0.9.2)
  • Xfprint, a print manager
  • Xfburn, a CD/DVD burner

Orage

Starting with version 4.4, Xfcalendar was renamed to Orage and several features were added. Orage has alarms and uses the iCalendar format, making it compatible with many other calendar applications. It also includes a panel clock plugin and an international clock application capable of simultaneously showing clocks from several different time zones.

Parole

Parole is a media player that is based on the GStreamer framework. It is developed by Ali Abdallah and is part of the Xfce Goodies.[18] It originally was only playlist based, but now includes an option to replace the entire playlist when opening a file for playing.[19]

Thunar

Main article: Thunar

Thunar is the default file manager for Xfce, replacing Xffm. It resembles GNOME's Nautilus and is designed for speed and a low memory footprint[20] as well as being highly customizable through plugins. Xfce also has a lightweight archive manager called Xarchiver, but this is not part of the core Xfce 4.4.0.[21] More recently, Squeeze has been started as an archive manager designed to integrate better into the Xfce desktop, though no further updates have been released since 24 February 2008,[22] the development git branch for both squeeze and xarchiver are more up to date and feature rich than the last stable release.

Xfwm

Starting with version 4.2, Xfwm integrates its own compositing manager.[23]

Leafpad

Screenshot of Leafpad

Leafpad, developed by Erik Harrison and Nick Schermer is the default text editor for Xfce in many Linux distributions, including Xubuntu.[24] At one point Xubuntu and some other Xfce-based distributions switched to a fork of Leafpad called Mousepad, developed to provide the printing support which Leafpad lacked,[25] but Leafpad gained printing support in version 0.8.11.[26]

Products and distributions using Xfce

Xfce icons are visible in this photo of a finished Pandora

Xfce is included as one of the graphical user interfaces on the Pandora handheld gaming system.

It is the default desktop in the following Linux distributions:

It is also included as a standard desktop option in many other distributions, including Ubuntu, Fedora, Linux Mint, Debian and Mageia.

See also

Portal iconFree software portal

References

  1. ^ Credits, Xfce, 2012-04-28, http://www.xfce.org/about/credits, retrieved 2012-09-04
  2. ^ Xfce FAQ, http://wiki.xfce.org/faq, retrieved 2007-01-06
  3. ^ Also not a joke: XFCE on 39 MB, Kmandla.wordpress.com, https://kmandla.wordpress.com/2010/12 /02/also-not-a-joke-xfce-on-39mb/, retrieved 2012-09-04
  4. ^ Larabel, Michael (2010-03-08), Power & Memory Usage Of GNOME, KDE, LXDE & Xfce, Phoronix, http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page =article&item=linux_desktop_vital s&num=1, retrieved 2011-07-30
  5. ^ Then, Ewdison (6 February 2009), Xfce creator talks Linux, Moblin, netbooks and open-source, SlashGear, http://www.slashgear.com/xfce-creator -talks-linux-moblin-netbooks-and-open -source-0633329/, retrieved 5 February 2011
  6. ^ Xfce - openSUSE, http://en.opensuse.org/Xfce
  7. ^ xce - What is xfce, http://linux.about.com/cs/linux101/g/ xfce.htm
  8. ^ man - xfce (1) - The Cholesterol Free Desktop Environment, http://www.digipedia.org/man/doc/view /xfce.1/
  9. ^ a b Jacobowitz, Norman (1999-07-01), Interview with Olivier Fourdan, Linux Gazette, http://linuxgazette.net/issue43/jacob owitz.xfce.html, retrieved 2007-01-31
  10. ^ Debian xfce source package 3.4.0.20000513-1 changelog
  11. ^ SourceForge.net Project Page, http://sourceforge.net/projects/xfce/, retrieved 2007-01-31
  12. ^ Xfce 4.2.0 Changelog, http://www.xfce.org/documentation/cha ngelogs/4.2.0, retrieved 2007-01-31
  13. ^ Meurer, Benedikt (2007-01-21), A Visual Tour of Xfce 4.4.0, http://foo-projects.org/~benny/articl es/xfce44-visual-tour.html, retrieved 2007-01-31
  14. ^ Xfce Development Team, Xfce 4.6.0 Changelog, http://www.xfce.org/download/changelo gs/4.6.0/, retrieved 2011-01-16
  15. ^ Xfce Development Team, Xfce 4.6.0 Changelog, http://www.xfce.org/download/changelo gs/4.8.0/, retrieved 2011-01-16[dead link]
  16. ^ The little mouse told me…, Blog.xfce.org, http://blog.xfce.org/category/transif ex/, retrieved 2012-09-04
  17. ^ "Xfce 4.10 released". 
  18. ^ Juste une parole (Xfce Goodies), http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/appl ications/parole
  19. ^ parole - GStreamer based media player, http://git.xfce.org/apps/parole/commi t/?id=61df0aef193f67047bf130e4adb13bf f32eab4d9
  20. ^ ThunarWiki: Thunar in comparison to Nautilus, ROX, Konqueror and Xffm, Thunar.xfce.org, http://thunar.xfce.org/pwiki/articles /memory_usage, retrieved 2012-09-04
  21. ^ 4.4.0 release status so far, http://foo-projects.org/pipermail/xfc e4-dev/2007-January/022198.html
  22. ^ Squeeze - news, http://squeeze.xfce.org/news
  23. ^ "Xfce window manager now includes its own compositing manager". Xfce Blog. Retrieved 20 December 2012. 
  24. ^ http://news.softpedia.com/news/Xubunt u-11-10-Officially-Released-227510.sh tml
  25. ^ Xfce - Mousepad, Xfce Project, http://www.xfce.org/projects/mousepad /, retrieved 2009-02-22
  26. ^ https://github.com/oluc/leafpad/blob/ master/ChangeLog

External links

(Sebelumnya) X-fast trieXfe (Berikutnya)