Awesome. Been using XFCE for ages. It hits just the right spot of modern features and usability without trying to re-invent the desktop paradigm for the Nth time. If you just want "Win98, but in 2022," you've found your desktop environment.<p>WRT this update, the Thunar updates look fantastic. The File Highlight feature looks especially cool. I can imagine using that to highlight really frequently used folders in my home dir ("projects" folder etc) to make them stand out in the file browser. Customizing the toolbar buttons is a welcome feature. I'm also glad to see improvements on the default application feature, which I found difficult to use before.
I've used XFCE (since Mar 9th, 2008 until Apr 7th, 2021) now using "i3-wm v4.21" as my main window manager on all computers. But I still use a lot of XFCE software like Thunar been most notable. Thunar has received much needed love, thank you to all developers making it better. Thunar now has "Split View" (dual pane mode) this is one of the reasons why I used more "PCManFM" or "ranger", but unlike Thunar "PCManFM" never had an option to hide "menu" in GTK only in QT. And now Thunar's menu/toolbar is more customizable. File Highlight is a nice addition, I've been using custom "LS_COLORS" for terminal for a while now. Now all the Thunar needs is embeded file info dialog similar to side pane and maybe ability to have toolbar vertical (on left or right) ;-)<p>EDIT: One of the best choices XFCE team made is to not use/enable CSD [1] by default. This would of killed XFCE project for those of us who love classic XFCE look. Please never force users to use CSD, make it an option(al). Thank you!<p>[1] Window Header Bars - All header bars of Xfce Windows/Dialogs by default will be drawn by the window manager now (Xfwm4). Some dialogs optionally support 'GtkHeaderBar' (CSD) which can be enabled via a xfconf setting.
One of the nice things about XFCE is that its window manager includes a style called “Kokodi” (on CentOS 8 Streaming) which shows the active or focused window with a distinctive blue title bar.<p>I’ve found that many other window managers (including MS Windows), don’t make this visually obvious (i.e., there’s little difference between the focused and non-active windows) which makes it harder to discern which application is currently active while using multiple monitors.
Does anyone know of a good way to disable that braindead window fading "feature" in GTK? If you look at the changelog, the text in the inactive window is barely readable. I have to squint to read it on most monitors.<p>Fading it is also unnecessary in most applications. Gnome apps need to do it because they have no titlebar, but this isn't a problem in most cases, and xfwm can draw titlebars just fine.<p>I know I can manually overload the GTK theme's backdrop properties but I was kind of hoping someone on the Interwebs found a way that doesn't require me to drag .css hacks over umpteen computers.<p>Background: a good chunk of my work involves things like comparing simulation and measurement results among multiple applications/windows. Text in inactive windows being unreadable is a little counterproductive when I try to do that. I begrudgingly put up with the huge widgets but having to squint at screens for eight hours a day is not fun.<p>(FWIW, Adwaita is even worse).
Scanning through the feature list, the more straightforward management of the application/mime type associations is a big win to me.<p>Like probably most people who use XFCE, I appreciate how it focuses on small, incremental quality-of-life improvements instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.
Kudos for the xfce team to keep up the project after all these years. I haven't used desktop Linux in a couple years, but xubuntu and Debian / xfce were always great experiences.<p>I think this project is really underrated, and I think xfce yo and attitudes towards interface are really good. It's also super stable!
I've been using XFCE for many years now (currently though Xubuntu). It stays out of the way. I'm glad to see continued improvements without forcing a complete remake or overhaul for the sake of change.
It is in my favorite Desktop Environment<p>I moved to XFCE when Canonical announced going back to Gnome 3<p>I wish they'd replace the Gnome filepicker too, that is the worst piece of garbage i ever seen, you can't even manually type a path!!
I really enjoy the Linux lightweight desktop environments. Not as whizzy as some of the heavyweight environments, but so much more usable and functional, in my opinion.<p>I am personally a fan of LXDE. It just gets out of my way and lets me do stuff!
Nice, and congrats to the team that have worked on this!<p>I look forward to this rolling on through to debian in the coming weeks and months. HiDPI improvements are welcome, and the other tweaks and updates look good. Xfce has been my daily driver for over ten years now (I think...), and I hope that it's unopinionated, configurable attitude has a lot of life in it yet.
Another venerable resource efficient desktop environment is Trinity <a href="https://www.trinitydesktop.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.trinitydesktop.org/</a> continuation of third KDE version
XFCE was my main desktop for a long time, it's what I'd go back to if Cinnamon ever stopped been the one I use everywhere - Cinnamon in many ways feels like what XFCE would have been if it was started decades later - it also (like XFCE) doesn't screw with the standard desktop UX approach and that's a must for me, 28 years of using basically the same approach makes me feel uncomfortable on anything else.
> Thunar: It is now possible to add a 'file creation date' column<p>Finally! Coming from Windows this is something I've always missed.<p>I know older filesystems didn't support it but EXT4 has been the default for years now.
I've used XFCE seemingly forever, at least 20 years.<p>In recent years I've grown to dislike Thunar and a variety of other things that were mostly GTK issues and some XFCE issues. I was really frustrated with clicking on the system tray and having that click register as a click on the menu that popped up, that just so happened to be 'Quit', and closing the app.<p>Then I upgraded my computer in a huge jump. Sure, games were faster, but I wouldn't enjoy the results of my investment at any given moment. So I switched to KDE for the first time ever, with animations and sexiness everywhere. It's got it's issues, and it's multi-monitor support is really sub-par, but so many things suddenly work better.<p>Best example: The flow of clicking on a ZIP to download and ultimately looking at the extacted output in new folder is suddenly effortless and intuitive.<p>I love the polish of KDE and while I'm tempted to give XFCE another try, the thought of giving up on the effortless sanity of KDE for GTK funk makes me shudder.
Ever since I switched my desktop to Linux, I've been using Cinnamon. I've noticed XFCE, and occasionally used it briefly on some machine, but I've certainly not explored its capabilities (e.g. from the Chicago95 link I gather it can definitely be a "traditional desktop layout" style affair, perhaps with a different launcher.<p>Can someone point out to me, as a Cinnamon user - who remembers the Windows 5 UI fondly -some aspects of XFCE I might find appealing?
Weird that the page neglects to explain what xfce is, even by hyperlink<p>After several clicks:<p><i>Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and low on system resources, while still being visually appealing and user friendly.</i>
I love XFCE but it has some strange bug with custom keybindings that unfortunately spoils the experience for me. I have spent many hours trying to work around it but eventually gave up.
General population needs a "desktop," I get it. But for those comfortable with the CLI, a window manager (e.g., one that <i>does not suck</i> [0]) should be good enough. (Coming from personal experience - used Gnome/KDE/XFCE, enjoyed them all, in the end went back to a blissful world of MWM.)<p>[0] <a href="http://dwm.suckless.org/" rel="nofollow">http://dwm.suckless.org/</a>
> <i>Custom Actions</i><p>> <i>It is now possible to arrange custom actions in cascading submenus. Just enter the same submenu name for a custom action in order to place it into the same menu. If you require multiple menu levels, you can achieve that by using `/` in the path of the 'Submenu' entry.</i><p>In 2012 KDE AppMenu Runner was presented as a "plugin which allows to browse, search and select the menubar of the active application".[0]<p>In 2019 I requested to somehow implement a feature, similar to <i>Blender</i>'s "Menu Search"/"Operator Search"[1], into <i>Olive Video Editor</i>.[2]<p>After resulted0 <i>"Action Search"</i> was implemented into <i>Olive Video Editor</i> (`/`) shortcut, its code was reused for <i>"Action Search"</i> in <i>Scribus</i> (`Ctrl+/`) and then converted into Qt5-plugin.[3,4]<p>Year later, this Qt5-plugin code reused in for implementing global <i>"Action Search"</i> in <i>helloSystem</i> FreeBSD distribution.[5]<p>Then <i>"Search and Run a Command"</i> (`/`) was added into <i>GIMP</i>.[6]<p>Guess, <i>GIMP</i>'s implementation may be used for other GTK-based apps too (especially <i>Inkscape</i>, which still has no such feature).<p>[0] <a href="https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/02/appmenu-runner-the-kde-hud" rel="nofollow">https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/02/appmenu-runner-the-kde-h...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/interface/controls/templates/operator_search.html" rel="nofollow">https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/interface/controls...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://github.com/olive-editor/olive/issues/265" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/olive-editor/olive/issues/265</a><p>[3] <a href="https://github.com/scribusproject/scribus/issues/109" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/scribusproject/scribus/issues/109</a><p>[4] <a href="https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-plugin-actionSearch" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-plugin-actionSearch</a><p>[5] <a href="https://github.com/helloSystem/hello/issues/21" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/helloSystem/hello/issues/21</a><p>[6] <a href="https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/issues/5601" rel="nofollow">https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/-/issues/5601</a>
XFCE should be spending all of its development efforts on supporting Wayland. The project's priorities are clearly not in the right place to ensure the future growth of the project. Market share will continue to decline until wayland support is added, no matter how great any new features are.