# HOWTO: Enlight your desktop with Enlightenment DR16

## latz-twn

HOWTO: Enlight your desktop with Enlightenment DR16

1. Introduction

This Enlightenment HOWTO is my first HOWTO I've ever posted on gentoo forums. I am a big reader of the gentoo forums, and I check them nearly every day. The forum I found most intersting during the past 2 years of using gentoo has always been the Documentation, Tips & Tricks forum. On this occasion I want to thank the gentoo developers for gentoo and to all you guys posting in the forum for giving such a great support. Gentoo is so far the best user supported distribution I have seen and I really happy with that. Well but now let's get started.

I've been using fluxbox until now because I wanted simplicity and the power of customizablity! Well and a few days ago I first tried Enlightenment and I am amazed by it. It's a brilliant Window Manager which combines a few very import aspects : 

felxablity

robustness

simplicity

high configurabilty

graphically rich

So if you like having a nice niffty window manager to work in then try Enlightenment.

Enlightenment has been first released in 1997 by Carsten *Rasterman* Haitzler and it's elease revolutionized the face of desktops on UNIX platforms and beyond, featuring a more graphically stimulating enviroment than ever previously seen on a conventional desktop. Since that time the window manager has been emulated and has driven the graphical appeal we see on desktops everywhere. In 2000, the latest major release occured with the release of DR16.0, a release that remains in heavy usage today. In 2003 Kim "kwo" Woelders took over management of the DR16 codebase and released DR16.6, improving opon the window manager and modernizing its dependencies, and even now the DR16 window manager has a long life ahead of itself, even after the release of DR17.

I based this HOWTO on DR16 because DR17 is still in high development although there are CVS ebuilds available for it already. But as there are still many problems with the ebuilds, and sometimes the CVS Code isn't compiling I decided to use and to write about DR16.

For this HOWTO it is supposed that you have a fully working Xorg installtion on your machine, and use gentoo's Portage.

2. Main Installation

The Installation of Enlightenment is farily easy with gentoo, as we can use the power of emerge.

First of all let's compile & install Enlightenment WM first.

```

emerge -av enlightenment

```

Another very useful thing to emerge is edox-data, which is basically a startup documentation and more to help you getting started using enlightenment! It explains for instance how to operate with the mouse in enlightenment and what options you have. Enlightenment makes a lot of use of keyboard and mouse combinations! Which are sometimes very powerful to use. So go ahead and 

```

emerge -av edox-data

```

As Enlightenment doesn't use ASCII config files but binary config files instead. The config files are enlightenment Data Base files which can be read and manipulated with a toolkit package called edb I strongly suggest you to get this as well.

```

emerge -av edb

```

That's everything for the main installtion, you can now go ahead and restart your Xorg and load Enlightenment by either doing starte16 or selecting the Enlightenment Session in your Graphical Login Manager.

3. First start

When you first fire up Enlightenment it creates your User Menu automatically, which you can always regenerate again! During this generation Enlightenment looks for all available and known X11, Kde, Gnome, Other GUI Programs that you have installed and creates entries in your User Menu.Your desktop should look something like this.

Desktop explained

On the top of your screen you have the so called Dragbar. It's main purpose is dragging desktops arround, so if you have desktop 0 and desktop 1 you could drag desktop 0 into desktop 1 when you are on desktop 1. Note: this only works when you have more than 1 desktop!

On the bottom-left you have Pager which shows you your desktops and what's on them!

On the bottom-right you have Iconbox. When you minize a window it's beeing minized into the Iconbox where you will see a little "screenshot" of that program, and they are identified by notify messages when you move over them with your mouse cursor.

Mouse actions

Left Mouse clicking on the desktop background will bring the user Menu with various entries of various programs that you have installed. You can leave this menu opend (leave it "sticky") if you hold Left Mouse Button and releasing it on the title of the menu of a submenu.

Middle Mouse clicking on the desktop background will display Enlightenment's main menu. Here you can access the other menus plus more options like Settings & Configuration. Sticky works the same here just with the middle mouse.

Left Mouse clicking on the desktop background brings up the main configuration menu, where you can set up How windows behave, special Effects, Virtual Desktops, Multiple Desktops, ....

ALT + Left Mouse clicking on a Window will enable you to move the window the same way as if you would do Left Mouse pressing on the title bar.

ALT + Middle Mouse clicking on a Window will enable you to resize the window in the same way you would resize a window using a left mouse click on the leftmost buttom margin.

ALT + Middle Mouse clicking on the desktop background will bring up a title list of active application windows. By using CTRL instead you will get a title list of all active applications on the current desktop. By selecting an application in that list will bring that application to the front.

Wheel-Mouse will scroll through the desktops.

Right Mouse click on a title of a window will give you options such as remembering the current position of an application so the next time you start that application it will appear on the same position.

Keyboard actions

Shift+ALT + (Right arrow or Left arrow) to navigate through your virtual desktops.

CRTL+ALT + (Right arrow or Left arrow) to navigate through your desktops.

CRTL+ALT + K kill current on focus application.

CRTL+ALT + Home shuffle windows on screen to be clean. (funny)

For more information consult the edox which we already installed. It's a very helpful guide if you want to know more, and if you want to do more with your enlightenment. To see the documentation just open up a console and type

```

edox /usr/share/enlightenment/E-docs/

```

4. Changing menus

To change menus in enlightenment there are two ways to do it. The hard way, or the easy-use-a-gui way. The hard way is going into your ~/.enlightenment/ directory and editing the files yourself. But that's really straight forward and easy to do.

Basically  the main Menu is stored in the file file.menu, just open it and then you see the syntax which is pretty easy to understand. Every submenu is stored in a subdirectory holding a index.menu which again holds information about the applications you want to start. Here's my files.menu and one index.menu file for example, I haven't finished my whole menu yet how I want it to be.

file.menu

```

"User Menus"

"aTerm" NULL    exec    "aterm"

"Enlightenment Epplets" NULL    menu    "epplets.menu"

"Network"       NULL    menu    "menus_Network/index.menu"

"KDE"   NULL    menu    "menus_KDE/index.menu"

"GNOME" NULL    menu    "menus_GNOME/index.menu"

"Other" NULL    menu    "menus_Other/index.menu"

"Restart Enlightenment" NULL    exec    "eesh -e 'restart'"

"Log Out"       NULL    exec    "eesh -e 'exit'"

```

menus_Network/index.menu

```

"Network"

"Firefox"       /usr/share/pixmaps/mozicon16.xpm        exec    "firefox"

"Licq"  /usr/kde/3.3/share/icons/default.kde/16x16/apps/licq.png        exec    "licq"

"RealPlayer 10" /home/latz/.enlightenment/icons/realplay.png    exec    "realplay"

"Chat"  NULL    menu    "menus_Internet/chat/index.menu"

"Browsers"      NULL    menu    "menus_Internet/browsers/index.menu"

"FileTransfer"  NULL    menu    "menus_Internet/filetransfer/index.menu"

```

The easy way is using the e16menuedit, which is also available in the gentoo portage. So just go ahead and emerge e16menuedit

```

emerge e16menuedit

```

and start e16menuedit.

5. Changing Keybindings

You can change your keybindings as well, by copying keybinding.cfg to your home .enlightenment/ directory and editing it. This file can be found in /usr/share/enlightenment/config/.

```

cp /usr/share/enlightenment/config/keybindings.cfg ~/.enlightenment/

nano -w ~/.enlightenment/keybindings.cfg

```

There is a gui for changing the keybindings aswell, it's called e16keyedit and is also available in gentoo's portage, so

```

emerge e16keyedit

```

and start e16keyedit.

6. Installing Thmes

You will find a bunch of good themes on http://themes.freshmeat.net/browse/60/ to install them is pretty easy. Just download the file, decompress them and mv them into ~/.enlightenment/themes/. Here an example with aada's Aqua Theme, which is a MacOS X Inspired Theme, Execute as same user as you are using for your enlightenment session. Note: for most themes you don't need to create a new directory, but remember every theme has to be in a seperate subdirectory in .enlightenment/themes/

```

cd 

mkdir .enlightenment/themes/aqua

mv ~/aqua_-DR16.tar .enlightenment/themes/aqua/

cd .enlightenment/themes/aqua/

tar xvf aqua_-DR16.tar

rm aqua_-DR16.tar

```

Now restart Enlightenment and you can select the theme by doing Middle Mouse click on the desktop background.

Here a list of sites where to find E16 Themes (i will add more if I find more) :

http://themes.freshmeat.net/browse/60/

http://jp.bizet.free.fr/themes/e.html    (thx to re-nice)

http://www.themedepot.org/showarea.php4?area=15

7. Final words

I am not going into making enlightenment even nicer, maybe later, but here just a few hints. There are so called epplets, which are little dock apps for enlightenment, there is an ebuild for that as well. Another really nice thing to install is engage, which is a MacOS X like Program bar.

Thanks for reading my HOWTO, I hope it was useful and easy to understand for you.

Cya

----------

## COiN3D

Hi there,

well-written introduction. But there's something I don't like: there are no really good themes. Freshmeat is the only archive which has some e16 themes. But I think all of them suck more or less. The most look like a as when they were 3 years old theme. Aqua is an exception.

Bye,

----------

## latz-twn

Thanks first of all!  :Very Happy: 

With the themes you are actually right, my favourite theme so far is winter. But do you know any other site with a good index of themes for E16? If so I could add it to the HOWTO...

Thanks in advance

----------

## COiN3D

These two themes look quite nice: http://jp.bizet.free.fr/themes/e.html

----------

## latz-twn

thx a lot re-nice, I've added them to the HOWTO!

----------

## steveb

Very nice how to. Thanks for that.

cheers

SteveBLast edited by steveb on Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:01 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## AllTom

 *latz-twn wrote:*   

> It's a brilliant Window Manager which combines a few very import aspects : 
> 
> felxablity
> 
> 

 

Gotta have the felxabilty.  :Wink: 

Very good introduction you have here. I wish I'd known all this when I first tried Enlightenment.  :Smile: 

----------

## latz-twn

 *AllTom wrote:*   

> Very good introduction you have here. I wish I'd known all this when I first tried Enlightenment. 

 

That's exactly why I wrote this, because it is kind of hard to find stuff about enlightenment on the web! The next thing I want to write about is DR17! But only once it has become really useable! Because atm, I have it running, but there are so many things that really annoy me! Just for a little example that you don't have an iconbar! Well I suppose I could use engage to do that! But there are many other things which haven't been implemented yet! So that's probably why I will stick to DR16 for a while now!

Well thx of course for your replies!  :Smile: 

----------

## latz-twn

Who thinks that this how-to can go wiki?

----------

## COiN3D

latz-twn: I have a question. Do you know whether I can change on which mouse button which menu should open? For example, I'd prefer it to open the applications-menu with a right click, like in fluxbox.

Do you know whether this is possible?

----------

## jxn

 *latz-twn wrote:*   

> Who thinks that this how-to can go wiki?

 

I do.  In fact, would it be possible for us to set up An Unofficial Enlightenment User's Manual at wikibooks.org featuring your content as a starting point?  I've always thought the theming guide/etc needed to be documented more comprehensively...and I think wikibooks.org is the place.  I was planning on starting this book up sometime soon -- covering the basics of installation and configuration of both e16 and e17...so whaddya say?

----------

## latz-twn

Hey, jnx I find it actually a brilliant idea and I would love to help writing it! Sorry I was busy the last few days as I played Half Life 2, brilliant Game i am really amazed by it! Really looking forward to the mass of Multiplayer Mods. 

Ehum first of just send me a pm with your Icq and stuff! so we can talk to each other a bit easier! Cyas

----------

## vrln

 *jxn wrote:*   

>  *latz-twn wrote:*   Who thinks that this how-to can go wiki? 
> 
> I do.  In fact, would it be possible for us to set up An Unofficial Enlightenment User's Manual at wikibooks.org featuring your content as a starting point?  I've always thought the theming guide/etc needed to be documented more comprehensively...and I think wikibooks.org is the place.  I was planning on starting this book up sometime soon -- covering the basics of installation and configuration of both e16 and e17...so whaddya say?

 

What's the point in re-inventing the wheel? (regarding E17 installation and configuration, not E16). We already have a 30 page guide translated into 8 languages, and can easily add/rewrite anything that's missing/lacking something (feedback is welcome - I'm not aware of anything missing right now though). I also think everything in one central location would be better. 

If your referring to the E17 theming guide that used to be on get-e a while, it was nowhere even near complete, which is why we took it down. If you want to write one for us (the problem is that not many people know Edje well enough to write it, I sure don't), that would be great, as the current author doesn't have much time for it. We are always looking for new staff who have something important to contribute to the project.

----------

## Sheepdogj15

hey sweet. it seems to work so far. Elightenment is a bit confused which monitor is my main one (i have multiple monitors)... [edit to add] Nope, it's just me who is confused  :Laughing:  [end edit]... and i have to get my mouse buttons back the way i want them, but otherwise i like what i see so far. 

so much to monkey with, so little time!

----------

## NightTwix

thanks for your article!

i just installed e16 and your tips was exactly what i was looking for.

I especially missed the window resizing feature. I used this heavily under xfce

oh, and of course engage looks nice but need lots of ~  :Surprised: 

EDIT:

btw

i'm not able to start engage -> https://forums.gentoo.org/posting.php?mode=quote&p=2555489&sid=4e0758717e430c6ff12febbbc195fe5b

maybe the actual version in portage (0.0.9.20050220) doesnt work with e16?

----------

## dwblas

This is a bit confusing:

Left Mouse clicking on the desktop background will bring the user Menu

Left Mouse clicking on the desktop background brings up the main configuration menu

One of those is a typo.  Emerging now.

----------

## tecknojunky

 *dwblas wrote:*   

> Left Mouse clicking on the desktop background brings up the main configuration menu

 I don't know exactly what is meant by the "configuration menu" as there is no such thing per say in enlightenment.  It should either be... Right Mouse clicking on the desktop background brings up the settings menu; or... Middle Mouse clicking on the desktop background brings up the main menu

----------

## frozenJim

 *COiN3D wrote:*   

> Do you know whether I can change on which mouse button which menu should open? For example, I'd prefer it to open the applications-menu with a right click, like in fluxbox.

 

What you are describing is part of theming.  If you use the Aqua theme then the mouse-clicks do one thing, if you use the BlueSteel theme they do something entirely different.  With a bit of playing, you can learn to edit your themes to do whatever you like.  Otherwise, just choose a theme that does what you like and you're all set.

 *dwblas wrote:*   

> This is a bit confusing:
> 
> Left Mouse clicking on the desktop background will bring the user Menu
> 
> Left Mouse clicking on the desktop background brings up the main configuration menu
> ...

 

3-button clicks:

Left Click: User Menu

Middle-Click: Super Menu (includes User Menu as first item)

Right-Click: Settings Menu

If ya don't have a 3-button mouse:

CTL-Left-Click: Super Menu (includes User Menu as first item)

But again, once you get going with Enlightenment, you will soon build custom menus anyhow.  Heck, that's the awsome part of Enlightenment - it is entirely up to you to make it into the perfect desktop.

----------

## demon3x

When I use

emerge -av edb

It asks me which one to choose

app-emacs/edb

dev-db/edb

I chose the last one, hope thats right

----------

## dellaxim

 *demon3x wrote:*   

> When I use
> 
> emerge -av edb
> 
> It asks me which one to choose
> ...

 

yep, that is right mate, the other one for text editor emacs.

----------

## bytenirvana

hi,

I followed your guide, restarted, and typed starte16, but enlightenment doesn't find my display. how can I solve this?

----------

## nico_calais

In your .xinitrc, add :

```
exec e16
```

And type :

```
startx
```

----------

## bytenirvana

yes this works. thx

However if I want to start a DE with startkde or starte16 I get the error message $display is not set.

enlightenment is very good. At first I thought it would be to "heavy" for my little Laptop but it works flawlessly.

----------

## dylan_stark

How do enable/turn on this engage/edb?

I'm using e16.

----------

## gcyoung

In the event that this subject is still read --I note the last date is 2006!

I use e16 all the time and wouldn't change, but I do miss a direct command line such as that given in kde by alt+f2. It means I must always open up a terminal if I want a command that is not in one of my menus (which I like to keep small)

Does anyone know of an applet or other way of implementing this ?

----------

## ppurka

 *gcyoung wrote:*   

> In the event that this subject is still read --I note the last date is 2006!
> 
> I use e16 all the time and wouldn't change, but I do miss a direct command line such as that given in kde by alt+f2. It means I must always open up a terminal if I want a command that is not in one of my menus (which I like to keep small)
> 
> Does anyone know of an applet or other way of implementing this ?

 You can always set up something like this:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-762962.html

----------

## BitJam

 *gcyoung wrote:*   

> I use e16 all the time and wouldn't change, but I do miss a direct command line such as that given in kde by alt+f2. It means I must always open up a terminal if I want a command that is not in one of my menus (which I like to keep small)

 

Emerge the epplets package.   This will install a bunch of little epplet commands in /usr/bin.  They all start with "E-".  The one you want is E-Exec.   If you regenerate your menus (Maintenance --> Regenerate Menus) then an "Epplets" menu should be created for you.  You should copy bindings.cfg as suggested in the original post and then add (in the "Aclass KEYBINDINGS global" section) something like:

```
KeyDown  A  F2  exec E-Exec
```

Use "Restart" to put this new binding into effect.  You will have to also remove the existing line that maps Alt-F2 to switching to desktop 1 (the 2nd desktop).  Or you could change your E-Exec launcher to something like Ctrl-F2 instead of Alt-F2.

BTW: I emerged lxtask (a lightweight task manager) and added this line to bindings.cfg:

```
KeyDown   C    Escape exec lxtask
```

so Ctrl-Esc brings up a task manager (a la KDE).

Edit: If you use a theme other than "winter" then you will need to copy over some stuff from the winter theme to the theme you are using for epplets to work.  Copy the epplets directory and then edit fonts.theme.cfg and imageclasses.cfg adding all the epplet lines from the same files from the winter theme.   Before you go to this trouble, first just switch your theme to winter in order to test drive the epplets.  I don't use them because they are miniscule on my high dpi screen.  There's probably a way to enlarge them (probably in the config stuff that got copied over) but I haven't figured it out yet.

----------

## gcyoung

My thanks to BitJam. I had rather given up on the epplets, since being somewhat elderly my eyes are not what they were, and they are all so small I found it almost impossible to read the text on most of them.

I have another problem that I could do with some help on (I haven't found much help for e16 ons the web and it's various forums). I had the program 'basket' set up to autostart on logging in, but as there is no kde4 version and  Gentoo no longer support it, I had to remove it from my system. E16, however still wants to autoload the program when I log in, and I can't find out how to prevent this. I have 'grepped' and 'grepped' all over the place to find out where e16 is told to load the program, but with no success. One would expect it to be under ~/.e16/Start but it isn't. 

Any help on this would be appreciated, since I'm getting tired of having to press F1 to get rid of the error box that comes up every time I log in

----------

## BitJam

In the "Settings"  dialog there is a button on the left called "Remember".  This will get you to a list of programs e16 is remembering.  Each one has a checkbox on the left in a column marked "Delete".  Just check the box for the program you want e16 to forget and then hit "OK".

The ~/.e16/{Start,Stop,Init} directories are for *user* scripts to be run when e16, starts (or restarts), stops, and when it starts up for the first time (Init).   The e16 WM stores its "Remember" information in the file ~/.e16/e_config--0.0.snapshots (the 0.0 refers to the X-Windowse display).  You should probably not edit this file when e16 is running.

You might want to take a look at the eesh program that is part of e16.  It is a command line interface to e16.  The commands "eesh help" "eesh help all" and eesh help full" will tell you all about it.   I also suggest you:

```
$ cd /usr/portage/x11-wm/enlightmentment

$ sudo ebuild unpack enlightenment-1.0.2.ebuild unpack
```

and then as root navigate to:

```
 # cd /var/tmp/portage/x11-wm/enlightenment-1.0.2/work/e16-1.0.2
```

In the sample scripts directory there are some cool scripts showing some of the power of eesh.  In the docs directory is a copy of the e16 documentation in HTML format.  If you've installed edox-data, this is the same information you get from the edox program but with readable fonts.  The bouncingball.pl script requires the usleep program.   My copy of usleep came from the splashutils package but it was buried in the /lib/splash/bin directory.  I copied it from there to /usr/bin.

HTH.

----------

## gcyoung

More thanks due to BitJam. 

Someone should write "The Extended Guide to Enlightenment" ! I'm quite a fan of e16 because of the quality of the qraphics, menus on the mouse, and its simplicity,  (I don't like a cluttered desktop).  But most of the limited available information refers to E17, which is too complex for my tastes.

----------

## BitJam

There is an assortment of documentation over on the EtherDox project.

----------

## Walter Prooff

 *BitJam wrote:*   

> There is an assortment of documentation over on the EtherDox project.

 

Hi there!

I am quite new to E16 which I would like to use as default wm, and I would like to know how to auto-start apps that work in the background (eg. xscreensaver) and cannot be started via their window menu ("Remember" option). Would it be possible to get an example of a startup file and to have a detailed process of the things to do. I have been searching for some time, but there is nothing about this at EtherDox or anywhere else. All the docs are mainly about E17 (which is just as plain as other DE or WM, with nothing special vs E16), so, meanwhile, I am using fluxbox as default wm...

I just found the following somewhere, I don't remember where: ' :Rolling Eyes: '

   * create ~/.e16/ {Start Stop Init} Folders

   * enable user session scripts in e16 menu -> Session settings

   * create a link/script in one of the folders

Thanks  in advance

----------

## BitJam

You got the correct instructions.

I put my start up script(s) under the Init directory.  These get run when e16 starts up.  The scripts under the Start directory get run more frequently.  For example, they run when e16 is "restarted" (via the Restart menu entry).   Scripts that end in .sh are run in the foreground,  in other words e16 waits for them to finish before it continues.  All other scripts are run in the background.   You can take a look at /usr/share/e16/scripts/session.sh which is the script the calls your scripts.

If you try to use the eesh program (which gives you command line access to the e16 IPC) in a script that runs in the foreground then e16 will lockup. I wrote my own logout script that allows you to use eesh inside of scripts that are run in the foreground.  Here is the script in case it is of interest for you.  

```
#!/bin/bash

EXIT_MODE="$1"

dir="$HOME/.e16/Logout"

for f in "$dir"/*

do

   if [ -x "$f" ]; then

      case "$f" in

      *~)   # Assume this is crap - skip

         ;;

      *.sh)   # Scripts are executed in foreground

         "$f"

         ;;

      *)   # Anything else is executed in background

         "$f"  &

         ;;

      esac

   fi

done

case "$EXIT_MODE" in

    shutdown)

        chvt 1

        eesh exit exec /sbin/poweroff

        ;;

    reboot)

        chvt 1

        eesh exit exec /sbin/reboot

        ;;

    *)

        #chvt 2

        eesh exit

        ;;

esac 
```

This script DOES NOT go in the ~/.e16/Stop directory.   Just put it somewhere on your path and call it with menu entries like:

```
" Logout "     NULL exec "e16-logout"

" Reboot "     NULL exec "e16-logout reboot"

" Shutdown "   NULL exec "e16-logout shutdown"

" Never mind"  NULL "nop"
```

Make sure normal users are allowed to use the reboot and poweroff commands.  

I also added the following menu entry:

```
"Edit Init"            NULL exec  "gvim -p $HOME/.e16/[A-Z]*/*"
```

which lets me edit all the scripts with just one click.  I added the Logout directory due to the blocking problem I mentioned above.

----------

## Walter Prooff

Thank you very much BitJam for your lightning-fast answer.

I did not imagine that would be so complex. So I guess some notions about shell scripting are required??? ' :Shocked: '

I'm afraid I don't have any, but I will not give up yet... So I'm going to look further into this...

Thanks again BitJam!

----------

## BitJam

Sorry about that.  It doesn't have to be so complex.  To start xscreensaver all you have to do is:

```
$ mkdir ~/.e16/Init

$ cd ~/.e16/Init

$ $EDIT startup

$ chmod a+x startup
```

Replace $EDIT with the name of the editor you like to use.  Here is what the startup file should look like:

```
#!/bin/bash

xscreensaver &
```

That's it.  You can add other programs you want to start.  Just put the commands in like you would type them on the command line and then put an & at the end of the line.   You can test the script by running it from the command line:

```
$ ~/.e16/Init/startup
```

----------

## Walter Prooff

Woo Hoo!!!

Thanks a lot BitJam, it works like a charm! ' :Very Happy: '

Now I just have to find suitable apps to handle wifi, blutooth, battery and to (un)mount drives - and I will be able to finally use E16 as my default desktop.

Many Thanks again!

----------

## BitJam

What drives do you need to unmount?   I use the pcmanfm file manager as my file manager and to mount/unmount removable usb drives.  I believe the newest version can also be used to mount/umount all partitions.

You can try wicd for wireless.   It is lightweight and easy to use.  It may not work, but if it does, it is a good solution.

----------

## Walter Prooff

Hi BitJam

I intend to use E16 on my netbook - and probably on my oooold desktop pc - so I just need the basics. I know, it would be easier to use Gnome (slow) or lxde or something like Linux Mint Fluxbox CE with everything already set up, but...  :Rolling Eyes: 

For the network,I would like something like the Gnome applet so that I could shutdown wifi or network when necessary with only one click. Same thing for bluetooth.

I also like to have some applet that handles power management (battery and screen), though I don't really need much advanced options as I scarcely use anything else than the standard shutdown dialog in E16.

As for mounting drives --> usb external harddrives, usb keys, external dvd burner, local dvd drive.. . I have tried Thunar daemon (seems to conflicts with E16 epplet (E-Mount something???)) seems to work fine although I have to do some tuning to use other apps than the defaults.

For managing the sound I find E-Mixer epplet a little limited... compared with aumix or any other - but I think I will stick to it.

In fact, I would like to have those apps running from and sit in e16 systray...

Now, I will try wicd...  :Wink: 

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## Walter Prooff

Just tried WICD but no easy mouse-click options to shutdown wifi or network like network-manager-applet in gnome.  :Crying or Very sad: 

I will look for something else.........................

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## BitJam

@Walter,  I just installed wicd.  I had the gtk USE flag enabled and it installed a wicd-gtk client.  I followed the wicd instructions, shut-down all net.* services except net.lo and added them to to RC_PLUG_SERVICES in /etc/conf.d/rc:

```
RC_PLUG_SERVICES="!net.eth0"
```

(I only had net.eth0).

I started up the wicd service:

```
# /etc/init.d/wicd start
```

It gave me an error message the first time I started it so I stopped it and started it again, this time without error.

I then ran the wicd-gtk client (wicd-client seems to do the same thing).  It put an icon in the system tray in my lxpanel.  I suggest using lxpanel (or some other app with a system tray) even if you only use it for the system tray.  I found the e16 tray to be slightly unreliable.  A mouse-hover over the icon lists current connections.   A right-click on the icon gives me a tiny menu that allows me to connect disconnected networks (but not disconnect connected ones).  If I left-click on the icon, a window pops up that lets me disconnect and connect networks and allows me to set preferences.

Connecting or disconnecting a network takes a total of two clicks.   I thought this is what you were looking for.

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## Walter Prooff

Absolutely, but I am afraid I did not look closely enough on that one, so I will be trying again. The icon showed up in e16 systray though. In fact I would like to try to shutdown the wifi device, not only disconnect from wifi, I'm not sure wicd can do it. Will check... :Embarassed: 

I choose kmix as volume control for it seems to work fine - shows up in systray, works with 'fn' keys  :Very Happy:  , easy access to mixer - though it may not be the best choice. I also tried 'volumeicon', works fine too.

I have tried 'xfce4-power-manager' - works when lid is closed and reopened (but i just discovered that xscreensaver does that too). Is there any risk of conflict between the two? One drawback though, no icon in the systray.

[EDIT]

Ooops...

I have added "thunar --daemon &" [and not 'thunar-volman &] to the startup file in Init. Works fine, with pop(up messages when umounting or ejecting drives (usb, cd).

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## Walter Prooff

@BitJam, I finally settled for nm-applet from the network-manager pkg, and it works fine out of the box!  :Very Happy:  Now, I just have to find something similar for tthe bluetooth and finally I will be able to use E16 as my main WM... Unless something else is missing???  :Question: 

NB: All these work fine in Fluxbox too (and I guess in all *box wm (not checked)).

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## BitJam

The Gentoo Bluetooth Guide seems to suggest that you go with Gnome Bluetooth The other option was KDE based.  You probably have most of the gnome dependencies installed (for nm-applet, if nothing else).

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## gcyoung

I stated earlier that kde4 had removed the "basket" program. I note now that it has been reinstated within kde4. I have found it to be useful with e16, since it can be autostarted and tucked away in the system tray. Web pages and programs can be started from it.

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## BitJam

I've copied /usr/share/e16/config/bindings.cfg to ~/.e16 so I can create custom key and mouse bindings.  I also heavily customize my menus and my Init/Start/Stop files.  I added the following entries to my desktop menu to make it easy to change any/all of the above:

```
"Edit Menus"           NULL exec  "gvim -p $HOME/.e16/menus/"

"Edit Init"            NULL exec  "gvim -p $HOME/.e16/[A-Z]*/*"

"Edit Key bindings"    NULL exec  "gvim $HOME/.e16/bindings.cfg"
```

This has been really handy.   You may have to change things around a little if you use a different editor.

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## Enlight

Tip : all commands available through essh are exported through D-BUS now, and introspection is supported.

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## Walter Prooff

 *BitJam wrote:*   

> The Gentoo Bluetooth Guide seems to suggest that you go with Gnome Bluetooth The other option was KDE based.  You probably have most of the gnome dependencies installed (for nm-applet, if nothing else).

 

Hi BitJam!

I'm sorry for this very very late answer. I followed your suggestions and everything works fine now. 

I wanted to thank you for your time and very precious help.

Regards.

[edit] I have gathered all your instructions in a single sort of "Howto" while I was testing them. With your permission I may post it or make it public if it is of any interest unless this is already done (probably). Please let me know...

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## BitJam

 *Walter Prooff wrote:*   

> I have gathered all your instructions in a single sort of "Howto" while I was testing them. With your permission I may post it or make it public if it is of any interest unless this is already done (probably). Please let me know...

 

Please do!   There are also some tips in this thread.

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## Walter Prooff

E16 – Auto-started Applications

As promised, here are a few steps to follow in order to start apps that won't auto-start using the e16 way!

In order to start applications working in the background (screensaver, mixer, etc...) automatically on E16 startup...

1. Create the following folders : 'Start', 'Init', 'Stop', in ~/.e16.

~/.e16/Init

~/.e16/Start

~/.e16/Stop

2.  In ~/.e16/Init, create a file named 'startup'.

3. Edit the newly created file which should look something like the following example :

```
#!/bin/bash

xscreensaver &

thunar –daemon &

kmix &

nm-applet &

korgac &

gdescal &
```

Save and close the file.

4. Open a terminal in ~/.e16/Init and type the following command as normal user :

chmod a+x startup

5. Before restarting E16, test the script. Type in a terminal the following command as normal user :

~/.e16/Init/startup

All the applications listed in 'startup' should now be started.

6. Enable user session scripts in e16 settings menus : 'Session Settings'.

7. Logout and login again.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The terminal way...

$ mkdir ~/.e16/Init

$ cd ~/.e16/Init

$ $ EDIT startup		# replace 'EDIT' by any other text editor

$ chmod a+x startup

  Do not forget step #6.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sources :

<http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Autostart_Programs#Enlightenment_DR16>

 ☺  Many thanks to Bitjam for his precious help!!!

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## imaginasys

 *gcyoung wrote:*   

>  I do miss a direct command line such as that given in kde by alt+f2. It means I must always open up a terminal if I want a command that is not in one of my menus (which I like to keep small)
> 
> Does anyone know of an applet or other way of implementing this ?

 

Simple use Omni.  There is a shortcut for it (in E17) :  alt+esc

Personally I find E17 very stable and mature now.  You should try it!

regards,

         BT   :Mr. Green: 

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## gcyoung

Shortcuts to programs sitting in the ~/.e16/Init directory work just as well as a "startup" file.

Ie: ln -s /usr/bin/<progname>  ~/home/<username>/.e16/Init/<progname>

Apropos E17, I havn't seen it recently, but always found it too cluttered for me. The beauty of e16 is the totally clean (excluding iconbox, systray  and cairo-clock), screen on starting, and all the required menus available at any part of the screen with a simple click of the mouse.

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