! Please note that this is a snapshot of our old Bugzilla server, which is read only since May 29, 2020. Please go to gitlab.xfce.org for our new server !
Thunar should handle not having a xsettings manager more gracefully
Status:
RESOLVED: WORKSFORME

Comments

Description Kevin Fenzi 2006-11-20 18:38:20 CET
Greetings. I am the fedora extras packager of Xfce. 
I got a bug filed against Thunar about not showing icons when using fluxbox as
the windowmanager. See: 

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=215244

The FAQ at http://thunar.xfce.org/pwiki/documentation/faq clearly explains 
this case as needing to run a xsettings manager program or to hard code
a theme in your ~/.gtkrc-2.0.

However, it would be nice if Thunar could handle this case a bit better. 
Some possible suggestions: 

- If no xsettings manager is found pop up a dialog pointing to the FAQ, and 
tell the user they will get default generic icons. 

- If no xsettings manager is found print a warning and just assume the Rodent theme for icons (if available). 

- If no xsettings manager is found, pop up a dialog offering to start xfce-mcs-manager (if available) or gnome-settings-manager (if available). 

I suspect lots of people are going to be using Thunar with small desktops that don't run xsettings managers by default since it's so fast and nice. Handling this nicely would cut down on end user confusion and bug reports. 

Thanks for all the great work on Thunar.
Comment 1 Benedikt Meurer editbugs 2006-11-21 07:36:36 CET
This is a general GTK+ problem, rather than a Thunar specific problem, i.e. you'll see missing icons in all but the most trivial apps. Popping up a dialog here is somewhat non-trivial, as the connection to the XSettings manager is handled deep within GTK+. I'll check if there's an easy way to detect this.
Comment 2 Patrice Dumas 2006-11-23 16:27:06 CET
(In reply to comment #1)
> This is a general GTK+ problem, rather than a Thunar specific problem, i.e.
> you'll see missing icons in all but the most trivial apps. 

I only found such issue with thunar, other gtk apps are fine under fluxbox,
including some xfce apps.

> Popping up a dialog
> here is somewhat non-trivial, as the connection to the XSettings manager is
> handled deep within GTK+. I'll check if there's an easy way to detect this.

From the xclient code in  http://www.freedesktop.org/software/xsettings/releases/xsettings-0.2.tar.gz:
it is explained a bit in the xsettings specification:
http://standards.freedesktop.org/xsettings-spec/xsettings-spec-0.5.html#client-behavior

screen and display are the X screen and display.

  sprintf(buffer, "_XSETTINGS_S%d", screen);
  selection_atom = XInternAtom (display, buffer, False);

  XGrabServer (display);

  xsettings_manager_window = XGetSelectionOwner (display,
                                               selection_atom);

  if (xsettings_manager_window) { //there is a manager allready started...}
  .......


  XUngrabServer (display);
  XFlush (display);



Otherwise said the xsettings manager is the owner of _XSETTINGS_S[N], with
[N] the display number.

It seems that other xfce apps start xfce-mcs-manager, like xfce-setting-show.

I think that launching silently xfce-mcs-manager would be better than 
popping a dialog; if it cannot be launched (for example if it is not 
installed) then the Rodent theme could be assumed, but it would be better
if it was possible to test for the Rodent theme existing prior from
using it. And if the xfce-mcs-manager cannot be launched and there is no
Rodent theme, do a pop-up with a short explanation and a link to the faq
could be right (maybe with a 'show that warning next time' checkbox 
unchecked, such that that pop-up pops up only once).
Comment 3 Patrice Dumas 2008-01-27 18:30:21 CET
This seems to be fixed in Thunar-0.9.0. Any idea why it works now?
I still haven't any xsetting daemon, and I haven't any ~/.gtkrc-2.0.
Comment 4 Nick Schermer editbugs 2012-09-27 10:31:29 CEST
Please reopen if this is still an issue with the latest Thunar release.

Bug #2596

Reported by:
Kevin Fenzi
Reported on: 2006-11-20
Last modified on: 2012-09-27

People

Assignee:
Jannis Pohlmann
CC List:
2 users

Version

Version:
0.5.0rc2

Attachments

Additional information