In pre-release versions of Xfce 4.8 windows can no longer be manually sorted by drag and drop. The sort modes are a nice feature but not a replacement for manual sorting.
Well to be honest; I don't care about dnd; it makes (with sorting) a lot more complicated (code wise).
Isn't it possible to add manual sorting (the old behaviour of Xfce 4.6) as an additional mode? For me (and I think for some others too) it's sometimes quite usefull to arrange the windows in the task list according to my workflow.
Well you can learn to use workspaces ;-). But seriously, 4.8 is in feature freeze, so I will look at this for 4.10.
I consider manual button sorting a nearly must-have feature for the taskbar. It was very surprising to find out that it was removed in favor of automatic sorting modes...
I'm missing this as well, and would love to see it come back. Since the developer is wanting a use-case, here's mine. I have an IRC window that is pinned ("on all workspaces"). Prior to 4.8, I arranged the IRC window's task list entry to the far-left. When I wanted to bring the IRC window up, I used the scroll wheel to select the left-most window in the task list. Can't do this any more.
Also missing this feature.
I guess this is a dublicate: https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7142
*** Bug 7142 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Has there been any progress towards a resolution of this issue?
Installed new version today and was very surprised this feature was missing. This is an absolute must have !
I add my voice to the rest. This feature makes window management very flexible.
BUUUULLLLLLL SH*TSSS!!! GIVE US BACK DND!!!!!
And you seriously think this makes me work harder on this bug?
Always arrange the windows in the same positions, facilitating my work. There is a forecast for the reinclusion of this function?
Would be great to have such feature. Especially that as I can see it was implemented in earlier versions. Not being able to sort windows manually is pretty much the only thing I don't like about current xfce-panel. When I work I usually need to open many windows. Some for short amount of time, some not. I like to place those non-temporary windows together on left side so they don't mix with other windows like terminals, file-manager windows etc. I also like to group windows depending on what I'm doing. For example: if I have some text editor with code and I compile it in an terminal then I like to have that terminal right next to the editor on taskbar. I hope it's not much work to bring back this great feature. Thanks in advance.
I'm missing this feature *badly*! My use case: I usually have an additional monitor attached to my laptop, and I always put all the common stuff (such as mail, chat, monitoring terminals and web browser windows) on the laptop screen, and all the problem-at-hand stuff on the monitor. Now, I'm used to having the common stuff out of my field-of-vision but readily available from all the workspaces. And this is where the manual sorting order comes in: I *manually* arrange the order of all the windows in the button list so that the common stuff is at the *beginning* of the task list, and all the problem-at-hand stuff is at the *end* of the task list. This makes it possible to rapidly switch between workspaces (eg. all the different stuff I'm working on currently) and not get lost in the abundancy of windows while doing so. I always know my claws-mail is going to be the first button on the list, my monitoring terminal the second, and so on. This sort of arrangement just seems to confuse my brain a bit less and is therefore more comfortable for me. One might argue that I try to do too many things in parallel (hence all the workspaces), but I believe this kind of parallelism keeps me productive; I might do some programming on one workspace, draw a blank, switch to another workspace where I'm doing something a bit more routine-based to temporarily forget about the problem that I'm struggling with, and when an idea (which *always* seems to come out of the blue) strikes me, instantly return to the programming where I left off. So there. Yes I do miss the manaul sorting order of the button list very much, because it saves my brain the effort of readjusting whenever I'm switching workspaces.
I am currently working on a Windows XP machine (customer's choice...) and the first thing I did was to install: - the ability to move windows with alt + left mouse button - the ability to reorder items in the task list - the ability to keep a window always on top This set of abilities I've become dependent to after 10 years using Linux with different kinds of window managers. I'm a little sad today not being able to do things at home on my xubuntu that I can do at work with windows XP :(
I'd love to see this feature return. It was the first thing I noticed after upgrading to Xubuntu 11.04 with Xfce 4.8. I can't imagine a handy feature like this being omitted in an upgraded version, it feels more like a downgrade. The ability is still partially built in I think, because I can still drag the buttons, just can't drop it it. Please, put this feature back in.
I also sorely miss this feature. Please put it back in.
As I said earlier somewhere IIRC, I consider this a regression (because an working, existing feature suddenly broke) and agree with the others that this feature should come back. Nick, please consider spending time on this. Users (especially me) will appreciate this.
Hi there, Here's my additional vote for putting this feature back in! Thanks for working to improve XFCE. I, too, miss this feature. It was the thing that let me go to xfce instead of GNOME. I've been happily using XFCE for over a year now, but recently went up to xubuntu 11.04, which had the latest xfce 4.8, and so lost the feature. The new XFCE looks good, I like the transparent panels, bu there are a few other oddities that seem to have been introduced (like on the cpu graph plugin, right-click does not work anymore; also some of the plugins are hard to make look OK on the transparent background; and the "Indicator" plugin seems now much more greedy on panel space ... there's tons of blank space between my icons). In the meantime I might try GNOME again. I've been poking around trying to figure out how to use the old version of the plugin, but since it seems to be an "internal" type plugin, I think I'd need to recompile an older version of xfce4 itself ... and then how to replace that? Ubuntu certainly doesn't make _that_ easy. :) Thanks again.
I would to see this feature back too.
Fixed in e316c7f.
Awesome, really. Thank you Nick. Much appreciated.
Thanks Nick! Xfce keeps getting more and more awesome!
Does this fix depend on a version of any other component? I replaced xfce4-panel version 4.8.3 with the git version (while leaving everything else at the latest stable version available in Gentoo, like 4.8.3, 4.8.0, 4.8.1). Now I can choose "None, allow drag-and-drop" as the sort mode, but drag-and-drop still doesn't work.
You have grouping enabled?
No, grouping is set to "Never".
Awesome! Thanks so much for fixing this, Nick!
Yes, thank you, Nick! Funny, my temporary workaround was to run gnome-panel in xfce! :) Has some strange side effects occasionally, but mostly works alright ... better than not being able to sort my windows!
Thanks for updating this feature to 4.8. It's highly appreciated! But I have a maybe somewhat nooby question: how can I get this update? It's not been among the normal updates so far. I'm using Xubuntu 11.04. Or do I miss the right repository in my repo-list or will it only be added later or something like that?
@Bart: If you are eager to try out the new version of the panel with Xubuntu, you can wait for 11.10, or wait for 11.10 Alpha 2 (scheduled for July 7th), or grab the daily build (http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/daily/current/) which is the least stable option.
@Bart: You know, you can also get the .deb package of the latest version of the panel from Ubuntu 11.10 repositories (http://packages.ubuntu.com/oneiric/xfce4-panel) and install it manually.
Lawand, thanks for the link. I had already downloaded it from the GIT, but these are the source-files and can't really do anything with those. Now it works great! One must have set the sorting order to 'allow drag-and-drop' in the panel properties though. I forgot that at first and was somewhat disappointed. But that was obviously my mistake ;) Thanks Nick and Lewand!
*** Bug 8011 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I miss the ability to drag and drop, and dislike the fact that the windows are not placed in the order they are opened in, are they ordered by name? I normally place the windows buttons always at the same place, it is easier for me to find them quicker. I see it has been fixed? I still cannot reorder... Regards. Yoram
It was fixed a while ago. You need to set "None, allow drag-and-drop" as sorting order in taskbar properties to allow manual reordering (and initially it will show buttons in the order they were opened).