XFce 4 Settings Manager

The XFce 4 settings manager provides access to the settings of all XFce 4 components. The application consists of two parts. The settings manager dialog, which is the only part a user should need to know about, and the settings manager backend that talks to the XFce 4 programs and informs them of changes to the preferences.

On a technical note, the settings manager backend uses an the XSETTINGS protocol as defined on freedesktop.org, adapted to allow multiple channels, so a module can listen only to changes it is interested in; The mcs in the name stands for multichannel settings.

There are several ways to start the settings manager dialog.

First of all, you can start it from the XFce 4 panel. There is a launcher on the panel in the default configuration that starts the settings manager.

If you want you can also add a special setup button that is part of the Systemsbuttons item. Any systembuttons item can show one or two buttons with special system functions, such as 'Exit' and 'Setup'.

Figure 1. Setup button on XFce 4 panel

Alternatively, you can right-click (or Shift-click) on one of the move handles of the panel, and choose the "Settings manager" item from the popup menu.

Figure 2. Mouse menu of XFce 4 panel

The root window menu provided by the XFce 4 Desktop Manager (xfdesktop) by default contains an entry to start the settings manager. Right-click on the desktop background and choose All Settings in the Settings sub-menu.

Figure 3. Root window mouse menu

Finally, you can open the settings manager dialog by running xfce-setting-show.

The dialog provides centralized access to the settings of all installed XFce 4 components. They don't necessarily have to be running.

Figure 4. Settings Manager Dialog

Just click on the button corresponding to the module that you want to configure. This action will open a new properties dialog. All modifications will have an immediate effect on the behaviour of the selected module. Once you have achieved changing the options, you can close each opened dialog by clicking on the "Close" button.

Please refer to the manuals of the different XFce 4 components listed here to learn more about their configuration options.

The xfce-mcs-manager application should be started before the other XFce 4 components. In fact, the panel and the windowmanager both will try to run the manager if it is not already running.

The startxfce4 script provided with XFce 4 takes care of running it at the start of an X session. If you don;t use that add it to your ~/.xinitrc file. The manager will run in the background after it has initialized, so there is no need to add an '&' after the command.

If you install a new package that provides a settings dialog, you can make the manager reread it's configuration by sending it a SIGUSR1 signal.

 $ killall -USR1 xfce-mcs-manager

This package was written by Olivier Fourdan (<fourdan@xfce.org>). To find more information, please visit the XFce web site.

To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding this application or this manual, send an email to the xfce4-dev mailing list or use the bug tracking system at the XFce SourceForge project site.

This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.