spacefm + desktop icons

[emninger]

Is there a way to set spacefm to draw icons on the desktop (e.g, trash, devices, home etc; like in pcmanfm)? At a first glance i do not see any such option .... (?)

Thanks a lot in advance!

[hakerdefo]

Have you tried the following?

http://ignorantguru.github.io/spacefm/spacefm-manual-en.html#invocation-desktopmanager

Cheers!!!

[emninger]

Sure. But on the desktop there are only the icons of the stuff which sits in $HOME/Desktop. I'd be interested if - and in case, how - it is possible to teach spacefm to draw on the desktop also the icons for trash and for mounted volumes (devices) ....

[hakerdefo]

spacefm doesn't have any native full desktop management and trash management support.
Back in time when VSIDO was born, spacefm had a tiny edge over pcmanfm but if we look at the current situation pcmanfm wins hands-down. pcmanfm is in active development and is almost fully ported to Qt while spacefm, though still maintained, is not going to get any new features-functions. And we all know that for non Gnome projects like fluxbox (VSIDO), Qt is the better option currently and more so in future as Gtk guys have indicated clearly that they don't give a s#it about breaking non Gnome projects.
Enough rant! VSIDO was and is VastOne's child so it's up to him to decide it's future directions.
Cheers!!!

[emninger]

Thanks for answering!! Ok, i understand. So, spacefm is close to be a dead end? In any case, is there something like a spacefm specific usergroup, somewhere. I ddg'ed for it but i did not find anything ... (?)

I'm trying out both in parallel, and i'm unsure which of them would be the better choice. Spacefm in any case seems better (and easier) for customization, pcmanfm is more closely indentated with some freedesktop aspects, seems ... And then, udevil is a great feature of spacefm, especially if ypu prefer to not depend on systemd & cie.

Given you try to make a *box based desktop, for sure you can opt for the crunchbang style (no icons on the desktop, filemanagement as a separate application, which makes it a deliberate decision which filemanager you use. Also xfe would be ok - and effectively it is ). But if you'd like a desktop management, i'd be interested to know if and how spacefm could be tweaked to do that a bit better ...

[hakerdefo]

You can post a bug-feature request here,

https://github.com/IgnorantGuru/spacefm/issues

You can use IRC if you wish,
IRC Channel - #spacefm on irc.freenode.net

Cheers!!!

[Snap]

if we look at the current situation pcmanfm wins hands-down.

I cannot agree here. LOL! But as always it's a matter of taste/needs/usercase/whatever. I don't find a reason to switch from spacefm to pcmanfm or anything else. I prefer it over anything else I've tried, but that's only me. So who cares.

Personally I find Spacefm the only GUI file manager I consider for GTK-land. Since there's no port to Qt, my favorite is still the bulky dolphin. IMHO, it keeps blowing pcmanfm away if you don' mind the bloat. For the cli, ranger is the one, besides it's python and many people seems to hate python. I don't. LOL.

It's a shame that IgnorantGuru is so frustrated with the current Linux environment and doesn't feel motivated to keep spacefm going as fast and good as it used to be. At least the man keeps it alive. I wonder if IG finally jumped away from Debian, moved to gentoo or went BSD...

If spacefm finally goes to a dead end, I'll probably switch to ranger and forget about the GUI file managers. In fact, Spacefm is the only one that keeps me using a GUI one instead of just ranger.

Hmmm... why I keep ranting like this? I should stop these blog-like posts, shouldn't I?

[hakerdefo]

Hi Snap,
I'm not saying SpaceFM is bad but it is losing the edge it once had over PCManFM because it's lead dev, as you mentioned, has lost interest in it's development and on the other side PCManFM devs are constantly making small improvements and more importantly they are migrating PCManFM from GTK to Qt. BTW SpaceFM started life as a mod of PCManFM and was called PCManFM-mod.
Ranger is a great file manager, Python or not! If you are interested here is a cli file manager writter in C, and no it's not MC

https://github.com/FedeDP/ncursesFM

And here is a light-weight file browser written in C. I said file browser instead of manager cause it is meant for simple tasks and lacks the advanced FM capabilities.

http://lecram.github.io/p/rover/

Cheers!!!

[ozitraveller]

I recently switched the fm's for my Star distro (devuan) to spacefm, apart from xfce which is still thunar.

I like spacefm, and udevil, so it would be a shame to see it disappear.

How long will the gtk version of lxde last after the qt version is finished I wonder!

[hakerdefo]

Lubuntu will ditch LXDE for LXQt once the migration is complete. I think LXDE will be maintained but the future for sure is LXQt. Most devs will prefer Qt over GTK if they are creating applications that are not Gnome exclusive. Maintenance is easy, porting to Windows-Mac becomes easy, Qt based apps can be installed on both Gnome & KDE without tons of dependencies.
Qt is future for anything non-Gnome.
Cheers!!!

[ozitraveller]

Thanks hakerdefo, that's pretty much what I had thought.

[hakerdefo]

@ozitraveller Isn't SpaceFM vs PCManFM akin to Malcolm Turnbull vs Bill Shorten
Cheers!!!

[Snap]

@ hackerdefo

That's what I think too. But I'm afraid we won't see many full Qt based systems soon.  Regarding web browsers the Qt options leave a lot to be desired perhaps with the exception of qutebrowser which is not for everyone. Office suites, Calligra is great. Truly great. but never got much love or consideration since it pulls KDE along with it, and if like me you only want a word processor and a spreadheet program, you will eatup the whole suite (with KDE as a present). Krita can be an alternative to Gimp, but it's not the same thing. IMO, not exactly a direct replacement. About file managers, as I've said before, Dolphin pulls KDE and makes pcmanfm about the only decent option in my experience. This is for the "main" apps, but the list goes on.

I always try to go as much Qt as i can but lokk at this (Not the best way to check a system in this respect but gives an idea).

My main system:

Code Select Expand

for i in qt gnome gtk xfce ; do echo ${i}: $(dpkg -l | grep $i | wc -l) ; done | column -s: -t
qt      32
gnome   4
gtk     22
xfce    5


My current Qt testing VM (Siduction LXQt but using fluxbox instead of the DE)

Code Select Expand

qt      74
gnome   9
gtk     25
xfce    4

GTK, gnome and xfce are obviously GTK stuff. They make a nice count, though I wasn't trying to get rid of all of them, just testing Qt alternatives and comparing them. That's why the apps count in the VM is so high.

[hakerdefo]

@Snap,
That's impressive! Your main system has 31 GTK programs and 32 Qt ones! That's a great balance!
Did you try QupZilla? Perhaps the best Qt based browser!
I know that we won't be able to get rid of GTK in near future. From a user's point of view, GTK apps are fine as long as they don't pull Gnome with them but from a developer's perspective, maintenance and future compatibility are the two things before deciding on toolkit and that's where Qt is attracting more and more devs taking refuge from update-breakage-maintenance headaches caused by GTK development cycle and non-cooperative nature of GTK-Gnome guys.
Cheers!!!

[PackRat]

pcmanfm-qt - Qt port of pcmanfm - I have never tried this, and not recommending it for vsido inclusion; just tossing it out there for y'all.