Desktop icons text

[kputem]

I have been trying Phoenix, and think that it is a superb version.

There's one thing I would like help on, though.

With the desktop backgrounds I use, I would like the desktop icons text to be white and for there to be no 'boxes' round the text.

It it possible to change these?

I have searched through all the desktop settings but can't find anything to change.

The only suggestions I can find on the forums here, refer to XFCE4.6 and don't work with 4.8.

Briefly, they are:

Change the setting in 'Settings Manager>Windows Manager Tweaks>Compositor'. There's nothing referring to the icon text to change!

Create a file in $HOME folder called .gtk.mine and put several lines in it referring to desktop icon view. Did all it said (copy and paste to get it correct) but nothing happened.

I can't find anything about it on Google or the XFCE forum.

Is there a way of changing the text, please?

Many thanks.

Keith

[OMSkates]

In your home folder edit/or create a text file called .gtkrc-2.0

Paste this:

Code: [Select]

<br /> style "menu-images" {<br /> gtk-menu-images = false<br /> }<br /> widget_class "*" style "menu-images"
Save file
Logout & Log back in (Restarts X)

More ideas for your .gtkrc-2.0 file:

Code: [Select]

# this file should be placed in your home folder
# and name ".gtkrc-2.0"

#---------------------------------------------------------------
# Section "icon background colors"
#---------------------------------------------------------------
# The following two lines *should* be left uncommented
# if we want the XFCE desktop icon backgrounds to use
# alpha blending (e.g. invisible or some % thereof)

style "xfdesktop-icon-view" {
XfdesktopIconView::label-alpha = 0



#---------------------------------------------------------------
# Section "icon font colors"
#---------------------------------------------------------------

# The next three lines deal with the color of the desktop icon's
# text. You can comment them out if you want you use gtk theme
# colors. Below yields white un-selected normal, green selected,
# and blue when going to another window
#
# I chose three different colors so that you can see the level
# of customization we can do.

fg[NORMAL] = "#ffffff"        #this is white
fg[SELECTED] = "#00ff00"      # this is green
fg[ACTIVE] = "#0000ff"        # this is blue

## my blue fonts to use with nuvola theme & royal blue WM
# environment. a soft shark underbelly blue color if you will.
#fg[NORMAL] = "#528AC6"
#fg[SELECTED] = "#528AC6"
#fg[ACTIVE] = "#528AC6"As you can see your request will require editing of this file.  As far as I know there are no Xfce-settings options for point & click to achieve that look.

[kputem]

Hello omskates.

Thank you very much for your reply.

Unfortunately, I can't get your solution to work.

I created a .gtkrc-2.0 file and put the
 style (and so on) command in it. Re-logged in and nothing had changed. The boxes were still there as before. Tried this several times.

So I added the rest of your suggestion, regarding the font colours. Again, no difference.

I have spent about 4 hours trying to get it to work, trying many things, remaking the .gtkrc-2 file countless times, but without success.

As your solution is the official one, I don't know why it doesn't work for me. The only thing I am wondering, is if it doesn't work because I am running the liveCD, and Phoenix is not installed.

Thanks again for your help.

Cheers.

Keith

[OMSkates]

It may not be possible with Live-CD.  Is the live-CD over writing the file when you log back in?  The Live CD may not even point to that file at all, not sure.

Here is a similar tutorial you can cross check with:

Make Desktop Icon Labels Transparent

1. When using the icon view, it is possible to change how the icon label text looks in three ways: the opacity (transparency) of the rounded text background, the color of the rounded text background, and the color of the text itself.

2. To make the labels transparent to the desktop background image, copy the following lines to your ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file. If that file doesn't exist in your home folder, then create it.
Code:
style "xfdesktop-icon-view" {
    XfdesktopIconView::label-alpha = 0
    XfdesktopIconView::selected-label-alpha = 170
    XfdesktopIconVIew::ellipsize-icon-labels = 1

    XfdesktopIconView::shadow-x-offset = 0
    XfdesktopIconView::shadow-y-offset = 0
    XfdesktopIconView::shadow-color = "#000000"
    XfdesktopIconView::selected-shadow-x-offset = 0
    XfdesktopIconView::selected-shadow-y-offset = 0
    XfdesktopIconView::selected-shadow-color = "#ffffff"

    XfdesktopIconVIew::cell-spacing = 6
    XfdesktopIconView::cell-padding = 6
    XfdesktopIconView::cell-text-width-proportion = 2.5

    base[NORMAL] = "#cccccc"
    base[SELECTED] = "#cccccc"
    base[ACTIVE] = "#cccccc"

    fg[NORMAL] = "#ffffff"
    fg[SELECTED] = "#000000"
    fg[ACTIVE] = "#000000"
}
widget_class "*XfdesktopIconView*" style "xfdesktop-icon-view"3. The line by line explanations...

Opacity of the background

The first three entries set the opacity of the rounded text background (allowed values are from 0 (totally transparent) to 255 (totally opaque), and whether or not unselected icons get their labels ellipsized (truncated) to fit on one line. (The 'selected-' version controls the opacity of icons that have been selected with the mouse.)

Text Shadowing

The second six entries can be used to enable a text shadow to be painted with the icon labels. The offsets are in pixels. Setting them to 0 (the defaults) will disable the shadows entirely. Again, the 'selected-' versions apply to icons that have been selected with the mouse.

Icon Spacing

The third four entries set spacing and sizing for individual icons on the grid. The 'cell-spacing' property specifies the spacing between each 'cell' in the grid of icons. The 'cell-padding' property sets extra padding placed around each icon+text. The units for these two are in pixels. The 'cell-text-width-proportion' property specifies the maximum width of the text label underneath the icon, as a multiplier of the icon width (so for 30px icons, '2.5' would leave a 75px wide area underneath for the text).

Icon Label Background Color

The fourth three entries set the color of the rounded text background.

* NORMAL sets the color for the regular, unselected state.
* SELECTED sets the color for when the icon is selected, and the desktop has keyboard/mouse focus.
* ACTIVE sets the color for when the icon is selected, but the desktop does not have keyboard/mouse focus.

Icon Label Text Color

The final three entries set the color of the label text. See above for the differences between NORMAL, SELECTED, and ACTIVE.

[kputem]

omskates.

The suggestions in your second posting have worked. I now have white letters without the boxes - which is what I wanted.

I don't actually need a lightweight desktop as I have quite a powerful computer, but I just like XFCE very much.

For information, logging back in doesn't overwrite the gtkrc-2.0 file.

Thank you very much for all your help. I really do appreciate it.

Cheers

Keith

[OMSkates]

omskates.

The suggestions in your second posting have worked. I now have white letters without the boxes - which is what I wanted.

I don't actually need a lightweight desktop as I have quite a powerful computer, but I just like XFCE very much.

Very Cool , Xfce stays out of your way for running powerful applications.

For information, logging back in doesn't overwrite the gtkrc-2.0 file.

Thank you very much for all your help. I really do appreciate it.

Cheers

Keith

Really glad it worked   Later man.