FreeBSD Desktop – Part 19 – Configuration – Plank – Skippy-XD

Long time no see :). In this article of the FreeBSD Desktop series we will add Plank and Skippy-XD to the existing setup.

I will share with You Plank configuration along with theme that fits to the rest of the setup. Plank is an open implementation of the ideas that was brought to life by Mac OS X (macOS) Dock. We will also add Skippy-XD tool that implements Mac OS X (macOS) Expose ideas.

One my ask why use Plank while we already have Tint2 for similar purposes? While both support autohide I prefer to see Tint2 all the time to get basic/fast idea about what is launched on which desktop and have Plank hidden as it does not hurt and sometimes helps.

Here is both Mac OS X (macOS) Dock and Expose in action.

You may want to check other articles in the FreeBSD Desktop series on the FreeBSD Desktop – Global Page where you will find links to all episodes of the series along with table of contents for each episode’s contents.

To install both Plank and Skippy-XD on FreeBSD just use the default packages as shown below.

# pkg install skippy-xd plank

Plank

Here is how Plank dock composes with the rest of the setup.

The Plank dock comes with graphical preferences window if needed but you need to launch it from the command line as plank --preferences command.

Here is the used Plank theme which is kept in the ~/.local/share/plank/themes/vermaden/dock.theme file.

% grep '^[^#]' ~/.local/share/plank/themes/vermaden/dock.theme

[PlankTheme]
TopRoundness=0
BottomRoundness=0
LineWidth=0
OuterStrokeColor=0;;0;;0;;255
FillStartColor=40;;40;;40;;255
FillEndColor=40;;40;;40;;255
InnerStrokeColor=40;;40;;40;;255

[PlankDockTheme]
HorizPadding=0
TopPadding=1
BottomPadding=2
ItemPadding=2.5
IndicatorSize=10
IconShadowSize=0
UrgentBounceHeight=0
LaunchBounceHeight=0
FadeOpacity=0
ClickTime=300
UrgentBounceTime=600
LaunchBounceTime=600
ActiveTime=300
SlideTime=300
FadeTime=250
HideTime=150
GlowSize=24
GlowTime=10000
GlowPulseTime=2000
UrgentHueShift=150
ItemMoveTime=150
CascadeHide=true

[PlankDrawingDockTheme]
HorizPadding=0
ItemPadding=2.5
CascadeHide=true

And here are mine Plank dock settings which are kept in the ~/.config/plank/dock1/settings file.

% grep '^[^#]' ~/.config/plank/dock1/settings

[PlankDockPreferences]
CurrentWorkspaceOnly=false
IconSize=32
HideMode=0
UnhideDelay=0
HideDelay=0
Monitor=DP-1
DockItems=caja.dockitem;;leafpad.dockitem;;firefox.dockitem;;geany.dockitem;;thunderbird.dockitem;;galculator.dockitem;;deadbeef.dockitem;;transmission-gtk.dockitem;;pidgin.dockitem
Position=3
Offset=20
Theme=vermaden
Alignment=3
ItemsAlignment=3
LockItems=false
PressureReveal=false
PinnedOnly=false
AutoPinning=true
ShowDockItem=true
ZoomEnabled=false
ZoomPercent=150

Skippy-XD

You may wonder why the XD in the Skippy name. Its because Skippy started as a pure software solution – which unfortunately was quite slow – especially in the times when Skippy was introduced, and it was about a decade ago. Then Skippy developers rewrote it to use the – new then XDAMAGE module for X11 – from this change Skippy started to work almost instantly – and this was marked in its name and it remains to this date as Skippy-XD.

This is how Skippy-XD looks like.

The Skippy-XD does not need/support themes – it just has a configuration file located at ~/.config/skippy-xd/skippy-xd.rc place.

% grep '^[^#]' ~/.config/skippy-xd/skippy-xd.rc

[general]
distance = 50
useNetWMFullscreen = true
ignoreSkipTaskbar = true
updateFreq = 30.0
lazyTrans = true
pipePath = /tmp/skippy-xd-fifo
movePointerOnStart = true
movePointerOnSelect = true
movePointerOnRaise = true
switchDesktopOnActivate = true
useNameWindowPixmap = false
forceNameWindowPixmap = false
includeFrame = true
allowUpscale = true
showAllDesktops = true
showUnmapped = true
preferredIconSize = 32
clientDisplayModes = thumbnail icon filled none
iconFillSpec = orig mid mid #666666
fillSpec = orig mid mid #FFFFFF
background =

[xinerama]
showAll = true

[normal]
tint = black
tintOpacity = 0
opacity = 200

[highlight]
tint = #202020
tintOpacity = 64
opacity = 255

[tooltip]
show = true
followsMouse = true
offsetX = 20
offsetY = 20
align = left
border = #111111
background = #333333
opacity = 128
text = #eedddd
textShadow = none
font = ubuntu-10:weight=normal

[bindings]
miwMouse1 = focus
miwMouse2 = close-ewmh
miwMouse3 = iconify

One of the nice features of Skippy-XD is that you can configure it per desktop or globally per all currently existing virtual desktops. I also prefer to display window thumbnails only from the windows that exist on the current desktop. You can of course change that behavior with the Skippy-XD config file.

EOF