CrystalRoxHOWTO(1)

NAME
Crystal ROX! HOWTO (Read as "Crystal rocks!" ;)

Description
In this HOWTO I will show you how to setup FVWM-Crystal desktop with ROX-Filer file manager, so they are working smoothly.

What is ROX-Filer?

(From the ROX-Filer manual) ROX-Filer is a graphical file manger for the X Window System. Its user interface is based on the RISC OS filer and it supports similar features such as application directories and drag-and-drop loading and saving of files. The filer can also act as a pinboard, allowing you to pin frequently used files onto the desktop background.

Homepage: http://rox.sourceforge.net

In Crystal, while you can utilize an application-based work system (open an application and from it's menu open a document), ROX-Filer will let you use also document-based work style (open a document file in selected application), of course after a little customization of Filer's settings.

How to make ROX-Filer work with FVWM-Crystal?

Install ROX-Filer. I assume that executable is called 'rox'. If name is different, change it accordingly or make a symlink to '/usr/local/bin/rox'.

In FVWM-Crystal you can select a "desktop manager" to use. This option is located in: Diamond -> Preferences -> Desktop manager. Select ROX-Filer. Crystal will ask you to logout and start again your X session - you can do it right away or later, if you wish.

If everything was correctly installed, FVWM-Crystal should run with gray background and "Home" icon in the upper-left corner of the screen (that's ROX's pinboard). Now click on the background and from the menu select "ROX-Filer"->"Options". Go to "Iconified windows" and turn off "Show iconified windows" option. Now go to "Compatibility" section and turn on "Pass all backdrop mouse clicks to window manager" option. This way you will be able to open terminal windows using RMB on the desktop. ROX-Filer menu can be still accessed by clicling with RMB on the icons. You can now change ROX's options at will.

You can change desktop wallpaper using the Crystal's menu system.

Known issues:

•   window thumbnails aren't transparent, probably because FVWM doesn't use ROX's pinboard as the source of transparency for it's icons?

•   Icon selected on the desktop stays selected; that's because ROX-Filer sends all mouse button clicks to the window manager. If you don't want a selected icon on the desktop all the time, open a directory or launch a file from your desktop.

AUTHOR
Maciej Delmanowski <harnir@berlios.de>