Xfce 4.20 Documentation
This website provides user documentation for the latest stable version of the Xfce desktop environment. Go to Xfce 4.18 for the previous version.
Wayland support in Xfce 4.20 is experimental. It is recommended for advanced users only, as you may encounter bugs and experience incomplete functionality.
Seecomponent status and testing for details.
Getting Started
- Getting Started with Xfce – Starting point for anyone who wants to use Xfce
- Frequently Asked Questions – General questions relating to Xfce and their answers
- Building Xfce – Instructions on how to compile Xfce from source
- https://developer.xfce.org/ – API Documentation & Developer Information
- How to Contribute – Detailed information for new contributors
Documentation for Xfce Applications
Core Modules
- Application Finder (xfce4-appfinder) – Application to quickly run applications and commands
- Configuration Storage System (xfconf) – D-Bus-based configuration storage system
- Desktop Manager (xfdesktop) – Configure the desktop background image, icons, launchers and folders
- Development Tools (xfce4-dev-tools) – A set of scripts and m4/autoconf macros that ease build system maintenance.
- Helper Applications (exo) – Manage preferred applications and edit .desktop files
- File Manager (thunar) – The fast and easy to use file manager for the Xfce Desktop
- Menu Library (garcon) – Library used for menu implementation
- Panel (xfce4-panel) – Application launchers, window buttons, applications menu, workspace switcher and more
- Power Manager (xfce4-power-manager) – Manage power sources and power consumption of devices
- Session Manager (xfce4-session) – Save the state of your desktop and restore it on the next startup
- Settings Manager (xfce4-settings) – The Settings daemon which persists many Xfce settings
- Thumbnail Service (tumbler) – A D-Bus service for applications to request thumbnails for various URI schemes and MIME types
- Utility Sharing Library (libxfce4util) – Library used to share commonly used non-GTK+ utilities among the Xfce applications
- Widget Sharing Library (libxfce4ui) – Used to share commonly used Xfce widgets among the Xfce applications
- Widget Abstraction Library for X11 & Wayland (libxfce4windowing) – Used to present windowing concepts (screens, toplevel windows, workspaces, etc.) in a windowing-system-independent manner.
- Volume Manager (thunar-volman) – Automatic management of removable devices in Thunar
- Window Manager (xfwm4) – Handles the placement of windows on the screen
Applications
- Calendar application (orage) – A fast and easy to use graphical time-managing application
- CD Burning application (Xfburn) – A simple CD/DVD burning tool.
- Dictionary (xfce4-dict) – allows you to search different kinds of dictionary services for words or phrases and shows you the results
- File Search Utility (catfish) – a versatile file search utility for the Xfce desktop
- Image Viewer (ristretto) – Image viewer for the Xfce desktop
- Media player (parole) – Media player for the Xfce desktop
- Music Player Daemon (xfmpc) – A graphical GTK+ Music Player Daemon (MPD) client focusing on low footprint
- Notification service (xfce4-notifyd) – Notification service for the Xfce desktop
- Remote filesystem Utility (gigolo) – A frontend to easily manage connections to remote filesystems.
- Panel Profiles (xfce4-panel-profiles) – A simple application to manage Xfce panel layouts
- Screensaver Utility (xfce4-screensaver) – A simple, secure screen saver and locker.
- Screenshot application (xfce4-screenshooter) – Take screenshots of your Xfce desktop
- Taskmanager(xfce4-taskmanager) – Easy to use task manager
- Terminal Emulator (xfce4-terminal) – Terminal emulator for the Xfce desktop
- Text Editor (mousepad) – A simple text editor for Xfce
- Volume Control & Mixer (xfce4-mixer) – A volume control application based on GStreamer & panel-plugin
- Xfdashboard – Provides a Gnome shell-like dashboard for Xfce
External Plugins
- Battery – A battery monitor panel plugin for Xfce4 compatible with APM and ACPI, for Linux and *BSD.
- Calculator – a calculator plugin for the Xfce4 panel.
- Clipman – A clipboard manager for Xfce
- Cpufreq – shows information about the CPU governor and frequencies supported and used by your system.
- Cpugraph – offers multiple display modes (LED, gradient, fire, etc…) to show the current CPU load of the system.
- Datetime – shows the date and time in the panel, and a calendar appears when you left-click on it.
- Diskperf – displays instant disk/partition performance (bytes transferred per second).
- Docklike – A modern, minimalist taskbar for Xfce.
- Eyes – Eyes that spy on you.
- Fsguard – checks the chosen mountpoint for free disk space.
- Generic Slider – A visual slider widget to control user-configurable variables(e.g. volume control)
- Genmon – spawns the indicated script/program, captures its output (stdout) and displays the resulting string into the panel.
- Indicator – small plugin written by Mark Trompell to display information from various applications consistently.
- Mailwatch – multi-threaded, multi-mailbox, multi-protocol plugin for checking mails periodically.
- Mount – a mount/umount utility for the panel.
- Mpc – client plugin for MPD, the Music Player Daemon
- Netload – displays the current load of the network interfaces, currently works on Linux, *BSD, Sun Solaris, HP_UX and MacOS X.
- Notes – provides sticky notes for your desktop.
- Places – a menu with quick access to folders, documents, and removable media.
- PulseAudio Plugin – Adjust audio volume and control media players on the Xfce desktop
- Sample – Sample plugin developers can use as a base for new panel-plugins
- Sensors – a hardware sensors plugin for the panel.
- Smartbookmark – allows you to do a search directly on Internet on sites like google or debian bugzilla.
- Stopwatch – Keep track of elapsed time.
- Systemload – Displays the current CPU load, the memory in use, the swap space and the system uptime.
- Timer – Lets the user run an alarm at a specified time or at the end of a specified countdown period.
- Time-out – for taking breaks from the computer every X minutes.
- Verve – A comfortable command line plugin for the Xfce panel.
- Wavelan – Display stats from a wireless lan interface (signal state, signal quality, network name (SSID)). It supports NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and Linux.
- Weather – Shows the current temperature and weather condition, using weather data provided by xoap.weather.com.
- Whiskermenu – A menu that provides access to favorites, recently used, and searching installed applications.
- Windowck – Place the maximized window title and windows buttons on the panel.
- Xkb – Setup and use multiple (currently up to 4 due to X11 protocol limitation) keyboard layouts.
Take a look at the list of recommended applications for more light-weight applications, recommended by Xfce users.
Check the sitemap of this wiki to see all available wiki pages.