topic title: Increase task bar size?
Posts: 10
jarlath
Joined: 13 Mar 2009
#1
The icons on the taskbar are too small for my parents to see. Can the bar size and icons be made bigger?
Posts: 319
impuwat
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
#2
Are you referring to IceWM or Fluxbox? I'm assuming IceWM since you are talking about icons.

In Flux go to the style you are working with..../usr/share/fluxbox/styles/antix for example. Open theme.cfg with geany or appropriate editor. Look for the following line (around line 61)"toolbar.height: 17". Change the value and restart the style to see if your changes were acceptable.

In IceWM the process is more complicated. IceWM toolbar construction is dependent on a number of things including the size of the icewm.xpm pixmap. Some toolbar pixmap files can be different sizes depending on the complexity of the design. So the short answer is you might have very mixed results unless you just create a larger taskbar from scratch.

There may be another solution I'm unaware of and would be delighted to hear it.
Posts: 1,081
OU812
Joined: 29 Sep 2007
#3
This icewm theme has a large taskbar. It may work for you.


========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.box-look.org/content/show.php/KDE4?content=71528"
linktext was:"http://www.box-look.org/content/show.ph ... tent=71528"
====================================


john
Posts: 215
macondo
Joined: 14 Sep 2007
#4
In /usr/share/icewm/preferences you get all the options for icewm.

Copy this option and paste it on your ~/.icewm/preferences:

Code: Select all

#  Use double-height task bar
TaskBarDoubleHeight=1
save/exit from your editor, and restart icewm (ctrl-alt-delete-r)

As for the icons, i don't use icons so i don't know, sorry.
Posts: 319
impuwat
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
#5
Nice tip! I had forgot about possible preference settings.
Posts: 1,081
OU812
Joined: 29 Sep 2007
#6
True, but it won't make the icons bigger, which is needed here. Basically you get buttons and the run command on the top layer and program icons and other stuff on the bottom layer. So, it doesn't actually make it bigger in size, but rather splits the functionality in two areas.

john
Posts: 215
macondo
Joined: 14 Sep 2007
#7
Once you use the Run box (windows key + Space bar), you press Esc and it goes back to the original state. As for icons, if you do a 'locate icewm' in your terminal, it should show the different size of the icons or so i think.

As i've said before, icons IMO, are obsolete; by the time you grab the mouse look for an icon, and click on it, you could be already inside the application of your choice. Example: Windows key + i gives me iceawesel...Now the problem at hand is that the users are older people who need bigger icons so they can see, they are not power users. Unfortunately, i know nothing on the subject, idesk, perhaps? Or change the icons to ones bigger and put them in ~.icewm/toolbar? I don't know, to each his own, i try to KISS my computer behavior.
Last edited by macondo on 03 Apr 2009, 15:07, edited 1 time in total.
anticapitalista
Posts: 5,955
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
#8
Another possiblity is to use wbar with large icons or instead of idesk you can use rox-desktop for desktop icons.
Posts: 215
macondo
Joined: 14 Sep 2007
#9
This what i show on my ~/.icewm/toolbar:

Code: Select all

# This is a default toolbar definition file for IceWM
#
# Place your personal variant in $HOME/.icewm directory.

#prog"Home Folder" folder rox
#prog"Home Folder" folder pcmanfm
#prog"Terminal" xterm rxvt-unicode -tr -sh 65 -fg white
#prog"Terminal" xterm roxterm
#prog"Text Editor" /usr/share/icons/gTangish-2.0a1/32x32/apps/accessories-text-editor.png leafpad
prog"Browser" iceweasel.png /usr/bin/iceweasel
prog"Volume" /usr/share/icons/gTangish-2.0a1/32x32/apps/multimedia-volume-control.png absvolume
#prog"Control Center" /usr/share/icons/gTangish-2.0a1/32x32/categories/preferences-desktop.png antixcc.sh
#prog"Quit" /usr/share/icons/gTangish-2.0a1/32x32/actions/system-log-out.png exitantix.sh
Uncomment the ones you want (erase the hash mark)
Try changing the size from 32x32 to 48x48
save/exit/restart

The 'browser' icon (the most important) shows no size, maybe anticapitalista knows...
Posts: 10
jarlath
Joined: 13 Mar 2009
#10
Thanks so much guys, I can't believe how helpful people are here.
impuwat, OU812, macondo, anticapitalista - thanks.

I agree that icons are inefficient but unfortunately that's what they know and it was hard work to get them to that level, believe me!

Anyway, I have Idesk starting at login now and I've put icons"Internet""Email""Word Processor" and"Turn off computer" in 48x48 size so they're happy now. The bar is still there for restoring windows but they know they don't need to use the other icons so it's a happy ending.

I had to do a bit of work to create a group who could call the 'poweroff' command and add my parents to that group but it's working a treat now.

This is a great little system, if you'll pardon the pun. Thanks again for your help.
Posts 253
mariel77
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
#11
anticapitalista wrote:Another possiblity is to use wbar with large icons or instead of idesk you can use rox-desktop for desktop icons.
I agree that installing wbar would be a welcome addition for your parents; the dock icons are 32px and get larger when you hover over them. If you also install wbarconf, it is a snap to set up and link to the apps they are using.
Here is a thread on it:
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/using-wbar-and-other-toolbars-t1104.html?hilit=wbar#p7764"
linktext was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/using-wbar- ... wbar#p7764"
====================================
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false