Lightweight Eyecandy with adesklets

[racoq]

Hello everyone, since i don't like gdesklets heavy requirements (because is too heavy for the hardware), i've decided to find a more lightweight alternative for gnome. So I present in this small guide how to install, and run adesklet on Gnome, KDE, and XFCE. This guide was tested in Dapper, Edgy and Feisty and Gutsy.

Requirements:
- Internet connection
- Universe repository enabled

First of all you will need to get the adesklets package by typing the folowing command in the console:

sudo apt-get install adesklets

This will install the adesklet package and all related packages.

Important Note:
I advise the upgrade to 0.6.1 or upper, since some important,
bugs like memory leaks were adressed, for that see the folowing link:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...roup_id=126227

After that, you need to download a valid desklet to use in adesklets

This can be done by two ways:

1 -
Go to http://adesklets.sourceforge.net/desklets.html, and download a valid desklet, if you want to see weather information try downloading the weatherforecast package

You will need to extract the package, and copy it to your home directory for instance:

tar-xvf weatherforecast-0.2.0.tar.bz2 mv weatherforecast-0.2.0 /home/"you home name account"

2 -

run the folowing command and adesklets will automatically give you the option of downloading and installing the adesklets using an graphical user interface:

adesklets -i

Either way. assuming that you've chosen to go by the first step, go to your home directory and do:

cd weatherforecast-0.2.0 ./weatherforecast.py

that batch will ask you if you want to register this desklet, say 'r' (you want to register)

This will create the file .adesklets in your home directory and it will fill it with instructions, for running weatherforecast each time adesklets is executed

after that you need to know your city code, so go to weather.com and type your city name:

Click on your city in the search results, and he will display the weather information, copy the link and copy the reference between "/local/" and "?from=", see the following example:

http://www.weather.com/outlook/trave...om=search_city

for my city the weather.com code is POXX0035

after that do inside weatherforecast directory:

sudo nano config.txt

and replace the location default code with your code for instance i've did for my city:

'location': 'POXX0035'

After that to run your adesklet do:

for gnome:

adesklets --nautilus

for kde:

adesklets --kde

for XFCE:

adesklets --xfce4

for Enlightenment:

adesklets --e16

If you want that adesklets load at boot time, in gnome you can go to System => Sessions, KDE and XFCE have equivalent ways of doing that, and add one of the previous lines to startup.

If you want to download and install another desklet you can do something similar what i've did to install the weatherforecast desklet, all desklet include an config.txt, and an python batch file for registering the desklet.

The following scenarios were tested in a AMD k6-II 450 Mhz, with 256 MB RAM:
- Ubuntu (Gnome), and it worked fast.
- Kubuntu (KDE), and it worked fast.
- Xubuntu (XFCE), and it was even faster.


So you can take your own conclusions


Note for BERYL and Compiz users


Some users of beryl have been experiencing transparency problems with desklets. Since there isn't yet a solution, i found a workaround. This workaround was bnased on the feisty instructions available at the beryl project homepage. If u have any file already loading bery-manager please remove it, or don't load it.

Create the following file in your home directory

nano startcomposite.sh

after that fill it with the following info:

#!/bin/sh adesklets --"your DE abbreviation" sleep 4 beryl-manager #if you have compiz to the following #compiz --replace&

and save the file.

The trick here is to run adesklets before beryl / compiz, and make a sleep of 4, in order to adesklets to load before beryl-manager. Pay attention if you have more applications in the startup, you should include then in that file, for instance in my system, i also load amsn at startup so my startberyl.sh file is:

#!/bin/sh adesklets --xfce4 sleep 4 beryl-manager amsn

Finally i had this script in my autostarted applications (In my XFCE system, Applications > Settings > Autostarted Applications)


This workaround worked on my Xubuntu Feisty system. In other systems the you may have to adjust the time of the sleep if it isn't enough to do the trick.

--

Adesklets its the only desklets program, prepared to be installed in either Gnome, KDE and XFCE, without installing "half system" (like it would be required if you wanted to install gdesklets in another DE than Gnome).

I've uploaded the following screenshot, taken from Xubuntu Feisty, for people who want to see adesklets in action, before installing it.

Hope this guide is useful to you!
--

UPDATE

A recent change on weather.com have broken weatherforecast desklet behaviour, if you were afected by this, please visit the following post, for the resolution.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...94#post5152994

[yabbadabbadont]

Good guide. A quick tip for anyone in the USA, you can just use your 5 digit zipcode instead of looking up the city code as suggested.

[Kryptizzle]

Thanks! Nice guide. This is the first time I've tried really tried to make my desktop look good and it's looking pretty good . The next few days look cold according to this desklet :S.

[racoq]

Thanks, this was my first guide, i'm glad someone enjoyed it.

[yabbadabbadont]

Perhaps you can point me in the right direction. I started a thread in the desktop support forum asking if any one knows how to have gnome run a user script on logoff. So far there are no takers. Do you know how to call adesklets -k on logoff so that all running desklets will be shutdown?

[racoq]

See the following thread, i think it will adress your issue:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=185261

[giuliastro]

I tried this with Dapper but nothing happens launching "adesklets --nautilus". Does adesklets work under Dapper or is it just me?

[Poul]

Originally Posted by giuliastro I tried this with Dapper but nothing happens launching "adesklets --nautilus". Does adesklets work under Dapper or is it just me?

Hey
Exact same problem. I've tried running the desklet from the console. Here's the output:

pawel@pawel-p1500:~/.desklets/weatherforecast-0.2.0$ ./weatherforecast.py
Do you want to (r)egister this desklet or to (t)est it? t
Now testing...
============================================================
If you do not see anything (or just an initial flicker
in the top left corner of your screen), try `--help',
and see the FAQ: `info adesklets'.
============================================================
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./weatherforecast.py", line 332, in ?
    Events(dirname(__file__)).pause()
  File "./weatherforecast.py", line 97, in __init__
    adesklets.Events_handler.__init__(self)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/adesklets/events_handler.py", line 157, in __init__
    self.ready()
  File "./weatherforecast.py", line 105, in ready
    join(self.basedir,'config.txt'))
  File "./weatherforecast.py", line 79, in __init__
    adesklets.ConfigFile.__init__(self,id,filename)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/adesklets/configfile.py", line 162, in __init__
    self._load_and_save()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/adesklets/configfile.py", line 205, in _load_and_save
    all= ConfigImport.load(buf[:])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/adesklets/configfile.py", line 41, in __call__
    return dict(self._group(
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/compiler/transformer.py", line 52, in parse
    return Transformer().parsesuite(buf)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/compiler/transformer.py", line 129, in parsesuite
    return self.transform(parser.suite(text))
  File "<string>", line 1
    'location': 'UKXX0085'
              ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
pawel@pawel-p1500:~/.desklets/weatherforecast-0.2.0$

please help.

[racoq]

i guess that it's a bug from the weatherforecast-0.2.0 desklet, i've had the same problem. you can try using, weather 0.0.4 instead at, http://adesklets.sourceforge.net/desklets.html. This happens because the weather info that weather.com provides in some city's, some times go down, causing this error from the desklet, however weather 0.0.4, doesn't have this problem.

The use of this desklet was just an example on how to set up adesklets. So don't worry, if you can run another desklet on adesklet that means that your configuration is just fine !

[zarathustra]

What version of Adesklets is in the repositories? It looks like the version is older than the current one available for download off Sourceforge.