 So I've been using XFCE now for a little bit over a week And this is my second video after the switch and there will be a few more So I hope that these don't become too annoying. I'll try not to do one every single day But there are going to be quite a few XFC videos over the next couple months So just prepare for that But today what I want to talk about are five of the favorite features that I've discovered so far now Now I've made a video in the past talking about how XFC is my favorite desktop environment But that was always for other people, right? I was a window manager user for the longest period of time and while I always liked XFC I thought it was the true best desktop environment out there It wasn't something that I was really interested in using all that much for a long period of time Not because XFC was bad, but because i3 and DWM and whatever was so good and fit my workflow so well But a week ago I decided to switch to XFC I don't even know that I had any good reasons at the time I don't really remember. The last week has been kind of crazy So my memory is shot But the point is as I've switched I've been messing around with it I've been using it full-time on my main machine as you can see right here You know, this is my XFC desktop as we are right now I've been ricing it like crazy. I've been having quite a bit of fun doing so And you know, it's been a good experience for the most part Now if you want to hear some of the negative things that I had to say about it I've put those thoughts on Patreon for now I will be making videos about some of the bad things later on But for now that's where those thoughts are stored in my Patreon exclusive podcast But for now I just want to talk about some of the good things So the first thing that I really really like is that it's fast So this is the most superfluous reason that I have on the list We're going to start off with that And honestly all I can say about it is that it's really really quick Applications start up really really fast There's no bogging down And it just is very speedy I can't really say anything more about that I don't have any high card and firm numbers And obviously when I use a window manager I can't say that any of those things were slow Those were also fast But way back when when I was a desktop environment user I remember them being pretty sluggish Especially compared to timeline window managers XFC doesn't have that problem at all It's very very speedy Now I have a ton of resources on this machine I have 64 gigabytes of RAM And you know a fast CPU and an SSD and all that stuff So in terms of resources I can't tell you if it's like really low on resources Despite the fact that I know that it is It doesn't really matter to me I just know from an experience a use case scenario XFC is very fast So that's the first thing So the second thing that I want to talk about It's also maybe not all that important to everyone But for me it is And that is clipman down here Now I'm not going to open clipman Because it might have some sensitive information in there I'm not sure what I've copied and pasted recently But basically what clipman is Is it's a clipboard manager Similar to like clipman UD or something like that And what it does is basically what you think it would do It manages the history of your clipboard So anything that you've copied and pasted Or just copied shows up in your history And you can go back to it if you need to Personally I find a clipboard manager to be essential Simply because there are often times When I have to copy multiple things And instead of having to copy one thing Go paste it where it needs to go Go copy another thing Paste it in the same place Go back and forth, back and forth I can copy everything while I'm on that one page And then go to the place where they all need to be pasted And then select them from clipman Now it's not as good I don't think as clipman UD Simply because it's not built into ROPHY I'd prefer it to be built into ROPHY But if I wanted to use clipman UD I could still do that But the fact that clipman is built into XFC Is really really cool So the next feature is one that I don't think That a lot of people would use But I've found myself using it a lot So I'm used to being very very organized When it comes to my windows Because I use a tiling window manager by default Usually and that manages my windows In a certain way that I'm very comfortable with But with a floating window manager Or in this case a desktop environment My windows get all over the damn place And it drives my OCD just absolutely nuts Now there are obviously ways of working around this That I'm still messing around with But one of the things that I've found so cool about XFC Is the roll up feature And basically what the roll up feature does Is it allows you to roll the window up So if you hit this little button here It's the up arrow It turns the application into just the title bar That's all that's left of it And you can just move that around And it's so much easier So if you have multiple things So let's just get OBS over here And I roll that up Hopefully this doesn't stop the recording You know it just looks like this And I can stack them so simply And it's just very nice Now I do will say that it's really easy To lose things like this So I end up having to alt tab define things sometimes If I have multiple things rolled up But if I have several windows open on a desktop at once And I don't need one of them right away But I know that only later I roll it up And I don't have to deal with it in the way It just lies there until I need it again And it's just so useful And I'm probably going to miss it If I go back to a tiling window manager later on I know that there are like You can like minimize windows on certain window managers So maybe that's an option But this isn't like minimize Because it's still there It's still visible You still know that it's easy to find But I don't know I just find it really really useful So that's the roll up feature And like I said I'm really really excited about that one That's the one that I've been using a lot So the next one that I want to talk about is the panel Now if you've watched any of my videos in the past You'll know that I spend a lot of time Customizing my bar in a window manager I tend to spend a lot of time doing that And it's something that I enjoy doing And I consider a bar very important The XFC panel is spectacular It's one of the best bars panels out there And I like it because it's very very customizable So it comes with a ton of items I believe they call them applets But they also call them items So whatever they're called And there are many more items Or applets available online If you search for them But basically you can put anything you want in the bar You can style the bar however you want And because a lot of the stuff is done through CSS and XML If there's not a built-in settings panel for it Or a built-in setting toggle for it I should say You could do all that stuff in CSS or XML If you knew how to do so So that's really cool about the bar And like I said because it's so extensible You can basically do anything you want with it You can put it on the top or the bottom It can go on the left or the right You can make it with rounded corners Like I have which is really cool You can add transparency without a compositor At least without an extra compositor There's just so much you can do with it And it's one of the reasons why I think the XFC 4 panel is one of the most used panels out there Even for people who use window managers Simply because there's just so much you can do with it And on top of that of course you get the whisker menu If you install it And the whisker menu is fantastic It's very customizable Very easy to navigate So you can you know go into different categories And stuff like that in the way that I have it Set up with the icons along the bottom And it just works really really well Now I don't find myself using the whisker menu All that often I end up using just using Rofi Because I'm used to Rofi But every once in a while I'll open up the whisker menu And search from there So I find the panel to be spectacular And I've spent quite a bit of time Getting it to look exactly the way I want it to look And it's really really nice Now I will say That I'm still messing around with the CLI aspects of it So there are certain commands you can do In the terminal to manipulate the panel Including restart it So theoretically Because everything is done in a configuration file Like I'll talk about here in a minute You could theoretically easily change themes And colors and settings And applets and all that stuff from a script Now like I said I haven't got there yet And I haven't explored it yet But theoretically that's possible And that kind of makes me really excited Because I like to script different rices And that has some serious potential there So I'm really looking forward to getting into that So I've already mentioned it But the fifth one on the list is configuration files So if I open up a terminal here Every setting that XFCE has As far as I can tell is right here in one directory Now this is good for two reasons First it makes customizing XFCE very interesting Because not only can you open up the settings panel And manage XFCE through there You can also edit XFCE through the configuration files And if you've ever used a tiling window manager before Maybe you're more comfortable doing it that way Now if you are familiar with XML You'll have a better time doing all that stuff Then if you are not familiar with XML I'm not familiar with XML So it's a little it's been a little bit tricky But it's just another thing to learn And because there's that option It enables you to do a whole bunch more Than if you were to just stick to the settings panel Or at least it allows you to do things In a different way I should say at least The other thing the other reason why this is cool Is because theoretically you could take this file And put it on another instance of XFCE Say on another computer And you'd have all your settings Now other desktop environments can sort of do this But they store their stuff all over the place And that means that you have to have every single piece Of the thing that it stores In order to get the proper settings And stuff like that as you might want And even then you're probably going to miss something And things are going to break It's not quite easy to transfer from place to place XFCE everything's right here And that means that you can take this And put them on another machine And it just should work very very easily Now obviously that's going to depend on Having all the dependencies and stuff that you need So if you install an applet or something To your bar that isn't there by default You'd have to make sure that's installed Before you get set up and whatever You don't want things to break that way But still having all that stuff in one place Means that XFCE is maybe the most transferable Desktop environment that exists It's very very cool So those are the five things that I found so far That I really really truly like about XFCE I have to say that I've been really enjoying my time here There have been some negatives Like I've talked about earlier And you know where to find a lot of stuff But I will just say that overall As a broadening horizons experience Horizon broadening experience I'm having a hard time talking today It's been a very good experience so far It's been something that I've had fun customizing I've had fun setting up all the key bindings that I need Because I really truly do like managing My workflow with key binding So I've set up a ton of key bindings Which is nice So it's been a very good experience To set all this stuff up And I've had fun And I haven't found anything that has been deal breaking Like there's nothing Even the whole monitors not turning off thing Which I still haven't solved Isn't a deal breaker for me I've just worked around it And honestly that's the only thing that has come close Now I've had some fedora issues But that's for another video So that's it for this one If you have cool things that you really like about XFC I'd love to hear about them in the comments below You can follow me on Mastodon or Odyssey Those links will be in the video description You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com Slash the Linux Cast Links for Liberapay and YouTube Will be in the video description Thanks to everybody who does support me on Patreon And YouTube you guys are all absolutely amazing I truly do appreciate it You guys are all like I said Absolutely amazing And this cold is just messing with my mind I can't I can't remember what I just said half the time So I'm just repeating myself over and over again But anyways Thanks everybody for your support Thanks everybody for watching I'll see you next time