Desktop Settings

Open Desktop Settings from the launcher (type desktop) to change your wallpaper, clock, dock, keyboard shortcuts and default apps. Use For You for your own choices and All Users for the machine's defaults.

Settings that belong to the machine rather than the desktop live in System Settings, and a person's own account settings, such as their password and language, in My Settings.

For you, and for all users #

The window has two groups of sections.

Anyone may change their own settings. The machine's are, as shipped, for Administrators to change; anyone else sees them read-only, with the reason said once at the top of the section.

How the choices stack #

Most settings exist at three levels, and the nearest one that is set wins:

1. Your choice, if you have made one.
2. The machine's, set under All Users, for everyone who hasn't chosen.
3. The built-in default, what Peios does when nobody has chosen.

Desktop Settings calls the second and third together the System Default: choosing System Default for yourself removes your choice, so the machine's (or the built-in) applies to you again.

When changes take effect #

For your personal settings, a switch or a choice from a list applies the moment it is made; a typed value applies with the Apply button that appears beside it once it has changed. What a change did is said along the bottom of the window.

Some settings for all users take effect later: sign-in-screen settings and a new listen address apply when GXWI next starts, and icon themes apply to new desktop sessions. Changes that could cut people off, such as the address GXWI listens on, ask first, under their row.

Where to start #

• Wallpaper, clock and dock
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Default apps
• Settings for all users

Desktop components #

For troubleshooting or advanced configuration, the desktop consists of GXWI, which serves it; Fenestra, which arranges the windows; and fenesh, which provides the top bar, dock and launcher. Desktop Settings ships with fenesh. The settings that select those components are under Advanced.

These are the For You sections of Desktop Settings. Each applies to you alone, and only once you have chosen: until then you have the machine's choice, and failing that the built-in one.

Wallpaper #

Wallpaper shows the pictures you can choose from:

• System Default, the machine's wallpaper, or the built-in one when the machine has none;
• the wallpapers Peios ships, kept in /usr/share/wallpapers/peios, in four series: Contours (Strata, the built-in one, Fold, Chalk and Relief), Afterglow (Cast Glass, Veil and Amber), Elsewhere (Escarpment, Canopy, Mare and Saltpan) and Impressions (Upland and Winter Ridge);
• your own picture, once you have chosen one.

Click one to use it. Choose Picture… opens the file dialog for a picture of your own: a PNG, JPEG, SVG, WebP, AVIF or GIF of up to 16 MB, that you can read. The desktop changes at once, on every screen you are signed in on.

The choice is the picture's path, CurrentUser\Software\fenesh Wallpaper (REG_SZ). Deleting the value is System Default. A path that can't be read, isn't a picture or is too large is ignored and the next level down is used.

Clock #

Time Format sets how the clock in the top bar counts the hours: 24-Hour (14:05), 12-Hour (2:05 PM), or System Default, which is the machine's choice, else 24-hour. It is CurrentUser\Software\fenesh ClockHours, a REG_DWORD of 12 or 24; any other number is ignored.

The clock shows the time in the machine's time zone, which is set in System Settings; see the time zone.

Dock #

The apps pinned to your dock are changed from the dock and the launcher themselves: right-click an app to pin or unpin it, and drag a pin to move it. Your first change makes your own set; until then the dock shows the machine's pins.

Dock shows whose pins you have. Use System Default throws your own set away, so the machine's applies to you again. Your set is CurrentUser\Software\fenesh Pinned, a REG_MULTI_SZ of application ids in order.

Get Started, under Show Again, opens the welcome you saw on your first sign-in, and shows it again at your next one if it can't open now.

Where to go next #

• Keyboard shortcuts
• Settings for all users, where an administrator sets the machine's wallpaper, clock and pins

The desktop's keyboard shortcuts work wherever the keyboard is, in any window. Each action, such as moving to the next workspace, can have several shortcuts, or none.

Changing a shortcut #

In Desktop Settings, Keyboard Shortcuts under For You lists every action, grouped into Launcher & Dock and Windows & Workspaces, with its shortcuts as keys.

• + Add, then press the keys you want. Holding Ctrl or Alt on its own is waited past; press Esc, or click elsewhere, to stop without changing anything.
• × on a shortcut removes it. An action with none says None.
• Reset puts one action back to the System Default; Reset All to System Default puts them all back.

A shortcut must include Ctrl, Alt or Meta, since the desktop takes it from every window, a text field included, and a key on its own is met while typing. The browser keeps a few shortcuts for itself, such as Ctrl+W, Ctrl+T and F11, and those can't be used. A shortcut already assigned to another action is refused, with which; remove it there first.

Open Dock Item is set by modifiers, not a whole shortcut: Alt means Alt+1 to Alt+9, one for each of the first nine items in the dock. To change it, press Change, then hold the new modifiers and press any number.

Changes apply at once, in every window of yours.

The actions #

Where they are kept #

Each action's shortcuts are one REG_SZ value, named by its id, in:

Your value is used if there is one, else the machine's, else the built-in default. The data is the shortcuts separated by spaces, each written as its keys joined by +, for example Ctrl+Alt+ArrowLeft Ctrl+Alt+J. Open Dock Item's is its modifiers alone, such as Alt or Ctrl+Alt.

An empty value is an action with no shortcut, which is different from no value, which leaves the next level in force. A value that isn't a REG_SZ, or that holds anything that isn't a shortcut the desktop may take, is ignored as a whole and the next level is used; nothing repairs it.

$ reg set 'CurrentUser\Software\Fenestra\Shortcuts' Launcher 'sz:Ctrl+Space'

Where to go next #

• Default apps
• Settings for all users, for the machine's shortcuts

When more than one installed app can open a type of file, the default app is the one that opens it when you open the file, for example by double-clicking it in Gexora. The others stay on the file's right-click menu.

Choosing one #

In Desktop Settings, Default Apps under For You lists each type of file that more than one app can open, by its name and its media type, with the apps that can open it. Choose one, or System Default for the machine's choice. It applies at once.

A type only one app opens isn't listed: there is nothing to choose. When no app can be chosen for anything yet, the section says No Choices.

How the default is found #

Choices are made for a whole media type, such as image/png, or for a family of them, such as image/*. For a file, the first of these that names an app that can still open it wins:

1. your choice for its exact type;
2. your choice for its family;
3. the machine's choice for its exact type;
4. the machine's choice for its family.

So your choice for every image beats the machine's choice for PNGs. When none of them applies, the app that opens the file is the first available. A choice never makes an app open a type it doesn't say it opens, and a choice naming an app that has since been removed is simply passed over.

Where they are kept #

Each choice is a REG_SZ value in CurrentUser\Generic\Applications\Defaults (yours) or Machine\Generic\Applications\Defaults (the machine's), named by the media type and holding the app's id:

$ reg set 'CurrentUser\Generic\Applications\Defaults' image/png sz:dev.peios.peitor

The whole rule, for anyone writing a program that opens files, is PGSS Defaults.

Where to go next #

• Settings for all users

The All Users sections of Desktop Settings set the machine's choices: what everyone has until they choose their own, and the parts of the desktop that are the machine's alone. Changing them needs write access to the keys below, which as shipped only Administrators have. Anyone else sees them read-only, with the reason said once.

Sign-In Screen #

• Machine Name is the name the sign-in screen shows, up to 64 characters. It is separate from the machine's network name, which is System Settings'. Empty is the System Default.
• Notice is text shown under it, such as an acceptable-use notice: Change… opens it, up to eight paragraphs separated by blank lines and 2,000 characters in all.

Both apply when GXWI next starts. They are Machine\Software\GXWI\Logon Name (REG_SZ) and Notice (REG_MULTI_SZ, a paragraph each).

Desktop #

• Wallpaper chooses everyone's from the same pictures as your own.
• Time Format is everyone's clock, 24-hour unless chosen.
• Pinned Apps shows everyone's dock; Use My Pins makes the dock you have now everyone's.

These are Wallpaper, ClockHours and Pinned in Machine\Software\fenesh, the same values as a person's own (see wallpaper, clock and dock).

• Icon Themes are the icon themes desktop apps use, in order of preference, each a folder in /usr/share/icons; the base theme is always used last. They are Machine\Generic\Icons Themes (REG_MULTI_SZ), and apply to new desktop sessions.

Keyboard Shortcuts and Default Apps #

These work as the personal sections do, but set the machine's choices: Machine\Software\Fenestra\Shortcuts and Machine\Generic\Applications\Defaults. Reset All to Built-In removes the machine's shortcuts, and First Available removes the machine's default for a type. See keyboard shortcuts and default apps.

Advanced #

The programs that make up the desktop, and how GXWI serves it. Leave a field empty for the System Default.

Each of these is trusted with every person's desktop, so Review Changes… shows what changes and what it means before Apply Changes. A new listen address takes effect when GXWI next starts, and pages open on the old one, including Desktop Settings, lose the desktop. While an overlay is set, nobody can sign in or reach a desktop.

Where to go next #

• Desktop Settings