Setting Preferences

The preferences panel is a separate program, cydesks-prefs, titled "Desks Preferences". Open it from Preferences... on the Overview menu.

It has two pages: Overview and Desk Names.

IRIX had no Desks preferences application. The original tool kept these choices on its own menu and in a resource file. This panel is a Blueprint extended tool.

The Overview Page

The page is a stack of framed groups, each with its caption above it.

How many desks:

A thumbwheel with a readout beside it, reading for example "10 desks". This is the number of desks in your session. It belongs to the window manager, not to the overview, so changing it changes the desks everywhere.

Show at once (0 = all):

A thumbwheel and a readout, reading for example "show 3 at a time". This is how many desk cells the map draws before it starts sliding. Zero shows every desk, which is what the original tool always did. See Switching Desks.

Ten desks drawn at eight percent is a smear, which is why the default is three.

Desks run:

Auto          follow the usable screen area
Horizontal    a row
Vertical      a column

See Size, Orientation, and Labels.

Each desk shows:

Snapshots       miniature windows in every cell
Buttons only    a plain button per desk

Beside them, a check box: "Show the Global desk". See Size, Orientation, and Labels.

Overview window:

A check box: "Show the menu bar". The same setting as Hide Menubar on the Overview menu, and it takes effect live.

Window labels:

Window name    the window's own title
Icon name      the window's icon title (the default)
No names       the plain rectangle only

Desk name colour:

Scheme    the colour scheme's own text colour (the default)
White
Yellow
Cyan
Green
Black

Scheme is the right answer unless you specifically want the desk names to stand out from everything else on the desktop.

The Desk Names Page

A list of every desk with its name, a field labelled "Name:", and three buttons.

Modify    rename the selected desk to what is in the field
Add       append a desk
Drop      remove the selected desk

Select a desk in the list and its name appears in the field. Edit it and press Modify.

Everything on this page belongs to the window manager: the names and the count both. Nothing here touches the overview's own settings file, and the changes are visible to every program that watches desks.

The Desk menu on the overview itself does the same three things one at a time; see Creating, Renaming, and Removing Desks. Use this page when you are renaming several desks in one sitting.

Apply and Close

Apply    write the settings and put them into effect
Close    dismiss the panel

Apply writes the overview's own settings and asks the running overview to re-read them, so the map changes without a restart. The desk count and the names go to the window manager as you make them.

From the Command Line

The same settings can be changed without opening a window, which is what you want from a login script:

cydesks-prefs --desks=N        set the number of desks
cydesks-prefs --visible=N      how many are shown at once
cydesks-prefs --label-color=C  scheme, or a colour name
cydesks-prefs --desk-add       add a desk and exit
cydesks-prefs --desk-drop=N    drop desk N, counting from 1
cydesks-prefs --desk-name=N:S  rename desk N to S
cydesks-prefs --desk-list      list the desks and names
cydesks-prefs --apply          write the settings and exit
cydesks-prefs --print          print the current settings
cydesks-prefs --conf=PATH      use a different settings file

See Where the Settings Live.