1

I am having some problem with the PCManFM on my Lubuntu 18.04LTS. The "Copying Files" progress bar always appears on top of the viewer so everytime I want to navigate through the files I need to move it out the way, it won't let me hide it without hiding the viewer. I have my own reason that I need to search through the files while transfering files via FTP.

Since I don't have much experience with linux I don't know if there is any command or scripts that can do the job eventhough I would like to learn more about it. If it is just the nature of this FM I might consider changing to another lightweight one.

R3G3N3R4T0R
  • 23
  • 1
    Can you just open another copy of PCManFM? – Organic Marble Jul 24 '19 at 01:08
  • 1
    @OrganicMarble it may be possible to have the "Copying Files" dialog window to appear somewhere else on the screen by making a rule in the Applications section of ~/.config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml. For that one has to get information from the relevant window by running obxprop or even just xprop. It's been a while since I've used Lubuntu but I'm guessing it's possible! Plus the poster hasn't revealed whether pcmanfm is running maximized or not and where the "Copying Files" window should be located. – DK Bose Jul 24 '19 at 04:55
  • 1
    @OrganicMarble Starting a new instance requires me to navigate through the files again and since it starts a new window I thought it might be possible to tweak some settings to make the viewer top. – R3G3N3R4T0R Jul 24 '19 at 19:19
  • 1
    @DKBose To clear things up, I didn't and have never used the FM maximized so it either appears on the top left or bottom right. The "Copying Files" box always appears in the center of the viewer box and layer wise on top of it. So it always obstruct my view. I want to know if there are ways to make the viewer box appears on top of it so it completely covers the "Copying Files" box. – R3G3N3R4T0R Jul 24 '19 at 19:27

1 Answers1

1

First, ensure you have more than one virtual desktop:

More than one desktop

Second, make a safe backup of ~/.config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml and then edit the original using a plain text editor such as leafpad, as follows:

Go to the bottom of this file. The last two lines should be:

  </applications>
</openbox_config>

Now, just above the line containing </applications>, paste in the following:

<application class="Pcmanfm" name="pcmanfm" title="Copying files" type="dialog">
  <desktop>2</desktop>
</application>

Observe the indentations in use (for aesthetic reasons).

Then, scroll up a few more lines and you should see:

    <!--    
        Lubuntu specific :
        Focus all applications launched
        Usefull when launching applications, like terminal from pcmanfm
   -->
    <application class="*">
      <focus>yes</focus>
    </application>

Cut the "-->" from its existing position and paste it immediately below 

    <application class="*">
      <focus>yes</focus>
    </application>

In other words, you've commented out three lines which interfere with the code we've inserted earlier.

Save the file. If you used a plain text editor, the file type will be unaffected. If you use something else like LibreOffice or Abiword, ensure you save the file as plain text with the .xml suffix.

Open a terminal and run openbox --reconfigure to register your changes. You should just get back the prompt without any pop-up.

Now, whenever the "Copy Files" window opens, it does so on Desktop 2 and not on Desktop 1 which remains in focus all the time.

The Applications section of lubuntu-rc.xml is pretty powerful and the comments in that section are very helpful.

The same fix works in LXQt-based Lubuntu 19.04 which uses pcmanfm-qt version 0.14.1.

DK Bose
  • 42,548
  • 23
  • 127
  • 221