Cairo-Dock

Cairo-Dock is a highly customizable dock written in C.
Installation
Install
the
cairo-dock
package.
The core package provides only the strict minimum to run Cairo-Dock — to use applets, animations, views, effects and dialogs you will also need
cairo-dock-plug-ins
.
You can also try the development branch with
cairo-dock-git
AUR
.
Plugin dependencies
The applets in
cairo-dock-plug-ins
require quite a lot of dependencies, therefore all of them have been made optional not to bloat your system if you do not use a particular applet. Please refer to the optdepends list and install those you need.
Note
If for some reason an applet is not working, make sure you have GVFS installed, it is required for several applets as well as GNOME, XFCE and KDE integration.
Configuration
Running the dock
Run the dock in the background:
$ cairo-dock &
This will generate a startup message that will ask you to choose a backend for the current session (OpenGL or
Cairo
). There is an option to remember the choice and if not choosing to remember the choice, a startup message will be generated each time Cairo-Dock is run without backend options. To supress the startup message, you can specify which backend to use when running Cairo-Dock by specifying it as an option.
Run the dock with OpenGL backend:
$ cairo-dock -o &
Run the dock with Cairo backend:
$ cairo-dock -c &
Tip
All using ATI graphics cards should use this option. Some cards/drivers do not support OpenGL, which may prevent Cairo-Dock from running correctly.
Running the dock at startup
This depends on which desktop environment or window manager that is being used and which backend Cairo-Dock should be run with. The following section shows how to run Cairo-Dock at startup without forcing a backend.
Cairo-Dock method
Run Cairo-Dock and right-click the dock and go to
Cairo-Dock > Launch Cairo-Dock on startup
. The settings will be stored in
~/.config/autostart/
and sourced the next time you login.
Openbox/Fluxbox
Add the following to
~/.config/openbox/autostart
or
~/.fluxbox/startup
accordingly:
cairo-dock &
Xfce
If you have
xfce4-autostart-editor
installed, simply run it and add an entry for Cairo-Dock. If you are not using a session manager you can add the following to
~/.config/xfce4/xinitrc
or
~/Desktop/Autostart
:
cairo-dock &
GNOME
Add a Cairo-Dock entry to Startup Programs using
$ gnome-session-properties
Configuring the dock
To configure the dock, right-click the dock and go to
Cairo-Dock > Configure
.
Troubleshooting
Two Cairo-Docks are running
This is most likely a result of saved sessions being runned at login. If you are using a desktop environment like
GNOME
,
KDE
or
Xfce
you need to disable automatic startup of sessions in your session manager settings. You may also need to delete the sessions cache:
$ rm ~/.cache/sessions/x*
If you are not using a desktop environment with a session manager or choose to have Cairo-Dock startup by itself, you need to remove autostart files generated by Cairo-Dock:
$ rm ~/.config/autostart/cairo-dock*
The background is black
This is most likely caused by not running a composite manager, like
Xcompmgr
. Cairo-Dock uses the transparency feature of the composite manager to display the dock, and without it the dock will be displayed with a black background. If you are using a desktop environment, simply enable the composite manager or desktop effects in the settings.
An alternative solution that does not require a composite manager is to enable fake transparency in Cairo-Dock. To do this, right-click the dock and go to
Cairo-Dock > Configure > Advanced Mode > System > Composition
. Then enable both
Emulate composition with fake transparency
and
Make the config panel transparent
.
Wifi plugin does not show the network strength
If you added the wifi plugin, and it is not showing the network strength, you have to certify that you have iwconfig installed (the plugin depends on it) and that you have permission to read the full output of iwconfig.
Install
wireless_tools
to get iwconfig.
And to get the permission to read the full output of the iwconfig as a normal user (read more about
Capabilities
):
# setcap cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin=eip /usr/bin/iwconfig
See also
glx-dock.org
Launchpad