Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Eight Great Enlightenment Modules

Awhile back I did a posting about useful/interesting Gnome Panel Applets. Of the late I've been featuring the Enlightenment desktop more and more so I figured it was only fitting that I do a post highlighting some of my favorite Enlightenment Modules.

Forecasts -

The forecasts module allows you to display the weather forecast of the current day and the following two days in Widget form either on your desktop or on a shelf. It has options to display in English or Metric and is configurable how often it checks for updates.

Tiling -

People I've encountered in the past that use tiling Window Managers are often akin to cultists, they are many time fanatical in their belief that tiling is a superior type of manager - after having used one myself I am inclined to agree with them. For those who are not familiar tiling means that none of the Windows on your screen overlap, when you launch a new applications, the other ones on your screen readjust to account for the new one that has been opened.

This may seem like something simple, but you would be surprised at how much time you save not having to mess around with adjusting Windows to the proper size on your screen. The tiling module also supports only applying tiling to certain virtual desktops, so your entire Enlightenment desktop doesn't have to tile if you don't want it to.

Ecomorph -

Many that use Linux are familiar with Compiz desktop effects. Even though Enlightenment has some basic built in effects, those with more powerful systems might desire a little bit more flare for their desktop. Ecomorph is a port of Compiz for the Enlightenment desktop. The effects it brings include open/close/minimize animations as well as desktop cube and expo.


Itask-NG -


Itask-NG provides an "OSX" like dock similar to docky and cario. The main advantage to itask-ng is the fact that it does not require desktop compositing to be enabled for it to provide fluid animations. It supports both application launchers and acting as a taskbar for running applications.


Flame -

Set your E desktop on fire with this goofy little module! 100% configurable RGB values for the colors of the flame.




CPU & Mem -

The CPU and Mem modules are simple gadgets that give you a real time display of your system resources. (As you can see I have more than a few applications open)


Rain/Snow -


Rain or snow - Enlightenment development progresses! This module won't exactly increase productivity, but will give your desktop a bit of flare. You can configure the module to increase or decrease the intensity of the rain or snow.


Know of any other E-Modules that are useful (or fun) that I missed talking about here? If so drop a comment below.

~Jeff Hoogland

12 comments:

  1. Hi Jeff, Nice article. One thing though. I use the easy_e17.sh script from omicron and i always use the current bleeding edge e17. how come i don't see those modules anywhere? is there any other source for installing bleeding edge e17 on vanilla debian/ubuntu? how do i get hold of those modules? Thanks.

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  2. Other than ecomorph all of the modules I listed here are in the default E repositories.

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  3. In the past, on my system (Debian testing with a few unstable packages, building E-17 from source by way of my own script) I've had problems with ecomorph conflicting with itask-ng, and the conflict was such that the existence of the itask-ng module, even if it wasn't loaded, broke ecomorph.
    Now, the problem wasn't necessarily the E-17 modules, it could have been something else on my system, but running a "make uninstall" in the itask-ng directory returned the eye-heroin of ecomorph (eye-heroin is better than eye-candy).

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  4. Current builds of itask-ng and ecomorph do not conflict as far as I am aware. I have both running as I type this :)

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  5. Can you provide a user guide on how to configure Bodhi one similar to this http://howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-ubuntu-10.10-maverick-meerkat
    I really did like bodhi as an os but I did not know how to configure it properly and I am not an advance Linux user.

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  6. ori15 - Check out the software page - http://software.bodhilinux.com/ - and install all the recommended applications and the "system tools" listed and you should be good to go. If you find anything lacking after that, feel free to ask :)

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  7. Re. Ecomorph: ".. those with more powerful systems..."

    Sorry Jeff, but my experience leads me to disagree. I'm running Ecomorph right now on an original Asus EeePC 4G model (clocked to 'normal', @ 900MHz, and also equipped with the maximum 2GB of RAM) quite successfully, in fact - CPU utilisation at rest (with no apps other than an already-synced Dropbox instance running) is only about 20%.

    Enabling the 'Penguins' module alone, on top of that, brings the CPU figure up to about 35%; 'Snow' module (again alone, on top) is about 90%; but the 'Flames' module hits 100% immediately and bogs the entire machine, even without the Ecomorph running beneath it.

    Test them all for yourself, and see.

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  8. I cant access my home folder and mount my windows drive. how can I fix this?

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  9. Jeff,
    I am behind a proxy server and notice Forecasts is not updating. I do have http_proxy defined as an environment variable and it's working for Firefox. U have any ideas how to get Forecasts working? I'm on E 55255.

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  10. Not a clue :-/ Download it on another connection?

    ~Jeff

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  11. And of course, it works just fine on my home box. Eh..if I get a wild hair, I'll open up tcpdump and see what the frigger is doing. Thanks for the cycles, Jeff.

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  12. Jeff-new user to E here. Thanks for your helpful posts. I have a funky window situation and wondered if you could help me. I'm using TwinView with NVidia. I use Cinelerra, which in GNOME, normally opens up four windows spread across my dual monitor setup. GNOME remembers those settings.

    In E however, all four windows open up on one desktop. If I try to remember the window settings, E says it can't do it as I am "trying to remember to apply properties to a window that does not have unique properties". If I go ahead and apply those settings, all four windows of Cinelerra are the same size and placed in the same location, overlapped.

    any way around this?
    'sodo

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