Mad Scientest creates windowless Terminal in lab beaker

[PabloTwo]

...or (alternate title): "We don't need no stink'n devilspie"

OK, a bit over dramatic title, I agree. I stumbled upon this yesterday after tweaking parameters for 'Terminal' after having created an image in evolvotron and setting that as my new desktop wallpaper.

The effect of having your whole desktop as a 'windowless' terminal is a pretty cool thing, and as far as I know, usually requires the likes of devilspie to implement. I quite by happy accident triggered what is probably actually a bug, that creates this effect.

The recipe:
1 cup of XFCE4 as your DE
1 tbs of xfwm4 w/compositing enabled as your Window Manager
Dash of Terminal as your terminal w/just the right switches and sliders set in preferences

This magical combination causes Terminal to launch sans window decoration, and when the terminal background is set to full transparency, all you see is the command prompt and cursor. The trick to making it fill all, or most, of your desktop space is to launch it with the --geometry option specifying what size and position you want the 'window' to be.

For my 1152x864 screen size, I use: Terminal --geometry 110x40+110+55

Note that size (110x40) is relative to font point size and not absolute to screen size but that position (+110+55) is absolute relative to your screen size. If you change font size, the actual window size increases/decreases in size accordingly given the same numeric size parameters.

I was already launching Terminal from an upper panel launcher using --geometry option settings to make it fill a pretty big chunk of my desktop space, not covering the vertical row of icons on the left side and enough room left on the right and bottom to use the mouse wheel on the 'desktop' to switch workspaces.

[img=http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/9215/coolterminal.th.jpg]

[RupertPupkin]

I think most modern window managers can do that. For example, here's how WindowMaker does it (click to see the full size image):

[Simian Man]

You can also achieve this with the 'tilda' terminal emulator. A very cool program.

[PabloTwo]

Hi Rupert- Yeah, but the thing is, I didn't ask my window manager to do that, and there are no settings in the xfwm4 window manager (that I have found) that will do that. And the vanishing window decorator for the Terminal program occurs only when you uncheck all three check boxes as shown on my screen shot in the Terminal appearances preferences, none of which have anything to do with the window border/titlebar. Recheck any one or more of those three boxes and the window decoration is back the next time you launch Terminal.

Edit: And once again, open mouth, insert foot. Having totally and completely misinterpreted the 3rd item in the Terminal preference Appearance setting (Display borders around new windows), which my brain construed to mean new tabs, because opening a new tabbed window causes an extra accent border to appear within the normal border. I thought I was toggling off that extra border accent, not the entire border. Oh gosh, will I ever learn? It's probably too late for me.... someone, just hit me with the chloroform.

[angeltux]

wow I love it I think I'm gonna install xfce

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