Docklet that activates Compiz's widget layer

[Pierre Slamich]

Compiz has a widget layer which contains the various widgets from widget frameworks (eg Screenlets GDesklets Google Gadgets, KDE widgets...).
Currently you can access them by binding a key on your keyboard (there's even a dedicated key for this on mac keyboards). On MacOSX dock, there's an icon that shows the widget layer when you click on it, making it more easily discoverable.
Would it be possible to add this to Docky ?

For reference, this is the second icon from the left: http://crenk.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/leopard-osx_1.jpg
Here's the page on the Compiz wiki: http://wiki.compiz.org/Plugins/Widget

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

I already made a branch that does this. It requires Compiz's dbus enabled. The problem is... it just doesn't work how you would hope.

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

Ok so I totally misread your bug report. I apologize for that. :-)

What you want can be done now, by yourself. You just have to create a new launcher with the following command:

dbus-send --session --print-reply --dest=org.freedesktop.compiz /org/freedesktop/compiz/widget/allscreens/toggle_key org.freedesktop.compiz.activate string:"root" int32:`xwininfo -root|grep id:|awk '{ print $4 }'`

This will toggle the widget layer. Then you can assign a name/icon however you want for the launcher.

[Pierre Slamich (pierre-slamich)]

Here's the sh file I pointed the launcher to.

[Pierre Slamich (pierre-slamich)]

Here's the icon i used (it's Leopard's one, but Screenlet ships one which is GPLed).
I also reduced the time for the widget layer to appear. I reckon integration of this isn't planned in Docky ?

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

Correct. There is no reason to put this directly into Docky. If users want this functionality they just need to do what you did and make a launcher.

[Joe Sapp (sappj)]

There is already a keyboard shortcut for this built-in to gDesklets and you can use the trick on the Compiz wiki to put desklets on the widget layer. However, I think this also puts configuration windows there no matter how you slice it, so we could look into it for the next release.

[John M. Remillard (olimpyisky)]

Changed in gdesklets:
importance: Undecided → Wishlist