Another release, a quick one for that matter, to bring you the latest Manjaro Updates + some awesome fixes.

Making dealing with themes, awesome!

• We are happy to let you know that the way we handle the themes in TROMjaro has been improved. And it is better than Pop OS, Ubuntu, Budgie, KDE Plasma, and for that matter most such distros. You only have to change the theme from Appearance and that’s it. Read more about why this is so awesome, here: Dealing with themes (change them, understand them).

Ok, so for the current TROMjaro users you have to do a few things to make your TROMjaro awesome when it comes to dealing with the themes.

• Delete two packages that are not needed anymore: kvantum-qt5 and kvantum-theme-vimix-git .
• Go to your home folder and edit the file .profile. Remove the line export QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE="kvantum-dark"
• Go to your System Files and in the folder etc you’ll find a file called environment. Remove the following lines from it by editing it as ROOT - right click for that option:

<pre><code class="lang-auto">QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME="gnome"

QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE="kvantum"
</code></pre>

• Reboot your computer.
• Open the QT Settings. See the video bellow and make the changes similarly (pause the video if needed):

/uploads/default/original/1X/7ff4438bb0ffe044b91b086a4a25da3b62dd90b4.mp4

That’s all! Now installing and dealing with themes is a breeze! Read the above article I linked to!

SMPlayer improved a bit!

Our default “Play” player got some tweaks, such as hardware acceleration and such. This can make a huge difference. Again, see the bellow video and try to make your player have similar settings, especially for the Performance tab:

/uploads/default/original/1X/b5df689f115db573e53ec68eaf95660eaaa590af.mp4

Update the zombie-apps script:

Last time we pushed a release we did not update this script. It was a mistake…so we are fixing it now. This is a script that removes the zombie app icons - the icons of apps that were edited manually (renamed and such) and then uninstalled. Go to .local/bin and edit the file fix-tweaked-desktop-files - replace all of what is there with:
<pre><code class="lang-auto">#!/bin/bash
pidof -sq -o %PPID -x "$(basename "$0")" && exit
data="$HOME"/.local/share/applications/tweaked-desktop-files

# Directories where desktop files are stored
user="$HOME"/.local/share/applications
flatpak_local="$HOME"/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/applications
flatpak_global=/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications
pacman_local=/usr/local/share/applications
pacman_global=/usr/share/applications
snap=/var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications

detectfiles() {
for file in "$user"/*.desktop; do
name=$(basename "$file") || continue
[ -d "$file" ] || grep -xq "\(flatpak-local\|flatpak-global\|pacman-local\|pacman-global\|snap\)/$name" "$data" && continue
if [ -f "$flatpak_local/$name" ]; then
echo "flatpak-local/$name" >> "$data"
elif [ -f "$flatpak_global/$name" ]; then
echo "flatpak-global/$name" >> "$data"
elif [ -f "$pacman_local/$name" ]; then
echo "pacman-local/$name" >> "$data"
elif [ -f "$pacman_global/$name" ]; then
echo "pacman-global/$name" >> "$data"
elif [ -f "$snap/$name" ]; then
echo "snap/$name" >> "$data"
fi
done
}

fixfiles() {
lastmod=$(stat -c "%Y" "$data")
tmp="$(mktemp)"
trap 'rm $tmp' EXIT
[ -f "$data" ] && cp "$data" "$tmp" && copied='true'
lineno=0
[ "$copied" = 'true' ] && while IFS= read -r line; do
((lineno++))
name=${line#*/}
file="$user/$name"
# shellcheck disable=2015 # To disable shellcheck error here, line below is intended to work this way
echo "$line" | grep -xq '\(flatpak-local\|flatpak-global\|pacman-local\|pacman-global\|snap\)/.\+' && [ -f "$file" ] || { sed -i "${lineno}d" "$tmp" && ((lineno--)) ; continue; }
[ -f "$flatpak_local/$name" ] ||
[ -f "$flatpak_global/$name" ] ||
[ -f "$pacman_local/$name" ] ||
[ -f "$pacman_global/$name" ] ||
[ -f "$snap/$name" ] ||
mv "$file" "$file.bak"
done < "$data"

[ "$copied" = 'true' ] && [ "$(stat -c '%Y' "$data")" = "$lastmod" ] && sort "$tmp" | uniq > "$data"

for bakfile in "$user"/*.desktop.bak; do
origfile="${bakfile%.bak}"
[ -f "$origfile" ] && continue
name=$(basename "$origfile") || continue
[ -f "$flatpak_local/$name" ] ||
[ -f "$flatpak_global/$name" ] ||
[ -f "$pacman_local/$name" ] ||
[ -f "$pacman_global/$name" ] ||
[ -f "$snap/$name" ] &&
mv "$bakfile" "$origfile"
done
}

while :; do
user_new=$(ls -ad "$user"/*.desktop 2>/dev/null)
flatpak_local_new=$(ls -ad "$flatpak_local"/*.desktop 2>/dev/null)
flatpak_global_new=$(ls -ad "$flatpak_global"/*.desktop 2>/dev/null)
pacman_local_new=$(ls -ad "$pacman_local"/*.desktop 2>/dev/null)
pacman_global_new=$(ls -ad "$pacman_global"/*.desktop 2>/dev/null)
snap_new=$(ls -ad "$snap"/*.desktop 2>/dev/null)
[ "$user_new" != "$user_old" ] && detectfiles
[ "$flatpak_local_new" != "$flatpak_local_old" ] ||
[ "$flatpak_global_new" != "$flatpak_global_old" ] ||
[ "$pacman_local_new" != "$pacman_local_old" ] ||
[ "$pacman_global_new" != "$pacman_global_old" ] ||
[ "$snap_new" != "$snap_old" ] && fixfiles
user_old=$user_new
flatpak_local_old=$flatpak_local_new
flatpak_global_old=$flatpak_global_new
pacman_local_old=$pacman_local_new
pacman_global_old=$pacman_global_new
snap_old=$snap_new
sleep 5
done
</code></pre>
We also did a few minor changes such as muting the mic by default, unhide several tray icons that are important to be visible such as the VPN or the updates icon.

That’s all.

This month we plan to get TROMjaro our of Beta, since it is stable and awesome enough!

Grab the ISOs form here.

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We want each TROMjaro update to come with as little changes as possible. That would create a more stable and sane Operating System. Speaking of that, this update brings very few changes.

• We renamed a few custom actions in the File Manager. You know when you right click a folder/file or inside of a folder and get options such as “Open in terminal” and so forth. To change these open the File Manager, then go to Edit → Configure custom actions. And edit the name of any as you wish.
• We removed the global menu toggle script keybinding. Because we do not need that. Open “Keyboard” then go to Application Shortcuts to add/remove such shortcuts.
• We improved a bit the script that removes the zombie app icons - the icons of apps that were edited manually (renamed and such) and then uninstalled. Go to .local/bin and edit the file fix-tweaked-desktop-files - replace all of what is there with:

<pre><code class="lang-auto">#!/bin/bash
data="$HOME"/.local/share/applications/tweaked-desktop-files
detectfiles() {
for file in "$HOME"/.local/share/applications/*.desktop; do
[ -d "$file" ] || grep -xq "$file" "$data" && continue
name=$(basename "$file") || continue
[ -f /usr/share/applications/"$name" ] ||
ls /var/lib/flatpak/app/*/current/active/files/share/applications/"$name" >/dev/null 2>&1 ||
[ -f /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/"$name" ] &&
echo "$file" >> "$data"
done
}

fixfiles() {
lastmod=$(stat -c "%Y" "$data")
tmp="$(mktemp -u)"
[ -f "$data" ] && cp "$data" "$tmp" && copied='true'
[ "$copied" = 'true' ] && while IFS= read -r file; do
[ -f "$file" ] || { sed -i "/^$file$/d" "$tmp" ; continue; }
name=$(basename "$file") || continue
[ -f /usr/share/applications/"$name" ] ||
ls /var/lib/flatpak/app/*/current/active/files/share/applications/"$name" >/dev/null 2>&1 ||
[ -f /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/"$name" ] ||
mv "$file" "$file.bak"
done < "$data"

[ "$copied" = 'true' ] && [ "$(stat -c '%Y' "$data")" = "$lastmod" ] && mv "$tmp" "$data"

for bakfile in "$HOME"/.local/share/applications/*.desktop.bak; do
origfile="${bakfile/%.bak}"
[ -f "$origfile" ] && continue
name=$(basename "$origfile") || continue
[ -f /usr/share/applications/"$name" ] ||
ls /var/lib/flatpak/app/*/current/active/files/share/applications/"$name" >/dev/null 2>&1 ||
[ -f /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/"$name" ] &&
mv "$bakfile" "$origfile"
done
}

pidof -q -o %PPID -x fix-tweaked-desktop-files && exit

while :; do
local_new=$(ls -ad "$HOME"/.local/share/applications/*.desktop 2>/dev/null)
pacman_new=$(ls -ad /usr/share/applications/*.desktop 2>/dev/null)
flatpak_new=$(ls -ad /var/lib/flatpak/app/*/current/active/files/share/applications/*.desktop 2>/dev/null)
snap_new=$(ls -ad /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/*.desktop 2>/dev/null)
[ "$local_new" != "$local_old" ] && detectfiles
[ "$pacman_new" != "$pacman_old" ] ||
[ "$flatpak_new" != "$flatpak_old" ] ||
[ "$snap_new" != "$snap_old" ] && fixfiles
local_old=$local_new
pacman_old=$pacman_new
flatpak_old=$flatpak_new
snap_old=$snap_new
sleep 5
done

</code></pre>

• We have removed the package python2-bcrypt that is not needed.

Grab it form here.

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With this release we are moving closer to getting TROMjaro XFCE out of Beta. And for that reason we are releasing two versions. Let me explain the “them” and the “why”.

TROMjaro Modern.

TROMjaro Modern is similar to our original TROMjaro Gnome. We wanted a left side apps panel, and a top bar for activities. With XFCE we managed to include global menus so the transformation was complete.

image1775×996 59.5 KB

Beautiful global menus, very nice and compact UI that allows windows to expand to the top panel.

/uploads/default/original/1X/d1793c6dda6ad59c0983d94a78e057ca4f7430c2.mp4

However this didn’t work 100% of the time. There were a few inconsistencies:

• Several new apps are using CSD (Client Side Decorations) and that means they do not have a traditional top bar anymore, making it impossible to “expand” into the top bar. And so you end up with two sets of window buttons as such:

image1777×998 51.3 KB

This can be very confusing. We reported the issue here, but so far no sing that it will be fixed.

• The top global menus only worked for some 70% of all apps from our tests. The same CSD windows are also bad at exporting the menus so they usually cannot have a global menu. And rarely some apps had a proper top menu but it was not being exported to the top panel. Overall I’d say some 70% of all apps worked with the global menu, some 25% kept their own hamburger menu and did not export any, and the rest had a traditional menu but it was not exported as a global menu. We think this may create confusion. This issue with apps not exporting the menus is debated for years now and it seems there is no fix to this since more and more developers choose to not properly export the menus of their apps. They seem to not care about this, despite the fact that it can be very useful, even for people with disabilities that can use all kinds of software to read through such menus. But well, it is something we cannot do anything about…
• The fact that menus are on the top bar, even when windows are not maximized, can be confusing for some.
• Maybe there are more reasons that I do not remember now.

Overall this Modern layout is as good as such a layout gets on Linux. I use it personally and I love it. It is geared for people who do video/photo editing and need more screen space.

TROMjaro Classic.

TROMjaro Classic is meant to fix the above inconsistencies so we are able to provide a TROMjaro ISO that is a lot more stable and consistent. Mind you, the changes are only design wise and a package less.

image1775×996 55.5 KB

Because there is one single panel, and it is located at the bottom like in most Operating Systems, it is more familiar to newcomers. We’ve also removed the global menus so apps look a lot more consistent, regardless if their are CSD or non-CSD.

image1774×1000 111 KB

We’ve also moved the window buttons to the right. They make sense to the left when used in the Modern version.

So why two?

Simply because one is based on our original intent to provide a more unique looking distro (Modern) with global menus, but if users want more consistency they can choose the Classic version. This way we keep an original approach and a more consistent one too, at the same time.

One can create any of those layouts very very easily. And we will add tips about how to do that, very soon, to our Tips category.

Changes:

Here are the changes that we’ve done for this release:

• We obviously changed some stuff for the panels. Mainly we changed this little human menu from the right corner
  
  with the Action Buttons plugin. So right click that little human (can be black now, hence the reason we are changing this) and then remove. The right click on the top panel and add a new item (Action Buttons). Drag it to the same position and make sure you have these selected:

  
  image1090×885 110 KB

Now to improve the icons situation. Copy these icons to the .local/share/icons/Zafiro/actions/48/ folder. Now refresh the desktop if you can’t see the changes: Ctrl+Alt+Del.

• We replaced the default lock screen app (light-locker) with XFCE’s default called xfce4-screensaver. Install it via Add/Remove Software and then open the Screensaver app and do these changes:

  
  image589×640 41.8 KB

  
  image593×643 55.5 KB

You may have to reboot your computer for this new Lock Screen to take effect.

• We remove the terminal transparency simply because it was fully transparent on some systems after the OS was installed, But you can make it transparent manually via the terminal’s preferences.
• We fixed a bug with the Archive Manager. Go to /.local/share/applications/ and remove a desktop file that has FileRoller in the name.
• On desktop the mouse pointer will disappear when there is no movement. This can be confusing. We did this for touchscreen devices that are only used without a mouse. To remove this annoyance go to .config/autostart/ and remove the file Unclutter.desktop. Reboot your system.
• We have removed the Whisker menu from our panels and replaced it with AppFinder. We wanted 1 single app finder/menu, not two. Simply right click the APPS button and remove. Then add a new item (a launcher) for AppFinder. As such:

  /uploads/default/original/1X/a9fb534818813feb4717583c7bbb1c73271c5c3a.mp4

It is easy. If you want to use a similar icon search for view-list-icons in the icons.

Oh and the wallpaper you see is probably going to be the default TROMjaro wallpaper. If you want it, grab it from here.

That’s all I guess! Grab the ISOs from here.

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