XfApplet Plugin

o WHAT IS IT?

XfApplet is a plugin for the Xfce 4 panel. The plugin itself has no special
functionallity, its only purpose is to enable one to use Mate applets inside
the Xfce 4 panel just as they are used inside the Mate panel.

XfApplet was written for the new version about to be released of the Xfce 4
panel (4.4), although it should work perfectly with the development version of
the panel (4.3) from SVN provided that you use a revision >= r19874 (Xfce 4.4
beta releases are OK). XfApplet DOES NOT WORK with Xfce 4.2 or 4.0, and it won't
likely be backported to these older versions of Xfce.

o HOW IS IT USED?

After compiling and installing XfApplet (please see INSTALL file for details),
you should restart Xfce 4 panel in order to reread the available plugins. Then
you must right click any panel and select "Add New Item": XfApplet should be
available on the plugin list by now.

After adding XfApplet to the panel, you will get an "empty" XfApplet (displaying
just an image) because no applet has been selected yet. Right click XfApplet and
choose "Properties". You should get a dialog displaying all available applets in
your machine. As you select one by either double-clicking it or clicking the OK
button in the dialog, XfApplet will start displaying it just like the Mate
panel would do it.

At any time you can change the applet being displayed by accessing the
properties dialog again. You can add as many XfApplets to the panel as you want;
each one of them is capable of displaying a single Mate applet.

Notice that by right-clicking XfApplet after any applet has been loaded, you get
not only Xfce 4 panel's pop menu items but also the items expected from the
applet itself.

o KNOWN ISSUES

  -> MateConf Keys
  
Due to some limitations in the Xfce 4 panel plugin API, there is no way for a
plugin to know when it is definitelly being removed from the panel. As a
consequence, XfApplet cannot remove the MateConf keys created for the applets just
like the Mate panel does. After a long time adding and removing several
XfApplets to the panel, you may get a lot of unused MateConf entries. XfApplet can
give you some help removing them provided that you help it too ;)

All MateConf keys created for the applets have the following form:

	/apps/xfapplet/applet_%d

where '%d' is an integer (0, 1, 2, 3, etc.). Inside this directory, there can be
up to 3 other entries:

	in_use: boolean, indicates that it is being used. After you remove
	  XfApplet from the Xfce 4 panel, you can uncheck this and XfApplet will
	  automatically remove the entire directory.
	name: string, the name of the applet loaded. This is not used at all; it
	  is just a hint to let you know which XfApplet this entry corresponds
	  to.
	prefs: directory, this is optional and created by the applet to store
	  its preferences.

So, as stated above, to have any XfApplet MateConf key erased is just a matter of
unchecking /apps/xfapplet/applet_%d/in_use. Of course you are free to use any
other appropriate methods you prefer to remove the keys (like manually editing
your MateConf xml file).

  -> Tasklist applet and Systray applet (and maybe others)

XfApplet is currently not able to display correctly applets that require to be
expanded on the panel. This is the particular case of the Tasklist applet (there
may be others too). XfApplet also does not draw a handle for the applets that
request it; the only ones I know that request them are the Tasklist and Systray
applets.

By know, you will have to cope with this limitations, next version of XfApplet
should fix this. Anyway, the only applets that seem to be affected by these are
the Tasklist and Systray applets, but Xfce 4 panel has native plugins for these
so you you'd better use them instead of the applets.

o FEEDBACK

I would really like any feedback on XfApplet use: features request, bug reports,
etc.. You can either mail me directly (please see AUTHORS file) or use one of
the following mailing lists:

	Xfce 4 users list:		xfce@xfce.org
	Xfce 4 development list:	xfce4-dev@xfce.org
	Xfce 4 Goodies development:	xfce-goodies-dev@berlios.de

You'll need to be subscribed to the lists, please visit http://www.xfce.org or
http://xfce-goodies.berlios.de to do it.

To report XfApplet bugs, you can use the bug tracker at
http://xfce-goodies.berlios.de. Just file a bug under the xfce4-xfapplet-plugin
category.

Thanks for your interest in XfApplet. I hope you like it ;)