Cool Apps

Cool Apps you could add (Feb 2013)

SMplayer
GKrellM
Geany
SciTE
GdMap
Kompozer
SpaceFM

- media player
- system monitor
- program editor IDE
- text editor
- web page editor
- file manager

A collection of gems I came across throughout the years.
Most of these apps can be installed using Synaptic Package Manager by searching for the key word. For others you may have to go to their website for instructions.

SMplayer
Media player.
A gui for mplayer (or mplayer2) or mpv.

Probably the best player I've used that covers a wide range of formats and devices, especially for .mkv files having multiple languages.

mplayer is already renowned for it's support in linux systems. Access to it's flexibility however is a bit of a let down. SMplayer provides an easy front-end to it's features. E.g if you graphic card supports 'vdpau' you can easily set this with SMplayer to reduce your cpu usage. Alternatively you can internally switch to mpv instead of mplayer.

All the usual functions like aspect ratio, video and audio equalisers, filters, AV sync, post-processing..etc is made available.

Shortcut Keys are configurable and a distinguishing feature is 'position memory' of the video file so that you can continue playback from where you left off last time, and it even remembers all the settings you made for that video like audio/subtitle delays, brightness, contrast ..etc.

credits:Ricardo Villalba (SMplayer). mplayer-projects (Mplayer)

( And while we're here, take a look at..
MenJob A GUI front end for mplayer's brother, mencoder. )

GKrellM is a skinable and stackable system monitor, you can choose from many plugins and skins to add configure to just the way you want.

Better than Conky.
A lot of linux geeks install 'Conky ' after an installation, a text based monitor that superimposes itself on the desktop. The problem with Conky is the that you have to design and edit into a config file and install sensor apps for integration. It's a horrible ordeal. There are helper editors that make the job easier but if you want to avoid all that, GKrellM works straight out the box.

GKrellM fits the bill nicely. It comes in-built with the usual monitors cpu,ram,disk and network. If you installed 'lm-sensors' then it will also monitor temperature and fan speed.

(There is a site with a list of downloadable skins at www.muhri.net.)
Recommended plugin: gkrelltop

(left: BrassAlloy skin by xhadow)
credits: Bill Wilson

Geany - for programmers. More of a program editor than an IDE, Geany is very lightweight. Although there is no automatic makefile generation, the compiler/linker calls can be configured. Clicking on output errors will position the cursor to the error line. All the usual syntax highlighting and symbol searches/references are available too.
credits: geany.org	Compared to large and bulky IDE editors like eclipse, code::blocks and even codelite. Geany is faster during startup.

SciTE - text editor. There are editors more light weight than Geany, e.g leafpad, mousepad, featherpad ..etc Many can do a word wrap so that you can see long lines re-formatted into a smaller width paragraph. But very few can actually do a permanent word wrap. SciTE is a pedigree editor using the scintilla library built for programmers but is fast enough for any text editting.
credits: scintilla.org	SciTE is another editor based on the same library that Geany uses.

Graphical Disk Map

GdMap gives a graphical view of file sizes taken up on your disk.

Very handy if you are looking to delete files in order to save space.

It reminds me of the windows freeware 'sequoia'

credits: Markus Lausser

Kompozer

A WYSIWYG webpage editor. (formerly called NVU).

Easy web page editing without having to to write any html at all. What you see is really what you get.

Kompozer stopped development before the world moved to 64 bits. However, you can still run the old version by installing it's snap version via snapcraft.

If you don't like snap, Komposer was originally a split from the Seamonkey project.

Seamonkey is a suite including a browser, email client and web-editor very similar to Komposer called 'Composer'. It is still actively developed and can be downloaded here.

SpaceFM

The supplied PCmanFM(-qt) file manager with Lubuntu is good Combined with GVFS it's even better.

But for best productivity SpaceFM is king. It takes up less desktop space and it mounts drives without GVFS (which is slow).

SpaceFM was an old fork before PCmanFM was re-written and was developed independently with a lot of useful changes including movable columns, multi-pane, task-queueing and descriptive feedback. It even remembers your last used directory.

Like PCmanFM(-qt), you can also use it as a desktop manager and since SpaceFM was upgraded to v1.0, the desktop manager works really well.

credits: IgnorantGuru (SpaceFM) and Hon Jen Yee (PCmanFM)

The recommended version is 1.0.6 gtk2. All subsequent versions (at time of writing) suffer from pane re-sizing if a directory name is too long. This can push another panel out of view. 1.0.6 is available in the debian repositories main & common.

(drives and book marks)

(multi-panes - up to 4 max)

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