rearranging open programs xfce

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

I am running latest Linux Mint and xfce. I haven't ever done much of anything to customize it, other than adding a few programs.

Often, I have 3 browsers open and showing at the bottom of the screen. Sometimes, they are not showing up in the order that I like. I have tried to drag one of them over to the right side where it normally is, but it won't allow me.

I have gone into panel, panel preferences, items, window buttons, edit, and changed sorting order to "none, allow drag and drop". I have verified that it saves this setting, and rebooted the system completely to make certain that this setting is showing up on reboot.

However, it still will not allow me to drag and drop at the bottom of the screen, to change the order that open programs are showing there.
Is there something else that I need to adjust? Thank you.

 

[lxskllr]

I didn't have mine setup that way, but just changed it to 'allow drag/drop', and it's working for me :shrugs:

As a suggestion you may not have considered, you might want to try playing with virtual desktops. Keep the browser or whatever windows displayed on their own desktop, and switch by changing desktops.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Does having them each in a virtual desktop use up more system resources, or less?

 

[lxskllr]

Does having them each in a virtual desktop use up more system resources, or less?

I really don't know. My guess is it uses a trivially greater amount of resources. I don't extensively use virtual desktops. My default number is 2, and I segregate tasks between them. That's probably because my behavior has become ossified. If I had always had virtual desktops as an option, I'd have found greater use for them.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Does having them in virtual keep bad behavior from affecting the whole system?

 

[mv2devnull]

No.

Workspaces (for some reason Google hits for "virtual desktop" are about remote cloud hosts for me) are simply a way to group and organize application windows. Even MS Windows does have support for workspaces (although it took years for them to add). If the desktop environment by Microsoft has a feature, then that feature cannot possibly be bad, right?

 

[Ken g6]

Does having them in virtual keep bad behavior from affecting the whole system?

No. You need something like a sandbox or VM, for each browser, for that. I run my browser in Bubblejail these days, which prevents it accessing files I don't give it access to, but it's kind of a weak sandbox. I've heard Docker may be good for that in some ways, but I'm not sure.

The only way to be as sure as you can be is to run each browser in a separate VM and ensure your VM software is updated so there are no breakouts. Still, zero-days happen, but the chances of a browser breakout and a VM breakout are very low.