As you might have seen in my previous post, I recently installed Xubuntu 8.04. One of the few visual improvements in this new version of Ubuntu is on the clock that sits on the Gnome panel. It now shows much more information. Apart from time and date, it now shows the weather conditions for your current location. But, the best part is when you click on it: it shows the usual calendar, but below it, appears the times of other world locations. Well, after you configure it, of course. First you need to set your home location and other optional locations. It also shows the weather conditions on those locations. And it looks great.

So, it was disappointing to see that Xubuntu didn’t have it. Instead the same old plain clock. The world clock is a gnome panel applet, so it’s normal that it doesn’t run in the XFCE panel. However there’s an easy workaround.

 Step 1 - Download Xfapplet, available in the repositories. This is XFCE applet that allows Gnome applets to run on the XFCE panel. It’s basically a wrapper for Gnome applets.

 Step 2 - Download gnome-applets, also available in the repositories. This will install a collection of gnome applets (sadly along with a bunch of Gnome libraries and applications…I miss Gentoo sometimes) and among those is the world clock applet.

 Step 3 - Right-click on the XFCE panel an add a new item. Choose the previously installed Xfapplet. As it loads, XFapplet will bring up a list of Gnome applets available. You just have to find the one named clock (surprise!).

And there you have it. XFapplet can be used to install any of the other gnome applets in XFCE, in case you miss some other applet.