Navigating the QNX Developer Desktop

The following section reviews the main elements of the QNX Developer Desktop, including the applications you can access.

Clicking the QNX Developer Desktop icon () from the welcome screen opens the desktop environment:

The Applications menu, located at the top left of the desktop, is the main way for launching desktop applications, as shown in the image below:

The following sections provide a brief overview of the applications in this menu.

This shortcut launches the xfce4-appfinder application to help you find and launch available applications:

The next block of the menu contains shortcuts for default desktop applications:

Access the different settings applications to update the look and functionality of the desktop:

Refer to the "Customizing the desktop" section for more information on how to customize the desktop using the settings applications.

Settings Manager: The main settings application that can launch the other settings applications:
About XFCE: Access general information about the XFCE desktop.; The entire XFCE desktop hasn't been ported to QNX, so some the XFCE documentation might not be relevant.
Appearance: Edit the GTK styles for various applications, the icon theme, and default fonts across the desktop.
Default Applications: Change what applications serve as the default applications for web browsing (Epiphany browser), mail reader (currently unset), file manager (Thunar), and terminal emulator (XFCE Terminal). Under the Others tab, you can edit default applications for MIME type mappings. There are various MIME type mappings that are already installed in the desktop.
Panel: Customize XFCE4 panels, including the size, appearance, and items included. Currently, Panel 1 is the only panel, and it represents the configuration for the top taskbar containing the Applications menu and action buttons.; Note:
Be careful about making changes to the panel settings, as it can impact the usability of the desktop.
Session and Startup: Modify the session and startup settings for your desktop session. Settings under the General and Application Autostart tabs are respected, but the Advanced settings tab doesn't currently work.
Settings Editor: Edit any of the settings apps' underlying XML settings.

Contains various day-to-day tools.

Application Finder: Find and launch desktop applications.
Bulk Rename: A launch mode from Thunar (file manager); rename multiple files (in bulk).
Emacs: A text editor; refer to the section on "Customizing Emacs" for more information.
MATE Calculator: Perform calculations.
Neovim: A text editor; refer to the section on "Customizing Neovim" for more information.
Thunar File Manager: Navigate the file system on your desktop and open files with custom viewers.
Vim: A text editor; refer to the section on "Customizing Vim" for more information.

This menu contains various development tools and demos.

Note:

This section only talks about applications that haven't been mentioned previously.

Geany: An open-source text editor that has a number of plugins that are gradually making it more like an integrated development environment (IDE).; Refer to the section on "Customizing Geany" for more inoformation on the tool.
GTK+ Demo: The main demo application included in the GTK+ 3 toolkit. It includes various demos that you can select and run.
Icon Browser: A GTK+ 3 demo application that demonstrates how to use GTK+ 3 to build an application to browse installed icons.
Widget Factory: A GTK+ 3 demo application that demonstrates the different widgets (UI controls) that are available in the GTK+ 3 toolkit.

Locate the current date and time, as well as the action buttons at the top right of your desktop. The action buttons are defined as follows:

Shut down: Shut down the VM.; To exit QEMU after pressing this button, close the window or press Ctrl + A + x in the shell where you started the VM.
Restart: Restart the VM.
Log out: Close the desktop session and return to the welcome screen.; You can also select the Log Out action from the applications menu to log out.

Page updated: January 08, 2026

Applications menu