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 primary way to launch 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, e.g., Terminal Emulator, File Manager, Web Browser, etc.

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.; Since the entire XFCE desktop hasn't been ported to QNX, some of the XFCE documentation might not apply.
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.

Emacs: A real-time text editor. Refer to the section on "Customizing Emacs" for more information.
Geany: An open-source text editor that provides an IDE-like environment using plugins.; Refer to the section on "Customizing Geany" for more information.
GTK+ Demo/GTK+ 4 Demo: The main demo application included in the GTK+ 3 and GTK+ 4 toolkits. It includes various demos of toolkit features that you can select and run.
Icon Browser: A GTK+ 3 demo application that demonstrates how to build an application for browsing installed icons.
Neovim: A text editor that's forked from Vim. Refer to the section on "Customizing Neovim" for more information.
Node Editor (GTK+ 4): A debugging utility for GTK developers, which includes the various libraries and tools available for building custom, node-based interfaces with GTK+ 4. Use this application to load, display, and edit serialized render node files obtained from the GTK inspector. These files represent the internal rendering tree of a GTK+ 4 application. They allow you to debug how a widget (UI control) is drawn and compare the output of different renderers.
Print Editor (GTK+ 4): A demo GTK 4 application that demonstrates how to implement printing, print preview, and print settings dialogs.
Vim: An open-source text editor. Refer to the section on "Customizing Vim" for more information.
Widget Factory: A GTK+ 3 demo application that demonstrates the available widgets.

Action buttons

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: March 27, 2026