Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

Fitts Is An Interesting "Big Buttons" Metacity Theme

| Date: March 02, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: eyecandy, linux, metacity, themes, ubuntu

Fitts Metacity theme

Fitts is a new Metacity theme created by albyrock87 (Alberto) who's also behind the cool new Avant Window Navigator Lucido style and also a Synapse developer. The theme is based on a mockup by rAX and is designed to use big buttons so they are easy to click.

"Divergence IV: A New Hope" Updated To v0.7.7, Comes With Installation Script And More [Gnome Theme Pack]

| Date: November 04, 2010 | View Comments | Tags: emerald, eyecandy, linux, metacity, themes, ubuntu

Divergence IV: A New Hope

The beautiful Divergence IV: A New Hope theme (which we've previously covered HERE) got a big update today. The theme now comes with a script that allows you to choose from 3 Nautilus styles, 3 panel styles and 4 menu styles.

The script only tweaks the styles mentioned above and installs the Metacity theme, however the package comes with many other goodies: 5 amazing Emerald themes, an AWN Lucido theme and even a CoverGloobus theme.

Ubuntu 10.04: The Easiest Way To Move The Window Buttons To The Right [Newbie]

| Date: May 08, 2010 | View Comments | Tags: linux, lucid lynx, metacity, ubuntu

We covered lots of ways to move the Metacity window controls (buttons) back to the right in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx: from Gconf Editor to gconf via command line, Ubuntu Tweak or the MWButtons script. But all these may seem complicated for a complete noob and for this reason I decided to write this post.

Final Decision For Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Window Controls Placement Announced By Mark Shuttleworth

| Date: April 01, 2010 | View Comments | Tags: light, linux, lucid lynx, mark shuttleworth, metacity, ubuntu

metacity window buttons ubuntu 10.04


Mark Shuttleworth announced seconds ago that the Metacity window controls will remain on the left in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx), however the order will change to: close, minimize, maximize.

Here is his entire comment:

Thank you to everybody who has participated in this discussion.

The final decision on window controls for 10.04 LTS is as follows:

- the window controls will remain on the left, however
- the order will change to be (from left) close, minimize, maximise

The decision is based on the view that putting the close button in the corner will be most familiar to many users, even if the particular choice of corner is not.

For the avoidance of doubt, this is not a comment dependent on the date
:-)

Our intent is to encourage innovation, discussion, and design with the right of the window title bar. We have some ideas, and others are already springing up in the community. We welcome participation on the Ayatana list, where those can play out. This will be a fruitful topic for the design track at UDS in Brussels in May.

This bug is now marked wontfix. Please focus ongoing participation on the opportunities for innovation that this opens up. The decision as to the window controls location and order itself is now final, and as they say in the old newspapers, no further correspondence will be entered
into.


So Ubuntu 10.04 LTS will have the window controls placed identical to Mac OSX. Well, I for one am still waiting for the Global Menu to be included by default like in the website mockups.

If you want to put the Metacity window controls on the right or change their order, don't forget you can use Mwbuttons (Metacity Window Buttons), a really easy to use GUI which comes with presets. Also, now when using another theme (except Dust - but that should be fixed soon), the buttons will automatically move to the right so basically the left-side buttons only apply for the new Light Themes (Ambiance and Radiance)!

Note: Like Mark states, this has nothing to do with 1st of April (just to make things clear!) even though some might consider placing the window controls on the left a bad joke.

More Right Window Button Ideas For Ubuntu 10.10

| Date: March 29, 2010 | View Comments | Tags: ideas, linux, metacity, ubuntu

Since Mark Shuttleworth said that moving the Metacity window buttons to the left "opens up the space on the right nicely", lots of button ideas came out. The most controverted one is probably Esfera, an idea by Pablo Quirós which Mark Shuttleworth forwarded to the Ayatana mailing list.

A recent idea by Izo makes a lot more sense than all the previous ideas. Have a look (it's called "The Workflow Button"):


metacity right corner window button


Fixed Ubuntu Light Themes Metacity In WebUpd8 PPA [Lucid, Karmic, Jaunty]

| Date: March 16, 2010 | View Comments | Tags: ambiance, light, linux, lucid lynx, metacity, ppa, radiance, ubuntu

ambiance radiance fixed

First of all, for those not interested in fixing the Ubuntu "Light Themes" or not interested in these themes at all: I'm sorry! But new things just keep coming up. Hopefully everything will calm down soon.

Now, about the fixed Light Themes for Ubuntu Jaunty, Karmic and Lucid: I just posted about a PPA which has a fixed Light Themes package for Lucid, but that PPA doesn't have packages for Karmic and Jaunty and also that package replaces the original Light Themes.

Mohegan asked if we could upload a fixed light-themes package in the WebUpd8 PPA and so we did, but we tried to please as many people as we can, so:

  • the package was uploaded under the "light-themes-fixed" name and the themes are now displayed as "Ambiance-Fixed" and "Radiance-Fixed" in the Gnome Desktop Appearance dialog. That means that the "light-themes-fixed" package does not replace the original "light-themes" package so you can have both of them installed and use whichever you want. The original "light-themes" package is of course still available in the WebUpd8 PPA (for Jaunty and Karmic).
  • we packaged the themes for Ubuntu Jaunty, Karmic and Lucid (as well as the latest ubuntu-mono icons, humanity-icons packages and of course the latest Murrine and Aurora engines).
  • the advantage of using this PPA is that I will try to update the fixed packages as soon as new versions for the original "light-themes" package in Ubuntu Lucid are released.

In case you didn't understand what this "fixed" does, well, it fixes the border around the minimize/maximize buttons so you can put the Metacity window buttons in the "minimize,maximize,close" order like the buttons were on Ubuntu Jaunty, Karmic and so on.

To install this light-themes-fixed package, add the WebUpd8 PPA:

Mwbuttons: Complete GUI For Customizing Metacity Window Buttons Order

| Date: March 14, 2010 | View Comments | Tags: linux, lucid lynx, metacity, ubuntu

Mwbuttons (Metacity Window Buttons) is very easy to use yet complete GUI for customizing the Metacity window button order. I really like the way this was implemented because it is very intuitive and easy to understand by new Ubuntu users.

Using Mwbuttons you basically have a horizontal line with all the buttons and you can chose which button and it's placement, exactly the way it will be displayed in Metacity:

mwbuttons

Download Radiance With Minimize And Maximize Buttons Back To Normal [Ubuntu w/ Gnome Metacity Theme]

| Date: March 07, 2010 | View Comments | Tags: gnome, light, linux, metacity, radiance, ubuntu

radiance metacity normal buttons


The new Ubuntu "Light" Radiance theme comes with the minimize and maximize buttons inverted. I have edited the original Metacity theme to put them back ("minimize-maximize-close").

Since I only had the .png files I did my best but it's not 100% perfect. Still, I think it looks just fine:

License: (cc) BY-NC-SA WebUpd8 | Privacy