How to Disable Unity's Global Menu - 14.04

When it comes to disabling Unity's global menu, you have two options:

Disable the global menu for specific apps 

Change the global menu to show in the windows title bar (all apps)

1- Disable the global menu for specific apps

Make sure you have dconf-editor installed. You can install it with:

sudo apt-get install dconf-editor

Open dconf-editor and browse to com.canonical.unity-gtk-module.

Enter the name of each application under the blacklist key. They should be in the following format:

['app1', 'app2', 'app3']

Restart the app and you should see it the new menu's.

2- Change the global menu to show in the windows title bar (all apps)

Go to 'System => Appearance' and click on the 'Behaviour' tab. Select the radio box for 'In the window's title bar'

How to run Gnome Panels in Unity (Ubuntu 12.10)

If you are like me and can't understand why Ubuntu removed our so loved Gnome panels (taskbar), but you also enjoy some of the new features that come with Unity, here's a possible solution (I say possible because is one of many).

I opted for running both, Unity and gnome-panels at the same time. This way I can use the quick launch and search of apps and files from Unity, while also able to view running apps and the familiar menu from Gnome.

Here's what my desktop looks like. You can see my gnome-panel running on the bottom:

And here's my gnome-panel "dock" on the left (on top of my Unity launcher, but you can't see it):

And my Unity dash/launcher enabled:

This setup works pretty well as I have virtually disabled the Unity launcher to give space to my gnome-panel launcher. 

Here's how I did it.

1- Make sure you have gnome gnome-panel installed (it comes by default on 12.10):

$ dpkg -l | grep gnome-panel | awk '{print $1 , $2 , $3}' ii gnome-panel 1:3.6.0-0ubuntu2 ii gnome-panel-data 1:3.6.0-0ubuntu2

Note: Steps 2 and 3 are only needed if you want to use a gnome-panel where the Unity launcher bar is.

2- Change the size of the Unity launcher icons to the smallest possible (System Settings => Appearance):

3- On the same window under "Behaviour", make the following changes

- Auto-hide the launcher - On

- Reveal location - Top left corner

- Reveal sensitivity - Low

With this settings your Unity launcher will only be active when using a Unity keyboard shortcut (like calling the dash, launcher or HUD).

4- Add "/usr/bin/gnome-panel" to your Startup Applications

5- Make sure you are using the Ubuntu default session (which includes Unity)

How to install Faenza icon theme on Ubuntu 12.10

Do you love the Faenza icons set from Matthieu James? Well, canonical hired Matthie last year to work on a set of icons for Ubuntu, and now you can download the Faenza icon set by adding his ppa.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tiheum/equinox sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install faenza-icon-theme faience-icon-theme

You can find more info about Matthieu here:
https://launchpad.net/~tiheum/+archive/equinox
http://tiheum.deviantart.com/
http://design.canonical.com/author/matthieu-james/

How to disable "overlay-scrollbar" in Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10

Here are simple steps on how to remover Ubuntu's overlay scrollbar for Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10. Note that the steps are different for both versions.

12.04
For this version we will need to remove the package for the overlay scrollbar. Your system might have a different version. You can find what version you have with the following command:

dpkg -l | grep overlay

Then remove the following packages:

sudo apt-get remove overlay-scrollbar liboverlay-scrollbar-0.2-0 liboverlay-scrollbar3-0.2-0

12.10
For 12.10 it's just a setting that can be disabled with:

gsettings set com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode normal

And to restore:

gsettings set com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode overlay-auto

System monitoring with syspeek (new)

Here's a neat little tool for your Ubuntu indicator applet that displays system information when clicked:

syspeek-new

Syspeek displays live system information for:

• CPU
• Memory
• Swap
• Disk space
• Network

It also gives you a shortcut for the default "System Monitor":

To install this unofficial updated version of syspeek (syspeek-new) you will need to add the following ppa:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:emptythevoid/syspeeknew sudo apt-get update

And then install the package:

sudo apt-get install syspeek

Capture screenshots easily with ScreenCloud

ScreenCloud is a free app for Windows, Mac and Ubuntu that allows you to easily take screenshots off your desktop and upload the images. When the upload is done the app copies the online link to your clipboard so you can easily share with others.

http://screencloud.net/

At the moment ScreenCloud supports the following upload methods:
- Local file
- ScreenCloud
- FTP
- SFTP
- DropBox
- Imgur
- Ubuntu One

ScreenCloud also comes pre-configured with 3x shortcuts (which can be changed):

How to Multiple Desktops on Windows (with VirtuaWin)

If you use Linux, one of the things you probably miss when using Windows is multiple desktops. At least that’s what I missed the most.

I was looking for some applications that would let me do the same on Windows, and I stumbled on a couple cool softwares.

The first one was from M$ itself, and is part of the Power Toys package. The group of software has some tools that are pretty neat. I will describe the ones I like on another post.

The Virtual Desktop however sucks, as usual. It let’s you choose different wall paper for the 4 different desktops (like KDE), and has a nice option of viewing all 4 desktops in a view window like this:



You can choose the virtual desktop you want by pressing on of the 4 buttons on your taskbar:



The application itself is very unstable and extremely slow. You can not move windows from one desktop to the other. And if you like to separate specific application per desktop and the desktop manager crashes (which happens A LOT), you are pretty much f#@!. You’ll have to re-start the desktop manager and re-open all your applications in the proper order.

After a quick research I stumbled on another program called VirtuaWin. It’s a bit complicated to use, but it’s stable, really fast and flexible.

It doesn’t provide you with button to choose a desktop, but it does: (correction, it does with the install of a module)
. allow you to set key combination to invoke specific desktop;
. move windows between desktops;
. list open windows on all desktops;
. move to next desktop by moving the mouse to any corner of the current desktop;
. move to next desktop by right clicking icon on taskbar;
. etc…

The program presents you with an icon on the taskbar that looks like this:



You can right click to get a menu or left click to get a list of open windows:





The setup window has a help menu that explains what each option is for. I found it very useful.



Anyway, I haven’t really “shopped” around for virtual desktop applications for Windows, but I was disgusted by M$ attempt and sold out to VirtuaWin.


Vic.