pcode

So like many I feared Unity, now having met it, and giving a seriously go I’m slowly starting to like it. And I’m sticking with it for at least a few weeks before passing final judgement. That said, here are a few small tips:

Currently by default the icons in the Launcher are all “backlit” with a background color, you can turn that off, to only have running programs backlit (to make that fact extra obvious). You can make this the system-wide default like so:

$ sudo  gconftool-2 --direct \

  --config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults \

  --type int --set /apps/compiz-1/plugins/unityshell/screen0/options/backlight_mode 1

Next, the Launcher auto-hides whenever you move a window into it (for example maximize a window). I don’t really like that, since I have too much horizontal screen estate anyhow, so I’d like to Launcher to permanently claim it’s space (again as a system-wide default):

$ sudo  gconftool-2 --direct \

  --config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults \

  --type int --set /apps/compiz-1/plugins/unityshell/screen0/options/launcher_hide_mode 0

Some other tips, you might find handy:

If you want to move Launcher buttons around on the Launcher you need to drag button off before you can move it. This makes moving buttons around a very conscious action, preventing the mouse-challenged people from accidentally moving them around.

Also you might have noticed that left clicking a Launcher button will only start an application once. So for apps you might want to start multiple times like a Terminal you’d need to search for the app to start it a second time, which would be rather time consuming. Luckily the Unity designer thought about this, so left click will start an application once (prevent people from accidentally starting most apps twice). But if you do want to start an app twice or thrice you can just middle click the Launcher button.

And last but not least, this wallpaper may be of use to you.