Rodrigo Lazoti Blog

In April 28th, the Canonical released the version 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) of Ubuntu. On the same day I downloaded it to install on my workstation and I was surprised with Unity UI, the launcher and the dash.

In this post I gathered some tips to customize/adjust it.

• How to add terminal applications to launcher

For example, if you want to add the Eclipse IDE into your launcher, you need to create a file with “.desktop” extension and add the following content:

#Eclipse.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Version=3.6
Name=Eclipse
Comment=
Exec=/home/rodrigo/Programs/eclipse/eclipse
StartupWMClass=
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=/home/rodrigo/Programs/eclipse/icon.xpm
StartupNotify=true

Then, drag and drop this file into the launcher.

• How to show all icons in the system tray

By default, only a few icons are displayed in the tray. To show all icons, you need to open your terminal and type:

gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist "['all']"

Then, restart Ubuntu.

• How to remove the launcher auto-hide behavior

For it, you need to install the Advanced Desktop Effects Settings (ccsm)

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Then, use Alt+F2 shortcut key to open the “Run a command” dialog, type about:config and run it, change the property Hide Launcher to Never.

• How to change the launcher icon size

Here, you also need install the Advanced Desktop Effects Settings (ccsm).

In the same window you used above, change the property Laucher icon size to another value.

• How to add a CPU/memory monitor int the system tray

Just type in your terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexeftimie/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indicator-sysmonitor
indicator-sysmonitor

You can put it (incidator-sysmonitor) in your Startup Application Preferences.

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