Can I add a "shade window" button to titlebar like in XFCE?

[SteveFAL]

Shading (rolling up) windows has always been one of my favorite/most useful Linux desktop perks. Don't know how I lived without it for all those Windows years!
In Mint/Mate, as in Ubuntu/Gnome 2.x i have always shaded with a double-click on the title bar (after enabling it in the preferences). However I *hate* double-clicking on *anything* if I don't absolutely have to. (I've already switched my mouse to left-handed due to issues with my index finger knuckle.)
After recently installing Puppy Linux with XFCE on a cheap netbook, I found the wonderful XFCE title bar button that shades with a single click! It was a huge "Why didn't they invent that sooner?" moment.
I've always felt that the title bar has a lot of wasted space and could be put to better use than just the minimize/maximize/close buttons, and the XFCE shade button hit the proverbial nail on the head. (Though I can think of many more functions to put up there as well).
MY QUESTION is: Is there any way to put such a thing on the title bar in Mate? I have no problem editing .config files from the command line or whatever else may be necessary to do such a (seemingly) simple thing.
While on the topic, if it's not a near-impossibility, perhaps there could, in a future version of Mate, be a way to put several custom buttons on the title bar, like the old Firefox add-on Custom Toolbar Buttons? There are lots of things that would be nice to be able to do to a window or application with a single mouse click on a title bar button (e.g. move to workspace x).
--THANKS
--Steve

[xenopeek]

You can enable it (to the right of the window menu button) with the following command:

Code: Select all

gsettings set org.mate.Marco.general button-layout 'menu,shade:minimize,maximize,close'

If you prefer to do this graphically, install dconf-tools package and run dconf-editor. Then browse to org > mate > marco > general and edit the button-layout string there yourself. Separate buttons with a comma (,). The colon (:) indicates following buttons should be aligned to the right. Possible buttons:

• menu - The window menu.
• minimize - Duh...
• maximize- Duh...
• close - Duh...
• shade - Roll up the window (only display the title bar).
• above - Keep the window above other windows.
• stick - Display the window on all workspaces.

Not all themes support the last three buttons. In fact, I found most don't. At least the themes Aldabra, BlackMATE, and GreenLaguna from package mate-themes support all of these.

[SteveFAL]

Wow,
It's great that not only my immediate request, but it seems others (depending on theme) are available.
HOWEVER, I cannot get it to work. Preferring the command line for it's quickness and simplicity, I tried that first, but got the message:
No such schema 'org.mate.Marco.general'
Next, I installed the dconf-editor with no problem, but under: " org > mate > "
there is no "marco" option. The only option under org>mate> is "atril"
Am I missing some file that needs to be installed?
--THANKS !
--Steve

[xenopeek]

Well, let's take a step back then. Which version of Linux Mint are you using, and are you using the default MATE version or did you enable backports or the MATE repository to get a newer version of it?

I probably tested this on Linux Mint 14 MATE.

[SteveFAL]

I'm using Mint 13 (Maya) 64-bit, with the stock version of MATE.

I always use LTS versions (which is why I switched from Ubuntu when the last pre-Unity LTS version lost support) whenever possible so functionality and features are consistent for a couple of years. (Nothing aggravates me more than change for the sake of change, especially as it always seems some feature I loved was dropped, e.g. one of the main menu options, "advanced", was dropped for Mint 14).
--THANKS again in advance!
--Steve

[xenopeek]

Yes, well, LTS means you will be running older software versions for a longer time I forgot how to do this on the older MATE version, but it won't be using GSettings for sure. You will have to make a similar command for gconf I believe. Probably easiest to use the GUI instead, gconf-editor, and try and find the folder mate > Marco > general in there and manually set the button-layout value (if it is there on your version of MATE, but I guess it will be). To run gconf-editor, just type that command in a terminal. It will either run, or it will tell you what command you need to run to install it.

[HappyTimeHarry]

I believe the thing you are looking for is

Code: Select all

mateconf-editor

Then you could set /apps/marco/general/action_middle_click_titlebar to shade. It's not a single left click but it is a single middle click.

Well that is how you would do it in theory, but I'm guessing the default theme doesn't support it because it didn't work on my system.

[Baumann]

Im using maya and in the mateconfig-editor you can set middle click actions like "toggle_shade".

I was looking for a way to user "toggle_above" as a button and the aurora theme does support this.

If you add "shade" button to the titlebar the icons for menu,shade,stick and above will be same.