Mint 12 Tips & Tricks Guide (updated Jan 10)

[rijnsma]

In /home/yourname/desktop/ are the desktop-icon-names -> rename them as you like.
Also possible in the source of links: /usr/share/applications/

[bimsebasse]

warning of any kind indicating these tips are for one Desktop Environment?

Had this been my tutorial, my first response would be to place a huge warning at the head of the first post before anyone else trips over this. But that's just me.

I can see now that was a major oversight and I'm sorry it wasn't made perfectly clear - will put a warning in there.

[jompa89]

I wanted the mint logo in the hot corner, so I found one in the proper colour and resized it so it fits. I think it looks quite nice
Follow steps "2f. Change the default shell theme overview button image" to change it yourself, pictures are included in the attachments

[Major Grubert]

Any ideas?

2l, and :

Code: Select all

gksu gedit /usr/share/themes/Mint-Z/gnome-shell/gnome-shell.css

Find :

Code: Select all

.app-well-app > .overview-icon,
.remove-favorite > .overview-icon,
.search-result-content > .overview-icon,
#overview .journal-item {
    border-radius: 4px;
    padding: 6px;
    font-size: 8pt;
    color: white;
    transition-duration: 200;
    text-align: center;
    text-shadow: black 0px 1px 2px;
    border: 0px;
}

and reduce font-size (7pt works, 6 pts seems very small)

On a 1600x900 with font-size 7pt, .icon-grid spacing: 12px; -shell-grid-item-size: 96px; .icon-grid .overview-icon icon-size: 72px; :

[totviu]

Well I think I can contribute to this useful thread with two ideas:

The first one is related to "4d. Change login screen background". I would edit it to point out that if you want this trick to work, the chosen image can't be located in a encrypted folder. And I say this because many users have their home folder encrypted, and if they choose picture from their encrypted home folder they will get a black login screen. I know this might seem silly and obvious, but there are many newbies that will find frustrating not being able to change the login screen background (that had been my case til I found out what the problem was).

The second one, there is an annoying bug related to the advanced settings (Gnome tweak tool) that doesn't let you maximize the window and some of the text and bottoms are cropped to the right so you can't see the full window content (you can find screenshots in this review that was linked on distrowatch.com: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linu ... w-end.html). The solution for this is to go to /usr/share/gnome-tweak-tool/shell.ui and edit this line:

<property name="resizable">False</property>

changing it to this:

<property name="resizable">True</property>

It was published by the user Sirex on this thread: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=649520.

Finally I would like to apologize for my poor English, and I would like to thank bimsebasse and all the users that have contributed to this thread for this great guide .

PS: I have not been able to use 2f, 2k and 2l because I am using Radiance (Ubuntu default theme) and I have not found the radiance's gnome shell css. I would appreciate if you could help with this small problem.

[dancer_69]

How to increase font size in the top and bottom panels of the gnome-shell? The font-size is really small. The fonts in advanced settings panel do no affect these. I assume it has to be edited in the css, but which property? Thanks,

Top panel:

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#panel {
    border: 1px solid rgba(255,255,255,0.2);
    border-top: 0px;
    border-left: 0px;
    border-right: 6px;
    border-radius: 0px;
    color: rgba(255,255,255,1.0);
    background-gradient-direction: vertical;
    background-gradient-start: rgba(120,120,120,0.8);
    background-gradient-end: rgba(150,150,150,0.6);
    height: 24px;
    font-size: 8pt; /* CHANGE HERE */
    font-weight: normal;
    border-image: url("panel-border.svg") 1;

Bottom panel:

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#bottomPanel {
    border: 1px solid rgba(141,141,141,1.0);
   border-top: 1px;
   border-left: 1px;
   border-right: 1px;
   border-radius: 0px;
   color: rgba(0,0,0,1.0);
   background-gradient-direction: vertical;
   background-gradient-start: rgba(239,239,239,1.0);
   background-gradient-end: rgba(200,200,200,1.0);
   height: 26px;
   font-size: 8.5pt; /* CHANGE HERE */
   font-weight: normal;

Guess I could put it in the guide but I gotta draw a line somewhere not to have a separate entry for every possible edit of the css

and where to put these changes??

EDIT:
Nevermind, I found them.

[bimsebasse]

Any ideas?

2l, and :

Code: Select all

gksu gedit /usr/share/themes/Mint-Z/gnome-shell/gnome-shell.css

Find :

Code: Select all

.app-well-app > .overview-icon,
.remove-favorite > .overview-icon,
.search-result-content > .overview-icon,
#overview .journal-item {
    border-radius: 4px;
    padding: 6px;
    font-size: 8pt;
    color: white;
    transition-duration: 200;
    text-align: center;
    text-shadow: black 0px 1px 2px;
    border: 0px;
}

and reduce font-size (7pt works, 6 pts seems very small)

On a 1600x900 with font-size 7pt, .icon-grid spacing: 12px; -shell-grid-item-size: 96px; .icon-grid .overview-icon icon-size: 72px; :

Nicely adjusted, I'm gonna add this to 2l if that's cool with you.

[bimsebasse]

Well I think I can contribute to this useful thread with two ideas:

The first one is related to "4d. Change login screen background". I would edit it to point out that if you want this trick to work, the chosen image can't be located in a encrypted folder. And I say this because many users have their home folder encrypted, and if they choose picture from their encrypted home folder they will get a black login screen.

Good point, will add it to the description, thanks (I never encrypt anything so not an issue I experience). On the Advanced Settings thing - is that something happening to a lot of people? First time I hear about it. i can't maximize mine either, don't need to as nothing is cut off.

[Major Grubert]

Nicely adjusted, I'm gonna add this to 2l if that's cool with you.

No problem.

PS : I translate your tips & tricks in french, without ask your autorisation ; here : http://www.linuxmint-fr.org/forum/trucs ... tuces.html
I add section 5 with my tips :
5a. Dock settings
5b. Modify custom search in Chromium
5c. Add new searches (Bing, Google, etc.) in Firefox
5d. Extend windows list when it is on top panel
5e. Modify mint menu order (with alacarte)

I rewrote your 2l too, beginning with my tips, continuing with yours.

[bimsebasse]

Nice! I'm gonna add your browser default search tips, definitely something missing from the english version.

[rijnsma]

bimsebasse wrote on page 1:

3b. Install USC (Ubuntu Software Center)
There was a time when Mint's Software Manager could look down on Ubuntu's Software Center - with the revamped USC 5, tables have turned and Software Manager now feels like a truncated and outdated version of the big brother counterpart (despite being definitely on the sluggish side) with options to e.g. easily view installed or installable packages by PPA among other basic functionality currently missing in Software Manager. Installing it does pull 50mb of dependencies, though.

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sudo apt-get install software-center

Yes, beautiful software (it does also install .deb files somewhere in your computer -not only repo-, just like debi), except for one thing.
When you are somewhere in a list and click 'more info' and you come back the cursor is at the beginning of the list again.
And with long lists that is a horror.

[linuxbodger]

Many thanks. This has been a great help

[TopherAV]

First of all, I'd like to say that this thread is incredible. I am about as green as it gets when it comes to using Linux. I downloaded Mint as my first ever non-Windows OS a month ago and I am in love with it. This has been a great teaching aid.

That said I am having one problem: When I try to do the tweaks to the gnome-shell.css, they don't seem to be work. I want to shrink the space of the icons in the upper right as well as the icons in the overview grid. I am entering everything like the first post said, but it's not changing. Changes in other files are working, just not this one. Any ideas?

*Disregard. I realized I was editing the wrong themes css... still never would of had a clue if it were not for this thread =D

[bimsebasse]

Glad you got it sorted out

I'm repeating myself but remember that your changes will be overwritten next time Mint updates the themes. Of all the tweaks I think less space between notification area icons really ought to find its way into the official theme.

[BobSongs]

warning of any kind indicating these tips are for one Desktop Environment?

Had this been my tutorial, my first response would be to place a huge warning at the head of the first post before anyone else trips over this. But that's just me.

I can see now that was a major oversight and I'm sorry it wasn't made perfectly clear - will put a warning in there.

Excellent! You took that graciously. I'm quite proud of you.

And I have my settings back, by the way. Solution: I created a new administrative user (that happened a couple weeks back to test my browser & flash that was oddly mute), logged into that account and surfed to my old account's home folder using

Code: Select all

gksudo nautilus

(Note for casual readers: do this only if you're well aware of what you're after. This instance of Nautilus can be destructive.)

GNOME-ishly named folders were re-named. Folders like .gnome2 to .gnome2-but-possibly-broken and logged into the account and hey presto! Gnome Classic is rolling smoothly.

Since I really had nothing to lose as far as the system's natural environment, I didn't hesitate to rename all gnome-based settings folders and files. I left obviously non-gnome files and folders alone such as .bash_history, etc. Had this not worked or had it done something terrible, I was prepared to restore their names. And since I gave all suspicious folders a long, goofy name -- restoring would've been a cinch.

I will certainly apply these tips to my default desktop and will be careful not to do them in GNOME Classic.

[crzen]

This thread has been so helpful I cant explain it. Thank you bim and everyone else who commented and added to it. One thing I would like to do yet is to couple the weather to the left side of the clock. Or "float" the notifications to the left of the weather status. That way if I move the clock or weather off center they are next to each other like I am used to. This also would group all the notifications together to seem more orderly. I'll keep trying to find which settings to modify but with my considering myself a newb any help would be appreciated. I have copied, renamed, and modified. from the original theme so I should be safe from theme updates. Here is a screenshot of what I have so far.

[ron1]

In regards to item 2s, I have enabled the mate-panel by adding it to the startup options, and I have disabled the appropriate extensions. Once I did this and restarted the shell, voila, there it was at the bottom. I can't express how excited I was to see this. I actually had a panel that I was familiar with, and discovered that the old fashioned method of configuring the panel worked as well.

The problem I have encountered is that when I set it to autohide, it does hide, but will not come back up with mouseover. I have to log back into mate and reset it in order to see it again in the shell, but if I again set it to autohide, I am again stuck in that I cannot access it. It won't come up. Has anyone encountered this problem? Is anyone else using this tweak? I would love to be able to get this working in Gnome Shell.

This does, however, work beautifully with Ubuntu 11.10 running Unity. I installed Mate from the Mint repositories on my Dell laptop that is running Ubuntu 11.10. I put mate-panel in the startup, logged out and then back in, and I have the classic panel now on the bottom with the standard menu, window list, etc., and it is fully customizable. The autohide feature works perfectly and I have what is nearly a classic desktop within the Unity DE. Simply hilarious....if people only knew.

Thanks,
Ron

[xpander]

thank you so much for this Guide.
was searching long time for how to change the spacing between icons in "system tray"

[A Future Pilot]

First of all thank you very very much for this guide!!

I have two questions...first, on number 1l. how would I go about having the window appear but NOT the notification pop-up?

And secondly, on 2o. which notification bar is this talking about? The black one that appears underneath the notification pop-up? Would this also prevent it from appearing and disappearing 5 or 6 times whenever I install something? (I think it says something about "dconf update" if I recall correctly...)


Thanks again!!

[piperkins]

Thank you so much for this! I'm trying to slowly muddle my way through understanding Linux and Mint, and this is a huge help for a beginner like myself.

Regarding item 1b, adding launchers, I am a bit stuck. I don't seem to have the directory ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/, am I just looking in the wrong place or is there a way to get this directory that I missed? I'm green, sorry if this is an obvious one.