Mint 12 Tips & Tricks Guide (updated Jan 10)

[bimsebasse]

Haha, cheers esteban, you told me!

I logged into Gnome Shell earlier for the first time in weeks to sort out this issue and I found out I didn't miss Gnome Shell at all. Thought I was a Gnome Shell user, turns out I'm a Cinnamon user

[Olhado]

I think point 5b should be updated now that dconf-Editor isn't the only way to configure Cinnamon.

[esteban1uy]

Haha, cheers esteban, you told me!

I logged into Gnome Shell earlier for the first time in weeks to sort out this issue and I found out I didn't miss Gnome Shell at all. Thought I was a Gnome Shell user, turns out I'm a Cinnamon user

Let's face it, Gnome-shell saved Gnome 3 from becoming just the gui for some computer-assisted bidet, maybe the touchscreen of some fancy dish-washer, but it's still a mess. It violates many of the recommendations for programming modular systems (today that's something even children learn at school... believe me!) because its extensions manager is a disaster. If you leave open to programmers the possibility of extending your system by means of plugins/add-ons/extensions/whatever you must implement some solid mechanism to regulate the way those "whatevers" interact with the main system and between them. The sad part is that it wasn't something too difficult to create.

On the other hand, I'm affraid Cinnamon (at least from what Clem posted at Cinnamon's site about the "joyeux" programming our own Cinnamon applets and extensions) still lacks that basic mechanism too, even when Clem originally stated that Cinnamon was created because " (...) even though extensions are cool, you can only do a small amount of stuff with them and you can't control interactions between extensions, their loading order and so on" (source: Web Upd8).

By the way... do you remember this (pay attention to the date).

[dnairb]

For a fast fix, just go to line 704 of extension.js and change bottomPosition = false to bottomPosition = true, but if you want a more detailed explanation keep reading.

Please do the following:
Press Alt and F2 keys simultaneously, at the prompt type lg, that will open the "Looking Glass" (when you're ready to close it just press Esc key).
Now, at Looking Glass, go to the pane named "Errors" and take note of the order your extensions are loaded and post it here.
I bet we will find something weird at it.

OK. Running from a LiveCD, updated.
Edited the windowlist@linuxmint.com/extension.js file to remove the "Show Desktop Button" and line 704: Pastebin just to check file: http://pastebin.com/zArXGBk9.

Still no go: "Show Desktop Button" has gone but Window List is on the top panel again!

Alt-F2 lg reports:

[esteban1uy]

For a fast fix, just go to line 704 of extension.js and change bottomPosition = false to bottomPosition = true, but if you want a more detailed explanation keep reading.

Please do the following:
Press Alt and F2 keys simultaneously, at the prompt type lg, that will open the "Looking Glass" (when you're ready to close it just press Esc key).
Now, at Looking Glass, go to the pane named "Errors" and take note of the order your extensions are loaded and post it here.
I bet we will find something weird at it.

OK. Running from a LiveCD, updated.
Edited the windowlist@linuxmint.com/extension.js file to remove the "Show Desktop Button" and line 704: Pastebin just to check file: http://pastebin.com/zArXGBk9.

Still no go: "Show Desktop Button" has gone but Window List is on the top panel again!

Alt-F2 lg reports:

As you can see, there's a problem in your extensions system: bottompanel extension loads first, that's correct, but windowlist shouts something got lost (some "parent", I guess it's a reference to the main panel) anyway it still loads instead of disabling itself!

So let's change our strategy.
Starting from scratch, paste this at line 730 (originally a blank line):

Code: Select all

Main.panel._leftBox.remove_actor(button.actor);

Then edit line 739 to this:

Code: Select all

//Main.panel._leftBox.remove_actor(button.actor);

This way windowlist loads as always but the "show desktop" button gets removed after some checks are done.

[SidharthaXx]

Thanks for the tips. Great post.

However, I am finding that 5g doesn't work for me. Has something changed in the interim since you posted?

Is there a new technique to achieve this?

many Thanks

[esteban1uy]

Thanks for the tips. Great post.

However, I am finding that 5g doesn't work for me. Has something changed in the interim since you posted?

Is there a new technique to achieve this?

many Thanks

Yes, things have changed!

But you can try this workaround:
Go to the folder that contains your extensions (/usr/share/cinnamon/extensions/ or /home/your-user-name/.local/share/cinnamon/extensions/) and edit the files named metadata.json (inside each extension folder) so their version look like this:

Code: Select all

"cinnamon-version": ["1.2.0"]

Remember, you can always have a good hint of what's going on with the Looking Glass (Alt+F2 then lg).

[bimsebasse]

Sorry, I will update the Cinnamon section soon. Cinnamon is in rapid development and the tips get outdated quickly )

[dballanc]

Under gnome-shell in Arch alt-tab gave nice app thumbnail/previews. I haven't been able to figure out how to turn those on in Mint 12 under either gnome-shell or cinnamon, all I get are very large icons. Any pointers on how to get those back under cinnamon (which is awesome btw)? The closest I've been able to find is using dconf-editor linuxmint->mgse->alttab, but that appeared to be something not valid for cinnamon.

[bimsebasse]

Something like this?

http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/extensions/view/3

[dballanc]

Thanks for the quick response! I gave that extension a try, but it was a bit flashier than what I was hoping. I generally have a half-dozen or more xterms to various machines floating around, and the alt-tab behavior I got used too was handy for finding the one I was looking for. That extension you linked was impressive, but I found it tedious with a large number of open apps/windows.

This is the behavior I was referring to:

[SidharthaXx]

Thanks bimsebasse... that got 5g working!

[esteban1uy]

Thanks for the quick response! I gave that extension a try, but it was a bit flashier than what I was hoping. I generally have a half-dozen or more xterms to various machines floating around, and the alt-tab behavior I got used too was handy for finding the one I was looking for. That extension you linked was impressive, but I found it tedious with a large number of open apps/windows.

But you can do what you want using the extension pointed by bimsebasse. Just use Ctrl+Alt+Tab and you can cycle between windows of the same application.
Let's say you have 6 terminal windows, if you have one focused, just press Ctrl+Alt+Tab and you will be cycling between all the terminal windows (and only the terminal windows) with the Tab key.

[bimsebasse]

That doesn't work in the current Cinnamon unfortunately, neither does Ctrl+Alt+`

Wasn't it working in earlier Cinnamons? Can't remember.

[dnairb]

As you can see, there's a problem in your extensions system: bottompanel extension loads first, that's correct, but windowlist shouts something got lost (some "parent", I guess it's a reference to the main panel) anyway it still loads instead of disabling itself!

So let's change our strategy.
Starting from scratch, paste this at line 730 (originally a blank line):

Code: Select all

Main.panel._leftBox.remove_actor(button.actor);

Then edit line 739 to this:

Code: Select all

//Main.panel._leftBox.remove_actor(button.actor);

This way windowlist loads as always but the "show desktop" button gets removed after some checks are done.

Unfortunately that didn't work.

However, now that I understand the extension javascript a little more, I tried:

Comment out line 715 (to prevent the "Show Desktop" button from being created):

Code: Select all

    // Create a show desktop button   
//  Main.panel._leftBox.add(button.actor, { x_fill: true, y_fill: true });

Then, comment out line 727 (to stop the extension attempting move a now-non-existent button to the bottom panel):

Code: Select all

    /* Look for mintPanel */
    if (Main.panel._mintPanel != null) {
        global.log("mintWindowList found mintPanel");
//      Main.panel._mintPanel.moveMe(button);
        Main.panel._mintPanel.moveMe(windowList);
    }

..and hey presto! No more "Show Desktop" button, and the windowlist appears on the bottom panel.
LookingGlass also reports no errors!

Note: these were the only changes to the extension.js file.

Thanks for your help with this.

[esteban1uy]

That doesn't work in the current Cinnamon unfortunately, neither does Ctrl+Alt+`

Wasn't it working in earlier Cinnamons? Can't remember.

The current Cinnamon?
I'm using the current Cinnamon (1.2) with Coverflow Alt-Tab extension and the Ctrl+Alt+Tab works exactly as explained: it cycles between the windows of the same application. Let me show you an example:

I opened a Firefox window, then four calculators (one of them has the input focus) and this is what I've got using Ctrl+Alt+Tab:

As you can see, I can cycle between calculators and ONLY calculators.

Now exactly the same windows but using Alt+Tab:

In this case you can see I'm cycling between ALL the windows (the calculators and Firefox too).

[bimsebasse]

Ah, what he means is normal alt+tab with expanded view option for multiple windows of the same open app, like Gnome shell and Unity has, Cinnamon's alt+tab for some reason doesn't have that.

[dballanc]

I didn't know about the ctrl-alt-tab trick, thanks. I'm still not keen on that particular plugin though. It looks awesome, but is very distracting since it shifts/replaces the entire desktop. Trying to alt-tab back and forth between say a code ide and an xterm it is easy to lose my train of thought. Small brain, can't handle the context switching.

[outfieldgrass]

Hopefully this is a good place for this question.

I play a text based baseball game and one of the issues I have had is setting the desktop up so I can see the entire screen. As it stands in Cinnamon it shows the title bar at the top and it then cuts off part of the game screen on the bottom. If I hide the panel it shows the entire screen but when I click on the game buttons at the bottom it brings up the calendar, time, etc. Despite clicking on the game button it interacts with the panel instead.

Using KDE it gives me the open to remove the borders for a particular app or window. Is there any way to have the function in Cinnamon? Other than this I absolutely love Cinnamon. I really don't want to hide the panel. KDE is the only manager that has allowed me to do what I would like to do.

[bimsebasse]

I play a text based baseball game and one of the issues I have had is setting the desktop up so I can see the entire screen. As it stands in Cinnamon it shows the title bar at the top and it then cuts off part of the game screen on the bottom. If I hide the panel it shows the entire screen but when I click on the game buttons at the bottom it brings up the calendar, time, etc. Despite clicking on the game button it interacts with the panel instead.

This is a bug in both Gnome Shell and Cinnamon, the panels are just not happy being in the background. The same thing happens often with full screen youtube videos, you think you're pressing "pause" but you're actually clicking the Cinnamon bottom panel menu underneath it! There is no fix or hack I know of, just a matter of waiting for the devs to find a solution.