Mint 12 Tips & Tricks Guide (updated Jan 10)

[wiggy25]

Mmm, just tried the tip on getting rid of the double icons...it didn't work!

I un-ticked away but still had the double icons.
Then deleted the Debian sub-folders which was not a very good idea, had to reboot as everything had gone from the desktop.
Couldn't log out or see/select anything.

Once rebooted everything was back including all of the Debian sub-folders so at least I can use everything.
I think I will wait for a fix before playing about with that again

Cheers

Ian

[bimsebasse]

Are you using MGSE or MATE or Gnome Classic? Deleting only Debian subfolders in alacarte (in MGSE) won't cause all application icons to disappear in itself.

[wiggy25]

Just using the GNOME desktop with most of the MGSE items switched off to give the basic GNOME3 experience.
I quite like it!

Anyway the only things left showing on the desktop was the Computer icon and the Home folder.
I could click on the Computer icon which would allow me to select open terminal but nothing would work, not even pressing the Alt+F2 did anything at all.

No other Panel or icon was showing on the screen, very odd!

[z06gal]

Bim, I do not understand the how to on the creating desktop launcher tutorial. Am I suppose to already have the gnome2/nautilus-script directory because I don't see it?

[bimsebasse]

It's OK to just create it if you don't have it, should still work.

[justinjohn]

How do I set a preference so when I doubleclick on a desktop icon containing a URL link, Linux will automatically switch to what I've just opened in my browser?

...Currently, I double click a link on my desktop, and I have to then manually switch over to my browser (firefox)...

...I know; small gripe.

[lurkatron]

regarding changing the height of the message tray to 0px i found that crashing my gnome3 and when logging in im left with a desktop without panels. changing it to 1px however worked and no crashes and no message tray visible that i can see

[bimsebasse]

^^ I have added this as a note to the fix, lurkatron, let me know if you're not OK with that.

[cocorocara]

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,

CC

[bimsebasse]

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:

Code: Select all

#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:

Code: Select all

#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

[cocorocara]

Thanx for the prompt reply! Finally I could fix that really tiny font!

CC

[z06gal]

bim, I wonder if you can help me with something else. I installed firefox beta and after extracting the tgz, I launch ff from that. Can you tell me how to create a launcher from that so I won't have to go through all that? I haven't been able to figure anything out. I wanted to add it to my dock. Thanks in advance


Robin

[bimsebasse]

You have both a normal firefox and a firefox beta and you want a desktop launcher to open the beta version instead of the regular version?

[z06gal]

You have both a normal firefox and a firefox beta and you want a desktop launcher to open the beta version instead of the regular version?

I do not have a normal ff installed. When I open synaptic and type in ff, it gives me ff 9 and most of my addons do not work with it. I do not know why I don't have a firefox stable but when I attempted to add that repo, it gave me the 404 not found message. So I went to ff and downloaded the ff8 so all of my addons work. I honestly have no idea why it is like this but that is the way it has been so I have been using chromium.

[cocorocara]

just one more tweak please ...

the size of the icons in the Menu (alacarte) ...

i want to *increase* the size of the icons on the left ... the vertical box.

i went through the css for the menu but didn't see any reference to icon size ...

[cocorocara]

You have both a normal firefox and a firefox beta and you want a desktop launcher to open the beta version instead of the regular version?

I do not have a normal ff installed. When I open synaptic and type in ff, it gives me ff 9 and most of my addons do not work with it. I do not know why I don't have a firefox stable but when I attempted to add that repo, it gave me the 404 not found message. So I went to ff and downloaded the ff8 so all of my addons work. I honestly have no idea why it is like this but that is the way it has been so I have been using chromium.

can't you use the launcher creation procedure explained in the guide?

[bimsebasse]

OK, I think it's a better idea to add the Firefox beta PPA which will give you a Firefox icon to launch from in menus like any other application

Code: Select all

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-next
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install firefox

That way your beta also gets updated automatically so you don't have to download a tar ball every time there's a new beta out. If you want to run from the extracted folder anyway, I guess browsing to the run script in the create launcher dialog box is the way to go, not sure.

[Middy]

I don't know if anyone else would be interested in this, but after a little fiddling I discovered how to disable the display desktop icon/button.



Open usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/windowlist@linuxmint.com and edit the extension.js - Comment out line 715

[bimsebasse]

That's a good tweak, Middy, gonna put that in if it's OK.

Can see you're also enjoying the new zukini theme

[z06gal]

OK, I think it's a better idea to add the Firefox beta PPA which will give you a Firefox icon to launch from in menus like any other application

Code: Select all

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-next
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install firefox

That way your beta also gets updated automatically so you don't have to download a tar ball every time there's a new beta out. If you want to run from the extracted folder anyway, I guess browsing to the run script in the create launcher dialog box is the way to go, not sure.

Thank you! I'll do that then.