A Preview Of Things To Come : Elementary OS Isis

Isis will be the next release of elementary OS. Avi Romanoff, one of the developers, explains :
We plan on releasing a public beta and ISOs in the near future, though we don't have an exact date to share right now. We'll definitely let everyone know when we do -- stay tuned :)

Transparent Elementary Theme

Just a modified elementary theme adding transparency to Wingpanel, it's indicators and Slingshot.

Open a terminal and add the following ppa ( Personal Package Archive ) :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yunnxx/elementary
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install elementary-transparent-theme

Go to System Settings > Tweaks > Appearance and change Window Decoration Theme and Interface Theme to transparent.

For installing Tweaks see my former post....

Log out and in again....

Tweaks And Super-wingpanel

Newcomers to elementary OS : since the website elementaryupdate seems to be dead I thought it would be wise to write a post about adding Tweaks to System Settings and replacing Wingpanel with Super-wingpanel.

With elementary Tweaks, you can change themes, fonts, configure advanced Plank options, tweak animation timings, configure Files and Slingshot. It is written as a plug and therefor integrates into Switchboard ( System Settings ).

First of all we need to add the Elementary Update PPA to our software sources. Open a terminal and type :

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:versable/elementary-update
sudo apt-get update

Then install elementary Tweaks:
sudo apt-get install elementary-tweaks

Applications > System Settings > Tweaks

 

Install Superwingpanel :
sudo apt-get install super-wingpanel


Applications > System Settings > Tweaks > check Super Wingpanel

Log out and in again....

Slim mode :

Dpkg.log : List Of Package Management Events

There is a single log file that records all the apt activities, such as installs or upgrades, for the various package managers (dpkg, apt-get, synaptic, aptitude). It can be found here : /var/log/dpkg.log.

There are more dpkg.log* files :

cd /var/log
ls | grep dpkg
dpkg.log
dpkg.log.1
dpkg.log.2.gz
dpkg.log.3.gz

Log files are rotated. That is, they have automatically been renamed after a predefined time-frame, and a new original log started. After even more time the log files are compressed with the gzip utility.

To get a chronological list of all package management events ( install, remove, purge and upgrade ) :
zcat -f /var/log/dpkg.log* | grep "\ install\ " | sort>installed-packages

Replace install and installed-packages with remove/removed-packages...etc.

About zcat : open terminal and type :
man zcat

I-Nex, Hardware Stat Tool For Linux

From the website :
I-Nex is an application that gathers information for hardware components available on your system and displays it using an user interface similar to the popular Windows tool CPU-Z.

There are daily and stable Ubuntu builds on the Install page.
I used the daily builds : version 0.6.4-0~bzr591~20140221~ubuntu12.04.1.

Menu Editor MenuLibre

From the website : An advanced menu editor that provides modern features in a clean, easy-to-use interface.  All without GNOME dependencies, so even lightweight systems can benefit from the sanity that MenuLibre offers. 

Starting with a fresh installation of elementary OS we need to add the following PPA ( Personal Package Archive ) :
Go to this page and scroll down till COMMUNITY PPA. Open a terminal and :

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:versable/elementary-update
sudo apt-get update
Search for the package menulibre :
apt-cache search menulibre
menulibre - advanced menu editor with quicklist support

( A link for the command apt-cache search ).

To install :
sudo apt-get install menulibre

For the first run use the terminal and :
/opt/extras.ubuntu.com/menulibre/bin/menulibre
( You can add the directory to your path environment variable in ~/.bashrc file, if you wish to launch it by typing menulibre : just add the line
PATH=$PATH:/opt/extras.ubuntu.com/menulibre/bin at the end of the file ).

Search in All Applications for Menu Editor  and under Categories delete all the items ( hit the x button ).

Now add ( + button ) Accessories > Utility and save the changes ( File > Save ) : a .desktop file will be added to ~/.local/share/applications ( the edit mode works by creating an overriding .desktop file in the directory ~./local/share/applications).

The app has no icon, so I grabbed one from a similar application named ezame. I went to this page and downloaded ezame_0.5.1~precise-1_all.deb. Open the package with Archive Manager, extract it and look for the icons in the folder usr/share/icons.
I moved one of them ( 64x64 ) to the hidden folder .icons in your Home directory ( make the folder .icons if you don' t have it ).
Rename ezame.png to menu-editor.png.

The .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications will look like this :

By clicking you start the application.
I had to logout and login again for the application to appear in the slingshot-launcher.

The Help > Contents in the menu has information to use the application.

For daily packages go to : https://launchpad.net/~menulibre-dev/+archive/daily

Firefox Elementary Style

Start firefox and install the Movable Firefox Button.
You have to restart firefox to make the Addon active.

Right click between the address bar and search bar and uncheck Menu Bar.

Repeat the same but then choose Customize... Grab the Firefox Menu button and move it to the far right side.

Grab the ( with Customize... ) Home and Bookmark button and move them to the left right next to the address bar. Remove the search bar...( drop it in the Customize Toolbar window ).

Now install the elementary theme.

To get the elementary menu icon, you must remove or disable the Movable Firefox Button extension. ( Firefox menu button > Addons )

Next go to the about:config page ( just type it in the URL-bar ) and search for tabs :

Look for the setting browser.tabs.onTop which default setting is true. Just double click it, it will be set on false. We're done....