UbuntuHandbook

OS X Yosemite Like Theme for Elementary OS 0.2 Luna

Last updated: January 6, 2015

For Elementary OS users now there’s an OS X Yosemite like GTK theme for the 0.2 Luna desktop.

Some guys have created a new project called yellowstone, which is an OS X Yosemite like ElementaryOS Luna theme based on the excellent Elementary default theme.

Screenshots:

To install the theme:

1. Downloads Yellowstone theme at the link below:

Yellowstone master.zip

2. Open file browser and press Ctrl+H on keyboard to view hidden file folders. Create a new folder called .themes folder if not exist.

3. Open the downloaded package via Archive Manager and select extract to the .themes folder.

To apply the theme:

1. Install Elementary Tweaks by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal and then running below commands one by one:

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

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install elementary-tweaks

2. Go to System Settings -> Tweaks, select Yellowstone theme from the drop-down list:

That’s it. Enjoy!

In Howtos Elementary OS Luna, gtk themes

‘Delete’ Permanently in Context Menu in Ubuntu / Elementary OS Luna

Last updated: May 7, 2014

Want to delete files or folders from your file browser bypassing trash? Well, this tutorial will show you how to add ‘Delete’ (Permanently) option to your context menu in Ubuntu Nautilus or Elementary OS Pantheon.

For Ubuntu Nautilus File Browser:

1. Open your file browser.

2. Go to menu: Edit -> Preferences

3. Under behavior tab, check the box where it says “Include a Delete command that bypasses Trash”

Once done, you’ll find an option “Delete” in context menu:

For Elementary OS Luna:

Thanks to Trisailing, he left a comment in another post with below steps:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run command to create and edit the config file:

sudo scratch-text-editor /usr/share/contractor/Delete.contract

2. Copy and paste below lines into empty file:

[Contractor Entry]
Name=Delete permanetly
Icon=pantheon-files
Description=Delete files, skip trash
MimeType=application;audio;chemical;image;message;model;multipart;text;video;x-conference;x-epoc;x-world
Exec=rm -r
Gettext-Domain=pantheon-files

Add inode to the value list of MimeType will allow to delete folders. But (Thanks to @Trisailing) if you click Delete permanently on a blank space it will delete all files and folders in the current directory. Use it at your own risk!

3. Save the file. Log out and back in.

In Howtos delete bypassing trash, Elementary OS Luna, Ubuntu 14.04

Display The Playing Song As A Widget on Elementary OS Desktop

Last updated: March 21, 2019

CoverGloobus is a simple application that displays the cover and the info of playing song on your desktop as a nice widget.

If you have been using Ubuntu for years, you may have heard of CoverGloobus. The project was last updated 4 years ago, but it’s still working good on Ubuntu 12.04. I’ve tested it on Elementary OS Luna, here are the screenshots:

CoverGloobus downloads lyrics and covers from internet and supports the most popular music plays, including Amarok2, Audacious, Banshee, Deadbeef, Exaile, gmusicbrowser, MOC, MPD, Rhythmbox, VLC, Songbird, Totem, and more.

Install:

Download and install the DEB:

CoverGloobus 1.7.3 for 32 bit

CoverGloobus 1.7.3 for 64 bit

Once installed, open it from Application Menu and right click on the widget to configure the player, themes, etc.

To make it work with Noise music player, download the below package, extract and paste the “Noise.py” & “Noise.pyc” files to /usr/share/covergloobus/players

~~Noise_Player_Covergloobus.zip~~

In Howtos CoverGloobus, Elementary OS Luna

Enable Global Menu in Elementary OS Luna

Last updated: February 10, 2014

Want to try the Ubuntu Unity-Style Global Menu in Elementary OS Luna? Well, it’s easy to accomplish this via super wingpanel.

Super Wingpanel, wingpanel from the elementaryos project with some additional features:

auto hide / intellihide / intellislim
slim mode a la wingpanel-slim

First take a look at the result:

NOTE: Super Wingpanel is not stable at the moment, use it at your own risk!

To install this tool, press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the commands below one by one:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:heathbar/super-wingpanel-daily

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install super-wingpanel

To get it working, indicator-appmenu and dconf-tools are needed. Install them via:

sudo apt-get install indicator-appmenu dconf-tools

To enable Global Menu:

1. Open dconf Editor from the Applications menu.

2. Navigate to org -> pantheon -> cerbere, enable appmenu and super wingpanel by changing the value of monitored-process to:

[‘plank’, ‘slingshot-launcher –silent’, ‘env UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0 super-wingpanel’]

3. Navigate to org -> pantheon -> desktop -> super-wingpanel, change the value of blacklist to:

[”]

Log out and back in. Done.

In Howtos Elementary OS Luna, Global Menu

How to Customize the Top Panel in Elementary OS Luna

Last updated: October 24, 2013

This tutorial shows you how to customize your Elementary OS top panel, including background color and transparency, auto hide panel, and show or hide Applications launcher.

To get started, press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to edit the /usr/share/themes/elementary/gtk-3.0/app.css:

sudo scratch-text-editor /usr/share/themes/elementary/gtk-3.0/apps.css

There you can change the value of panel background color and transparency as well as other colors, include Noise, Terminal, Notify, and more.

To apply changes, run:

pkill wingpanel

To get slim wingpanel, run command below in terminal:

sudo apt-get install wingpanel-slim elementary-tweaks

Then go to System Settings -> Tweaks -> Wingpanel Slim, there you can enable slim wingpanel, auto-hide panel, show / hide launcher.

Finally, my panel looks like:

In Howtos Elementary OS Luna, Elementary OS panel

Add ‘Open as Administrator’ to Pantheon in Elementary OS Luna

Last updated: October 7, 2013

This simple tutorial will show you how to add ‘Open as Administrator’ or ‘Open as root’ to Pantheon Context menu in Elementary OS Luna. So that you can easily open system files or folders with super user privilege through the default Pantheon file browser.

First take a look at the screenshots:

open file as root in elementary os

open folder as root in elementary os

Before getting started, search for and install gksu from Software Center. It is a Gtk+ frontend allows graphical programs to ask a user’s password to run another program as root / administrator.

Open files as root in Panthen Context Menu:

It’s a little different to Ubuntu Nautilus. Because I don’t know how to use if conditional statements in ‘.contractor’ files, so I divided this into two parts: Open files as root and Open folders as root.

1. Use your favorite editor to create and edit the config file. Here I use gedit (press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal for running commands):

sudo apt-get install gedit

sudo gedit /usr/share/contractor/scratch-openasroot.contract

2. Copy and paste below lines into the file and save it.

[Contractor Entry]
Name=Open file as root
Icon=scratch-text-editor
Description=open file as root with scratch
MimeType=text
Exec=gksudo scratch-text-editor %U
Gettext-Domain=scratch-text-editor

This will add an option “Open file as root” to Pantheon context menu, which open text files as root user with Scratch Text Editor (the default editor for eOS).

Open folders as root in Panthen Context Menu:

1. Use your favorite editor to create and edit the config file:

sudo gedit /usr/share/contractor/folder-openasroot.contract

2. Copy and paste below lines into the file and save it.

[Contractor Entry]
Name=Open folder as root
Icon=pantheon-files
Description=Open current folder as root privilege
MimeType=inode;
Exec=gksudo pantheon-files %U
Gettext-Domain=pantheon-files

This adds the option ‘Open folder as root’ to context menu, which open folders as root privilege.

Remember, you need a restart to get things done. Enjoy!

In Howtos Elementary OS Luna, open as administrator, open as root

How to Move Window Buttons & Add Minimize in Elementary OS Luna

Last updated: September 24, 2013

If you’re not comfortable with the eOS style window buttons, here’s how to add minimize buttons and move close, minimize, maximize buttons to right or left.

Because Elementary OS Luna is based on Ubuntu 12.04 Precise. So the setting is kinda similar. All you need to do is install Dconf Editor and change the value of button-layout.

1.) To get started, first install Dconf Editor. Open Software Center from the dock, search for and install dconf-tools. Or you can run below command in terminal:

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

2.) Open Dconf Editor from the top-left app menu.

3.) Navigate to org > pantheon > desktop > gala > appearance. There you can change the value of button-layout to:

:minimize,maximize,close will add the minimize button, and move all window buttons to right.
close,maximize,minimize: will add the minimize button, and move all window buttons to left.

You may find that colon ‘:’ is the line of demarcation. Button names before (or after) the colon will set them to left (or right) of window title bar.

In Howtos Elementary OS Luna, move window buttons

Add Brightness Control to Elementary OS Panel with an Indicator

Last updated: September 13, 2013

If the brightness controls don’t works in your system or you’re not satisfied with the default Fn function key, here’s an app indicator allows to change screen brightness in all the possible brightness values. The applet works in Ubuntu and its derivatives, such as Linux Mint and Elementary OS Luna.

It’s useful for me because the Fn+Arrow key in my laptop only change the brightness in 4 levels (zero, one third, two-thirds, full).

Features:

Clicking the icon shows you all the possible brightness values, to a maximum of 15 steps.

The current value is indicated with a dot.

Clicking a menu item sets the brightness to the desired value.

Scroll wheel event is enabled on the icon. Scrolling up means higher brightness, scrolling down lower.

Control screen brightness with custom keyboard shortcuts.

Install Brightness Indicator:

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run below commands one by one to install the indicator from PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:indicator-brightness/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install indicator-brightness

Or you can download the .deb package and double-click to install it from Launchpad.net

Once installed, open it from the app menu. Add these commands to your custom keyboard shortcuts to control brightness with your keyboard. You need Elementary Tweak to add a custom shortcut key.

/opt/extras.ubuntu.com/indicator-brightness/indicator-brightness-adjust --up

and:

/opt/extras.ubuntu.com/indicator-brightness/indicator-brightness-adjust --down

In Howtos brightness control, Elementary OS Luna

How to Install the Flash Plugin in Elementary OS Luna

Last updated: November 28, 2013

The Elementary OS Luna – Ubuntu 12.04 Precise based system – comes with lightweight browser Midori. To get Flash working for it, you’ll need to install ndiswrapper and do some tweaking. It’s not difficult, just folow the below steps, copy and paste commands into terminal and hit enter to run.

1.) To get started, press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to install the flashplugin-installer.

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer nspluginwrapper

2.) Then run below commands one by one to get the flash working.

sudo nspluginwrapper -i /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so

nspluginwrapper -v -a -n -i

That’s it. Restart your browser and enjoy!

UPATE: As KW said, if previous commands does not work, just move the libflashplayer.so file to the /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins folder

In Howtos Elementary OS Luna, flash plugin

Add ‘Open in Terminal’ to Pantheon Context menu in Elementary OS

Last updated: September 28, 2013

Are you using the Elementary OS instead of Ubuntu? Well, here I’ll show you how to add the ‘Open in terminal’ option to the Pantheon file manager right-click menu. So that you can quickly open terminal and automatically navigate to the current directory in Pantheon.

To get started, use your favorite editor to create the config file /usr/share/contractor/openinterminal.contract and edit it. I prefer Gedit, so I install it and edit the file via below commands:

sudo apt-get install gedit

sudo gedit /usr/share/contractor/openinterminal.contract

Copy and paste below lines into the file and save it.

[Contractor Entry]
Name=Open in terminal
Icon=terminal
Description=Open in terminal
MimeType=inode;application/x-sh;application/x-executable;
Exec=pantheon-terminal -d %U
Gettext-Domain=pantheon-terminal

Log out and back in and done! Or you need a restart if it doesn’t work properly.

In Howtos Elementary OS Luna, open in terminal for pantheon