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| Replace Unity |
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The purpose of this tutorial is to document my attempt at completely replacing Unity with Cairo-Dock.
I must say I quite like Unity but CD is better in term of features and flexibility...
The assumption is that you have Ubuntu 11.04 (or more) installed and are using the Unity environment (obviously).
To make is simpler to follow I will start from the Default theme of Cairo-dock so load it if you prefer. I am
also in the simple configuration mode of CD. It is not needed but I like it.
So let's start.
1/ Start Cairo-Dock if not already done
2/ Open (install if needed) ccsm to allow you to edit Compiz setting.
3/ Search for the Unity plugin and deactivate it.
We now start playing with Cairo-Dock 
1/ Right click on CD and select Cairo-Dock / Configure
- Select Simple Mode at the bottom of the panel to be able to follow me
- Select Left for the position of the dock
- Select the way you want the dock to appear (I like "keep the dock hidden")
- Select the way you want the dock to disappear (again I like Fade)
- Apply and close the configuration panel
This should give you something nice already but we are missing the top panel.
2/ Right click on CD and select Add / Main Dock
- The new dock will be created at the top by default.
3/ Position your mouse to the top middle of the screen and right click on that new dock
- Select configure this dock
- Select the option to "reserve space for the dock" in the visibility section of the first tab and apply
- Select Panel view in the appearance tab and apply
We now have an empty panel at the top and it is time to populate it.
4/ Still in the configuration panel click on the Left dock menu to expand its content
- Select the Application menu and change the dock it belongs to "top dock"
- Do the same thing for the Following Applications: Shortcuts, Recent-Events, Log-out
- Close the config panel
5/ You can now reorder the icons in both dock by dragging them in the position you desire.
At this stage we are nearly there but not quite. We need to split that top panel in 2
6/ Right click on the top panel and select Add / Separator.
- Now some of the icons should have moved to the right side of the screen
- You may have to drag some of them on the side you want.
7/ To finish I have added the following applet to the top panel
- Calendar, Clock, Me Menu, Notification Area, Notification Area Old (more on that later), Sound Control and Trash
8/ To add the "MeMenu" and "Messaging Menu" to top panel you need to activate and then for some reason they will
appear in their own dock (on the left). Just right on each of them and select "move to another dock" and choose "Top Dock"
9/ At this point it is time to reorder each icons. You can that in both docks by dragging them to their correct position
10/ You can of course also add or removed other program/applet/separator from the left dock to suit you need.
That is it! You have replaced unity with Cairo-Dock
To be able to refine the configuration you will need to switch back to the advanced mode !
Now may be it is time for other to try it and we can share our ideas/issues/solution/improvement.... |
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