Saturday 6 March 2010

Tweaking the Gnome Window Button Layout

Call me old fashioned, but I kind of like my Gnome Window buttons to be on the right hand side of a Window, rather than on the left. Fortunately this can be easily configured using gconf-editor. Run gconf-editor and select: apps->metacity->general and then select the button_layout configuration setting and change it to:

:minimize,maximize,close

The leading colon sets the button icons on the right of a window and a trailing colon sets the button icons on the left of a window. Easy!



If you don't want to run the GUI tool, use the following rune:

gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout :minimize,maximize,close

2 comments:

  1. I hate that something like this, that so many people probably want, can only be changed in the gnome registry. I'm fed up with registries, that's one thing that I love about linux: all configuration is simple text files. Now all these new settings are only accessibly via this awful method. I feel like I'm running windows again having to root around in the registry just to change useful settings.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you don't want to bother with the GUI, then just change the following text file:

      /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/index.theme

      and make the change described above to the following line:
      button_layout=minimize,maximize,close:

      Delete