A "Windows 7/10" layout for Ubuntu MATE

Thoughts & Feedback
1

Hi everyone. I wanted to say how much I've been impressed with Ubuntu MATE 17.10, in particular the new MATE Tweak. Good job guys :).

I wanted to share my layout for Ubuntu MATE, in which the panel similar to the Windows 7/10 taskbar (or if you prefer, the KDE panel with Icon-only Task Manager).

Screenshot at 2017-11-16 15-42-30.png1920Ă—1080 330 KB

It's a rather modest layout - I have the Mint Menu on the far left, with an Ubuntu Mate logo (which I found from /usr/share/icons/Ambiant-MATE/apps/22/start-here.svg, and enlarged in Inkscape) followed by a Show desktop button and the MATE Dock Applet. On the right, is the Wastebasket, Notification Area, Clock and Shut down button.

I would have quite liked to have the Brisk Menu instead, but I was not able to get it working with the Super key, nor could I change the logo or remove the "Menu" text.

I imagine that there would be a few who are moving from Windows 7/10 who would like a similar layout. Maybe something like this could be added to the list of default layouts on MATE Tweak? Just a thought.

Would be happy to hear feedback from the community. Thank you all :).

2 Likes
2

Great layout, and this should indeed be added as an option to MATE Tweak.

1 Like
3

FWIW you can remove the menu text by running

gsettings set com.solus-project.brisk-menu label-visible false
4 Likes
4

That's very helpful, thank you.

5

In a way, I wish there was a MATE version of this Cinnamon Applet: https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/applets/view/281

For fun, I logged into my Cinnamon session on my Ubuntu-MATE 17.10 box and got a screenshot if it.

Screenshot at 2017-11-16 13-46-26.jpg1920Ă—1080 470 KB

Anyone out there wanna take a shot at it? I would, but I mess up even the "Hello World" program in BASIC. :smiley:

1 Like
6

We need a window list which does two things;

  • Show the label of the active program
  • Only show icons for every other program within an inactive window.

If we want to emulate Windows 7, we could also have the option to iconify only when inactive windows become too plentiful to fit within the minimum list entry width.

And better yet, we can integrate this into the Window List widget, make it work as the user specifies via toggles and have these changes become upstream for GNOME 2 users, if we want to still cater for “Legacy” users on other systems, depending on how similar window handling is on G2 and MATE.

2 Likes
7

Hey Santa Fe
What is this clock on the top right side ?

8

It started out as the Gotham Conky, but I played around with it a little. :wink:

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This is my take on a redmond (windows) 7 layout with the brisk menu and icon only task bar.

flat-remdond7.jpg1366Ă—768 263 KB

if you would like the layout file there on my dropbox


Just copy Redmond-7-layout-tweak.panel and Redmond-7-layout-tweak.layout to
/usr/share/mate-panel/layouts
run mate-tweak and select panel and then select custom: Redmond-7-layout from the list.

2 Likes
10

It almost is. you simply have to…
tweak
a few settings like the icons and panel and you’re done.

1 Like
11

update:
As of Ubuntu mate 22.04 and greater the icon dock is not installed by default you have to install it.

if you want use the icon dock on the panel you need to install mate-dock-applet.
in the terminal

sudo apt install mate-dock-applet
1 Like