How to change the shutdown icon on the menu bar?

Support & Help Requests
#1

Hi, I’m trying Ubuntu MATE for the first time. I want to make it look like old versions of Ubuntu, so I installed the Ubuntu Human Legacy Theme Pack. The theme pack doesn’t change the Applications menu icon or the shutdown icon on the menu bar.

I was able to change the Applications menu icon to the one included in the theme pack using dconf Editor, but I can’t figure out how to change the shutdown icon. (The theme pack did change the icon, but not to the one that was used in old versions of Ubuntu, even though that’s included in the pack.) Does anyone know how that’s done?

Thanks!

#2

If the icon is hard-coded by the “Shut Down…” applet, you could try changing it by changing your icon theme. Basically, you need to rename (or copy) the icon you want to the name of the icon it is using. There are often several sizes of the icons, but you may be able to get away with changing just the size being used. Of course this method will change that icon for every program using it as well.

#3

That’s where it gets weird - I found the icon currently being used, but it’s not in /usr/share/icons like the rest of them are - it’s in ~/.icons. I renamed it and put the desired icon in its place and renamed it to the current icon’s name, but the current icon hasn’t changed.

#4

Hi @themaritimeman,

have you looked at exactly what icons are showing in the Appearance > Customise > Icons menu?:

#5

Then you haven’t found the right place to change it.

Find the /usr/share/icons or /themes folder responsible for the icon. Copy the folder to your home folder (/.icons and or /.themes), change the name of the folder and hack away. If it gets screwed up, just delete and start again. In the past I have found it necessary to delete all extra icon sizes and just work with one (I usually keep the “scalable” folder or the one bigger than my panel size).

#6

I've used themes and found that the shut down button on the panel simply wasn't using the right one.

You may need to create symbolic links for these:

  • actions/24/system-shutdown.svg :point_left: That's the one the MATE panel seems to use.
  • actions/16/system-shutdown-panel.svg
  • actions/22/system-shutdown-panel.svg
  • actions/24/system-shutdown-panel.svg
  • actions/16/system-shutdown-panel-restart.svg
  • actions/22/system-shutdown-panel-restart.svg
  • actions/24/system-shutdown-panel-restart.svg

For reference, the applications icon can be changed by the theme too:

This uses apps/22/start-here.svg