Posts Tagged ‘customize’

I like to have a fairly clean and uncluttered desktop. There is no exception when it comes to my web browser. I have found the following Firefox Extensions and theme to provide me a sleek customized interface which stays out of my way.

Add Bookmark Here2

Add a menuitem “Add Bookmark Here…” to Bookmarks…

Fission

Fission combines address bar and progress bar (Safari style). This makes the progress bar more visible and allows for a nice visual effect.

Smart Stop/Reload

Combines/merges the Stop and Reload toolbar buttons.

Speed Dial

Direct access to your most visited websites

Tiny Menu

Replace the standard menu bar with a tiny menu popup.

These icons are designed around the simplified Stop, Reload, Back and Forward icons of Strata… expanding those basic elements across the entire interface. My goal is to create a compact alternative default theme… something that’s not just a special effect, but a fun and functional interface.

In addition to these extentions and theme I enter about:config in the address bar and change the value keyword.URL to http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&q= (allowing me to type in a search string in the address bar that presents me with the Google results, letting me remove the search bar from firefox entirely if so felt).

Now that I had a fresh new installation of Debian it was time for me to customize it.

You can choose desktop wallpaper from the settings –> desktop in your X menu. I choose this one.

I even changed the icon to the menu button in the task bar by right clicking and selecting its properties. Under the icon prompt i selected the Debian logo provided at /usr/share/pixmaps/debian-logo.png

For the Emerald window decoration I downloaded Liberty Green. To install it I click on Emerald Theme Manager by right clicking the Fusion Icon. Then I click on the import button and find where I downloaded the file. I could see the new theme available and double clicked it.

I used Murrina Verde Olivo for GTK. I created the directory ~/.themes and copied the downloaded tarball into it. From there I extracted the tarball then deleted it. When i went to Appearances from the Settings menu I could see my newly installed GTK Theme.

Jungle Green was my choice for an Icon set. I repeated the steps above for the GTK theme, only I created a ~/.icons directory.  And in Appearances I found the new set listed under the Icon tab.

Finlay the mouse pointer I chose was Harmony. I had to replacate the above steps and as root I followed a similar procedure. I copied the file into the /etc/share/icons directory and extracted it there. I was not done however, I created the folder /usr/share/icons/default with the file  index.theme inside. edited as such (created the exact same file in ~/.icons/default):

[icon theme]
Inherits=Harmony

Now I went to Settings –> Mouse in the menus and clicked the theme (you might see it listed twice, this is okay.) tab and clicked on the new theme.

NOTE: the mouse has to be duplicated, otherwise I only had it working within Firefox but not the rest of the desktop.

Now I had a nice looking desktop!