By now, the official is good enough and has all you need. So if you still feel like experimenting, continue reading below.
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Hi all,
After looking at some screenshots of other forum members desktops, I've noticed that nice deck that looks like a nice dark glass table with icons on it. So I asked how did they get it, it was only then when I've first heard about the cute program called Avant Window Navigator, aka "awn", as soon as I've heard the name and I've realized that I've seen that name before, of course, it was included in Ultimate Edition for a long time, just waiting for me to discover it!
Since the first minute I loved the program and I decided to dig on it. I've found this version to be a bit buggy, not always doing what I expect it from, etc, etc, then I've started reading in their official webpage and found out that there are newer maintainer versions (trunk) and that they include also a nice bunch of useful applets and plugins.
Why using this "trunk" version? The awn package got itself into the Ubuntu official package lists, but not the extras, so in order to get the extras, for now, you'll need to use both trunk versions, for the base program and for the extras. They claim to be working on making it official in Intrepid release of Ubuntu, let's wait and see, in the meantime, you can already enjoy it.
So here's my howto
First of all I must say this will install the newest versions of the testing team sources, it may lead you to some inconsistencies, I'm using it for a few days now and I don't have any problems on my Ultimate Edition 1.9 x64.
Add the needed sources:
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echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ubuntu hardy main' | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
echo 'deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ubuntu hardy main' | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
Now update your software lists. If you are asked any questions during this, respond with 'y'.
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sudo apt-get update
Then install AWN, again, answer 'y' to any questions. (this will remove your current version, most of the settings will be kept, only the custom launcher you may have added will need to be added again)
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sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator-trunk awn-extras-applets-trunk awn-manager-trunk
That's it, now you can run it from command line
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avant-window-navigator &
or from the "Applications>Accessories>Avant Window Navigator" menu
To reach the manager you can type in command line
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awn-manager &
or just right click on the dock to open a menu.
You can see how many applets you have now, I'm sure you'll find something you'll like there
Now all you need is just play around with the many options, I did it for two days and I've got this nice thingy working fine and useful, not only beautiful...
Here is how mine looks now:
Nice, isn't it?
Ziv