Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

MATE Dock Applet Sees New Release

| Date: June 06, 2017 | View Comments | Tags: desktop environments, dock, mate, ubuntu mate

MATE Dock Applet is a MATE panel applet that displays open windows / applications as icons. The latest 0.78 version includes 5 new types of indicators, a new option to add space between dock icons, and more.

MATE Dock Applet

Alternative Global Menu For MATE And Xfce: Vala Panel AppMenu [PPA]

| Date: February 16, 2017 | View Comments | Tags: customization, global menu, linux, mate, tweaks, ubuntu mate, vala panel appmenu, xfce, xubuntu

A while back I wrote about TopMenu, a panel plugin that provides global menu (AppMenu) support for MATE, then also included support for Xfce and LXDE.

The problem with TopMenu is that it only partially supports GTK3, it doesn't support LibreOffice, and with Ubuntu 16.04, it doesn't support Qt (4 or 5) applications.

Here's where Vala Panel AppMenu comes in.

Vala Panel AppMenu is a global menu panel applet for Xfce, MATE and Vala panels, which uses unity-gtk-module as its backend, and it works with all the applications supported by Unity's AppMenu.

Global Menu Linux Mint Vala Panel AppMenu

MATE Dock Applet Sees New Release

| Date: January 26, 2017 | View Comments | Tags: applets, customization, linux, mate, ubuntu, ubuntu mate

MATE Dock Applet 0.76 was released today, bringing support for startup notifications when launching application, as well as some new cosmetic options.

MATE Dock Applet

MATE Dock Applet is a MATE Panel applet that displays running application windows as icons, which features option to pin applications to the dock, supports multiple workspaces, allows changing the MATE panel icon to the dominant desktop wallpaper color, and more.

Recent Notifications Indicator Lets You Access Missed Desktop Notifications

| Date: November 18, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: appindicator, customization, featured, linux, notifications, recent notifications, ubuntu, ubuntu mate, unity, xubuntu

Recent Notifications is an Ubuntu Indicator that collects desktop notifications, displaying them in its menu. This is useful if you missed some important notification for various reasons, like being away from the computer, etc.

Ubuntu recent notifications

I've covered Recent Notifications before, however, the last article on WebUpd8 dates back to 2011, so I decided to post another article about it (and redirect the old ones to this one), especially since the indicator changed / improved since then.

How To Install Avant Window Navigator In Ubuntu 16.04 Or Linux Mint 18

| Date: September 07, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: avant window navigator, customization, dock, lubuntu, ubuntu mate, xubuntu

Avant Window Navigator is a dock / task manager for Linux, which was very popular a while back. Its developers lost interest with the introduction of Unity, and after several years of inactivity, the project was taken over by a new maintainer.

Unfortunately, the new maintainer isn't too active either, but at least Avant Window Navigator was updated to work with recent Linux distributions.

Avant Window Navigator Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus

Mike Baum created an Avant Window Navigator PPA for Ubuntu 16.04 / Linux Mint 18, because the official AWN PPA wasn't updated in a while.

There are a few AWN applets from this PPA that can't be installed, so I decided to rebuild the packages in the main WebUpd8 PPA. Update: I added Ubuntu 14.04 / Linux Mint 17.x packages to the PPA.

Multiload-ng 1.2.0 Released With Color Schemes Support, More

| Date: August 30, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: applets, lubuntu, lxde, mate, system monitor, ubuntu mate, xfce, xubuntu

Multiload-ng, a graphical system monitor for Xfce, LXDE, and MATE panels, was updated to version 1.2.0 recently, getting color schemes support, a redesigned preferences window, and more.

Multiload-ng

MATE Dock Applet Gets Unity-Like Progress Bar And Badge Support

| Date: August 24, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: applet, mate, ubuntu, ubuntu mate

MATE Dock Applet is a MATE Panel applet that displays running application windows as icons. The applet features options to pin applications to the dock, supports multiple workspaces, and can be added to any MATE Panel, regardless of size and orientation.

Mate Dock Applet Unity Badge Progress Bar Support

The latest MATE Dock Applet 0.74, released today, includes a feature requested by some of you: it can now display Unity-like progress bars and badges on top of the icons, for applications that support this. You can see this in action, in the screenshot above, for Transmission. 

Alternative System Monitor Applet For LXDE, Xfce, And MATE: Multiload-ng

| Date: August 15, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: applet, customization, linux mint, lubuntu, lxde, mate, ubuntu mate, xfce, xubuntu

Multiload-ng is a GTK2 graphical system monitor for the Xfce, LXDE, and MATE panels, forked from the old GNOME Multiload applet. It can also run in a standalone window.

Multiload system monitor Lubuntu LXDE

Ubuntu MATE 16.10 Yakkety Yak Gets A Unity HUD-Like Searchable Menu

| Date: July 26, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: hud, mate, ubuntu mate, Yakkety Yak

MATE HUD, a Unity HUD-like tool that allows searching through an application's menu, was recently uploaded to the official Yakkety Yak repositories, and is available (but not enabled) by default in Ubuntu MATE 16.10.

Ubuntu MATE HUD

MATE Dock Applet 0.73 Released With Redesigned Window List, Drag And Drop Support

| Date: July 20, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: linux, mate, ubuntu, ubuntu mate

MATE Dock Applet was updated to version 0.73 recently, getting support for rearranging dock icons via drag and drop (only for the GTK3 version), updated window list design and more.

MATE Dock Applet

How To Get A Unity-Like HUD (Searchable Menu) In Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Linux Mint, More

| Date: June 24, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: customization, desktop environment, hud, linux mint, menu, tweaks, ubuntu mate, xubuntu

You're probably familiar with the Unity HUD, or Head-Up Display, which lets you search through and application's menu. Thanks to Rafael Bocquet's i3-hud-menu (and J.A. McNaughton's fork), you can use this menu search feature in pretty much any desktop environment (and in any Linux distribution in which you can install unity-gtk-module).

i3-hud-menu allows searching and navigating through an application's menu using the keyboard, with the use of dmenu (dmenu doesn't have mouse support by default). Here's how it looks like in Xubuntu 16.04:

i3-menu-hud Xubuntu

Fix Dropbox Indicator Icon And Menu Not Working In Xubuntu, Lubuntu Or Ubuntu MATE

| Date: June 10, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: appindicator, dropbox, fix, lubuntu, systray, tips n tricks, ubuntu mate, xubuntu

I recently stumbled on an issue with Dropbox and the Ubuntu flavors that support AppIndicators (except Unity), like Xubuntu and Lubuntu: the Dropbox AppIndicator icon shows up as broken and the menu doesn't work. This isn't a new issue though, and it seems to occur starting with Ubuntu 14.04.

The issue occurs with the Dropbox packages in the official Ubuntu repositories (called "nautilus-dropbox", which doesn't depend on Nautilus and can be used to install Dropbox on any desktop environment) as well as the Dropbox package downloaded from its official website. 

Install MATE 1.14 In Ubuntu MATE 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) Via PPA

| Date: June 09, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: customization, desktop environment, mate, ubuntu, ubuntu mate

MATE Desktop 1.14 is now available for Ubuntu MATE 16.04 (Xenial Xerus). According to the release announcement, it took about 2 months to release MATE Desktop 1.14 in a PPA because everything has been well tested, so you shouldn't encounter any issues.

MATE 1.14 Ubuntu MATE 16.04

A Quick Look At Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS

| Date: April 21, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: desktop environment, linux, mate, ubuntu, ubuntu mate

Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS was released today and it includes some interesting changes, like a complete overhaul of the MATE Welcome user interface, a new panel layout option in Ubuntu MATE Tweak, which mimics Unity with a dock-like panel and global menu setup, and more.

Ubuntu MATE 16.04 Xenial Xerus screenshots

Install MATE 1.12.1 In Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Or 16.04 Via PPA

| Date: December 10, 2015 | View Comments | Tags: customization, desktop environment, linux, mate, ubuntu mate

The Ubuntu 15.10 and 16.04 MATE PPAs were updated recently with the latest MATE 1.12.1.

MATE 1.12.1 Ubuntu Wily

According to Martin Wimpress, Project Lead for Ubuntu MATE, the PPAs use the same source packages that he's done for Debian, which are currently being reviewed by the FTP masters and should land in Debian Unstable in a couple of weeks, so they should be safe to use.

Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf Beta 1 Flavors Released

| Date: August 27, 2015 | View Comments | Tags: kubuntu, lubuntu, ubuntu gnome, ubuntu mate, Wily Werewolf, xubuntu

The first beta for the Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf flavors (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu MATE, Lubuntu and Ubuntu Kylin) was released today. Let's take a quick look at what's new!

Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Released, First Version As An Official Ubuntu Flavor

| Date: April 23, 2015 | View Comments | Tags: desktop environment, distro, mate, ubuntu, ubuntu mate, Vivid Vervet

Ubuntu MATE 15.04 was released today, this being the first version as an official member of the Ubuntu family. Compared to the previous releases, when the distro was an unofficial flavor, there are numerous changes, including new default applications, a built-in panel layout switcher, new default theme and much more.

Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet screenshots

Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet Beta 1 Released, Gets Official Ubuntu Flavor Status

| Date: February 26, 2015 | View Comments | Tags: distro, linux, mate, ubuntu, ubuntu mate, Vivid Vervet

Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet Beta 1 was released today. Let's take a look at what's new since alpha 2.

Ubuntu MATE Vivid 15.04

Unfortunately I didn't have time to test the other flavors (and for most of them, there's not much to say anyway), so I'll only cover Ubuntu MATE for this first beta release. However, I'll add links to the other flavors' release notes (download links included), below:

Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet Alpha 2 Released

| Date: January 23, 2015 | View Comments | Tags: distro, linux, mate, ubuntu, ubuntu mate, Vivid Vervet

Along with the official Ubuntu flavors, Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet alpha 2 was released yesterday. Read on to find out what's new.

Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Vivid Vervet

Ubuntu MATE is an unofficial (that will probably change in the future) MATE-based Ubuntu flavor. For those not familiar with MATE, this is a GNOME 2 fork introduced after GNOME 3 and GNOME Shell replaced the classic desktop metaphor. Currently, MATE only supports GTK2, but the plan is to add GTK3 support with MATE 1.12.

Get A Global Menu In MATE 1.8 Or 1.10 With TopMenu (PPA For Ubuntu And Linux Mint)

| Date: December 17, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: customization, global menu, linux, linux mint, mate, ubuntu, ubuntu mate

You may also want to see: Alternative Global Menu For MATE And Xfce: Vala Panel AppMenu [PPA]

One of the most requested MATE features is the addition of a global menu applet. However, such an applet (called TopMenu) already exists, though it's not available in any PPA and that prevents many Ubuntu / Linux Mint users from installing it.

To make it easier to install, I've packed TopMenu in a PPA for Ubuntu 14.04 (requires using Ubuntu MATE or upgrading to MATE 1.8 via PPA), 15.04 and 15.10 as well as Linux Mint 17 or 17.1 (MATE edition, obviously).

TopMenu is compatible with MATE 1.8 and 1.10 (a MATE 1.8/1.10 panel applet is shipped) and it fully supports GTK2. According to its homepage, GTK3 is partially supported (I didn't encounter any functionality issues in my test) and there are additional plugins for Qt4 and Mozilla apps (Firefox and Thunderbird). I should also mention that unlike Unity's AppMenu, TopMenu doesn't autohide and it's always visible when an application is focused.

Here are a few TopMenu screenshots taken under Ubuntu MATE:

TopMenu - GTK2 app

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