netbooks

As you're all too aware of, I own a netbook, and I run Arch Linux, so I'm always trying to optimise my experience by tweaking things here and there. One thing that caught my eye was the Ubuntu Netbook Remix interface, which has 6 major parts:

1. Desktop switcher - switches between netbook/desktop modes.
2. Go Home applet - displays the desktop window, which is the launcher window under UNR.
3. Human Netbook Theme - Ubuntu's infamous dirt-brown colour branding.
4. Maximus - Maximises and optionally removes decorations from windows. Remembers settings.
5. Ubuntu Netbook Remix Launcher - The main interface, displayed instead of the normal desktop.
6. Window Picker Applet - An alternate window switcher that shows the full title of a maximised window, and the other windows as icons.

Being a power user, I wanted #4 and #6. I don't use Maximus, but I found I could get its effects from hacking my Metacity theme. Exactly how I'll leave for another time.

Instead, I did some work on Window Picker Applet. Here are the results, at the middle-top of the screen.

If you're using Window Picker Applet now, you'll notice something is amiss: how can my notes be active, and yet my VIM terminal in the back still shows in the title bar? Try it now: open and maximise a window, and then open a smaller window in front of it.

The problem here is that Window Picker Applet 0.4.21 (I haven't tested later ones yet) assume that the front/active window is the only one that matters. Since I don't use Window Picker Applet with any of the other netbook remix stuff, this made working with multiple windows a bit irritating, as if people like me hadn't been accounted for.

I've written a fix for this.

I got a netbook, so naturally, I spend a lot of time on the 'net with it, which means Firefox. A lot of Firefox.

The netbook I have is an Asus Eee PC 901, with a resolution of 1024 * 600. The width is perfect for web browsing, but occasionally the 600 vertical pixels puts things under the fold when I don't want it to. To get around this, I use Firefox's fullscreen F11 mode.

Fullscreen mode will occupy the whole screen, GNOME panel be damned. It hides the title bar, window decorations and the browser controls.

It also hides the status bar.

... because no stores seem to be stocking one that matches these specs:

1. Asus Eee PC 901,
2. with Linux (screw Windows and its anti-hacking regime),
3. that's white (gloss finish == fingerprints on black surfaces).