Avant Window Navigator for Ubuntu Linux

Avant Window Navigator (AWN) is a Mac OS X like panel for the GNOME Desktop. In addition to launchers that can be dragged onto the bar, it features a taskbar that behaves similarly to the Mac OS X dock. The window navigator uses the composite extension for transparency and other effects.

The latest version of Avant Window Navigator - as of this writing - is version 0.4.

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Cool Awn Applets to adorn your Ubuntu Linux Desktop

In the previous article, I explained how to install Avant Window Navigator in Ubuntu Linux (Gutsy Gibbon). By default, it doesn't install any applets. But a dock without any applets is as boring as a desktop without a dock right ?

So here are a couple of AWN applets which I found really interesting. But first the installation ...

Installation of Awn applets

To install these applets you have to enable an additional repository from reacocard. For that open the /etc/apt/sources.list file in your favorite editor and append the following line to it.

#FILE: /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/reacocard-awn/ubuntu gutsy main

Now update the repository and install the following package. NOTE: It is assumed that you have already installed the Avant Window Navigator.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install awn-core-applets-bzr

That is it. Now you can find all the applets in the awn manager which is accessed from GNOME Menu System>Preferences>Awn manager .

Fig: Awn manager GNOME menu

To run an applet, open the "Awn manager" dialog box and in its left pane, click the "Applets" icon. In the right pane, you will find all the applets installed on your system. Select an applet and click the "Activate button". The applet starts running on your Awn dock.

Fig: Awn manager GUI

A few cool AWN applets
Here are a couple of very nice applets which caught my fancy.

Dilbert Cartoon Applet - This applet displays comic strips of popular cartoon characters. At present you have a choice of 5 different strips namely - Dilbert, Peanuts, The born loser, Wizard of ID and Xkcd.com.

Fig: Dilbert applet displaying a comic strip

Main menu applet - This applet provides an alternate menu containing all the applications you will find in the menus on the GNOME panel.

Fig: Main menu applet - I find it more functional

Stack applet - I like this applet very much. It has three layouts namely "Default dialog", "Curved GUI" and "Trasher GUI". The "Trasher GUI" is the same as the "Default dialog" with the exception that in the former, there is a delete button embedded. The "Curved GUI" is what has picked my fancy and makes me think of the dock found in Mac OSX Leopard.

Fig: Click on the stack applet to open a stack of objects.

Terminal applet - What better way to use the dock than embedding a terminal into an applet ? The terminal supports transparency which makes it ultra cool. And you can even choose the terminal you want to embed such as gnome-terminal, konsole, xfce terminal, xterm and so on.

Fig: gnome-terminal embedded in the terminal applet

Weather applet - Would you like to know the weather forecasts for today ? Even better how about the predictions for the next 4 days? Well, you have got your wish in the Weather applet. This applet pulls relevant data from the weather.com website and displays it in a nice pictorial view on your desktop. I was really surprised to find my city covered. Also the weather predictions seem pretty accurate.

Fig: I am always interested in the weather :-)

Fig: The weather map of India

Install Avant Window Navigator (AWN) in Ubuntu Linux

AWN - short for Avant Window Navigator is a dock like bar which sits at the bottom of the screen. It provides similar effects as the Dock in Mac OSX Leopard. The AWN project consists of three main parts namely

1. The Dock
2. AWN window navigator and
3. The shared library 'libawn' which is used to develop applets which enhance the functionality of AWN. The applets can be coded in either 'C' or 'Python' language.
   

Pre-requisites for installing AWN
To install AWN on your Linux machine, it has to meet certain conditions. Them being -

• Xgl or AIGLX installed - in short your computer should be capable of compositing support. This mostly means if you have an Nvidia or ATI video card, you should download and install the proprietary drivers.
• A compositing manager installed. A few examples of compositing managers are Beryl/Compiz/Compiz Fusion, Cairo, Xfce, Metacity, xcompmgr and so on.
  In Ubuntu you can enable compositing manager by clicking System>Preferences> Appearance and then enabling Visual effects from the 'Visual Effects' tab in the Appearance dialog.
  

Fig: Enable Visual effects

Installation

In Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon, the installation of AWN is a two step process. First you have to enable the backports repository which contain the necessary binaries of avant window navigator and related files.

This is done by clicking System>Administration>Software sources on the GNOME panel.

Fig: Click on the Software Sources Menu

It opens the "Software sources" dialog box.

In that click the 'Updates' tab and enable the gutsy-backports option as shown in the figure below :

Fig: Enable gutsy-backports in the Updates tab

Next fire up a terminal and update and install the AWN packages as follows :

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator awn-manager 

awn-manager is a GUI tool which allows you to make changes to the look and feel of the AWN dock as well as install and manage applets and themes.

Fig: Avant Window Navigator close-up view

Now that you have installed Avant Window Manager, it is time to take it for a test drive. To start AWN, click GNOME menu Applications>Accessories>Avant Window Navigator.

Fig: Avant Window Manager menu

Fig: Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon desktop running AWN

A few AWN tips

• To add applications to the AWN dock, just drag and drop icons from the Applications menu or from Nautilus (/usr/share/applications).
• You can right click on the AWN dock and select properties to open the 'Avant Window Manager' dialog where you can change the look and feel of the dock and add additional applets.
  

Conclusion

Finally we Linux users have our very own dock similar to the dock seen in Mac OSX Leopard. While the AWN project is still a work in progress, there are a lot of applets available from the ubiquitous clock to the GMail checker which brings visual joy to the user's desktop. To know about these applets, read the following article.