TranslationStatus
Attachment '20061113_customising_ubuntu_desktop_en.srt'
Download1 00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:00,300 2 00:00:00,432 --> 00:00:03,231 Hello, my name is Alan Pope and welcome to this short introduction 3 00:00:03,344 --> 00:00:05,412 to customizing the Ubuntu desktop. 4 00:00:05,512 --> 00:00:09,502 In this screencast we are going to go through making changes to your desktop, 5 00:00:09,602 --> 00:00:14,244 such as changing the background, changing the theme and few other things as well. 6 00:00:14,676 --> 00:00:18,868 This is a basic install of Ubuntu (Edgy) 6.10, the latest release. 7 00:00:18,968 --> 00:00:22,026 First thing, as always, log on to the desktop. 8 00:00:23,428 --> 00:00:29,173 Now this is pretty much what the desktop will look like on any flat install of Ubuntu. 9 00:00:29,444 --> 00:00:31,757 The first thing we can change is right-click the desktop 10 00:00:31,901 --> 00:00:34,190 and choose Change desktop background. 11 00:00:34,290 --> 00:00:37,262 We get a list of images that have already been preloaded, 12 00:00:37,362 --> 00:00:40,857 you can select one of these to change the look of our desktop, 13 00:00:40,957 --> 00:00:42,550 such as this one 14 00:00:42,650 --> 00:00:45,440 and you will see that it takes effect immediately. 15 00:00:45,540 --> 00:00:48,542 There is also the option of having no desktop background image, 16 00:00:48,642 --> 00:00:51,415 which will just use a solid color from our selection. 17 00:00:51,515 --> 00:00:54,863 You can also add wallpapers, so let us have a go at that. 18 00:00:54,963 --> 00:00:58,069 We go to Firefox, 19 00:00:58,540 --> 00:01:01,702 There are numerous places on the web where you can get images, 20 00:01:01,802 --> 00:01:06,002 we are going to go to art.gnome.org 21 00:01:06,102 --> 00:01:12,508 and on the right hand side of the gnome art website there is a backgrounds link. 22 00:01:13,231 --> 00:01:17,378 If we click that, at the top of the screen we can change the resolution, 23 00:01:17,478 --> 00:01:21,386 because some images will not fit on our screen or will be the wrong aspect ratio. 24 00:01:21,486 --> 00:01:24,259 Choose 1024x768 and click change, 25 00:01:24,359 --> 00:01:29,324 then we see images that are available at the resolution that my screen is currently running. 26 00:01:29,424 --> 00:01:34,119 He is a good image, a big picture of the Gnome foot 27 00:01:34,219 --> 00:01:38,179 and you can see here, it's available in the resolution I am currently using. 28 00:01:38,279 --> 00:01:43,072 I could right-click the image and do Save Link As... to save the image, 29 00:01:43,172 --> 00:01:46,575 alternatively, if I just click on it, it will open the image 30 00:01:46,675 --> 00:01:51,042 and then I can right-click the image and choose Save Image As... 31 00:01:51,142 --> 00:01:55,360 When I save the image I get prompted for where I want to put it, 32 00:01:55,460 --> 00:01:57,460 I have got a folder called Pictures, 33 00:01:57,560 --> 00:02:01,177 there is my home directory called ubuntu, that's the name of this user 34 00:02:01,277 --> 00:02:05,536 and within that there is a folder called Pictures and I will save that in there. 35 00:02:06,606 --> 00:02:10,202 You see Firefox has now downloaded that image. 36 00:02:10,885 --> 00:02:14,571 So if we close Firefox and go back to the desktop 37 00:02:14,671 --> 00:02:18,742 and right-click and choose Change Desktop Background. 38 00:02:19,191 --> 00:02:23,560 We can now click Add Wallpaper and go and find our image in the Pictures folder 39 00:02:23,660 --> 00:02:27,052 There is our big blur foot, we get a preview over here 40 00:02:27,152 --> 00:02:31,669 and if I click Open, it opens the image and changes my desktop background. 41 00:02:32,999 --> 00:02:36,073 So that is the first thing, changing the desktop background. 42 00:02:39,687 --> 00:02:44,092 The next thing we can look at is changing the screen resolution 43 00:02:44,919 --> 00:02:48,802 Now here I only have a limited selection of screen resolutions available 44 00:02:48,902 --> 00:02:51,795 and I can't actually change the screen resolution on this machine, 45 00:02:51,895 --> 00:02:53,423 whilst I'm recording the video, 46 00:02:53,523 --> 00:02:56,192 but you would be able to change that resolution on your machine 47 00:02:56,292 --> 00:03:00,165 and you can make the default for the whole machine or just your user. 48 00:03:04,066 --> 00:03:07,572 The next thing we need to look at is under Preferences, 49 00:03:07,672 --> 00:03:09,672 we can see the Screensaver. 50 00:03:09,772 --> 00:03:12,330 There are a number of screensavers pre-installed, 51 00:03:12,456 --> 00:03:14,982 you can see there is quite a big list here. 52 00:03:15,357 --> 00:03:18,168 We have got it set on blank screen at the moment 53 00:03:18,396 --> 00:03:21,200 but if we choose random, it will pick one of these at random, 54 00:03:21,300 --> 00:03:23,174 whenever the screensaver kicks in. 55 00:03:23,288 --> 00:03:27,547 Let us just choose one and we will get a small preview on the right hand side. 56 00:03:29,204 --> 00:03:31,607 I'm going to leave mine on blank screen though. 57 00:03:31,707 --> 00:03:33,973 There's also a full-screen preview button here. 58 00:03:34,073 --> 00:03:36,180 and you can change with this slider, 59 00:03:36,280 --> 00:03:39,980 the duration of time that will pass before the screensaver kicks in. 60 00:03:40,080 --> 00:03:43,371 With this tick box you can get it to kick in when the computer is idle 61 00:03:43,471 --> 00:03:45,601 and you can get it to lock the screen, 62 00:03:45,701 --> 00:03:48,750 so that when you walk away from your screen the screensaver kicks in 63 00:03:48,850 --> 00:03:50,850 and your machine is secure. 64 00:03:59,308 --> 00:04:01,574 Now you'll notice along the top of the screen 65 00:04:01,674 --> 00:04:04,100 and the bottom of the screen are these panels. 66 00:04:04,200 --> 00:04:08,742 If we right-click a panel, we can change some of the properties of it, 67 00:04:08,842 --> 00:04:11,404 including we can change its location. 68 00:04:11,504 --> 00:04:13,543 So if I change it to the left hand side of the screen, 69 00:04:13,643 --> 00:04:15,910 you see that panel moves over here to the left. 70 00:04:16,010 --> 00:04:19,172 and all the text appears on its side. 71 00:04:21,721 --> 00:04:23,814 I can also place it at the bottom of the screen, 72 00:04:23,914 --> 00:04:27,765 so I can have two panels at the bottom of the screen if I want to. 73 00:04:27,865 --> 00:04:29,972 I'll put it back at the top. 74 00:04:30,072 --> 00:04:32,156 I can also set the panel to autohide. 75 00:04:32,256 --> 00:04:35,251 With autohide it will disappear when it's not being used 76 00:04:35,351 --> 00:04:37,959 and when you hover the mouse over it, it will re-appear. 77 00:04:38,059 --> 00:04:42,464 The is so that we can claim back some of the screen real estate. 78 00:04:42,564 --> 00:04:44,944 And right-click and choose properties again, 79 00:04:45,044 --> 00:04:48,494 and turn off autohide and turn on show hide buttons. 80 00:04:48,594 --> 00:04:51,120 Now when I do this you'll notice if I flip this on and off, 81 00:04:51,220 --> 00:04:54,569 at the ends of the panel you'll see these little arrows appearing 82 00:04:54,669 --> 00:04:59,552 and if you click on the arrow the panel zooms away. 83 00:05:00,017 --> 00:05:02,738 If you click the button, it comes back again. 84 00:05:03,521 --> 00:05:08,472 I right-click, properties. I can switch that off again just by turning off the tick box. 85 00:05:09,414 --> 00:05:13,851 You can also set a background color of your choice or a background image. 86 00:05:16,309 --> 00:05:19,804 Along the same lines you can also configure a theme. 87 00:05:19,904 --> 00:05:22,557 Rather than just configure the color for one of the panels, 88 00:05:22,657 --> 00:05:24,355 we can change the whole theme of the desktop. 89 00:05:24,455 --> 00:05:27,313 So if we go to System -> Preferences -> Theme, 90 00:05:27,413 --> 00:05:29,770 you can see a number of themes that are already pre-installed 91 00:05:29,870 --> 00:05:33,206 and the one called Human is the default one that you get with Ubuntu. 92 00:05:33,966 --> 00:05:36,824 Now I'm just going to open another window with my home folder, 93 00:05:36,924 --> 00:05:39,586 so you can see what happens when I change the theme. 94 00:05:41,020 --> 00:05:45,025 We can scroll through the list of themes and just pick one at random. 95 00:05:45,412 --> 00:05:47,482 I just pick Resilience. 96 00:05:47,582 --> 00:05:49,862 You notice that instantly, as soon as you click it, 97 00:05:49,962 --> 00:05:54,573 some of the icons change, the colors of the menus change, the toolbars change. 98 00:05:54,673 --> 00:05:57,312 Lots of things are modified when you change the theme. 99 00:05:57,412 --> 00:05:59,806 Let's pick another one. 100 00:05:59,906 --> 00:06:03,720 This one changes even more dramatically, the High Contrast Inverse theme. 101 00:06:03,820 --> 00:06:07,725 You can see it's optimized for people with poor eyesight. 102 00:06:08,803 --> 00:06:12,890 And there's another one with some funky looks on the top of the windows. 103 00:06:13,832 --> 00:06:16,280 So there's a limited set of themes available, 104 00:06:16,380 --> 00:06:18,624 let's put it back to the Human theme. 105 00:06:18,724 --> 00:06:21,423 One thing we can do is go and download some additional themes 106 00:06:21,523 --> 00:06:23,903 and add those to our desktop. 107 00:06:24,003 --> 00:06:28,773 So again we'll open our web browser and go to art.gnome.org 108 00:06:31,216 --> 00:06:34,985 And on the right-hand side you'll see a link to desktop themes. 109 00:06:35,085 --> 00:06:40,341 We click that link and scroll down until we find a theme that we like the look of. 110 00:06:41,114 --> 00:06:43,708 There's a nice one, if we click this link, 111 00:06:44,937 --> 00:06:47,022 you can see a kind of preview of the theme 112 00:06:47,122 --> 00:06:49,001 and then we can download it. 113 00:06:49,101 --> 00:06:51,149 Now you'll notice down at the bottom of the browser 114 00:06:51,263 --> 00:06:54,371 it shows us a .tar.gz, it's a kind of zip file. 115 00:06:54,471 --> 00:06:56,396 and we could right-click and save that. 116 00:06:56,496 --> 00:06:58,945 Alternatively if we follow the instructions here it says 117 00:06:59,045 --> 00:07:01,571 drag and drop this theme into the theme manager. 118 00:07:01,671 --> 00:07:07,350 So if I double-click the top bar of the browser to make it smaller 119 00:07:07,450 --> 00:07:12,484 and then grab a hold of the theme and drag and drop it into the theme manager. 120 00:07:12,584 --> 00:07:15,305 We can see it starts downloading the theme 121 00:07:16,020 --> 00:07:18,545 and once it's finished downloading it gives us the option of 122 00:07:18,645 --> 00:07:21,526 keeping the current theme or applying the theme we've just downloaded. 123 00:07:21,626 --> 00:07:24,689 and if I hit apply, you can see all the colors of everything change 124 00:07:24,789 --> 00:07:27,479 to match the theme that I've just downloaded. 125 00:07:27,875 --> 00:07:30,014 That's pretty groovy. 126 00:07:32,357 --> 00:07:36,990 So that allows you to change the panels, the menus, the backgrounds and so on. 127 00:07:37,090 --> 00:07:40,563 Lots of colors change when you change the theme. 128 00:07:41,482 --> 00:07:45,592 Now you'll notice there are some icons in the panel and we can add to those icons. 129 00:07:45,692 --> 00:07:48,686 Say for example we use this Ekiga Softphone software, 130 00:07:48,786 --> 00:07:52,486 if we right-click it in the menu, we can say Add launcher to panel 131 00:07:52,586 --> 00:07:54,739 and we now get an icon for that software. 132 00:07:54,839 --> 00:07:56,718 I could do the same for any other icon, 133 00:07:56,818 --> 00:07:59,426 right-click Gaim, Add to launch panel. 134 00:07:59,526 --> 00:08:02,657 And we can also right-click and choose Add to desktop. 135 00:08:02,757 --> 00:08:07,368 If you're familiar with having icons on the desktop, then you can add them.. 136 00:08:07,468 --> 00:08:11,008 and you can delete them again by just pressing the delete key on the keyboard. 137 00:08:11,108 --> 00:08:14,831 You can in fact add entire menus to the panel, 138 00:08:14,931 --> 00:08:17,252 if you right-click and choose and choose entire menu, 139 00:08:17,352 --> 00:08:19,518 add this draw to the panel. 140 00:08:20,210 --> 00:08:25,685 You'll now get an icon, which matches the icon you get for the menu that you just added. 141 00:08:25,785 --> 00:08:28,552 So it matches the icon for the Internet menu. 142 00:08:28,652 --> 00:08:30,964 And if we click on it, we get the individual icons 143 00:08:31,064 --> 00:08:34,468 that make up the applications that are in the Internet menu. 144 00:08:34,568 --> 00:08:37,699 And then there's a little button where you can shrink it back down again. 145 00:08:37,799 --> 00:08:41,658 So that'll give you fast access to some of the applications. 146 00:08:41,758 --> 00:08:45,845 And you can remove that draw as well by right-clicking and choosing remove. 147 00:08:47,857 --> 00:08:49,987 We can also move the icons around, 148 00:08:50,087 --> 00:08:54,151 slide them around to arrange them in whatever order we want to. 149 00:08:59,712 --> 00:09:02,683 And we can also modify these menus. 150 00:09:02,783 --> 00:09:06,401 Under System -> Preferences -> Menu Layout, 151 00:09:08,404 --> 00:09:10,466 we can see here the layout of the menu. 152 00:09:10,566 --> 00:09:13,901 The little ticks indicate which of these menus are active 153 00:09:14,001 --> 00:09:17,906 and I can highlight individual entries and move them around. 154 00:09:18,006 --> 00:09:20,910 So for example I can move the Internet menu up. 155 00:09:21,010 --> 00:09:25,392 It's now moved up within the menu, above Graphics. 156 00:09:25,492 --> 00:09:28,382 Or I can grab a hold of it in the menu layout 157 00:09:28,482 --> 00:09:31,422 and move it right up to the top, if I want to. 158 00:09:33,001 --> 00:09:36,315 So now under Applications, Internet appears at the top. 159 00:09:37,029 --> 00:09:39,008 So that takes effect straight away. 160 00:09:39,108 --> 00:09:43,823 You can also add items and add new menus within there. 161 00:09:52,820 --> 00:09:57,827 We can also add to the panel, little applets. 162 00:09:58,441 --> 00:10:02,459 We can add this little applet here to lock the screen 163 00:10:03,287 --> 00:10:06,464 and now we get a little icon appearing on the panel. 164 00:10:06,564 --> 00:10:08,740 Let's add another one. 165 00:10:08,840 --> 00:10:12,267 A little funky fish on the toolbar. 166 00:10:13,208 --> 00:10:15,529 Some of these are more useful than others. 167 00:10:16,212 --> 00:10:19,116 So now we've added an icon to the panel. 168 00:10:19,216 --> 00:10:22,870 We've got one to lock the screen, if I click that icon, 169 00:10:23,129 --> 00:10:26,078 it does exactly what it says on the tin, it locks the screen. 170 00:10:26,178 --> 00:10:29,765 So now I have to type in my password to unlock the screen. 171 00:10:29,865 --> 00:10:32,336 That's useful if you walk away from your desktop. 172 00:10:33,392 --> 00:10:37,410 If you get your password wrong it kind of wiggles about a little bit 173 00:10:37,510 --> 00:10:41,893 and if you get your password right then it should unlock the screen. 174 00:10:43,517 --> 00:10:47,741 That's a useful feature, being able to lock the screen straight away. 175 00:10:47,841 --> 00:10:50,935 Now also under Preferences there's an About Me. 176 00:10:51,413 --> 00:10:55,805 And under About Me we can set some settings about yourself, 177 00:10:55,905 --> 00:10:57,684 which will be picked up by other applications. 178 00:10:57,784 --> 00:11:00,369 You can also change your password in here. 179 00:11:00,583 --> 00:11:03,905 And in the top left there is an option to add a picture. 180 00:11:04,005 --> 00:11:09,016 So if we click that button and go and find a picture of me. 181 00:11:09,617 --> 00:11:13,872 There's a good one, I happen to already have. 182 00:11:14,054 --> 00:11:19,187 So that's a picture of me, which will be used in a number of places within Ubuntu, 183 00:11:19,287 --> 00:11:21,258 including when you lock the screen. 184 00:11:21,358 --> 00:11:23,305 So if I lock the screen again 185 00:11:24,657 --> 00:11:26,341 and then wiggle the mouse, 186 00:11:26,819 --> 00:11:31,361 you can see it shows my pretty face in the unlock dialog. 187 00:11:32,599 --> 00:11:34,546 Isn't he handsome? 188 00:11:35,329 --> 00:11:39,994 On the subject of your picture, there's another place that that can be used. 189 00:11:40,094 --> 00:11:42,656 If we go to System -> Administration -> Login window, 190 00:11:42,756 --> 00:11:46,388 we can customize the login window that every user sees when they logon. 191 00:11:46,488 --> 00:11:48,108 Now because we are changing this for everyone, 192 00:11:48,208 --> 00:11:49,664 we have to enter our password, 193 00:11:49,764 --> 00:11:51,462 because this is going to affect other users. 194 00:11:51,562 --> 00:11:54,593 Everything else we've done up to now has only affected my user. 195 00:11:54,966 --> 00:12:00,382 So here's various different login dialogs that we can use, that are supplied. 196 00:12:00,527 --> 00:12:03,035 The default one being the Human one. 197 00:12:03,135 --> 00:12:06,721 If we choose a different one, such as the Happy GNOME with Browser 198 00:12:06,821 --> 00:12:09,293 by ticking the little radio button on the end. 199 00:12:09,393 --> 00:12:13,639 Then this will provide a list of users that can be clicked on. 200 00:12:13,966 --> 00:12:16,324 And the list of users you can see in the users tab, 201 00:12:16,424 --> 00:12:18,849 comes from this file /etc/passwd, 202 00:12:18,949 --> 00:12:22,080 which is a file that contains a list of users. 203 00:12:22,180 --> 00:12:25,403 So every user will be listed there. 204 00:12:26,185 --> 00:12:29,225 Now you're not going to see that until we log out. 205 00:12:32,830 --> 00:12:36,220 Another thing you can change here is the workspaces. 206 00:12:36,320 --> 00:12:39,078 Now it doesn't really make much difference when I click on these workspaces 207 00:12:39,178 --> 00:12:40,885 until I open some applications. 208 00:12:40,985 --> 00:12:43,561 So I'm going to open Firefox 209 00:12:43,661 --> 00:12:46,837 and I'll also open my home folder. 210 00:12:46,937 --> 00:12:50,296 What I'll do is click in the top-left hand corner of my home folder 211 00:12:50,396 --> 00:12:53,504 and choose Move to Workspace Right. 212 00:12:53,604 --> 00:12:56,622 What that'll do is shift that whole window on to a different workspace 213 00:12:56,722 --> 00:12:58,458 and I can toggle between the different workspaces 214 00:12:58,558 --> 00:13:01,696 by using the workspace switcher down in the bottom-right hand corner. 215 00:13:01,796 --> 00:13:04,654 So I click to one desktop and click to another desktop. 216 00:13:04,754 --> 00:13:07,430 This allows you to separate your work out. 217 00:13:07,530 --> 00:13:10,183 So you might have one desktop for browsing the web 218 00:13:10,283 --> 00:13:12,413 and another one for reading your email. 219 00:13:12,513 --> 00:13:15,599 If I right-click and choose Preferences, 220 00:13:15,699 --> 00:13:19,558 you can see here that we have two desktops 221 00:13:19,658 --> 00:13:21,979 and they're called Desk 1 and Desk 2. 222 00:13:22,079 --> 00:13:25,611 I can change those names and give them more meaningful names for me. 223 00:13:25,734 --> 00:13:28,100 Call one of them Web. 224 00:13:28,200 --> 00:13:31,823 and maybe call the other one Mail. 225 00:13:31,923 --> 00:13:35,463 And this allows me to separate out my web surfing from mail. 226 00:13:35,563 --> 00:13:40,706 And if I tick the box at the bottom then it shows the names within the workspace switcher. 227 00:13:40,806 --> 00:13:42,806 I can have more than two. 228 00:13:42,906 --> 00:13:45,849 If I increase using this little push button here, 229 00:13:45,949 --> 00:13:50,468 I can have more than two desktops or workspaces 230 00:13:50,568 --> 00:13:53,926 and I can change the layout of them as well. 231 00:13:57,157 --> 00:14:02,323 The default in this version of Ubuntu is two work spaces, 232 00:14:02,423 --> 00:14:04,908 you can have as many as you like. 233 00:14:08,080 --> 00:14:12,530 And that's it for our introduction to customizing the Ubuntu desktop, 234 00:14:12,630 --> 00:14:17,855 I'll log out now and you should see the change to the login screen. 235 00:14:17,955 --> 00:14:21,086 So now we get the logon screen, with the pictures on the left hand side 236 00:14:21,186 --> 00:14:24,499 and all the user does is click and then type in their password. 237 00:14:24,599 --> 00:14:26,456 Thanks for watching. 238 00:14:26,556 --> 00:14:28,823 You can visit our website, ubuntu-uk.org 239 00:14:28,923 --> 00:14:33,064 or email me alan@popey.com if you have any questions.
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