[HOW TO] Add Application Launcher to Xfce's Panel

A application launcher is a little icon on Xfce's panel that launches an application when it's clicked. Lets see one way to add a launcher to the panel.

Some application launchers on Xfce's Panel

Add application launcher

1. Right-click on panel then open Panel Preferences



2. On the Items tab click the Add new item button.



3. Select Launcher, click Add then Close.



4. The launcher will be added to the bottom of the items list. Select it and click the Edit Item button.



5. Click the Add item to Launcher button.



6. Select the application and click Add.



7. When you return to the panel's list of items you can move the launcher up and down, thus moving it left or right on the panel.

   

[HOW TO] Downgrade Abiword version to 2.8.6 in Xubuntu 12.04/12.10

It has been brought to my attention, by one of the readers, that the Abiword 2.9 which is pre-installed in Xubuntu 12.04/12.10 has some problems. The last stable version is 2.8.6 and people were happier with it, so I wrote a simple script to downgrade the installed version to 2.8.6.

Abiword 2.8.6 running on Xubuntu 12.10

The script removes the current installed version, downloads and installs the deb files for version 2.8.6 and locks this version so it won't get upgraded automatically when the system is upgraded. The code on the "Downgrade" section of this post, downloads and executes this script. It'll ask for your password because it needs administrator privileges for installing the packages.

Downgrade

Open a terminal window and run:

cd && wget -O downgrade_abiword.sh http://goo.gl/cZM6N && chmod +x downgrade_abiword.sh && ./downgrade_abiword.sh && rm downgrade_abiword.sh

[NEWS] 1GB ISO for Xubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail

The size of the ISO file for the next Xubuntu release (13.04 Raring Ringtail) will no longer fit a CD. The size is being increased to 1GB and the ISO will include once again GIMP and Gnumeric.

References

Xubuntu goes 1GB for Raring, GIMP and Gnumeric are back

[TIP] Open Xfce4 Terminal drop-down console from Thunar

This article will show how to open a directory in Xfce4 Terminal's drop-down console, directly from Thunar's context menu.

You can either create a new custom action or edit the existing "Open Terminal Here" action, adding the following as the command:

xfce4-terminal --tab --drop-down --working-directory %f

To learn more about adding Thunar's custom actions, read this.

Elementary Icon Theme for JDownloader

The default icon theme for Xubuntu is "elementary Xfce". There's a theme for JDownloader that matches the icon theme, giving the application a more native look. Let's see how to install it.

Install

1. Download the theme from here.
2. Extract the "jd" directory, that is inside the compressed file you just downloaded, into the hidden folder in your home called jdownloader ($HOME/.jdownloader).
3. On JDownloader go to Settings > User Interface, choose the Light(GTK) style and choose Elementary as the theme.
4. After restarting JDownloader the theme is applied.

References

elementary Icon Theme for JDownloader | Gnome-Look

[HOW TO] Install latest LibreOffice in Xubuntu (PPA)

This article shows how to install the latest version of the productivity suite, LibreOffice. When I say "latest" I'm referring to alphas and betas, so I'll quote the "LibreOffice Packaging" team:

Only for the most brave and courageous!

If you're running Xubuntu 12.04, LibreOffice 3.6 RC will be installed. And LibreOffice 4.0 alpha will be installed for the Xubuntu 12.10 users.

Install

Open a terminal window and run:

sudo apt-get purge libreoffice-core -y && sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa -y && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libreoffice -y

Usage

LibreOffice can be accessed via Applications Menu > Office > LibreOffice.

References

LibreOffice Pre-Releases | PPA

[HOW TO] Find which PPA repository a package belongs to

To find out the repository address for a package we use the policy argument of the apt-get tool.

Syntax

Open a terminal window and run:

apt-cache policy PACKAGE_NAME

Example

The repository link is presented on the line second to last:

apt-cache policy diodon
diodon:
  Installed: 1.0.2-0ubuntu0~quantal1
  Candidate: 1.0.2-0ubuntu0~quantal1
  Version table:
 *** 1.0.2-0ubuntu0~quantal1 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/diodon-team/stable/ubuntu/ quantal/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

References

How To Find Out To Which PPA Repository A Package Belongs To | Web Upd8