One of the first few things that ever bothered me about Ubuntu — back when I was still playing around with the 6.10 Live CD — were the little details like buttons, radio buttons, drop down menus, text fields, and check boxes. These are known as widgets in browser speak (different from the desktop kind of widget). I even complained about them to Ben in his inaugural Linux post.
Today, when searching for an alternative to gDesklets, I stumbled across a tutorial on How to prettify the Firefox widgets. It seems like such a small change, but the difference for me (having come from the XP) is huge.
Before & After (click to enlarge)
Lately I have been spending more time in Linux (though not exclusively). It still bothers me a little that enhancing the GUI for Ubuntu requires so much individual effort, but the flip-side of it all is the freedom to make it look however you want. Also, with each new release of Ubuntu (every six months) complaints like mine become fewer and fewer. In short, I could see myself eventually switching over to Ubuntu full time. You will hear more soon, but I hope not to overload you with too much information (even though the satisfaction I feel is to hard to contain).
Update: After installing some automatic updates, Firefox reverted to the old ugly widgets. I had to reinstall the enhancements (user CSS as I understand it). This could get annoying. (3/31/07 @ 2:45 AM)
8 Comments
Excellent! Thanks for that link. I’m going to try it out right now.
Sweet. It works like a charm. Thanks again for that link. It was much needed.
You’re welcome. Combined with installing the mscorefonts, it has made my browsing in Ubuntu Firefox much more pleasing to the eye.
btw, were you successful in finding anything to replace gDesklets?
No, not yet…kind of got sidetracked there. It’s been buggy for me so far and I’ve had to uninstall/reinstall everything (including the .gdesklets folder in /home/username/). A bad desklet caused it to crash and when I tried rerunning it a blank ‘gDesklets Shell’ window would just sit there hanging and I’d have to force quit the app.
I had that happen to me a couple times too. It’s extremely frustrating. As far as I know development on gDesklets has slowed or even stopped. It would be wonderful if someone (some programmer) were to pick it back up because it’s a very valuable tool.
Man I am way behind… I had no idea that you were messing around with Linux. I have a linux machine that my bro in law built for me a while back and I am somewhat ashamed to say I have not even turned it on :S
I should get one of these up and running to see about using it as a home computer. Laptop is currently all I use when I am not at work.
You should. I’ve found that it currently meets most of my home use needs. There’s the learning curve to get over, but you’d have that if you switched from Windows to Mac (or vice versa…though not sure why anyone would do that
).
You may find a program you need that doesn’t have a Linux version, but that’s why I still have XP installed. Plus, I think that Linux is going to continue to improve and gain in popularity. You’ve got the Ubuntu folks releasing updates every six months, while Novell is actively marketing their OpenSUSE version.
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