How to make Unity in Ubuntu 12.04 & 12.10 a bit more user friendly

Unity in Ubuntu is here to stay and if you are planning to use Ubuntu you will have to adapt yourself on using it.



Here I'm gonna address the four things that people hate most about Unity interface of Ubuntu and how to solve them.

Ubuntu Unity Problem No.1

Huge Launcher Icons:

Ubuntu Unity ships with a launcher on the left edge of the screen and by default the icons on the launcher are distractingly big. To re-size the icons

• Click on 'Control Gear' at the top-right corner of your screen and select 'System Settings'
•  Go to >Appearance>Personal
•  Click on 'Look' tab. Now drag the slider of 'Launcher Icon Size' to the left to resize the icons to a smaller size

Ubuntu Unity Problem No.2

Launcher Panel Eats Precious Desktop Space:

By default Unity launcher is omnipresent in Ubuntu and where screen space is precious it is strict no no. You can make Unity launcher to hide away when it is not needed. To auto hide the launcher

•  Click on 'Control Gear' at the top-right corner of your screen and select 'System Settings'
•  Go to >Appearance>Personal
•  Click on 'Behavior' tab and turn on on the button of 'Auto-hide the Launcher'

Ubuntu Unity Problem No.3

 The Global Menu:

In Ubuntu Unity 'Application Menu' doesn't appear on application's window but it is placed on the top bar. This can be quite confusing. To move the menu back to the application's window

• Open Terminal
• Run the following command in Terminal

 sudo apt-get autoremove appmenu-gtk appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-qt

•  Log out of Unity session and log back in

Ubuntu Unity Problem No.4

Window Control Buttons On The Left:

Ubuntu Unity places the Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons on the left in a window and after years and years of seeing and using them from the right hand side of the window it can be quite frustrating, painful and confusing. To change them to the right

In Ubuntu 12.10

• Press 'Alt-F2' type dconf-editor into the box and press Enter
• Go to org>gnome>desktop>wm>preferences
• Click on  'button_layout' on the right panel
• Change 'button_layout' from 'close,minimize,maximize:' to ':minimize,maximize,close' and press Enter

In Ubuntu 12.04

•  Open Terminal
•  Run the following command in Terminal

 sudo apt-get install gconf-editor

•  Press 'Alt-F2' type gconf-editor into the box and press Enter
•  Go to apps>metacity>general
•  Click on  'button_layout' on the right panel
•  Change 'button_layout' from 'close,minimize,maximize:' to ':minimize,maximize,close' and press Enter

Well that's it from me then. After making above changes I'm quite sure that your experience of working with Ubuntu Unity will be a lot better and intuitive. For more Ubuntu tweaks, tips and tricks i suggest you to read a wonderful article by jojoye on http://www.techsupportalert.com/
Cheers!!!