The first thing you need to do is make sure you have installed a theme that supports verticle titlebars in a way that makes them actually usable. Most themes will offer some form of verticle titlebars but some are not as well done. One of the best themes for this configuration is the Chromium Noise theme. Download this them for installation. If you’re not sure how to install the theme it is simple. As the root user move the theme .gz file to /usr/share/e16/themes. Before you unpack the them create a new sub directory for Chromium. Do this because many theme creators do not (for some strange reason) place the contents of their theme within a directory, so that when you unpack the directory all of the files just spill all over your current working directory. With that in mind issue the command mkdir /usr/share/e16/themes/CHROME. Now move the Chromium tar file into the newly created directory with the command mv chromiumnoise-0.60.tar.gz /usr/share/e16/themes/CHROME/.  After you change to the CHROME directory (cd /usr/share/e16/themes/CHROME) issue the command tar xvzf chromiumnoise-0.60.tar.gz to unpack the file.

Go to your desktop and do a middle mouse click to bring up the menu that includes the Theme directory. You should now see an entry for CHROME. Select that to switch to the Chromium Noise theme.

Chromium Noise Theme

By default Chromium Noise is a pretty slick theme. But let’s make it slicker. There are three small squares in the top left corner of each window. If you right mouse click the left or middle square a new menu will appear with a Set Border Style Entry.

Set Border Style

There are three entries for verticle titlebards: Side-1, Side-2, and Side_Shade_Right. Select Side-1 and your border will instantly change.

Side-1

Now you have an aterm window with a cool verticle titlebar.

You can make this change stick if you like. If you don’t want to have to go through this process every time for certain windows (the change only applies to the application configured – not all windows) you have to have Enlightenment remember the configuration. Go back to the right mouse click menu on the middle square of the window (upper left). In that menu you will see an entry for “Remember”. Select that to open the Remember Application Attributes window.

Remember Attributes

Select Border style from the list and click OK. Now every time you open up that particular application the titlebar will be verticle.

Final Thoughts

Why do this? Because you can. Adding verticle titlebars is a simple means of differentiating between windows for various reason. And while you’re at setting your titlebars to verticle, check out some of the other cool features in the Window Attributes settings.

Related posts

• Enable Composite for Window Transparency in Enlightenment (0)
• Installing and Configuring Enlightenment E16 (10)
• What makes Ubuntu so user friendly? (47)
• Quick Archiving in GNOME (1)
• Linux Tips: Window focus (7)

The simplest method to get a composit manager installed is to install Compiz. Compiz is an outstanding window manager all on its own that is, by default, ready for compositing. With Compiz installed you will have a composit manager that E16 can deal with already installed.

In Ubuntu if you issue the command sudo synaptic you will open up the Add/Remove Software application. From here do a search for compiz. When the results come up select compiz and allow the system to install all necessary dependencies. Finally click Apply to install all of the packages.

Once Compiz is installed you should be able to set compositing up in Enlightenment. With a right mouse click the Settings menu will appear. Select “Composite Settings” to open up the configuration window.

Composite Settings

Once the settings window opens you will see a few configuration options to choose from.

Composite Settings Window

The first option to take care of is Enable Composite. Make sure that is checked. The rest of the options are all up to user taste.  I prefer to have  Fading Speed set to slowest (slider to the far left), Shadows Blurred, Default Unfocused Window Opacity near 1/2, and Default Pop-Up Window Opacity around 3/4 on. Once you have selected these options click Apply to set them.

The final effect can be pretty amazing for just a “simple window manager”.

The full effect

Final Thoughts

What I love about Enlightenment is that it is a lightweight desktop that manages to pull off enough tricks to impress yet doesn’t drag your machine to a halt. With a little hackery, Enlightenment can make Windows Aero look like a sad attempt at a modern desktop.

Related posts

• Installing and Configuring Enlightenment E16 (10)
• Get Vertical Titlebars in E16 Themes (1)
• Get to know Linux: Enlightenment E17 (8)
• Get To Know Linux: Desktop Environment vs. Window Manager (6)
• What makes Ubuntu so user friendly? (47)

But let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. Before we get to the actual configuration let’s first take a look at Enlightenment (version E16 which is the stable version).

Enlightenment Screenshot

As you can see Enlightenment has a lot of neat tricks up its sleeve. On the above screenshot you can see The Gimp open, a Firefox browser shaded to only show its title bar, the aterm terminal will full transparency running the top application, the iconbox (bottom right) which is where applications are minimized, and the pager (bottom left).

Now let’s install E16. It shouldn’t be necessary to jump through any hoops. On most modern Linux operating systems you can just open up the Add/Remove Software application (on Ubuntu this is Synaptic, on Fedora 10 running GNOME it is gpk-application) and do a search for “enlightenment”. The package manager should pick up all dependencies.

If you’d prefer to use the command line you can run one of these (either as root or using sudo):

• apt-get install enlightenment
• yum install enlightenment
• urpmi enlightenment

If, by chance, your distribution doesn’t find “enlightenment”, you can try “e16″ instead.

That should do it. Now, if you use a graphical login screen you’ll want to choose the E16 entry before you log in. This should be under “Sessions”. If you use text-based log in you will want to create an .xinitrc file with the following contents:

exec e16

If that doesn’t work us:

exec enlightenment

Most likely the former will work.

Configuration

If you do a left mouse click you will see the configuration window.

E16 Configuration Menu

The one thing you can not configure via the configuration menu is the menu itself. To configure the menu you have to actually edit the file ~/.e16/menus/user_apps.menu. It is very easy to edit this menu. Open this menu up in your favorite text editor and you will see entries that resemble:

“aterm” NULL exec “aterm -tr -fg blue -bg green +sb”
“XTerm” NULL exec “xterm”
“rxvt” NULL exec “rxvt”
“Basket” NULL exec “basket”
“Mozilla” NULL exec “mozilla”
“K3B” NULL exec “k3b”
“Firefox” NULL exec “firefox”
“Flock” NULL exec “/home/jlwallen/flock/flock-browser”
“Thunderbird” NULL exec “thunderbird”
“gnucash” NULL exec “gnucash”
“Amarok” NULL exec “amarok”
“Banshee” NULL exec “banshee”
“The GIMP” NULL exec “gimp”

A menu entry is set up like so:

Comment Icon exec “command”

The comment is the text that appears in the menu. Icon is the actual path to an icon image to use (NULL means none), The exec command is necessary to tell the system that what follows is an executable command. The command section is the actual command.

Once you edit that file, save it, and the changes are made in real time.

Final Thoughts

And that’s pretty much it to configuring Enlightenment E16. If you have a Linux box you should certainly give Enlightenment a try. It might wind up being your “go-to” desktop.

UPDATE: Here’s a new screenshot, full size, for your enjoyment.

New Screenshot

Related posts

• Enable Composite for Window Transparency in Enlightenment (0)
• Get Vertical Titlebars in E16 Themes (1)
• Get to know Linux: Enlightenment E17 (8)
• Get To Know Linux: Desktop Environment vs. Window Manager (6)
• Ecomorph + E17 = Coolest Desktop Ever! (9)