How to move window buttons from left to right in Ubuntu 10.04
In the latest Ubuntu, the team have made the decision to move the window buttons (minimize, maximize and close) from the right to the left. I don’t agree with this change, so thankfully it’s not a difficult one to reverse.
To relocate the buttons back to their rightful place on the right, follow these steps.
If you don’t mind using the command line, this single command will switch the windows back for you, as pointed out by fran in the comments.
gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string menu:minimize,maximize,close
Otherwise, you can follow these steps to use a graphical interface
Open gconf-editor by typing
gconf-editor
into the terminal
Navigate to /apps/metacity/general
Change the value
maximise,minimize,close:
in the box labeled “button layout” to
menu:minimize,maximize,close
Now, your buttons should be back the way they were in 9.10.
Category: linux, ubuntu 7 comments »
April 11th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
[...] This annoyed me so much, I did a seperate post on how to get the buttons back, which can be found here. [...]
April 13th, 2010 at 12:26 am
I like it. It’s odd because I’ve been a Windows user for 12 years, but it seems more instinctive already. I was talking to a few guys in IT today about it and I was saying how I think it might be something to with being right-handed and the natural feeling of moving the mouse to the left instead of the right.
Any idea why they opted for this? It seems like something that’s going to isolate more people than it is draw people in.
April 13th, 2010 at 12:47 am
The intention is to use the right hand side of the window for some other, as yet unspecified functions. I don’t understand why they stuck with it though, as this thread clearly shows that it’s not popular.
But, so long as its easy to change back, I’m happy enough to watch this space and see what they do with it.
April 13th, 2010 at 11:35 am
what about?
gconftool-2 –set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout –type string menu:minimize,maximize,close
Faster isn’t it?
April 13th, 2010 at 11:42 am
The command line generally is quicker, I’ll add that at the top, but some people like to use a GUI for things, I don’t know why, but they do!
Thanks for pointing it out.
April 15th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
One of the things I noticed they got rid of was the little button that allowed you to choose “Only on this Workspace”/”Always on Top” etc.
Now you have to right-click the window bar.
April 24th, 2010 at 12:04 am
Just installed Ubuntu on the home desktop since Windows is giving some blue screens (to be fair, I did install Win7 on a four-year old machine…).
Decided that for the mother’s profile I’d move the buttons back for the sake of stopping the inevitable looks of confusion and ensuing heart attacks.
Anyway, what Fran said is easier. A lot easier. As in, woah.