This is a list of some of the top little things that I enjoy in Gnome that make my life a little bit easier for when I am sitting here working on things. I have found many little applets or settings that I like to use or change to make my Gnome desktop easier for me to use and I thought I would share them. Just a little info on what I use, I use Debian Lenny so everything I will be talking about will be available to you via aptitude or synaptic. I sat down one day fired up synaptic(the debian package manager) and selected the gnome section and went through the entire list and installed things that looked interesting to me and these are a few of those.
#1 Gnome-osd
I am not sure why this caught my eye but it did so I installed it. It is just a little On-Screen-Display that will pop up things like notices in Xchat or songs from rhythmbox. It also lets me know when someone is typing a message to me if I am chatting with them via pidgin. I usually don’t like alot of things popping up on my desktop but this one I really like. I use the animations with it as well and things slide smoothly on and off my screen. It prints a nice text string up in the upper right hand corner letting me see what is going on. There are quite a few options for this little application as well. So you don’t have to use the animation and you can also set the font style and size you would like to use. More eye candy than anything but nonetheless something I really like having.
#2 Gnome-applet-timer
This one is pretty self explanatory, it is a small timer applet for your panel. I often times get sucked into doing something while sitting here and will forget things like when to switch the wash around or some other various task around the house. I set this little timer applet to my desired time and it will play a sound and pop up a notification window letting me know to get my butt out of my chair and to the task at hand.
#3 Nautilus-Scripts
This is one of those that I probably don’t use like alot of people do but that is okay because Linux is about choice. If you look in your home directory for a hidden directory .gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ in this directory you can add all sorts of scripts to do things you want to do. For instance in my directory I add some very simple scripts that open gedt, evolution, my home and Iceweasel. After you have written your scripts and deposited them in the nautilus-scripts directory you just need to make them executable to work. Now when I right click on my desktop I can go to scripts and select Gedit and Gedit opens. This saves me having to go back to the main menu when I want to run something. So I keep scripts in there of the applications I use most. Now you can also always Alt+F2 the choice is yours. There are also many extensive scripts available on the site that do a whole lot more than my puny suggestion.
#4 Gnome-Blog
Again a pretty self explanatory application but still a nice little tool to make a quick blog post quite simply and easily. It comes in applet form or you can run it from the menu as well. Now most of us usually have a web browser open anyway, but again for a quick rant or rave this is a perfect tool. You will need to have remote posting enabled on your blog application of choice for this to work.
#5 Gnome-Art
This is another little application that lets you peruse the Gnome art webiste and see what backgrounds, icons and styles are available for you to use on your Gnome Desktop. As I understand it though this project is no longer being maintained but it is still available in the Debian repo’s. There seems to be a another application similar to this one that I have not tried but it is available here. Once you fire up this application you can select styles or backgrounds and install them as well. Makes it very convenient to get new styles, icons, or backgrounds for your desktop.
Well these are just a few of the little things that make my day to day life in Gnome easier and fun for me. I am sure many people have their own as well that I haven’t ever thought of. A big thanks to all the developer’s who create all these neat little applications we use everyday.
