Changing Ubuntu Window Control Icons

One of the unusual features about the installation of Ubuntu 10.04 is the appearance of the window controls on the left hand side of a window. This makes life confusing for some of us because we are so used to these controls being on the right hand side.

Therefore I propose to set out below how these controls can be moved to the right hand side. In this workshop click on the drawings to open them.

Press Alt + F2 and a Run Application box appears as shown in Figure 1. Type into the box gconf-editor and press Run.

A Configuration Editor page appears Figure 2 and in the left hand column expand apps and scroll down to metacity. Expand metacity and select general. A menu appears on the right hand side. Select button layout as shown in Figure 3.

You will see from Figure 4 how the wording appears to present the controls on the right hand side. What you will initially see against the button layout is maximize,minimize,close: the Ubuntu 10.4 layout. Right click on the button layout and in the menu that appears select Edit Key. When the edit key box appears amend maximize,minimize,close: to read as shown in Figure 5. Please note the all important feature of this amendment is to make sure the colon (:) is in the correct place at the beginning of the amendment . It is this colon which determines which side of a window the controls appear. The order of the control icons is one of personal choice and I have shown the traditional position of these icons.

All that now remains is to click OK or press enter and the controls will appear on the right hand side of all windows.