Avant Window Navigator Awn

Avant Window Navigator is a dock / task manager for Linux, which was very popular a while back. Its developers lost interest with the introduction of Unity, and after several years of inactivity, the project was taken over by a new maintainer.

Unfortunately, the new maintainer isn't too active either, but at least Avant Window Navigator was updated to work with recent Linux distributions.

Software Installation - Awn Applets

Mike Baum created an Avant Window Navigator PPA for Ubuntu 16.04 / Linux Mint 18, because the official AWN PPA wasn't updated in a while.

Another Ubuntu Eee Pc Screenshoot

Awn Window Manager Tile

There are a few AWN applets from this PPA that can't be installed, so I decided to rebuild the packages in the main PPA. Update: I added Ubuntu 14.04 / Linux Mint 17.x packages to the PPA.

Before installing Avant Window Navigator in Ubuntu 16.04, note that if you encounter bugs, chances are they aren't going to be fixed. Also, some Avant Window Navigator applets no longer work, mostly those that rely on various web services, like the Weather applet or the Pandora Radio applet, or which were built for technologies that have seen significant changes in recent years, like the Indicator applet, Lock Screen or the Media Player applet.

Many applets do still work though, like AWN Main Menu, Cairo Main Menu, Hardware Sensors, Notification Area, Shiny Switcher, Stacks, System Monitor, Terminal, Volume Control, and even the Zeitgeist-based Related applet.

Awn Window Manager (tile)

Avant Window Navigator is obviously not something you'd want to install if you use Unity, since you already have a dock that can't be removed, but it can be a nice addition for nostalgics (and not only) that use the Flashback session, or on other Ubuntu flavors, like Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, etc.

I should also mention that a while back I removed the AWN applet from the DockBarX package (I maintain the official DockBarX PPA), but since you can now install AWN in Ubuntu 16.04, I re-enabled it for the Xenial package.

Note: for the screenshot above, I used AWN with the Lucido style (see THIS ancient article for how to customize the AWN Lucido style) and the the DockBarX applet (available in the DockBarX PPA for Xenial - after adding the PPA, install the "awn-applet-dockbarx" package).

Avant Window Navigator (awn) Mac Os Like Dock In Opensuse

Possible To Have 2 Unity Launchers

Avant Window Navigator is available in the main PPA, for Ubuntu 16.04 / Linux Mint 18. Update: I added Ubuntu 14.04 / Linux Mint 17.x packages.

AWN Window Manager (Tile) - Awn Applets

Then, use Synaptic Package Manager to install the AWN applets you want to use (simply search for "awn applet" and you should get a complete list of applets).

Or, to install all the available applets (except the DockBarX AWN applet, which is not part of AWN), use the following command:

How To] Install Awn (avant Window Navigator) In Xubuntu

I used "--install-recommends" for the AWN package because on Linux Mint, recommended packages are not installed by default, and that would result in awn-settings package(among a few others)not being installed. For the awn-applets-all, I used "--no-install-recommends" to prevent it from installing Unity Control Center and other Unity / GNOME Flashback packages along with the AWN applets in Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, etc (this is not the case for Linux Mint).The Avant Window Navigator (AWN) is a dock utility for Linux that displays the task list, launchers, and other applets. It's heavily inspired by the Mac OS X dock and it leverages compositing to provide extravagant visuals as well as decent usability.

In a blog entry written yesterday, AWN developer Neil Patel demonstrated some impressive new AWN applets that have recently been created. Some of these applets use the new libawn Python bindings that were committed to the version control system this month.

How To Install Avant Window Navigator In Ubuntu 16.04 Or Linux Mint 18 - Awn Applets

One of the new applets, which is inspired by the new stacks feature in Leopard, provides quick access to the contents of a folder. The AWN stacks applet will display the contents of the user's home directory in a popup bubble and allow the user to open files or descend through the directory hierarchy by clicking on other folders in the bubble.

Windows 7 ähnliche Taskleiste In Ubuntu = Awn + Dockbarx › Picomol

Another new AWN applet provides comparable functionality to the GNOME panel's Applications menu. When clicked, the menu applet displays a popup bubble that contains buttons for the top-level menu categories. Users can descend through the menus and launch applications by clicking the buttons.

There aren't any recent releases, so I compiled the current source from the version control system. To get the new applets, users will have to build them as well from the Awn Extras repository.

When I last used AWN in July, the preferences dialog was very rudimentary. It has improved significantly and now makes it very easy to control a wide range of visual settings and other features. Support for themes has also been added, and several themes are currently available from gnome-look.org.

Schicke Effekte Auf Dem Desktop Mit Dem Avant Window Navigator - Awn Applets

All About Linux: Cool Awn Applets To Adorn Your Ubuntu Linux Desktop

Another Ubuntu Eee Pc Screenshoot

AWN still has some minor bugs, but it's evolving very quickly and it provides a level of aesthetic quality that is unmatched in competing Linux dock programs.

Ryan Paul Ryan is an Ars editor emeritus in the field of open source, and and still contributes regularly. He manages developer relations at Montage Studio.