Window Applets 0.2.8 Released With 6 New Themes

Window Applets are 2 Gnome panel applets which can display the maximized window title and buttons on the panel (and hiding them on the actual window). This can be very useful for getting more vertical screen space for maximized windows (see the screenshot). Since this is separated into 2 applets, it means you can place the title and buttons independently, wherever you want on the panel.

Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition features a similar applet by default, however UNE 10.10 doesn't allow you to customize anything about it: you can move it around or use a different theme for the buttons - as opposed to Window Applets which comes with many default themes, allows you to customize the button order and other options.

The latest Window Applets 0.2.8 (which has been released yesterday) comes with 6 new themes: Radiance, WoW, Ambiance-X-Studio, Sorbet, Ambiance-Maverick, Radiance-Maverick, a new option to expand the applet and of course, bug fixes.

Install Window Applets in Ubuntu

There is a PPA which provides the latest Window Applets 0.2.8 for Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and 0.2.7 for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx (sorry, the Maverick version won't work in Lucid!):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tsbarnes/misc
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-window-applets

Once installed, right click a Gnome panel, select "Add to panel" and search for "Window Buttons" and "Window Title", then add both of these applets to the panel. You can then right click the applets to select a new theme and tweak other settings.