Rock The wbar Dock

wbar is a quick launch bar similar to the OSX dock. It's a lightweight and fast piece of useful eyecandy written in c++ using imlib2. While it isn't as full featured as Gnome-Do or Avant Window Manager, wbar's low overhead, speed, and efficient dependencies make it an ideal for netbooks.

To install wbar, in a terminal type:

sudo apt-get install wbar

- If you are using an older version of Ubuntu you can download the .deb from wbar's Google Code page.

To read wbar's manual in a terminal type:

man wbar

Configuring wbar can be done two ways:
1. By editing the config file manually
in a terminal type:

gedit ~/.wbar

To launch wbar when manually editing the config file, use the command:
wbar -above-desk
- You can also add other startup options to the command to change the position or other variables. Consult the wbar manual for options.

I made this .wbar config file by hand (excellent example with explanation for writing your own) and launch wbar with this command:
wbar -above-desk -bpress -vbar -pos bot-right -isize 48.0 -nofont
- This command aligns the launcher vertically on the bottom right hand corner of the screen, doubling the size and eliminates font rendering. You can see it below.


- Firefox, Nautilus, Pidgin, Skype, Rhythmbox, gtkpod, Transmission, Brasero & Virtualbox

2. Using WbarConf
You can download the WbarConf here.
- It offers an graphical interface allowing you to easily add launchers/icons, change the font, background image, configure wbar position, icon size, animation, font rendering and color.





To launch wbar when using WbarConf, use the command:
wbarconf --wbar

Below is a video of a quick wbar setup (took less than 5 minutes) I did using WbarConf



If you want to make wbar launch at startup.
in a terminal type:

mkdir ~/.scripts

- this will make a folder to store our script

gedit ~/.scripts/wbar.sh

- this will create the file for the wbar launcher script

Add the following text to the file (if using a manual config file):

#! /bin/sh
sleep 12
wbar -above-desk

Add the following text to the file (if using WbarConf):

#! /bin/sh
sleep 12
wbarconf --wbar

- The sleep command pauses (in seconds) the launching of wbar. Allowing the desktop to load. Feel free to increase/decrease the number if your desktop environment loads faster/slower.
- Your last line will differ depending on how you chose to configure wbar and the variables you chose to launch it with.

Then make the script executable by typing in a terminal:
sudo chmod +x ~/.scripts/wbar.sh

From there you Simply add ~/.scripts/wbar.sh to your Startup Applications under System>Preferences>Startup Applications

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