The only problem was that the old 48-pixel icon that came with this version for Windows looked pretty hideous in my lovely new Gnome 3 Shell and Gnome Do menus. Customizing these icons means replacing whatever file the system is using for the default image. Conceptually, this is very straightforward. In reality, the location of these icon images is not always obvious. This post will explain how to replace icons for Windows applications running on Linux via Wine in as concise a manner as possible.

Find or Create New Icon Images

A quick search online gave me exactly what I was looking for: a 128-pixel PNG of the Photoshop 7 icon! It doesn’t always work out to be that easy. Or maybe you want to create your own, original icon. Whatever the case, you just need to create your icon as big as you need it or even a little larger, usually 128, 256, 512 or some other square dimensions that are divisible by 8.

Replace Default Icon Image File

Usually Linux systems will save icon image files somewhere around here:

/usr/share/pixmaps

or here:

/usr/share/icons/your_icon_themes_name/

but Wine saves these icons in a special place no doubt due to the “special” nature of running Windows applications on Linux:

/home/your_username/.local/share/icons/

In my specific case on Ubuntu 11.10 I found a folder titled “hicolor” in the “icons” folder. And inside of that I found the 48-pixel Photoshop 7 icon file in folders titled “48×48″ and “apps”. So I created a new folder titled “128×128″ as well as a folder titled “apps” inside of that.

And, finally, to correctly add a new icon image file navigate to that location and …

1. Find the icon that you would like to replace.
2. In another file browser window navigate to your new icon image file.
3. Copy your new image file to … /icons/128×128/apps.
4. Navigate back to … /icons/48×48/apps and copy the complete filename of the original image file.
5. Return to …/icons/128×128/apps and update the filename of your new icon file by pasting in the copied filename.

In my case the filename was not as simple as “photoshop.png”. It had some arbitrary letters and numbers in it, so make sure the filename is the exact same otherwise it might not work.

Log out and log in to see if you are successful!

Read it for yourself, but here are some of the main points of this ridiculous rant that attempts to make Steve Jobs look like a man that sells snake oil:

Original Macintosh

“What did this pretty beige box offer that a hundred other computers didn’t already offer, besides a higher price, much less choice in software and no compatibility with the rest of the world’s devices?”

Well, for starters, it had the first really successful, useful, graphical user interface powered by a mouse. This change in UI was so good and apparently successful that Microsoft made a really bad copy of it. I’m sure in your list of features and bang-for-buck you aren’t giving this important accomplishment much value. I just don’t see how, as an honest technology journalist, you can brush off the Macintosh as overpriced crap. Are you still working sans mouse today?

Apple Lisa

“Who remembers the Apple Lisa, a chunky desktop that sold for $9,995 in1983?”

OK. So the Lisa was a financial failure and a technological dead end thanks to the success of the Macintosh (see above). The price? Well, nobody put a gun to your head. Besides, Steve Jobs was kicked off of the Lisa team and as a result worked on the Macintosh. (see above)

Apple Newton

“Who remembers the Newton, a $700 PDA/paperweight?”

Try doing some research. You are conflating Steve Jobs with Apple. Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985. The Newton project was started in 1987. One of the first things Jobs did after becoming the Apple CEO in 1997 was kill the Newton.

NeXT

“Then there was the NeXT computer, to which Jobs devoted a decade of his life … starting at $6,500, Jobs sold only 50,000 units ever.”

Yes, the NeXT computers never sold well, but you make it sound like Jobs wasted a decade of his life on a complete failure. Maybe you didn’t know this – again, research – but the NeXT operating system was more highly regarded than the hardware. So much so that, when Apple was circling the drain after failing to build their own next-gen operating system, they purchased NeXT. This purchase is how Steve Jobs returned to Apple and also how Apple ended up with the operating system that it runs today. Without Steve Jobs’s return and that operating system – now called OSX – Apple wouldn’t exist today.

iPod

At this point you actually start giving Steve credit for creating something useful. But you still go on to piss and moan about paying higher prices for prettier things like Apple products have no real value above the competition. Never mind that you say this at a time when the rest of the consumer computer companies are struggling to build iPad and MacBook Air knock-offs at the same price point as Apple.

Discover magazine should be ashamed of themselves for publishing this misguided, lazy and factually incorrect editorial as though it were objective journalism. It makes me question everything else I read in their magazine.

There’s also a program called easystroke that employs mouse gestures for executing shortcuts. The only reason I know this is because someone smarter than myself described the solution on the Ubuntu Forums. So, to “stinkeye” of the magical land of “Woop Woop”, I bequeath a laurel . . . and hearty handshake for answering this question about keyboard and mouse shortcuts in Gnome 3. Though I am including two solutions below, I recommend the xbindkeys solution.

First, descriptions of what  xdotool, xbindkeys and easystroke do:

• xdotool
  This tool is invisible. You will not directly use it. But it will give you the ability to compose a commandline instruction for telling your computer that a button or group of buttons have been pressed. There is more to it than that, but for our purposes that’s all that matters.
• xbindkeys
  This tool allows you to use bind keyboard and mouse keys to shell commands.
• easystroke
  This tool allows you to use “mouse gestures” to submit commands to your computer. Mouse gestures are akin to the “touch gestures” that are an important part of newer touch interface computer systems like Apple’s iOS and even OSX via their ever-growing touchpads as well as Android, Windows Phone 7, etc. etc. The instructions below will be using this program to merely press a mouse button. I won’t be talking about gestures today.

Making a Mouse Button Make Things Happen with xbindkeys

As described above my only motivation for this functionality is to summon the Gnome Shell Overview. The directions below will describe how to do that. Feel free to substitute your own functionality as you see fit. Hopefully the instructions will be written in a clear enough way as to make that easy to do.

1. AssignKeyboard Input to the Desired Functionality
   System Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts
   In my case I set Show the activities overview to the Menu key, because I use the Super/Windows key for Third- and Fourth-level switching.
2. Install xdotool and xbindkeys 
   You’ll have to figure out the best/easiest way to do this for your flavor of Linux. If you are running Ubuntu you can install them via the Software Center or:

   sudo apt-get install xbindkeys xdotool

3. Determine Mouse Button Identity with xev
   Open a terminal and enter this command

   xev

   Xev will create a small, empty window. Hover your mouse over this window and click the various buttons on your mouse. After you click xev will tell you the identity of that button. Now that you know their identities we can use xbindkeys to associate them with shell commands.

4. Configure xbindkeys
   Open a terminal and enter this command:

   gedit ~/.xbindkeysrc

   and press Enter. This will open the xbindkeys configuration file in Gedit. It should be a blank file. Add the following to the document and save.

   # Gnome Shell Mouse Button 8 to Overview
   "xdotool key Menu"
   release + b:8

   The above configuration sets the mouse button 8 to activate the Gnome Shell Overview. The first line is a comment to help you remember what this setting does. The second line defines the shell command to be enacted within double quotes. The third line defines the button action, in this case upon the release of the mouse button 8 the command will be executed.

5. Set xbindkeys to autostart on login
   From the Gnome Shell Overview > Applications list, look for “Startup Applications” and start it. After the application window appears click the Addbutton. You can title the entry whatever you want, but “xbindkeys” is nice and concise. Most importantly though, enter the following into the Command input:

   xbindkeys &

   Once correctly entered, click OK and then Close. Now xbindkeys will automatically start upon logging in.

Making a Mouse Button Make Things Happen with easystroke

1. Install xdotool and easystroke
   You’ll have to figure out the best/easiest way to do this for your flavor of Linux. If you are running Ubuntu you can install them via the Software Center or:

   sudo apt-get install easystroke xdotool

2. Easystroke Preferences
   Start Easystroke. Go to the Preferences tab. Under the Behavior section, click the Gesture Button button. Move your cursor to the empty gray space in the resulting window and click the mouse button that you would like to associate to activating the Gnome Shell Activities Overlay (or whatever you are trying to do at the click of a mouse button). Once you click you should see a change in the settings at the bottom of the small window. In my case I have a Logitech laser mouse and I am using “Button 8”. Also under the Appearance section check the option “Autostart Easystroke”.
3. Create New Easystroke Action
   Go to the Actions tab. Click the Add Action button. Name the action “Overlay via Mouse”. The Type should be “Command” and the Detailswill be:

   xdotool key Menu

4. Associate Mouse Button to Easystroke Action
   In Easystroke highlight your new “Action” by clicking on it. Click the Record Stroke button. Move your cursor to the small resulting window and click the desired mouse button. Click the Yes button to confirm your mouse button input. Click the Hide button when you are finished.

Again, unless you specifically want to use mouse gestures, I think xbindkeys is a better, more responsive solution than easystroke. You should be able to test this fancy new functionality immediately. If not, try logging out and logging back in. Enjoy.

How to customize the subject line in an automated email generated by the Drupal webform module

Sometimes examples save a lot of descriptive verbiage…

field label “First Name” – field key “fname” –
webform email custom subject line “Message from %value[fname]”

and

field label “Last Name” – field key “lname” –
webform email custom subject line “Message from Mr. %value[lname]”

unless the field in question is contained in a fieldset element! If that’s the case:

field label “First Name” – field key “fname” – fieldset field key “contact_info” –
webform email custom subject line “Message from %value[contact_info][fname]”

and then click “Save e-mail settings” and you’re done!

This information was derived from the last comment on this page: http://drupal.org/node/823408 after 45 minutes of looking through a bunch of dead ends. I hope this post is easier to find, digest and get back to what you were doing before you forget why.

Since reading Khoi Vinh’s Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design I’ve been using grids – mostly just columns, really – to bring greater order to my designs. So far this new approach has been fruitful. A helpful tool in this regard is The Gridulator, which makes it easy to determine the dimensions of your grid and also download a graphic representation of the grid that you can use as an overlay in the above mentioned graphics programs while you are working out the details of a site design.

However, even if my idea is pretty nailed down in the sketching and graphic-editor stage, the act of actually building the site with HTML + CSS always presents new problems and solutions. Part of this is due to my clients not providing all of their content (or even knowing what it will be) until I’m at that stage. Another part of it is that laying out website designs in a static graphic state makes it easy to overlook some aspects of the site.

For these reasons and others I find myself doing a lot of actual designing from within the browser, either via Firebug or just a lot of trial and error with different properties in the code. Page structures in HTML + CSS can get complex fast and it can be tricky to stick to your grid if you aren’t always keeping it in mind. It would be helpful to have an easy way to overlay your grid over the web pages as they are built, adjusting the CSS properties until they are absolutely perfect. Or at least pretty damn close!

One recent weekend I had a freelance project that I wanted to avoid and so I determined that I would focus on this grid overlay problem and see if I could build it better and smarter. Figuring out this grid problem was a lot more important than working on a project that I would get paid to work on. I’m sure you can relate to the wacked-out sense of logic that leads to such decisions.

The result of that ridiculous procrastination was the initial version of what I am calling The Heads-Up Grid. It was actually looking good enough to share with others at that point. A friend suggested I post it on Hacker News to see if anybody would find it interesting. I did just that and got one comment from somebody that suggested I use JavaScript to generate the HTML elements, simplifying the necessary setup to get the grid working. They even gave me a bit of code to show how easy it is to do that with jquery. Once I saw that and understood how it worked, I really went to town!

The somewhat-final result is a fairly easy-to-use web page grid overlay. It has some nice features:

• simple settings
• vertical grid with columns and gutters
• horizontal or baseline grid that can be vertically adjusted
• on/off button displayed in top-right corner
• set grid to be on or off on page load

Please give The Heads-Up Grid a try. I hope you find it useful. I would love to hear feedback about it being useful or if you have some ideas about how it could be better.

It makes a good point. And I was actually taken to that comic by an article that breaks down the futility of how we all generally manage our passwords: 

“I’m sorry, but were you actually trying to remember your comical passwords?”
by Troy Hunt 
http://www.troyhunt.com/2011/08/im-sorry-but-were-you-actually-trying.html

It’s some good food for thought. I’m certainly looking in to programs like

1Password http://agilebits.com/products/1Password

And the prominent cross-platform (Mac, Windows and Linux/*NIX) but not nearly as easy to look at …

KeePassX http://www.keepassx.org/

The worst thing I see, because the available screen typeface discussion is off-topic, is by the active application’s name in the top-left. That presentation of the application’s icon by the name is distracting and not helpful. The top bar is supposed to recede, but including the app icon there breaks with that goal. It would have looked much cleaner to replace “Activities” with the Gnome icon (or ubuntu logo or take your pic) and simply present the name of the application.

I prefer Unity’s approach in that regard except for the idiotic window-close-minimize-buttons being squashed into the main menu bar. That is awkward and I think they’ll find a lot of people, trying to click on the Ubuntu icon in the top-left, accidentally closing their application window. But we’ll see.

My other big gripe is the prominence and amount of work that has gone into workspaces/multiple desktops. Gnome claims that this system is focused on simplicity, but most users I know struggle to get their mind around using ONE desktop/workspace. The multiple workspace feature is purely for advanced users. It’s way too abstract of a concept for the basic user. I consider myself a VERY advanced user and workspaces are the first thing I turn off on a new Linux install. I am much better at organizing my workflow in terms of applications. Trying to break those applications up over workspaces is redundant and I don’t care where the window is if I can summon it when I need it and hide/minimize it when I’m working on something else.

They should be working harder to make workflow/task management even MORE organic. It should be so organic that I don’t have to be thinking about how to organize it. Right now I get along great with a basic Ubuntu install, simple keybinding to summon the Scale function (Expose) to switch between documents, Alt+Tab to quickly switch apps and Docky to open/switch apps. I think the problem is that Linux developers think in terms of Window management when they should be thinking about Application and Workflow management.

Supposedly these new desktop interface designs have been run by test groups, but I’m a little skeptical. With that said, there are a LOT of good and cool ideas in both Gnome 3 and Unity. When in doubt, try many things. And seeing these ideas being developed is refreshing. Neither Microsoft or Apple is attempting to make such dramatic changes to the way their desktop interfaces work.

One More Thought

After publishing the above comment it also occurred to me that the new Gnome desktop defines a specific functionality to the “Windows” key on most keyboards. I have been using my Windows key to summon a third-level (and fourth) keyboard to make it easy to enter larger group and “special characters”. [I wrote about this in detail here] It baffles me that making third and fourth levels of keyboard characters is not a bigger priority. This is a MAJOR advantage that Apple has over Microsoft in the world of desktop publishing. Every graphic designer knows it. And people like me that find Linux to be a good and soon to be great graphics platform would like to see some focus on these details.

I need to make time to get involved with the Gnome development community. I need to get in there and push for better keyboard functionality and, more importantly, better integration of color management. Granted, both of these area DO get a lot of love. It’s just that they have to be implemented manually. Neither of these two features are addressed by default installs of the major Linux distributions.

Do take a moment to check out the Gnome 3 features: http://www.gnome.org/gnome-3/ There’s still a lot of cool stuff coming to a Linux desktop near you.

This post is not a detailed review of the various types of archive file formats or how they compare to each other. I am talking about .zip because, like the MP3 file format for compressed music, regardless of it being superseded by newer and better technologies it is the most common type of file archive in use today.

What the hell is a ZIP archive?

Archive files, at their most basic, are something like the boxes we put things into for shipping them to other locations. You would never simply write a mailing address on the cover of a book or box of chocolates and drop them in the mail. At the very least you’d wrap them in some tough, opaque brown paper. For something that is soft or fragile you would probably put them in a big brown cardboard box with bubble wrap to protect them on their journey. Of course, you might not be shipping the item at all. You might simply want to put it in a box for safe, organized storage.

For basic purposes all of these uses of a cardboard box are a perfect analogy to an archive file.

Sounds simple. How do I create a ZIP archive?

When it comes to desktop/laptop computers or any computer with a screen, mouse and keyboard there are several different operating systems. In terms of dealing with ZIP archives, however, there’s pretty much only two categories:

1. Some version of the Windows operating system
2. Some version or type of UNIX-like operating system
   • Apple Mac OSX
   • UNIX (BSD, Solaris, etc.)
   • Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, etc.)

I am making this grand over-simplification because basically every UNIX-like operating system for desktop/laptop use includes software for creating and manipulating .ZIP archives as well as other archive types. Winblows, I mean “Windows,” in my experience never comes with this type of software pre-installed. Okay, maybe sometimes it comes with a free trial version of WinZip, but I find that beginners don’t really understand how to use WinZip. It’s definitely more geared towards advanced users.

Okay okay, but HOW DO I CREATE A ZIP ARCHIVE?

Don’t like my snarky comments about Windows, eh? Fine . . .

In order to bring Windows up to par with other computers you can install the free-and-open-source 7zip application. Go to http://www.7-zip.org and click on the top-most “Download” link to download the 7zip installer for Windows. Run the installer. Once installed continue reading.

Creating a ZIP Archive

1. On your desktop create a new folder called “brownbox” (or whatever you want, there’s nothing magical about the title “brownbox”).
2. Copy some photos or word processor files to this folder.
3. Right-click on the folder and, from the resulting menu select one of the following:
   • Windows + 7zip: “Add to archive . . .”
   • Mac OSX: “Create Archive of . . . ”
     Note: If right-click is not enabled on your system you can click-and-hold or press the Control/Ctrl key + mouseclick to access the contextual menu.
   • UNIX/Linux: “Compress”
4. An archive should be created on the desktop with the same name as your folder. Windows + 7zip and UNIX/Linux will probably ask you where you would like to save the archive while OSX automatically saves it to the same location as the original folder.

Opening a ZIP Archive

I’m using the term “open” pretty loosely here. I think that the general public, wanting to access the contents of an archive file, will most likely want to “Extract” or “Decompress” the contents of the archive into a standard “folder” on their desktop. To do that:

1. Ask your archive software to extract/decompress the contents of the archive like this:
   • Windows + 7zip: Right-click and click “Extract here”
   • Mac OSX: Double-click on the archive
   • UNIX/Linux: Right-click and click “Extract here”

Again, OSX will automatically save the extracted files to the same location as the original file while Windows + 7zip and UNIX/Linux will generally present a Save As dialog.

So archive files aren’t just for nerds!

Exactly. Let me know if you have any questions.

Troy Sobotka

He makes some good points, but the last half of his post is a lot of alarmist speculation. The obvious answer to improving Gimp is to contribute to its development. Complaints about difficult developers sounds like a bunch of complaining. With any open source project you have to earn the respect of the senior developers through consistent work, usually the not-so-exciting kind. With any open source project there are more users than developers and certainly more users suggesting ideas than making any attempt to squash bugs, write documentation or provide objective and helpful feedback. Opinions and assholes.

Anyway, I left a LONG comment today and wanted to duplicate that comment here. The only thing I should have added is a need for Gimp to continue improving color management and that’s why I just said it. Anyway, here’s my comment:

I’m a professional graphic designer. I use Photoshop and Gimp at a very high level of proficiency. Just to point out where I’m coming from. I like Pshop and Gimp for their different strengths, but some of the above arguments are wrong. Gimp certainly has room for improvement, but anyone that actually used Photoshop in 1996 knows that Pshop itself has come a LONG way in 15 years.

I would like to point out something that needs to be understood about the importance of bit-depth. I am constantly working with hi-res jpegs from a wide variety of professional photographers every day. You know how many of those files use 32 bits/channel? None. You know how many of those files use 16 bits/channel? None. They are ALL in 8 bits/channel. It’s certainly great to have the higher bit-depth options, but the importance of that capability in terms of graphic design/manipulating images for press is greatly exaggerated.

Also, CMYK color space in Photoshop is misused by graphic designers because most of them know very little about color space and/or color management. Some of us know (I don’t mean to offend anyone) but the majority of designers I have worked with are completely oblivious. I’ve even seen creative directors explicitly instruct their designers to select “discard color profile” when confronted with the “What should I do?” dialog in Photoshop. The need for CMYK color space, though useful and great, is also greatly exaggerated.

I also think the complaints about the UX are very subjective and usually only illustrate how little effort the commenter put into learning about and using the Gimp.

Two things that would greatly improve Gimp and many people’s impressions of Gimp are:

• better image scaling/anti-aliasing algorithms
• layer groups and layer styles

Those two things are certainly complex, but if they were implemented, and it sounds like they will be soon, I would be extremely satisfied with Gimp’s capabilities.

I think it’s healthy to critique software, but the Gimp rarely receives praise for its remarkable capabilities.