Customising the Easy Mode GUI

Info from following URLs:
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:customizeeasymode

This is what makes the Asus Eee PC so fun - customisation. Initially, when I installed Audacity, there wasn't any shortcut created on the "desktop". I had to run it from the terminal console. I looked up the topic and found the above URL. I started using computers during the XT and DOS age, so all the terminal console work was like back to the good old times for me. Fyi, I still do my webpages and PHP programming in NotePad. My principle is that every computer will have NotePad but not every computer will have an IDE editor or DreamWeaver or FrontPage.

I've spent quite some time on customising the Favorite Tab in the Easy Mode GUI, so this topic will span about 3 posts. From simple adding of shortcuts, I have gone on to bash scripting to customise my Eee PC further. For this post, I will just cover how to edit the Easy Mode GUI.

1. Press Ctrl-Alt-T to open the terminal console.


2. Type "mkdir /home/user/.AsusLauncher/" to create a hidden folder in your home dir.


3. Type "cp /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc /home/user/.AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc.old" to backup the GUI config file.


4. Type "cp /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc /home/user/.AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc"
   to copy the GUI config file over.


5. Type "sudo kwrite /home/user/.AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc" to edit the GUI config file. KWrite is a GUI text editor whereas "nano" is a console text editor.


6. The layout is like an XML document. All the shortcuts for the Favorites tab are at the bottom of the file as that is the last tab.


7. A handy entry to Favorites to edit the GUI config file:
   <parcel simplecat="Favorites"
     extraargs="/usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/kwrite    /home/user/.AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc"
     icon="asus_norm.png"
     selected_icon="asus_hi.png">
     <name lang="en">Menu Edit</name>
   </parcel>
   
   Adding Website Links:
   <parcel simplecat="Favorites"
     extraargs="/usr/bin/firefox http://www.eeeuser.com"
     icon="web_norm.png"
     selected_icon="web_hi.png">
     <name lang="en">Eee User</name>
   </parcel>


8. Make sure it is "extraargs=" and NOT "shortcut=". The former refers to a command execution whereas the latter refers to a .desktop file.


9. After you are done, save and exit. Press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to restart the GUI (but not the computer) to see your changes.

(^ v ^)