How I turn off backlight around switcher icons

Question

In the Launcher it is possible to switch off the backlight of the icons.

How can I reach the same effect for the switcher icons? I would like to pass from this: switcher with backlight

to this (colored with GIMP):

switcher without backlight

I think it would be easier to identify the selected icon.

Because its so hard to identify which icon is selected I switched back to Unity 2D — OrangeTux, Apr 23 '12 at 07:50
Another problem of variable backgrounds is that if you have a terminal (black) and an editor (white) underneath, it is really hard to quickly tell what icon is selected. Example screenshot: http://i.stack.imgur.com/Lm90V.png — Nicolas Raoul, Jun 05 '12 at 08:27

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 04 '14 at 16:08

12

You can replace the background image for the launchers with a transparent one. In a terminal, run the following (this is for Ubuntu 12.04, in 11.10 you'd change the path to say 4 instead of 5. For ubuntu 14.04 see the comments below):

Backup the original:

sudo cp /usr/share/unity/5/launcher_icon_back_150.png{,.back}

Edit the file:

gimp /usr/share/unity/5/launcher_icon_back_150.png

In GIMP, press Ctrl+A to select everything. Then Del to remove it. Hit Shift+Ctrl+S to save it as a new picture to, e.g., /home/launcher_icon_back_150.png, and finally press Ctrl+Q to quit.

Move the new image to the right place:

sudo mv /home/launcher_icon_back_150.png /usr/share/unity/5/

Log out and back in.
If you want to go back, simply run:
```
sudo mv /usr/share/unity/5/launcher_icon_back_150.png{.back,}
```
and log out and back in again.

enter image description here

edited Jun 04 '14 at 16:08

leonard vertighel

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answered Apr 23 '12 at 07:47

htorque

63,950
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At 2013-10-23 (Ubuntu **13.10 Saucy**) the image file is stored in `/usr/share/unity/icons/launcher_icon_back_150.png` and the edited image must be "exported" with Shift+Ctrl+E – leonard vertighel Oct 24 '13 at 00:02
1

At 2014-05-13 (Ubuntu **14.04 Trusty LTS**) the image file is an `svg` file stored as `/usr/share/unity/icons/launcher_icon_back_150.svg`. The image can be edited with **inkscape** – leonard vertighel May 14 '14 at 01:22

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 21 '12 at 05:02

0

MyUnity's launcher tab has a backlights parameter to do what you wish.

answered Apr 21 '12 at 05:02

fragos

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it turns off the launcher backlights but not the switcher backlights – leonard vertighel Apr 21 '12 at 08:37

How I turn off backlight around switcher icons

2 Answers2

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