The Unity Launcher

If you have used Unity in Ubuntu 11.04, you would have noticed the large icons in the Unity launcher. The large icons are a good in larger screens since it makes it easier for the cursor to target it. But on smaller screens, like on netbooks, it could be too large and get in the way. If you want to decrease the icon size in Unity, you will be glad to know that you can do it rather easily.

Unity is basically a plugin for Compiz. So, to customize Unity, you need to install the CompizConfig Settings Manager (not that there are many  aspects of Unity that you can customize). To install CompizConfig Settings Manager, open the Terminal and execute the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

After installing, open the CompizConfig Settings Manager and look for Ubuntu Unity Plugin under Desktop.

Now go to the tab “Experimental” and you will find a slider for Launcher icon size. The default Launcher icon size is 48px. Change it to the size you desire. After changing it, close CompizConfig Settings manager. The icon size in the launcher will be the size you desire.

You can also make the panel transparent, if you want from the Experimental tab. To do it just adjust the slider – 0 means completely transparent and 1 means completely opaque. By default the panel transparency is set to 1.