Avant Window Navigator (abbreviated AWN or Awn) is a dock-like bar for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

, which sits on an edge of a user's screen and tracks open windows. Instead of representing open windows as buttons or segments on a bar, it uses large

icons An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most c ...

on a translucent background to increase readability and add visual appeal. The program was created by Neil J. Patel. Both the appearance and functionality of Avant Window Navigator may be customized, and plugins and

applets In computing, an applet is any small application (computing), application that performs one specific task that runs within the scope of a dedicated widget engine or a larger program (computing), program, often as a plug-in (computing), plug-in. T ...

are available, such as to display the progress of a download in Mozilla Firefox or to control a music player like

Rhythmbox Rhythmbox is a free and open-source audio player software, tag editor and music organizer for digital audio files on Linux and Unix-like systems. Rhythmbox is designed to work well under GNOME, but can function on other desktop environments. I ...

. The plugins use the

D-Bus In computing, D-Bus (short for "Desktop Bus") is a message-oriented middleware mechanism that allows communication between multiple processes running concurrently on the same machine. D-Bus was developed as part of the freedesktop.org project, ...

IPC system, and applets can be written in C,

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

Vala Vala or VALA may refer to: Religion and mythology * Vala (Vedic), a demon or a stone cavern in the Hindu scriptures * Völva, also spelled Vala, a priestess in Norse mythology and Norse paganism Fiction * Vala (Middle-earth), an angelic being in ...

. A sister project, AWN Extras, is a collection of community-contributed applets and plugins. Releases are usually kept in sync with AWN. One of the major requirements to run older versions of Avant Window Navigator is a compositing window manager. At least version 0.4.0-2 in the Debian repos has either

Metacity Metacity was the default window manager used by the GNOME 2 desktop environment until it was replaced by Mutter in GNOME 3. It is still used by GNOME Flashback, a session for GNOME 3 that provides a similar user experience to the Gnome 2.x seri ...

, xcompmgr,

Compiz Compiz () is a compositing window manager for the X Window System, using 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. Effects, such as a minimization animation or a cube workspace, are implemented as l ...

, xfwm4,

KWin KWin is a window manager for the X Window System and a Wayland compositor. It is released as a part of KDE Plasma 5, for which it is the default window manager. KWin can also be used on its own or with other desktop environments. KWin can be c ...

or Mutter as a dependency. Therefore, the user was required to install a compositor, which could tax performance on low-end systems. Some alternatives were to use a lightweight

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphica ...

such as Xfce, which has a compositing manager since version 4.2.0, or to enable compositing in Metacity when using GNOME. However, support for non-composited environments is available in version 0.4.0.Official release blog post
/ref>

References

;Notes * Jack Wallen (12 Aug 2009
Avant Window Navigator: OS X-like dock on Linux desktop
ghacks.net * Dmitri Popov (Jan 30, 2009
Managing Tasks with Avant Window Navigator

Linux Magazine ''Linux Magazine'' is an international magazine for Linux software enthusiasts and professionals. It is published by the former Linux New Media division of the German media company Medialinx AG. The magazine was first published in German in 199 ...

online * Jonathan Roberts (21 July 2007
Gnome Panel Mania

Free Software Magazine ''Free Software Magazine'' (also known as ''FSM'' and originally titled ''The Open Voice'') is a Web site that produces a (generally bi-monthly) mostly free-content online magazine about free software. It was started in November 2004 by Australi ...

column

External links

* - Home of AWN project - Maintained by Povilas Kanapickas (reporting of bugs and issues not permitted, last activity 2014-06-11) * - Project moved to GitHub
AWN Wiki
contains, among other things, installation instructions and a list of FAQs - Site Unknown (as of 2014-12-13)
AWN Forums
- Access to server forbidden (as of 2014-12-13)
Avant Window Navigator (AWN) Mac OS like Dock in openSUSE
at susegeek.com (posting dated 2008-08-02)
Neil J. Patel's Blog
- Blog no longer active (last entry dated 2011-06-12)
Planet AWN
an aggregation of the developers' weblogs - Site Unknown (as of 2014-12-13) {{GTK Application launchers Applications using D-Bus Beta software Free software programmed in C Free software programmed in Python Free software programmed in Vala Graphical shells that use GTK Software that uses PyGTK

See also

References

External links