Possible to have 2 unity launchers?

Is it possible to have 2 unity launchers? One on the Left and one on the Right. In my thoughts, the Left one (The Default) would have the normal stuff that i use everyday. The Right side would have additional stuff that i might use like wine programs or to show the recent documents. Just some ideas to my reason to having 2 panels. Is it possible/optional?

Solution 1:

You only get the one launcher in Unity, but you can simulate a second one if you use a combination of AWN and DockbarX with the appropriate theming. This is how I got a Unity-like interface on my 10.04 LTS desktop before 11.04 came out. The advantage of this is that the second panel that you created is then fully customizable, so you can create the setup you have just described.

DockbarX is not available to install from the default Ubuntu repositories, so I'll show you a way to simulate a second launcher using only AWN, which is available right from the Ubuntu Software Center. I did the steps below on my Precise Pangolin install, but you should be able to follow them on 11.10 as well and most likely older releases.

Simulating a second launcher with AWN

Our goal is to get a second launcher on the right, as pictured below:

First, we need AWN (Avant Window Navigator) installed. Click here to install it, or run in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator

This should also install awn-settings, which will let you manage the settings for AWN.

Now start AWN Settings by searching for it in the dash, and let's start setting up the second launcher.

You'll get a window like that below:

Change all settings to those shown above.

Next, go to the Applets screen. We'll be using the below configuration (but feel free to modify as you please):

The applets, from left to right (the ordering matters), are:

• Cairo Main Menu
• Launcher/Taskmanager
• Related applet
• Shiny Switcher
• Expander (Needed to keep the previous applets near the top and the trash at the bottom)
• Garbage

Next, go to Themes and select the Dark Theme. We'll use this as a base for the exact look we want.

Click the Customize button near the bottom of the window to enter this view:

There's a lot of tweaking to do in here. Here are the following changes you need to make (note: I listed colors as a hexadecimal value, or "Color name", and Opacity):

Panel Colors

• First Gradient Color: #000000, 170
• Second Gradient Color: #000000, 170
• First Highlight Color: #000000, 0
• Second Highlight Color: #000000, 0
• Outer Border Color: #808080, 100
• Inner Border Color: #000000, 0

Tooltips

• Font: Ubuntu 11
• Fill Color: #000000, 170
• Outline Color: #FFFFFF, 100

Extras

• Arrow type: Triangle

In case you're wondering: nope, still not quite done yet! There's some extra settings we need to take care of to position the launcher correctly; otherwise, it'll run over the menu bar at the top of the screen.

Now go into the Advanced screen:

Make sure Force monitor mode? is checked.

Now, make sure you set the following settings to what I've described below. If you don't know what your display resolution is, you can easily look it up by searching for "Displays" in the dash or System Settings.

• Monitor width: Your actual monitor width in pixels
• Monitor height: Your actual monitor height in pixels, minus 24
• Monitor X-offset: 0
• Monitor Y-offset: 24

For good measure, we should also set Reflection alpha multiplier to 0 while we're in here.

Almost done! We have a couple applet tweaks to make, if you decided to keep the Shiny Switcher and Garbage applets I suggested above so they're more like regular Unity. To enter the preferences for either applet, right-click it and select Applet Preferences from the pop-up menu.

Shiny Switcher Preferences

Check that the settings are the same as those pictured (the colors selected are #000000, 255):

Garbage Preferences

Keep Confirm when emptying the trash checked, but uncheck Show the item count on the icon.

One more note! To test out your settings and make sure everything looks right, or if you did not set AWN to start automatically, search for "Avant Window Navigator" in the dash. I personally found that certain settings changes may require quitting AWN (via right-click on the dock itself) and restarting it in order for them to display properly.

Solution 2:

Unfortunately it's not possible to have more than one launcher in Unity.