Avant Window Navigator
 | |
 A Screenshot of a development version of AWN | |
| Original author(s) | Neil J. Patel |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Awn-core Team |
| Stable release | 0.4.0
/ April 11, 2010 |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C, Python, Vala |
| Platform | Unix-like |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Dock |
| License | GNU General Public License 2.0 (Dock), GNU Lesser General Public License 2.1 (Library), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 (unported) (images) |
| Website | https://launchpad.net/awn/ |
Avant Window Navigator (abbreviated AWN or Awn) is a dock-like bar for Linux, 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 icons to minimize screen space and add visual appeal. Avant Window Navigator was created by Neil J. Patel and is currently in the beta stages of development.
Both the appearance and functionality of Avant Window Navigator may be customized, and plugins and applets are available, such as to display the progress of a download in Mozilla Firefox or to control a music player like Rhythmbox.[1] The plugins use the D-Bus IPC system, and applets can be written in C, Python, or Vala. There is a sister project, AWN Extras, which is a collection of community-contributed applets and plugins. Its releases are usually kept in sync with AWN.
One of the major requirements to run older versions of Avant Window Navigator is a composited environment. Therefore, the user was required to install a compositor[2], such as Compiz, which could tax performance on low-end systems. Some alternatives were to use Xfce, which has a compositing manager since version 4.2.0, or, if using GNOME, to enable compositing in Metacity[3]. However, support for non-composited environments is available in version 0.4.0.[4][5]
See also
References
- 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 online
- Jonathan Roberts (21 July 2007) Gnome Panel Mania, Free Software Magazine column
External links
- Avant Window Navigator at Launchpad
- AWN Extras at Launchpad
- AWN Wiki (contains, among other things, installation instructions and a list of FAQs)
- AWN Forums
- Avant Window Navigator (AWN) Mac OS like Dock in openSUSE at susegeek.com
- Neil J. Patel's Blog
- Planet AWN (An aggregation of the developers' weblogs)