You'll need to know how to open a Terminal window before you read this page. See Opening a Terminal Window.
Read about SublimePorte's wizards on Customizing icons for Easy Mode.
cp /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc /home/user/simpleui.rc.old
Your current simpleui.rc is now backed up into your home directory as simpleui.rc.old.
mkdir /home/user/.AsusLauncher/
This creates a hidden working directory on your home folder if it doesn't already exist.
cp /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc /home/user/.AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc
Your current simpleui.rc is now copied to the hidden working directory on your home folder.
sudo kwrite /home/user/.AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc
If you still have access to a terminal and you have created a backup of simpleui.rc which you want to restore,
cp /home/user/simpleui.rc.old /home/user/.AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc
Alternatively, see Rescue Mode or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Learned to Love Single-User Mode.
simplecat sections are the tabs themselves, so to remove the Learn tab delete the whole simplecat section with id=“Learn”.
folder sections are exactly that: folders. For example, the Games folder under the Play tab.
parcel sections are the “launchable” icons. For example, the Internet Radio icon under the Internet tab.
Deleting the programs themselves does not free up any disk space due to the Eee PC Xandros restore feature (f9 at startup).
The items in the Favorites tab (other than Asus.com and Customize) are located in /home/user/.AsusLauncher/favorites.rc
Since simpleui.rc is loaded first, the way to move Customize icon to the end is to remove it in simpleui.rc and add it to favorites.rc.
It can be removed altogether if you wish by either deleting the entry described above, or commenting out the entry for it: add <!-- and -→ on either side of any piece code and it will be ignored. This is good practice as it allows for easy restoration or mistake correction.
Wallpapers for easy mode are stored in /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher. They are named <style>_<page>_wallpaper.jpg, where style is one of the following (style - corresponding theme):
Changing these files and then reloading the theme allows you to change your desktop background. A bunch of wallpapers are in /usr/share/wallpapers (and can be symlinked to save space).
This allows you, in Easy Mode, to minimize the Asus QuickLauncher into a tray icon next to the shutdown symbol.
sudo cp /usr/share/icewm/winoptions ~/.icewm/
sudo kwrite ~/.icewm/winoptions
This starts Text Editor and opens winoptions.
AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.dTitleBar: 0 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.dBorder: 0 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.dSysMenu: 1 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.dResize: 1 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.dClose: 1 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.dMinimize: 1 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.dMaximize: 1 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.layer.Normal AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.allWorkspaces: 1 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.Workspace: 0 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.ignoreTaskBar: 0 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.fMove: 1 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.fMaximise: 1 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.fMinimise: 1 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.forcedClose: 0 AsusLauncher.AsusLauncher.tray: Exclusive
The window manager theme is set in /etc/X11/icewm/theme. Themes are available in /usr/share/icewm/themes.
Files for each theme live in /usr/share/icewm/themes/Asus<Theme>/ where Theme is Green, Silver, Blue or Sunset. The files appear to be XPM files (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPM_(image_format)?).
There is an alternative version of the silver theme with smaller window decorations, smaller title fonts and a prettier taskbar available. To install it, open a shell <Ctrl-Alt-T> and type
cd /home/user wget http://www.cjdshaw.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/eeeicons/AsusSilverSmall.tgz tar xvzf AsusSilverSmall.tgz rm AsusSilverSmall.tgz
and restart. If you want to go back to the old look, open a shell and type
cd /home/user rm -r .icewm/theme .icewm/AsusSilverSmall
Very simple…
Open up simpleui.rc, copy an entry (preferably one that will be in the same location for laziness' sake) then change the argument to the application exec command, change the title (in your language), then add your icons, and your set to go.
A handy entry is this:
<parcel simplecat="Favorites" extraargs="/usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/kwrite /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc" icon="asus_norm.png" selected_icon="asus_hi.png" > <name lang="en">Menu Edit</name> </parcel>
This provides a shortcut to edit simpleui.rc to save a bit of time.
Note that here 'extraargs=”.. ..” ' is used. This seems to process what follows it as if typed into a command line. All references must be from root, as above, i.e. /usr/bin/sudo instead of just sudo. In contrast, some entries use 'shortcut=”.. ..” ', this is for when the application in question has an entry in /usr/share/applications/ . If this is the case the the command to use is 'shortcut=“appname.desktop”'.
Obviously, if your working version of simpleui.rc is /home/user/.AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc you will have to substitute that path for /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc in the code above.
To add a website link to a tab, you simply use the procedure above, the following example links to this website.
<parcel simplecat="Favorites" extraargs="/usr/bin/firefox http://www.eeeuser.com"
icon="web_norm.png"
selected_icon="web_hi.png" >
<name lang="en">Eee User</name>
</parcel>
Just change the URL and Name to alter it to your requirements.
It appears that when the system updates (possibly only through “sudo apt-get upgrade”) it will overwrite your modified simpleui.rc file. It is therefore worth taking a copy of simpleui.rc and placing it somewhere such as your home directory, and then copying it back to /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher when it gets overwritten. This will revert Asus' changes to the UI, so you may wish to manually recomposite them together.
It is believed that this does not affect the working copy of simpleui.rc if it is in /home/user/.AsusLauncher/ but then any changes the upgrade makes to the simpleui.rc in /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher won't appear either and will need to be manually copied over.
