Using The Avant Window Navigator (AWN) On Fedora 7

Version 1.0
Author: Oliver Meyer <o [dot] meyer [at] projektfarm [dot] de>

This document describes how to set up the Avant Window Navigator (AWN) on Fedora 7. The result is an eye candy, dock-like bar at the bottom of the screen as a replacement for the standard gnome-panel. The Avant Window Manager provides an easy to use interface where you can configure/customize it to your needs. Launchers, task lists, and third party applets are supported.

This howto is a practical guide without any warranty - it doesn't cover the theoretical backgrounds. There are many ways to set up such a system - this is the way I chose.

1 Preliminary Note

I used the packages provided by the kirov repository for this howto - the actual package version in the repository was 0.2-1. To get AWN working, I had to enable compiz (on a GeForce 8600MGT with kmod-nvidia v100.14.19-1.2.6.22.9_9). AWN is under development and has a few small glitches at moment, but nothing dramatic. Simply restart AWN if a problem occurs. I don't recommend to delete your lower gnome-panel at this time - you can shift it out of the screen with the hide-buttons, which you can enable in the options for this panel.

Note: The desktop theme on the screenshots is "Linsta 2" and the icon theme is "Dropline". Both can be found on http://www.gnome-look.org/

2 Repository

First we have to add the Kirov repository. Open a terminal and enter:

su -
%yourrootpassword%
cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
wget http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~admiller/repo/pub/kirov.repo
rpm --import http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~admiller/repo/pub/RPM-GPG-KEY-Kirov

3 Installation

Install the following packages:

avant-window-navigator
awn-applets-core

After the installation is completed, the Avant Window Navigator is available in the gnome applications menu.

4 Configuration

The preferences are available in the gnome system menu and via right click at the end of the AWN-bar (left or right). Keep in mind that you have to refresh AWN if you changed something, to take the changes effect. You can refresh AWN by clicking the corresponding button at the bottom left corner of the preferences window.

4.1 General

4.1.1 Generic

Here you can adjust the properties and the icon effects. Play a bit with the icon effects - you'll see, that the effects for hover, opening etc differ a bit from each other.

The hover effects at a glance (in menu order).

"Spotlight" on opening. As you can see, the spotlight effect on opening differs a bit from the spotlight effect on hover. The frog is growing out of the bar.