Cairo-Dock is a Mac OS X Dock-like application for Linux and BSD distributions that supports OpenGL and freedesktop standards. It provides a desktop interface for launching applications and accessing running programs.

It offers a better interface than the bland panel of Linux Mint 15 for launching and accessing applications and as such may be used to replace it.

sudo -v
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cairo-dock-team/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cairo-dock cairo-dock-plug-ins

Ok!   I am adding below customization session because of the feedback i received.

The default theme of Cairo-Dock places the dock at the bottom edge of the desktop. So before launching it, it is best to flip the default Cinnamon panel to the top edge of the desktop. You can do this by using the Panel module from the System Settings and selecting the appropriate option from the Panel layout combo menu. This screen shot shows the Cinnamon panel settings options. Because Cairo-Dock provides the same functionality as the default panel, it is recommended to enable the Auto-hide panel option. After making these changes, apply them by restarting the Cinnamon desktop; right-click on the panel and select Troubleshoot > Restart cinnamon.

Cinnamon desktop showing Cairo-Dock. The default panel, which is now at the top edge of the desktop, is not visible in this screen shot because the Auto-hide panel option was enabled.

This screen shot shows one of the new features of Cairo-Dock 3.3; a search bar in the menu applet.

The best way to customize the dock is by using Advanced Mode of its configuration settings.

Cairo-Dock is fully themable, and you can really make your dock behave and look totally different from any other dock. This ability has a drawback : there are a *lot* of options. This little tutorial doesn’t have the ambition to describe all of the options (they are already described in the config panel with tooltips for most of them), but to guide you along the customization of your dock.
It also contains some useful tricks.

This tutorial is made for Cairo-Dock 2.2.0 or later. If your version is older, it is strongly recommended to upgrade, because the dock improves itself at each new version.
To get the latest version, use our repository, or grab the packages on LaunchPad, or install from the sources. This is fully explained on our wiki (http://wiki.glx-dock.org).
Be sure to install the plug-ins too.

The first time Cairo-Dock is launched, a default theme is applied. It is designed to be neutral and minimalistic. However, several themes are available directly in the dock: right-click -> Cairo-dock -> Configure, then go to the last tab called “Themes”.

Sort them by rating or sobriety according to your feelings, choose a theme, check the 2 little box at the bottom of the page, and apply. Quite easy.
Repeat the operation until you’ve found the theme that fits you the best.

Let’s start with the Coz’s “Clear” theme as a starting base, for instance.

Coz’s Clear Theme for Cairo-Dock

Before you start configuring the look, it may be wise to decide which launchers you want in your dock, and possibly how you will organize them in sub-docks.
To quickly remove an existing launcher, just drag and drop it out of the dock.
To quickly add a new launcher, just drag and drop it from the Applications menu into the dock, amongst existing launchers; an animated indicator will appear to show you when you can drop it.

Note :
To modify a launcher, right-click on it -> Modify this launcher. If you want to replace a launcher with another, the correct way is to delete the existing one and to create add a new one. Editing the existing one and changing its command is not recommended because launchers contain many other information.

A good habit is to save your current theme after you made some changes to it.
To save the current theme, open the Theme Manager as before, go to the “Save” page, choose a name for your theme, and apply.

If you want to delete some themes you don’t want anymore, go to the “Delete” page, tick the unwanted themes, and validate; that will delete them.

To open the configuration panel, <right-click> on Cairo-Dock, go to the Cairo-Dock sub-menu, and choose Configure.
By default, a simple config window is proposed. It is very straightforward and easy to use.
If you click the “advanced mode” button in the bottom, a much more complete config window will appear. We will describe it below.

Several categories are proposed in the left margin. The one that concerns us is the 2nd one (named “Appearance”).
But first, we’ll quickly go through the 1st category, that defines how your dock behaves.

Select the “Behavior” category; 4 modules are present :

• The first one, Position, can be used to modify where the dock is placed on your screen (and on which screen for people using multi-screen with Xinerama).
• The 2nd one, Visibility, defines how you access your docks : whether your dock auto-hides itself, stays below other windows or on the opposite reserve space for itself, whether sub-docks popup on click or on mouse-over, etc.
• The 3rd one, Taskbar, is quite interesting. Here you can toggle on/off the display of the current applications inside the dock. If you choose to activate it, several options are at your disposal, and allow the Taskbar to act either like MacOSX, Windows7, or a normal Gnome/KDE panel. One handy option is to close aplication on middle-click.
• The last one, System, regroups all the options that you will probably never want to tweak.

Now select the “Appearance” category; a lot of modules are present; they define the look of your dock.

• The Background module lets you customize everything about the background of the docks : frame, background image, etc.
• The Icons module is about the displaying of icons : icon theme, size, order, etc.
• The Labels module lets you customize the way text is rendered above and on icons.
• The Views module lets you change the way the dock and sub-docks are drawn : on a 3D plane, on a curve, on a parabole, etc.
• The Dialogs module defines the appearance of the bubbles Cairo-Dock uses to notify you.
• The Desklets module defines how applets are rendered when they are detached from the dock, and live on your desktop.
• The Indicators module lets you personalize all the indicators. These are graphics that are displayed to show something, like where you can drop something inside the dock, which is the current active window, which launchers are launched, etc
• The others are plug-ins that provide animations and special effects on your icons.

Enough talking, let’s go!
First we’ll setup the Background options.

• You can choose to display an image in the background, or to fill it with a gradation of 2 colours.

In the case of an image, you can choose to fill the background by repeating or by stretching it.

• To complete this, we can configure the outline of the dock : roundness of the corners, thickness and colour of the line, etc.

The previous Clear theme, with a different background colour.

Now, we will take care of the icons themselves.

• At this point, it is nice to decide of a global icon look. You can find a lot of icon themes at gnome-look.org or other such sites. The dock lets you choose whether to use an icon theme for your icons, or whether to use your owns icons (they are located in ~/.cairo-dock/current_theme/icons; when you load a theme from the Theme Manager, this is where the theme places its custom icons). If you want to choose an icon theme, untick the option that says to use the local icons, and choose one of the available icon theme in the list. If you just want to use the default icon theme of your system, just let it blank.

An easy way to quickly alter the global look of your icons is also to add a background to each of them. This is done easily by filling the corresponding field with the path of an image.

Now let’s take care of how the icons are rendered.

• First we have the famous zoom effect; what you probably want to set up is the maximum zoom of the icons : 1.2 will give a light effect, when 2.0 will give a strong effect.
• Then we have the reflection of the icons (for views that use it, like the 3D-plane or Curve views). If you want to reduce the height of your dock, a good way is to reduce the reflect height. Usually a medium value looks good.
• You can also set up the size of icons by category. Here again, you can reduce the size of your dock with small icons. 48×48 is a common value.
• Last, we can set up the order of icons by type, if you want for example to place applets on the left and applications on the right.
• A little bonus feature is to draw a string that links all the icons. Just set its width to 0 if you don’t want it.

Setting “Gartoon” as the icon theme changes all the icons at once, giving your dock a completely different feeling.

Note :
You can always change the icon for a single launcher, by right-click -> modify this launcher, and setting a complete path to an image. Same goes for applets.

Note 2 :
To change the icon for a running application, you first have to activate “Overwrite X icons with launchers” in the Taskbar module. Doing this will tell Cairo-Dock to ignore the somewhat crappy icons provided by X, and to search for a better icon. Now, let’s say we have Nautilus running, and its corresponding icon in the dock. There is 2 cases :

• There is a “Nautilus” launcher in the dock, then Cairo-Dock will just use the same icon for the application, and we’re done.
• There is no such launcher, then Cairo-Dock will search for an image named “nautilus.xxx”, where “xxx” can be “svg”, “png”, “xpm”, etc. There is a great chance that such an icon will be found in the icon theme we set up previously. If you want to use your own image, just place an image with this name in the local icons folder (~/.cairo-dock/current_theme/icons).

How to name the image ?
Each icon must have the same name as the *class* for the relevant application. The class of an application is most of the time equal to its name, but not always.
To find the class for an application, make sure it’s open, and then go to a terminal and type

This will bring up a little pointer, which you use to click on the relevant window. You’ll get something like this in the terminal :

To get Cairo-Dock to show the correct icon, your custom icons must be given the same name as the application class, so for example nautilus.svg or nautilus.png.

Each dock can be rendered differently from the others. Changing the rendering of a dock will make it appear in a totally different way.
In the “Views” module, you can set the default rendering for docks and sub-docks.
For each sub-dock, you can modify its view (<right click>-> “modify this launcher”, same goes for applets).

Switching to another view really changes the rendering of your dock. Here, the “Curve” view.

The “Labels” module lets you configure the labels and quick-infos (Quick-infos are some small texts displayed on the icons to give short information, like the number of files in the Dustbin).
You can set up the font, size, color (a gradation), etc.
To make the text more readable, you may want to draw a background behind them. You can choose the colour, transparency, and size of the text background.

The dock interacts with you through dialog bubbles, that can display some message, warning, information, or even ask you question or any value. In the Dialogs module, you can configure their look : color and style of the bubble, font and size of the text, “ok” and “cancel” buttons, etc.
Several styles are available; they change the shape of the bubbles. For instance the “comics” one will make the bubbles look like carton bubbles, whereas the “tooltip” one will give a more classic shape.

Each applet can be detached from the dock and placed on your desktop. This module lets you choose a default decoration for all desklets. Each desklet can also be configured with its own decoration.
You can choose one of the available theme, or define your own (it’s just a background and foreground image, with an horizontal and vertical adjustment).

To make a really personal and original theme, you should personalize the <b>indicators</b>.
Indicators are small extra drawings that indicates the state of icons/dock. There are indicators for the drag-and-drop, drag-over, active window, and launched launchers.

• The drag-and-drop indicator* is displayed when you drag something over the dock (like a launcher from the Main Menu). It can be some image oriented from top to bottom, like an arrow, some rain, a star-fall, etc
• The drag-over indicator is a little emblem displayed on the icon when you drag something over it. It is drawn at 1/3 of the icon’s size.
• The active window indicator is drawn on the icon of the currently active window. you can set an image or just a back/foreground colour. You should try to make it discrete since it is drawn at the same place and size as the icon.
• The launched launcher indicator shows you which indicators have been already launched, if you’re using the Task-bar option “mix applications and launchers”. It is displayed at the bottom of the icon, and you can adjust its position vertically. It can be a circle, a light, etc. Try to choose something that fits the icon theme and icons shape.

To finish, and if you’re running the OpenGL back-end, you can easily add some fun to your dock.
The “Animated icons” and “Icon effects” modules will let you define one or more animations/effects when an icon is clicked or hovered by the pointer.
If the effects seems “too much” for you, you can customize each of them, and also choose to draw them behind the icon, to reduce the impact.
The “Illusion” module will let you choose an animation when the icon appear and disappear.

You’re almost done! You can now decide which applet you need, and where you’ll place them (in the main dock to keep an eye on them easily, in a sub-dock or on the desktop if it’s not needed). You can set up an icon for each of them, or even choose a theme for some of them (Clock, Dustbin, PowerManager, etc).
To go further, you can also try to make your own gauge theme. A gauge is made of some images and an XML file that describes the gauge. See exemples in /usr/share/cairo-dock/gauges.
When you make a personnal theme for an applet (a gauge, a clock, a dustbin, etc), put everything all the files in a folder named with the name you want for your theme, and place this folder into ~/.config/cairo-dock/extras/gauge if it’s a gauge, or ~/.config/cairo-dock/extras/clock if it’s a clock, etc.

Cairo Dock Customisation

Here are the basic steps that you should follow for the white listing/de-listing procedure at the ISP in question:

b) You should send an email to the mentioned email address.

Doing that by hand, especially to dozens of files and folders, is slow going, and Mac OS X hasn’t provided a way for us to batch rename files natively. That’s okay, because we can still get the job done. We’re just going to need some extra tools.

Before we get started, though, let’s talk backup. Hopefully, you’re already backing up your computer, but because it’s possible in the course of batch editing filenames to accidentally rename your files something weird, unrecognizable, and completely unusable, it’s not a bad idea to also copy your files to a new folder before you get started.

NameChanger

NameChanger, an application for batch renaming files, is free to download. If you like it, you can make a donation to the developers on the download page. Load up a list of files into NameChanger, make your changes, and preview how your filenames will be transformed before the changes are applied. It’s hard to argue with free, but there are some limitations to what NameChanger can do. We’ll go step by step through a batch renaming operation and see how far the application can take us.

Step 1: Add Files to NameChanger

If your files or folders are all in the same location, just select them all and drag them to the NameChanger window. If the files you’re renaming are all over the place, though, it can be tedious to open Finder window after Finder window. In that case, click Add, and browse until you’ve found your file. Repeat this process until you’ve got all your files into the NameChanger window.

Get your files into NameChanger. They’ll appear in the left pane.

You can click Remove if you decide you don’t want to change a file’s name after all. Because there are lots of different ways to rename files with NameChanger, if you decide you’d like one rename process applied to all of your files and a second process applied only to some, you can deselect files to the left of the filename. When you’re ready for them to be included in the batch renaming again, just reselect them.

Step 2: Set Your Options

Before you go any further, click Options, and select Hide Extensions. This will keep NameChanger from overwriting your extensions. If you forget this step and make the wrong move, you’ll have to go back and add in all your extensions again or OS X won’t know what to do with all of your files.

Make sure to get everything straight in your preferences before you move forward.

NameChanger can get fussy if you try to name two files the same thing. With unique names turned on, a digit will be appended to identical filenames.

While you’re there, you can also decide whether you want NameChanger to ignore case or force unique names. That first one is up to you, but I recommend you choose to force unique names, as NameChanger can get fussy if you try to name two files the same thing. With unique names turned on, a digit will be appended to identical filenames.

Step 3: Change Your Filenames

There are several different ways to rename your files, and you can use a combination of batch renaming methods, if you’d like. Just be careful about what order everything goes, because if you use a process that replaces the current name after you’ve added your descriptive prefix, it’ll all end in tears. If you’re worried about creating bizarre or unusable filenames, you can create a copy of your files in another folder before you start.

The drop-down gives your all your renaming options.

To add a keyword to a file name, choose Append or Prepend from the drop-down and add your text in the field to the right. If you choose to append the keyword, it will appear at the beginning of the filename, making it really easy to sort the files alphabetically. Prepending the keyword or any other text will preserve whatever’s at the front of the filename but still allow you to organize or search for your files based on the new name.

If you’re batch renaming several files with similar names, you may not be able to complete the transformation if the output filenames will be identical.

Remove Characters will chop off a bit of the front or the end of a filename. You’ll have to input a range based on the total number of characters in the title, which can be tedious, though. Also, be careful, because if you’re batch renaming several files with similar names, you may not be able to complete the transformation if the output filenames will be identical.

Step 4: Date and Number Your Files

NameChanger will add a date to your filenames so you can sort them chronologically. Again, you can add the date to the beginning or the end of your filename, whichever works best for you. NameChanger lets you tack on either the date the file was created or a custom date of your choosing. You can tag it with today’s date or really any date in the past or future. You’re kind of hamstrung, unfortunately, by the date formats available. If you want the YYYY-MM-DD format, for instance, you’re out of luck, unless you also want to add how many seconds are left until midnight, too.

Add a date to your filenames. It can be the date the files were created or the current date.

I saved my favorite rename transformation for last, Sequence. With this process, you can both rename and number your files. For instance, if you have a bunch of similar text files with lots of different filenames, you can rename them all FILE-001.TXT, FILE-002.TXT, FILE-003.TXT, etc. NameChanger will replace the entire original filename if you want, or you can just tack the sequence onto the beginning or the end. Once NameChanger starts rolling, there’s no turning back, so make sure you’ve got your files ordered how you’d like: alphabetically, by file date, or a custom arrangement.

Change the filename and tack on a number to keep everything organized.

Step 5: Save Your Rename

If you plan on renaming files in a similar way often, it’s likely worth it to save your rename process. In the Renames menu, select Save Current Rename. Give your rename a title, and it will appear in a list in the Renames menus. Should you find you’ve gone transformation crazy and saved too many renames, they can be deleted by selecting Manage Renames.

Renamer

Renamer, another great tool for transforming filenames. While it doesn’t do many more filename transformations, it does have plenty of other features to recommend it, including rename workflows. You won’t have to change the text of your filename and then add the creation date as part of a separate action; Renamer will do it all in one move. We’ll figure out how to set all of that up and then save it for later, so you can use the same workflows over and over again.

Step 1: Drop Files in the Renamer Window

We did this before for NameChanger, so I’m not going to get too in depth here. Drag and drop, click the plus sign in the bottom left, or hit up Add Files in the File menu. Changed your mind? Pull your files back out with the minus sign or either of the File menu Remove commands.

The unchanged files will be in the left pane.

Step 2: Decide How to Apply the Transformations

Unless you have a really good reason, editing the extension is probably a bad idea, so it’s best to stick just to the filename.

Click the gear in the upper right and choose whether the rename process will apply to just the filename, the filename and suffix, or the suffix only. If you include the suffix, you’re going to end up editing the extension, and unless you have a really good reason, that’s probably a bad idea, so it’s best to stick just to the filename.

There are additional options available by clicking the gear or accessing the drop-down to the left.

Just to the left of the gear is a drop-down that will let you edit how the new filename is output. You can remove all of the whitespace or convert it to MS-DOS if you don’t like filenames longer than eight characters. Renamer will also convert your boring old English filename to ASCII German or French, if you’re into that.

Step 3: Create Your New Filenames

Each rename action will be completed in order, so make sure the rename to be completed first is on top, or you may accidentally overwrite your own changes.

Unlike NameChanger, you don’t have to run each rename operation separately in Renamer. Instead, you can stack them as a workflow in the right pane. Each rename action will be completed in order, so make sure the rename to be completed first is on top, or you may accidentally overwrite your own changes.

You can edit the filename in a lot of different ways, all with a single rename.

As before, you can insert a text keyword at the beginning or end of your filenames, remove pieces of your filenames, or overwrite your filenames entirely. Use Find & Replace to remove specific chunks of text from your filename and replace them with something more appropriate. If you leave the Replace field blank, whatever matched the Find field will just be deleted. If you want everything upper- or lowercase, you can do that, too.

Renamer will let you add not only a date to a file, but you can also add a time as well. Your date/time can be when the file was created, when it was last modified, or the current time and date, all selected from the Date/Time drop-down. Your variables will be much more customizable here than in NameChanger, and you can decide exactly how everything will appear in the final filenames.

Edit the date and time associated with your files’s names or create a sequence, as before.

If you’d like to create a sequence of files, Renamer will number them for you. You can indicate the new filename and either append it to the current filename or replace it altogether. Numbering can be used together with the character rewrite and date/time rename transformations to create entirely new filenames loaded with information.

Step 4: Save Your Preset

With saved presets, you don’t have to load files into Renamer to edit their filenames.

Renamer will save your transformation workflow as a preset so you don’t have to input all those functions every time you want to rename a file. This is especially useful as you can set up Renamer to batch rename several files using a complicated workflow and then reuse a saved preset to rename a single, similar file days later without going to all the trouble of figuring out the date and everything else by hand. The numbering may be off for a file renamed days later, though, so you’ll want to keep an eye on that.

To save a preset, click the drop-down to the left of the gear in the upper right, and select Save Preset As. Choose a name for your preset and click Save. You can rename or delete a preset by selecting Edit Presets. Load a preset by clicking the presets drop-down again and looking all the way to the bottom of the menu; they should be listed there.

With saved presets, you don’t have to load files into Renamer to edit their filenames. I know it sounds crazy, but just hold on. With Renamer running, select your files in Finder, then click the Renamer menubar icon. Choose the preset you want to use to batch rename your files, and bam! You’re done!

Automator

You can customize your workflow in Automator so that your have a renaming process that is exactly what you want.

While not as flashy as the other methods we’ve tried, and quite a bit more labor intensive, creating an Automator workflow to batch rename your files can have its benefits as well. Besides being free, you can customize your workflow so that your have a renaming process that is exactly what you want. Beyond just renaming, you can add labels to your files, move them to another folder, add Spotlight comments, and more.

Step 1: Open a New Automator Workflow

Open Automator, located in your Applications folder. On launch, you’ll be prompted to choose what kind of workflow you want to create. Select Application, because our workflow is going to run all on its own. We’re going to create a renaming application; you’ll be able to drag one or one hundred files onto its icon, and it will rename all of them.

Step 2: Find the Rename Action

With Actions selected, type “Rename Finder Items” into the search field. Select the action, and drag it into the main workflow pane. You’ll be prompted to choose whether you want Finder to copy all items being renamed to a new location before the transformation begins. I selected Don’t Add, but it’s up to you. If you choose to add the Copy Finder Items process, you must select a destination for the new files or your application won’t work.

Choose whether to create a Copy Finder Items action.

Step 3: Create Your New Filenames

The Rename action will default to Add Date or Time, but you can change that by clicking the drop-down and selection whatever you’d like, including Add Text, Make Sequential, and Replace Text. Edit the parameters of the action to get your filename just how you want it.

If you’d like to apply two or more transformations is a single workflow, just drag the rename action into the workflow pane again.

Just because the rename action only allows you to perform one transformation doesn’t mean you have to choose among adding a date to your filenames, replacing text, adding sequential number, or any of the others. If you’d like to apply two or more transformations is a single workflow, just drag the rename action into the workflow pane again. You can do this as many times as you’d like until you get your filename just right.

You can add as many rename actions into your workflow as you’d like.

Remember that you will be asked whether you want to add an action to copy your files each time you add the rename action. Even if you do want the copy files action, you’ll only need it once, at the beginning of the workflow. If you accidentally add it again further down, don’t sweat it. Just click the “X” in the upper right of the actions title bar to remove it.

Step 4: Customize Your Filenames

Automator is great, because it can do just about anything, all in one workflow. You needn’t feel tied to just renaming files in your batch renaming workflow. For instance, if you want to also move the renamed files to a specific folder, search forMove Finder Items. Before you move your files, though, you might want to make sure they stand out in their new location, so try searching for Label Finder Items. When you’re done, save your new application to somewhere easily accessible, like your Desktop. When you’re ready to use it, just drag the files to be renamed onto your new application’s icon.

There’s no reason to stop at renaming your files. You can do a lot more if you poke around Automator.

The possibilities are nearly endless with Automator, and you can create a renaming application that does just what you want it to do. The downside is that the more specific you get with your workflow, the fewer uses you’ll find for your application. Of course, you could create a few very detailed applications to do the heavy lifting on batch renaming operations you do rarely and one or two more general workflows to handle everyday renaming. How you use Automator and your workflows is entirely up to you!

Final Thoughts

Batch file renaming doesn’t come easy to the Mac, but we looked at three ways you can get this time-saving function done a lot easier than editing all your files one at a time. NameChanger is a great free application that will do lots of batch renaming functions, and for $10, Renamer will go the extra mile and allow you to create saved workflows. If you prefer to do it yourself, though, Automator may be the way to go, and while each individual Automator workflow will be limited in what it can do, you can customize as many workflows as you’d like to meet all your needs.

There are many more batch renaming applications out there, and lots more ways to put Automator to work, too. How have you been getting batch renames accomplished? Let us know in the comments!