Ubuntu Tweak 0.6.0 released!

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Tualatrix Chou

After more than two years’ cycle of design and development, Ubuntu Tweak 0.6 finally comes!

Back to two years ago, we made the mock-up of the future Ubuntu Tweak and told the concepts behind the new design. Later we improved the design and started coding. Although the progress was slow, and I had to maintain the 0.5 version at the same time. At the year of 2011, many things happened, the development of Ubuntu Tweak stopped and started once and again. But finally, it is released.

Let’s get started with the brand new Ubuntu Tweak!

First, please allow me to introduce the concepts of the new Ubuntu Tweak.

The concepts of Ubuntu Tweak 0.6.0

As a “tweak” application, Ubuntu Tweak provided a lot of options to let you change the default system settings.

While developing Ubuntu Tweak, I added a lot of features, E.G. App Center, Source Center in Ubuntu Tweak 0.5. Soon I realized that Ubuntu Tweak is not a “Tweak” application any more, although the feature like App & Source Center are liked by a lot of users, it also caused a lot of problems.

Finally, I decided to remove the feature of App & Source Center, to make it focus on “Tweak” again. This time, Ubuntu Tweak is fully plug-able, this means everyone can write extension (or plugin) for Ubuntu Tweak.

Release notes of Ubuntu Tweak 0.6.0

Here’s the noteworthy highlights of Ubuntu Tweak 0.6.0:

Brand new UI and interaction focus on better looking and easy to use
Supports the latest Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot and well integrated with system
Every part of Ubuntu Tweak is plug-able, this make Ubuntu Tweak more powerful then ever before
Janitor keeps your system clean
Overview makes you know your system better

Now let’s start with the Overview

The first screen after you start Ubuntu Tweak is Overview, from this screen, you can get many useful information about your hardware, software and others. It can be fully configured, if you don’t want to see the hardware information, or you want to re-sort the items, you can do it at the “Preferences”.

Every small piece is called “Clip”, and it will provide some useful information.

As I said before, it is plug-able too. So you can write or download the “Clip” that written by other people. Think about a clip to show “Everyday tips of Ubuntu”, it might be very useful to the newbie. Right?

And there’s another useful thing in the Overview, the “Recently Used” items in the right side. There must be some features you access frequently, then you can find the most recently used items here, click and access to what you want.

Tweaks & Admins

Now let’s come to the “Tweaks” page, here are the features that you can tweak the system. Currently there’re 12 major features to help you tweak. Most of them inherited from the Ubuntu Tweak 0.5.x, but there’re also many new features:

Unity Settings is introduced by Ubuntu Tweak 0.6 for the first time, it will only be used under Unity desktop (both 2D and 3D). With Unity Settings, you can change the behavior of Launcher, the size of Launcher, the size of Dash, even the blur type of Dash. You won’t be lost in the CCSM (Compiz Config Settings Manager).

And with Theme Settings, you can easily change the default theme of Ubuntu. All of this can be done by just a few clicks.

The fonts settings, if you want a larger or smaller size of font.

Miscellaneous, notes the “Natural Scrolling”, if you are also a Mac OS X Lion user, you will like it.

Here’s the “Admins”, some useful features you can manage your system. I think you’ve met most of them in the previous versions. Due to some technical reasons, the “Templates” and “Scripts” have been removed in this version. Maybe in the future release I will add them again.

There are also something new in Source Editor, this time Source Editor introduced the “Backup” feature. Now you can backup and recover the sources lists easily, the backup feature is also enabled by default.

Janitor

This is Ubuntu Tweak’s killer-feature: Janitor. It is like the old “Computer Janitor”, but with a more easy to use interface and powerful clean feature.

You will never learn how to use it, just select the items you want to clean, then Janitor will scan the cruft, after you double check the items you don’t need, select and click the “Clean”. Everything will get out of your system.

If your system is clean, a cool face will tell you the good news.

And don’t forget the Janitor is also plug-able, try to write the extension for Janitor, such as clean the “Recently Used Items”, this is the extension that I’m currently writing.

This extension is not finished yet, maybe it will be integrated into the next version of Ubuntu Tweak. And I will also release it as a standalone extension.

Oh, and there is one more thing: Ubuntu Tweak is very well integrated with the Ubuntu Unity desktop.

This means you can start to the Janitor directly even Ubuntu Tweak hasn’t started yet, just right-click the icon on the Launcher and choose what you want to enter.

Downloads & Update

I think you can’t wait to use it now, Ubuntu Tweak is ready to download from the official website: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-tweak/+download

And it is also ready in the Stable PPA: https://launchpad.net/~tualatrix/+archive/ppa

Download and try it, it’s hot!

What’s the next?

At the end, let’s see another picture: This is a mock-up which designed by Jeonkwan Chan at May, 2010. At that moment, we discussed a lot about how the future Ubuntu Tweak would be like, later he finished this design draft, and I started coding at the beginning of 2011.

When I look back on this, I’m feeling very very very excited! We designed this two years ago, and I spent almost one year to finish the final version. Even some features are still missing, but we finally done the work!

So what’s the next? I don’t know.

I may not have so many times to coding as before, but I’d like to write some documents and help people get involved with the development of Ubuntu Tweak, to make it a community product. Of course, I’m still the project manager, I will keep driving and maintaining this project, hope next version won’t take a whole year to release

Happy Christmas! Don’t forget to tell your friends if you like Ubuntu Tweak!

71 thoughts on “Ubuntu Tweak 0.6.0 released!”

huntxu on December 23, 2011 at 8:57 am said:

再搶一次沙發

Reply ↓
satchitb on December 23, 2011 at 9:10 am said:

Any update on efforts to get Tweak into the Ubuntu Software Centre?

P.S. Starting a Tweak page on G+ would be great

Reply ↓
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Mohammad Kamil Nadeem on December 23, 2011 at 9:43 am said:

Thank You for this beautiful application. It took some time in development but the end product is excellent. Keep Up the good Work.

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Joe on December 23, 2011 at 2:20 pm said:

What happened to the “Add Software” and Add Sources” section? I noticed they were missing in the beta but expected their return for the final release.

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- John Doe on December 23, 2011 at 3:05 pm said:
  
  Do you even read the article above?
  
  Reply ↓
  - James LaBarre on December 28, 2011 at 7:10 pm said:
    
    Yes, *I* did, and *NOWHERE* in the article does it say anything anout removing those two functions. So what was your point again?
    
    Reply ↓
    - Miquel on January 23, 2012 at 11:23 am said:
      
      Actually, it does: the second section, “concepts of Ubuntu Tweak 0.6.0,” talks about the removal of the software functions.
      
      Snide/angry comments aren’t helpful.
hom on December 23, 2011 at 3:11 pm said:

好软件过来支持下或许可以在facebook和google+上开通账号来推广

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Leopard on December 23, 2011 at 5:54 pm said:

Got 0.6.0 this morning and everything just works! Though I have to admit that the Add Source and Add Software parts were my most used areas of Ubuntu Tweak, once I got things where I wanted them! You only need to Tweak till you get it the way you want it, but adding and trying new software goes on forever!

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kanito8a on December 24, 2011 at 1:41 pm said:

Congrats on the new release!
I’ve been using Ubuntu tweak for a long time now, and I love it.
I’ve upgraded my Ubuntu Tweak to the new release (0.6) and I can’t do anything. The only extension available is the Janitor. All the tabs are empty:
http://s18.postimage.org/j4hra97ex/Pantallazo_del_2011_12_24_13_38_58.png

Once again, congratulations on the new release.

Reply ↓
- Tualatrix Chou on December 24, 2011 at 2:10 pm said:
  
  Could you tell me your language locale and desktop environment?
  
  Reply ↓
  - kanito8a on December 24, 2011 at 2:40 pm said:
    
    My language is Spanish. I upgraded to Ubuntu 11.10 a few weeks ago and I use Gnome Shell.
    
    Reply ↓
    - Tualatrix Chou on December 25, 2011 at 12:47 pm said:
      
      It seems another user has the same issue is Spanish + GNOME Shell too.
      
      Could you try to test under English locale?
- Antec on January 6, 2012 at 6:23 am said:
  
  I’m still hoping to get this answered as well…
  
  @Tualatrix: I’m having the same issue. My locale and language is all English. I tried executing from a terminal window in the hopes I’d see errors when clicking through the tabs… no luck.
  
  Any further help would be much appreciated.
  
  Agree with @kanito8a, wonderful tool you’ve created. I’ve been using it for quite some time. Look forward to your reply.
  
  Reply ↓
Mountain on December 24, 2011 at 2:56 pm said:

Love the janitor feature, very helpful.

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Jon on December 25, 2011 at 11:51 am said:

Amazing, man! Thank for your time and this awesome software!

Reply ↓
kanito8a on December 25, 2011 at 3:15 pm said:

I’ve changed the system language to English. I have the same problem.

http://s18.postimage.org/mw024oqmx/Screenshot_at_2011_12_25_15_11_23.png

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the_biu on December 26, 2011 at 12:43 pm said:

Will it be avaliable to Ubuntu 11.04? If yes… When?

Reply ↓
- Tualatrix Chou on December 26, 2011 at 2:14 pm said:
  
  No, it will not support Ubuntu 11.04 and older.
  
  Reply ↓
  - the_biu on December 26, 2011 at 2:23 pm said:
    
    That’s too bad… =/
    11.10 sucks with Unity.
    
    Reply ↓
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markusj on December 29, 2011 at 9:09 pm said:

Please add the scripts & templates support again, i really miss those tiny little helpers, i just migrated to 11.10 and the scripts don’t work any more
For all others missing the apps & source center (which i liked very much, too), have a look at “Y PPA” which does a good job in searching and maintaining PPAs, but does not know other package sources which had been available in Ubuntu Tweak 0.5

Reply ↓
- Tualatrix Chou on December 30, 2011 at 11:38 am said:
  
  Hi, yes, the scripts & templates will be added to the 0.7.x release. And the App & Source center is still under plan, maybe they will be back
  
  Reply ↓
George Fragos on December 29, 2011 at 9:21 pm said:

Installing Ubuntu Tweak has been the 1st I’ve done after installing new releases of Ubuntu. Version 6 is another winner and I’ve been using it from the next ppa to use it with onieric. Next just flipped to Version 7. Will 7 continue to work with onieric or is it best for me to change back to the stable ppa.

Reply ↓
- Tualatrix Chou on December 30, 2011 at 11:40 am said:
  
  Of course, 0.7.x will continue to work with Oneiric. I will try to keep every build in “Next PPA” working, although it is not stable version.
  
  Reply ↓
Josh Turner on December 30, 2011 at 6:41 pm said:

A wee defect in the 0.6.0, visible in the screenshots above: “Deskotp Fonts”.

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N.C. Weber on January 4, 2012 at 8:37 pm said:

Love the new Janitor. One click cleaning is definitely an awesome improvement. Will miss the App Center and Source Center, but I’ve caused myself trouble on occasion with those, so it’s probably for my own good. It’s going to be interesting to see what Clips and other add-ons will appear in the future.

Reply ↓
dnua on January 4, 2012 at 9:41 pm said:

Everything is working well. Thank you!

Reply ↓
Swarnendu Biswas on January 6, 2012 at 12:14 am said:

Hi,

I am having a problem with version 0.6 onwards. Under the tweaks and admins tab, only the section headings are visible. However, the individual options/tweaks within each section is not visible. I could attach a picture if required.

Reply ↓
- Tualatrix Chou on January 9, 2012 at 6:10 am said:
  
  Please have a look at this bug, maybe this is what you want to report. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-tweak/+bug/905914
  
  Reply ↓
Mushaf on January 10, 2012 at 10:59 pm said:

Great app. Used version 0.5 on Natty, became a fan, and happy to have it back on Oneiric.

One little problem: In ‘themes’ section the drop down menu shows the themes in random order. If there are a lot of themes installed on the system (like mine) it’s hard to find a particular one from that random ordering. It would have been lot easier if they were ordered by name.

Reply ↓
- Tualatrix Chou on January 12, 2012 at 2:47 am said:
  
  Thanks for your remind.
  
  Next version I will order the names
  
  Reply ↓
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SpAiK on January 13, 2012 at 11:36 pm said:

Have you silently updated the app?

Reply ↓
- SpAiK on January 13, 2012 at 11:42 pm said:
  
  Sorry, I missed the screencap link.
  
  http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/841/ubuntutweakscreencap.png/
  
  Reply ↓
  - Tualatrix Chou on January 14, 2012 at 6:41 am said:
    
    This is a initial development version of 0.7, nothing different from 0.6
    
    Reply ↓
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Flutteri on January 23, 2012 at 11:57 pm said:

I love this program!!

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Scibex on January 25, 2012 at 1:21 pm said:

Where are the “software” functions? Other features are funny but irrelevant.

Reply ↓
Mike T. on February 1, 2012 at 7:07 pm said:

Great job on the new ubuntu teak! I like the new look and feel. You all should be proud!

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