HOW TO MAKE ANTIX LOOK LIKE MACOS WITH JWM

[Member madibi]

Some month ago, I read the post HOW TO MAKE ANTIX LOOK LIKE MACOS (written by PPC) with great interest.
https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/make-antix-look-like-macos/

This great post, which I will follow as a track, gives excellent indications.

I considered it appropriate to write a new howto as I find that a good use of the dock is missing, as with ICEWM and fluxbox, if you activate compton in order to magnify the icons when hovering, there is a bug due to a rectangular area who does not take commands.

The numbering of the chapters that follows corresponds to that of the PPM’s post.

1- Do not show desktop up icons:- antiX desktops interfaces show desktop icons by using one of the included file managers: Rox or Spacefm.
If you want to use the JWM desktop without desktop icons:
– Menu > Desktops… > Select “JWM”

2-Place the (tool)bar on the top section of the screen:

– with leafpad open the file: /home/YOURNAME/.jwm/tray
– in the row n° 2 change the value of valign from “bottom” to “top”
– restart JWM.

3- Use a MacOS inspired theme:

3.1 – from the internet you can download a Mac OS theme and Mac OS icons

(for example from https://github.com/vinceliuice/McMojave-circle)

and then you copy the theme in /home/YOURNAME/.theme/
and the icons in /home/YOURNAME/.icons/

In case the /.theme/ and /.icons/ directories don’t exist, you have only to create it and then copy inside the files you downloaded.

3.2 – install theme and icons in Antix:
you go to Antix Control Centre and “Look and Style”, and follow the program.

5- If you want a dock, so you have a convenient way to launch your apps:
-You can install several docks- one very nice and light one is “plank”
Installing plank: Click Package Manager’s icon (the one that looks like a shopping bag) – search for “plank” (without quotation marks), select it, click “install”
Launching “plank”- Menu > Run > “plank” > click “Ok” (it can be configured by default to auto hide), so move your mouse pointer to the bottom of the screen to make it pop up.
If you want that the Plank’s icons magnify when hovering, you have to install “compton” or “xcompmgr”
sudo apt install compton

Adding plank to your start up, so it runs every time you start your computer:
Menu > Control Centre > Session > Sessione Desktop Utente > After the latest line add these 2 lines (or only the first if you don’t want to use compton), then save the file and restart your session- Plank should load automatically from now on
plank &
compton &

Tip: in case you want to have Plank with the same theme you downloaded at point 3, you have to go inside the downloaded file, search for a directory named Plank, rename it according to the style you downloaded (ex.: Mojave-circle) and copy it in the following location: /home/madibi/.local/share/plank
After that, inside the Plank’s preferences, you set up the theme you like.

9 adding the (Mac’s) 3 round buttons in the upper right corner
I studied the JWM pages at http://joewing.net/projects/jwm/config.html and I found the following procedure:
9.1 from the internet you download the round green, yellow and red images (.jpeg or .png)
9.2 – with leafpad open the file /home/YOURNAME/.jwm/theme
– in the row n° 4 you add the following: (just under “<WindowStyle>”)
<Decorations>motif</Decorations>

9.3 Menu > Control Centre >Change JWM settings>
label “preferences”
at the very end you add the following 1+4 lines:

<!– (Don’t mind what is written here) (a forma di rosso) –>
<ButtonMax>/TheNameOfYourFolder/YourDownloadedFileGreen.jpeg</ButtonMax>
<ButtonMaxActive>/TheNameOfYourFolder/YourDownloadedFileGreen.jpeg</ButtonMaxActive>
<ButtonMin>/TheNameOfYourFolder/YourDownloadedFileYellow.jpeg</ButtonMin>
<ButtonClose>/TheNameOfYourFolder/YourDownloadedFileRed.jpeg</ButtonClose>
(In case the button you downloaded has a background, with gimp it is easy to make it transparent)

9 adding the Mac’s Apple in the upper left corner

9.1 You download the apple.png that you prefer
9.2 – with leafpad open the file: /home/YOURNAME/.jwm/tray
9,3 in the row n°7 (the fifth in case you don’t count the empty rows), you change the instruction as follows:

<TrayButton label=” Menu ” icon=”/TheNameOfYourFolder/YourDownloadedFileApple.png”>root:1</TrayButton>

At the very end of the tale you have an Antix that looks and works like MacOS 🙂

My thanks go to:
– Anticapitalista, that created this fantastic distro, and provided very exaustive FAQs;
– PPC, that firstly wrote his howto on this same topic and gave me the inspiration to try to improve his very good job, with a development in accordance to my taste;
– Joe Wingbermuehle, the creator of JWM, that wrote very good instructions at http://joewing.net/projects/jwm/config.html.

WHAT NEXT
This will be a little beyond my “linux bungler” skills.
I think how to create something automatic in order to have in the (JWM) Menu > Themes, another voice like “Pastel Mac mood”.
I’ll make some try, because to automate the change of the /home/YOURNAME/.jwm/theme , may be feasible (for my level)
but unfortunately in the meantime, in the same folder we need to change some parameters also in the tray and preferences files.
May be someone can help me 🙂

Please find below some shot of the results

• This topic was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by christophe.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Brian Masinick.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Brian Masinick.

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[Member olsztyn]

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@ madibi:
Thanks for sharing this tutorial and resulting desktop screenshots. It is amazing what you can do starting from JWM. I also want to thank PPC for being creator of similar desktops.
I am currently using JWM (moved away from IceWM recently) and may likely benefit from parts or even all of your tutorial…
Thanks and regards…

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by olsztyn.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by olsztyn.

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Member blur13]

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That looks really good! Nice work!

[Member PPC]

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madibi wrote:

writted by PPM

That “PPM” sounds like a pretty cool dude. His name also sounds a lot like mine 🙂

Nice write up- but as far as I can see, there’s no way to get the window decorations on the left side, like MacOS has, in JWM. Other than that, your screen grabs look amazing!

P.

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