Mac-style window decorations for Compiz

As Linux offers possibility of customizing its look, I could not resist to try creating my own contribution to the windows decorations. I wanted something that looks like Mac OS X with a taste of Windows. The easiest choice happened to be styling Emerald for Compiz.

Compiz is compositing window manager that creates incredible effects for desktop and windows. This is definitely one of the first things that makes your mouth wide open when you are trying Ubuntu coming from Windows…

Compiz can use Emerald window themer which themes contains sets of pictures for different state of window buttons (like maximize, minimize or close button) and bunch of settings for window borders. You can edit all of these in Emerald itself and it will generate final theme file for you. Incredibly easy!

The only thing that is up to you is create the pictures (and edit settings). I decided to create them in free vector graphics editing application called Inkscape. You can surely use also Gimp or anything that suits you better. However in this article I won’t show you how to create such themes or pictures with Inkscape. This post is for those who want to download my themes and use them on their system as they are free.

The tutorial on how to tweak Compiz settings and install Emerald theme will be possible to find in Computers – Linux category soon.

All these themes I created have several common features:

Although look is Mac-styled, the feel is kind of Windows affected as the main buttons are in the top right corner, making it easier for Windows users to get used to
All themes uses this color scheme for buttons:
- RED = close button
- ORANGE = minimize button
- GREEN = maximize button
- PURPLE = help button
- GRAY/BLUE = shade/menu button

Please feel free to download and share: