Howto: Improve Google's Picasa look and feel with Ubuntu

[azza85]

Hi all!

I have no idea whether this will help anyone or not, but I have decided to write a very short howto because I feel like my little tip may improve some peoples experience with Picasa on Ubuntu. I wrote this because I was not happy with the default look of Picasa, some parts of the program were very pretty and other parts like the menu bar are very ugly in my opinion. This howto will show you how to fix that so your menu goes from the default (left) to the image on the right



First of all, if you are interested in trying out Picasa for linux, download the beta version of Picasa in .deb form here...

i386 users: http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/pool/...rrent_i386.deb
amd64 users: http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/pool/...rent_amd64.deb


Once installed, run Picasa (I found it in "Applications"->"Other"->"Picasa").

You will see the menu bar looks different to the rest of your Ubuntu theme. To fix this, do the following:

1. Close any running instances of Picasa

2. Press alt+F2 to get a run command, and type "gedit ~/.google/picasa/3.0/user.reg"

3. In the text file, look for the line starting with "[Control Panel\\Colors]"... it should be about 4 lines down. Underneath this line, copy and paste the following:

"ActiveBorder"="234 229 224"
"ActiveTitle"="188 121 79"
"AppWorkspace"="128 128 128"
"Background"="85 56 40"
"ButtonAlternateFace"="181 181 181"
"ButtonDkShadow"="92 92 92"
"ButtonFace"="239 235 231"
"ButtonHilight"="252 251 250"
"ButtonLight"="241 239 226"
"ButtonShadow"="219 211 203"
"ButtonText"="0 0 0"
"GradientActiveTitle"="188 121 79"
"GradientInActiveTitle"="239 235 231"
"GrayText"="181 179 172"
"Hilight"="246 198 125"
"HilightText"="0 0 2"
"HotTrackingColor"="201 127 85"
"InActiveBorder"="212 208 200"
"InActiveTitle"="239 235 231"
"InActiveTitleText"="83 82 80"
"InfoText"="0 0 0"
"InfoWindow"="255 241 190"
"Menu"="232 232 232"
"MenuBar"="188 121 79"
"MenuHilight"="230 223 217"
"MenuText"="0 0 0"
"Scrollbar"="212 208 200"
"TitleText"="255 255 255"
"Window"="255 255 255"
"WindowFrame"="0 0 0"
"WindowText"="0 0 0"

4. Now save and close this file.

5. Go to "Applications"->"Other"->"Picasa Font Settings". Select the "Menu Font" tab. Change the Menu Font to "Bitstream Vera Sans", and the menu Font Size to "12". Click "Ok".

Now when you open Picasa, you should see that the menu bar is much prettier!

I hope this helps someone

[w00dsy]

terrific tip, thanks. One thing, my fonts on the right side, the screensaver, web albums, sign out etc are barely readable. Any idea on how to adjust that part?

[edmondt]

YAY! Looking so pretty

[binbash]

good one!!

[azza85]

Hi W00dsy,

No unfortunately I haven't found a setting to change the annoying little URL's...

Maybe someone with more experience in Wine will be able to help us.

Regards

[pasti]

thankyou very much azza85

those default fonts have been bugging me since I installed intrepid, a week ago

Cheers

[unique]

Great work! looks much better! Thanks alot man!

[ericesque]

very nice! Too bad Google hasn't allowed us to select the gtk look-n-feel. I thought Picasa was java based-- and java will let you do that. I'll wait for someone to correct me though.

[binbash]

very nice! Too bad Google hasn't allowed us to select the gtk look-n-feel. I thought Picasa was java based-- and java will let you do that. I'll wait for someone to correct me though.

It is using wine.Yah it is not native.

[Tom.Servo]

Great info! Thanks!