screenlets - side bar and RAM

[Jimmy9pints]

Hi, after looking at my friend's mac (and getting a little jealous) I thought - Ubuntu can do that...and installed screenlets.

Now, I have a couple of questions.

When I installed the side bar it looked very cool, but to make the screenlets appear on the top of the bar I have to click "Windon>Keep Above". This looks great. The problem however is they now appear on top of other programs - e.g. Firefox meaning that I cannot click stuff and info hides underneath. Is there a way around this?

Also, I notice that with compiz and screenlets and a few other things running about 75% of my RAM is used up all the time. Is this just something I have to get used to?

Please see the attached pictures. One of my desktop and one of screenlets covering programs.

Cheers,
James

[rainwalker]

I'm not sure what "bar" you're talking about, but if you want to be able to see your screenlets while leaving programs open you can try two things:
1. Install compizconfig-settings-manager and go to System > Preferences > Advanced Desktop Effects Settings and enable the Widget Layer. Then you can right-click on the screenlets and set them as widgets (in the Window menu), which will put them on that widget layer. Whenever you want to see them you can press whatever shortcut is set to show the Widget Layer (you can see/edit it in that Advanced Desktop Effects window).
2. Set the screenlets below and just move things out of the way to see them or switch to another workspace

Hope this helps

[psyopper]

The "correct way" to do this is to check "Always Below" on the Sidebar and for the rest of your screenlets keep both "Always Above" and "Always Below" unchecked.

Adding screenlets to the Widget layer is an option as well, but things work different on the widget layer and may cause you to scratch your head occasionally.