Moving Close, Maximize, and Minimize Buttons in Lubuntu

Those who come to Lubuntu from Mac OSX may like their window buttons on the left side of the title bar rather than the default settings (right).

To accomplish this, you need to open the lubuntu configuration file and edit one line. In the terminal, copy-paste in the following line:

leafpad ~/.config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml

The file will open in the text editor. At this point, search for the following line of code (it will be about 45-50 lines from the top):

<titleLayout>NLIMC</titleLayout>

The order in which you list the N, L, I, M, and C in the line above dictates the order your buttons appear.

To get the order of the first picture above, I used the settings:

<titleLayout>CMILN</titleLayout>

As listed in the comments of the file, here are the available characters. Each can occur at most once:

N: window icon
L: window label (AKA title).
I: iconify
M: maximize
C: close
S: shade (roll up/down)
D: omnipresent (on all desktops).

Logout. Login. Enjoy your new button positions.

Did you find this post helpful? Subscribe to our RSS feed and stay connected with Lubuntu Tips!