Unity interface Close/Minimize/Maximize too small

Question

I have Ubuntu 11 loaded on a tablet PC (no mouse or keyboard). The Close/Minimize/Maximize buttons are very small. They look good but are so small I can't always push them with my finger. I don't want to use a stylus in this case. How can I set them up to be larger without changing away from unity?

Answer 1

The button images are stored in the themes /usr/share/themes. Open you theme's folder, for example Ambiance. In that folder you'll find folders for GTK 2 and 3 as well as folders for metacity-1 and unity. Those two folders contain the icons you're interested in. These icons are PNGs which means fixed size. I suggest you first backup the icons you wish to change and then replace the icons with those of a larger size. Note there are icon variations for each of the icon states to indicate things like pressed, focus and unfocused. You'll need a close, minimize, maximize and unmaximize version which will then get color varations for the various states. I've changed the orange close icons to blue on my system. I've not tried changing sizes but I'd think that at least a wider icon would work if not both wider and higher. Changed icons will need to be placed in both the metacity-1 and unity folders always keeping the same names as currently used.

Answer 2

You could try another theme with bigger window control buttons (don't think they have anything to do with Unity). Search for "Appearence" in Dash to open the theme selection interface. As far as I can remember there were very few pre-installed themes, so you may need to look for an alternative.