How can I move all the window controls to the right?

Question

Running 12.04. Downloaded Ubuntu tweak and set window controls to the right side. Only some programs follow the rule. Pidgin as an example has window controls on the right. But Chrome, Thunderbird, Geany, still have controls on the left.

How can I move ALL window controls(close/min/max) to the right?

Answer 1

1. Open terminal
2. Type: gconf-editor
3. Go to Apps -> Metacity -> General
4. Find: button_layout
5. Change value to: menu:minimize,maximize,close

For Ubuntu 10.10 the string needs to be menu:minimize,maximize,close, with a comma in the end of the string.

Answer 2

You can also download Ubuntu Tweak, which has an easy GUI option to switch the window buttons to the right. It's found under the Windows Manager Settings option, under the Desktop category. Just select the "Right" radio button and you're done.

Answer 3

For 12.04 and 12.10

Unity

Run this command in a terminal:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ":minimize,maximize,close"

Note that this will only change the position of the window controls of non-maximized windows. The maximized windows will continue to have their window controls on the left in title bar.

GNOME-shell

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.overrides button-layout ":minimize,maximize,close"

Answer 4

It seems with 10.10, the string needs to be:

menu:minimize,maximize,close,

Note the comma at the end. Without it, I had no Close button.

Answer 5

System>Preferences>Appearance Change the theme to something other than Radiance/Ambiance.

Answer 6

In 12.04, use dconf

org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences

the button layout settings there are the same as gconf previously. Enjoy!

Answer 7

Run the command:

sudo apt-get install gconf-editor -y && gconf-editor

Then navigate to
Apps → Metacity → General
or using Gnome shell:
desktop → gnome → shell → windows
under button_layout change:

close,minimize,maximize:

to

:close,minimize,maximize

And I have just tried this in 12.04 Unity and it works in all the programs I tried, including Chromium and Thunderbird.

The colon separates what buttons go on which side, and you can change the order to suit what you want, for example:

close:minimize,maximize

would put close on the left and minimize and maximize on the right in that order, while:

:close

Would give the Gnome shell style of just a close button on the right.

Answer 8

You can set it from the command line using the gconftool-2 utility.

gconftool-2 --set --type string /apps/metacity/general/button_layout 'menu:minimize,maximize,close'

Answer 9

Some applications do not adhere to the global window decorations, and Chrome is an example of this behaviour. Right-click its window border and choose "use system window decoration". Pretty much every major application other than Chrome uses the default, system-wide kind, so peobably this is all you will have to do.

Also, I strongly recommend you leave the button order as it is, because this change did not come out of nowhere. For instance, in Unity, maximized windows have their buttons in the top-left corner as well, and this tweak won't change that.

Answer 10

Thanks to this site's information, this command should help:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ':minimize,maximize,close'

Answer 11

see this Here

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string ":minimize,maximize,close"