matt jones* » Linux

★ Getting Typekit to work with Chromium and Namoroka

Matt — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:15:17 +0000

Typekit really need to improve the way they do their user-agent detection. At the moment, it seems that if the user-agent-string doesn't contain either 'Firefox' or 'Safari', then Typekit won't work, even when the rendering engine is capable of rendering the fonts.

This isn't an issue for many. But it is if you're using a development build of a browser, or you're using a Linux distribution with a modified version of Firefox that, due to licensing restrictions, can't use the Firefox branding. In this case, the user-agent string will contain the development name of the browser, such as 'Shiretoko' or 'Namoroka'.

In Firefox, changing the user-agent string in about:config to 'Firefox' will solve this problem. In Chromium (the development build of Google Chrome), you'll need to launch the browser with a command something like this:

chromium-browser --user-agent="Firefox/3.5.5" --enable-remote-fonts

Recent builds of Chromium now support @font-face, so you might not need the -enable-remote-fonts option.

Hopefully, Typekit will improve their browser detection by checking the rendering engine in the user-agent string, rather than simply the browser name.

★ Setting gnome-shell as the default window manager

Matt — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:44:07 +0000

Gnome Shell will be the new window manager in Gnome 3, but it can be used in the current version of Gnome by installing the gnome-shell package, and running 'gnome-shell --replace' in a terminal.

To have Gnome Shell as the default window manager, setting the WINDOW_MANAGER environment variable won't work in Gnome 2.28. Instead you need to install 'gconf-editor' using your package manager, then go to:

/desktop/gnome/session/required_components

and set the 'windowmanager' key to 'gnome-shell' instead of 'metacity'.

★ Nautilus Goes Spatial

Matt — Wed, 10 Mar 2004 15:15:00 +0000

This preview of GNOME 2.6 discusses an interesting development in its file manager, Nautilus.

Like the OS X Finder and Windows’ file manager, Nautilus currently has a browser-like user interface, meaning you use backward and forward buttons to navigate through the hierarchy of folders. In the new version, Nautilus has a spatial finder mode, making it much more like the user interface found on the original Macintosh operating system. Rather than using one window to browse files, multiple windows are used, each representing a single folder. Many Mac users criticised Apple for the OS X Finder (which was based on the NeXT file manager), as its new navigational metaphor meant the Mac Finder had – in some peoples opinion – lost its ease of use.

What’s most interesting about this new feature in GNOME 2.6 is that Nautilus was originally designed and developed by a company called Eazel, which was founded by Andy Hertzfeld, co-designer of the original Macintosh user interface. Eazel has since collapsed but its clear that Nautilus continues to be developed in the direction that he and his team sent it.