Desktop: Appearance

Lesson 3/ Lesson 5

The Appearance Preferences window allows users customize the theme, background, fonts and interface options. The Appearance Preferences window can be accessed by selecting System --- Preferences --- Appearance. Or right click on the desktop and select Change Background from the menu.

The Theme tab displays multiple thumbnails representing themes available. Selecting a thumbnail will result in the theme being applied automatically. Buttons across the bottom allow for deleting, customizing,  saving, and installing themes that have been downloaded.

The Background tab is similar to the theme tab in that it displays thumbnails and when clicked the desktop backgrounds will be applied. The desktop background style can be changed by selecting the Style drop down menu. Options include fill Screen, Zoom, Tiled, Scaled, and Centered. Desktop background can be added or removed to this window by selecting the buttons to the right. Towards the bottom of the window is the Colors area. Here users can specify background colors used on the desktop. Options include solid, vertical gradient, and horizontal gradient while colors are selected by clicking on them and choosing a color. The button in the bottom right allows these options to be set as default.

The Fonts tab lets users change Application, Document, Desktop, Window title, and Fixed Width fonts. Rendering options can also be chosen here including monochrome, best shapes, best contrast, and subpixel smoothing.

The Interface tab includes two sections. Menus and Toolbars allows the enabling or disabling of icons in the menu and editable menu shortcut keys. Toolbar button labels can be changed from text below items to text beside, text only, or icons only. The Preview section shows you what you changes will look like.

When you're finished making changes to the appearance Preferences window just click the close button.