Set All Applications To Use Overlay Scrollbars In Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal will get overlay scrollbars but for now the packages that provide this are available in a PPA and further more, you must use "export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=1" when launching an application to get overlay scrollbars.

But there's a way to launch all applications (apps which support it - not all applications will work!) with overlay scrollbars by default.

Firstly you'll obviously have to add the PPA I was talking about and install the required packages:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ayatana-scrollbar-team/release
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install liboverlay-scrollbar-0.1-0

Then, to get overlay scrollbars for all applications by default, copy/paste the following commands in a terminal:

sudo su
echo "export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=1" > /etc/X11/Xsession.d/80overlayscrollbars

Then restart your computer (logging out doesn't seem to be enough).


Update: here is a video demoing the new overlay scrollbars (you can also notice that the overlay scrollbars work with any theme) - video thanks to deadite81:

Thanks to Georgi for the tip!