philipp bytes bugs

UPDATE APRIL 2017: Canonical will stop the development of Unity and thus the „Screen Rotation Indicator“ is obsolete. It is also no longer needed, since GNOME Desktop supports automatic screen rotation by default (tested with Yoga 3 11). This also really works 1a and is a much better solution 🙂 However for educational purpose the GitHub repository is still there.

I have owned a new toy in the form of a Lenovo Yoga 3 11 for a few months now. The Yoga is a convertible, also called a multimode notebook by Lenovo, where the touchscreen can be folded back 180 degrees. This turns it into a tablet.

From a purely mechanical point of view, this also works excellently. Thus, you have a really extremely light combination of laptop and tablet. There is only one catch – the software. Both under Windows and Linux, the tablet mode is not comparable with an Android or IOS tablet from a usability perspective.

A big problem with Linux distributions is that there is no software from Lenovo for automatic screen rotation. To make up for this shortcoming somewhat, I wrote a Python-based Ubuntu Unity Indicator, which enables the rotation of the screen. At the same time, it also disables or enables the touchpad. There is also a button on the right side of the Lenovo Yoga (intended to lock autorotation under Windows) which can also be used for rotation.

Long story short – here are the required installation steps:

1.) Download file from my GitHub repository and unzip.

2.) Open a terminal and change to the folder of the unzipped file.

~$ cd /path/to/screenrotation-master/

3.) Copy the screenrotation.svg to /usr/share/pixmaps/

~$ sudo cp ./screenrotation.svg /usr/share/pixmaps/

4.) The screenrotation.sh and screenrotation-indicator.py must be copied to /usr/local/bin/

~$ sudo cp ./screenrotation.sh /usr/local/bin<br /> ~$ sudo cp ./screenrotation-indicator.py /usr/local/bin

5.) The last two files copied must be made executable

~$ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/screenrotation-indicator.py<br /> ~$ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/screenrotation.sh

6.) Now screenrotation-indicator.py can be added to the startup programs. To do this „open startup programs“ and click „add“. The name can be freely chosen. Enter as command:

/usr/local/bin/screenrotation-indicator.py

7.) If desired, assign a keyboard shortcut. Under „System settings“ -> „Keyboard“ -> „Keyboard shortcuts“ -> „Own keyboard shortcuts“ a new one can be added with „+“. The name is again freely selectable. The command is:

/usr/local/bin/screenrotation.sh -key

8.) Then click „apply“. One click on the keyboard shortcut, and you can choose your key combination. On a Yoga 3 11, the mentioned button on the right of the device (Super+O) is a good choice.