Updated update Apparently it is still necessary (21.3)

Update: this is no longer necessary in Mint 20.02

I like having my volume control in the bottom right corner of the screen so I can quickly and easily throw the mouse to the corner and scroll for volume control. I also like using multiple screens, each with their own panel. Unfortunately, Cinnamon only allows one instance of the volume control applet.

In the past I’ve used the “Volume control 150%” applet for my second screen, but this runs into a problem with Firefox whereby the volume suddenly jumps to 100%.

To run multiple Cinnamon volume controls:

sudo cp -r /usr/share/cinnamon/applets/sound@cinnamon.org /usr/share/cinnamon/applets/sound2@cinnamon.org

sudo nano /usr/share/cinnamon/applets/sound2@cinnamon.org/metadata.json

Change the UUID from sound@cinnamon.org to sound2.cinnamon.org and change the name to Sound2

You can now add the “Sound2” applet to the your other Cinnamon panel. Or the same one. Add more. Go nuts.

Whisker menu is a nice, customisable menu/launcher type thing mainly used in XFCE. My main problem with it is that it draws itself as an app window, so isn’t affected in the same way as actual menus by XFCE themes.

This site has some information on the CSS needed to customise it. I’m not going to cover the same ground, except to say you need to put your custom CSS in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css and run xfce4-panel -r afterwards.

Here’s mine. Suck it and see.

whiskermenu-window {
background-color: #404040;
color: #ccc;
}
/* Make sidebar buttons match */
whiskermenu-window button {
background-color: #404040;
color: #ccc;
}
whiskermenu-window button:hover {
background-color: #808080;
color: #000;
}
whiskermenu-window button:checked {
background-color: #808080;
color: #000;
}
/* Make treeview match */
whiskermenu-window treeview {
background-color: #959595;
color: #222;
}
whiskermenu-window treeview:hover {
background-color: #404040;
color: #fff;
}
whiskermenu-window border{
border-color: #444444;
color: #fafafa; 
}