Gnome 3 (from Testing 8/11/11) Tweaks & Tips v3.0.2/3.2

[xircon]

@ZZ & @GeneC - I chickened out , got two presentations to complete today, will have a go at the weekend after they are out of the way.

:Edit: But it didn't look to bad, just got to start working and not playin' around

[GeneC]

There is always tomorrow....

[wyrdoak]

What program is doing the screen fade thing? I was trying to watch a video last night and it kept fading on me after some time. Is not hardware for I already tried by turning that part off.

[xircon]

I think it is the screensaver (that you cannot bloody access!) Try killall gnome-screensaver.

Cheers

Steve

[wyrdoak]

I tried this but it doesn't show up in my extension list to use it:

https://github.com/RaphaelKimmig/Gnome- ... ation-Mode

[xircon]

It's for 3.2:

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{
"shell-version": ["3.2"],
"uuid": "presentationmode@ampad.de",
"name": "Presentation mode",
"description": "Add a presentation mode toggle to the power menu.",
"url": "https://github.com/RaphaelKimmig/Gnome-Presentation-Mode"
}

[zerozero]

wyrdoak, this is why

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"shell-version": ["3.2"],
"uuid": "presentationmode@ampad.de",
"name": "Presentation mode",
"description": "Add a presentation mode toggle to the power menu.",
"url": "https://github.com/RaphaelKimmig/Gnome-Presentation-Mode"
}

we have to look for gnome3.0 compatible extensions (and those now are old ); try to change the shell version from 3.2 to 3.0 and see if it works, maybe not.

^^ xircon,

[zerozero]

until now the best gnome3.0 extension farm i found is this
http://www.fpmurphy.com/gnome-shell-extensions/3.0/
gonna try a few now

[GeneC]

What program is doing the screen fade thing? I was trying to watch a video last night and it kept fading on me after some time. Is not hardware for I already tried by turning that part off.

wyrdoak

I dont know how to shut it off, but think you can delay it for up to an hour.

System settings>screen>brightness>(turn off after 1 hr) ?

[wyrdoak]

Fixing to up my Xfce DVD. Just tried to switch over to battery power and Gmone 3 shut down for lack of charge. Looks like they think we're stupid, don't see and way to change that ether.

[xircon]

Anyone worked out how to change the mouse pointer theme? I can partially do it, I had the Arkanus theme lying around, so I winged it, nearly worked, but it doesn't change all the cursors Going to rename DMZ and then rename Arkanus to see if that works.

:Edit: That works, but only after a reboot/log out/in, restarting the shell, did not work.

[zerozero]

i though that i already had these links in here
very good stuff about our shell v.
http://blog.fpmurphy.com/2011/03/custom ... shell.html

http://blog.fpmurphy.com/2011/05/more-g ... ation.html

[viking777]

How to disable auto mount in Gnome 3

I really liked Gnome 3 when I first saw it, and then after a little while, I realised it was autmounting usb devices, and it did not seem easy to stop it. To me this behaviour, if it is not stoppable, marks the end of my use of any DE. A little bit of investigation though and I managed to stop it from happening. This is what you do.

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sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

Then open a terminal and run

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dconf-editor

If you have ever used 'gconf-editor' and thought that it was a bit user unfriendly, then you are really going to love 'dconf-editor' (not). It has no search function and no bookmark function, both of which made 'gconf-editor' a little bit more usable. No such refinements here, in fact it has no menus at all, if you want to find something then you look through every single entry until you find it, take it or leave it, (though perhaps ask yourself if gnome-shell is actually anything other than a beta program yet, like kde4). Really though, that is the point of this post, to ease the pain of those of you who detest automounting as much as I do.

So you have to navigate to org/gnome/desktop/media-handling. Click on that and you will have several options presented in the right hand pane. The ones you want are:
automount - which you untick
automount-open - which you untick and
autorun-never - which you tick

There is no 'save' menu you just close dconf-editor and that is that - you hope. The first time I tried it, it failed. I don't know why, the only difference between the first and second times I tried it is that on the first occasion I opened 'dconf-editor' from a run dialog instead of a terminal, but of couse that should make no difference at all.

I have tried this through a reboot and the changes appear permanent at this time (who knows about tomorrow?)

Whilst you have 'dconf-editor' open have a look through the many other options in there, I even found one that added the date to the clock on the top panel which I found very useful (org/settings-daemon/shell/clock).

Edit.

who knows about tomorrow?

were prophetic words. The hateful automount and even auto-open functions have returned this morning so this 'how-to' doesn't work.
Edit2. After even more searching through dconf-editor I found another setting which seems to have done the trick again (I have no idea how long for). You can find it at /org/settings-daemon/plugins/automount then untick the 'active' setting.

[viking777]

Replace the Power Off option in Gnome-Shell shutdown menu

It amazes me that even the dumbest kind of brain dead moron could ever imagine that people want the poweroff option hidden in their shutdown menu, but someone in the gnome-shell camp thinks this is so and thus forces others to overcome their ignorance. I broke gnome-shell trying to do that manually, but finally found an easy way to fix it. I won't take any credit, just give you the link:

http://joesteiger.com/2011/07/26/add-po ... ntu-11-04/

[xircon]

@Viking good find, same site:

Get the delete key back in Nautilus:

http://joesteiger.com/2011/07/02/enable ... ntu-11-04/

[xircon]

Got xscreensaver working in Gnome3:

1>. Install xscreensaver:

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sudo apt-get install xscreensaver xscreensaver-gl-extra xscreensaver-data-extra

To install electricsheep - http://www.webupd8.org/2011/11/how-to-g ... -with.html - my favourite screensaver.

2>. Rename Gnome screensaver:

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 sudo mv /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver.old

3>. Create a launcher in /home/user/.config/autostart (just copy an existing one and edit with gedit to run xscreensaver --nosplash).

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cp dropbox.desktop xscreensaver.desktop
gedit xscreensaver.desktop

4>. Log out/in

[xircon]

Slow searching for apps in activity pane:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=119689

[xircon]

Remove your name from right-hand menu (from ubuntu forums):

Re: Gnome shell 3.2 setups
Remove username from top panel:

Open up userMenu.js

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sudo gedit /usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/userMenu.js

locate this line:

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_updateUserName: function() {

Then comment out the next 4 lines:

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 _updateUserName: function() {
       // if (this._user.is_loaded)
       //     this._name.set_text(this._user.get_real_name());
      //  else
       //     this._name.set_text("");

The result is a user menu that doesn't display your name.

[xircon]

Icon spacing on top bar (from ubuntu forums):

Never fails, you find that great shell theme & the status icons are strung too far apart, this is where to look in the theme's gnome-shell.css to adjust that.

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.panel-button {
    -natural-hpadding: 3px;
    -minimum-hpadding: 3px;

Typically you find numbers between 4-12, but this i pretty close to my spacing for the way I have the panel favorites extension set up.

I'm not sure what the difference is between natural & minimum but I haven't run into a problem with the same value for both.

:note: For me this code was in panel.css not gnome-shell.css

[karashata]

...

I'm not sure what the difference is between natural & minimum but I haven't run into a problem with the same value for both.

...

I would guess natural is the padding normally used by the elements when there's plenty of space available along the panel, and minimum would be the lowest amount of padding they're allowed to use when things start to get a little cramped...