GNOME Shell Tuning & Installation of outdated GNOME Shell Extensions

[Deleted member 48958]

(*Tested with 3.1* gnome-shell versions)

So you've installed FreeBSD (but you can use this guide even with Ubuntu if you want, or even with Fedora, Debain etc) with a x11/gnome3 as DE.
Primarily I always move window buttons to the left. To do this, enter
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout 'close,minimize,maximize:'
in your terminal emulator.


If you want to change order or hide some buttons, you need to edit "close,maximize,minimize:" part.
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout 'close,minimize:'


To change right/left buttons position -- move ":" to left or right.
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout 'close:maximize'


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Some users dislike that context menu icons and button icons were removed, to bring them back enter
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides "{'Gtk/ButtonImages': <1>, 'Gtk/MenuImages': <1>}"
and press return.


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From 3.16 version you cannot set 'Caps Lock' as keyboard layout switcher in gnome-tweak-tool settings. To bring this feature back you need to disable Caps Lock first, you can do this via gnome-tweak-tool: "Keyboard" tab -- "Caps Lock disabled". Or you can enter
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options "['terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp', 'caps:none', 'grp_led:scroll']"
this command will disable Caps Lock, set ctrl+alt+backspace as a key combination to kill X server, and when different from english keyboard layout will be used -- Scroll Lock LED will be lit.
Then you can set Caps Lock as keyboard layout switcher, enter
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-input-source "['VoidSymbol']"
and press return.

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To reduce GNOME 3 titlebar height

you need to create

~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css

with

.header-bar.default-decoration {
    padding-top: 0px;
    padding-bottom: 0px;
}

.header-bar.default-decoration .button.titlebutton {
    padding-top: 0px;
    padding-bottom: 0px;
}

in it. Then restart gnome-shell — alt+f2 type r and press return.

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With gnome "Power" settings you can set "blank time" to 15 minutes maximum, or disable completely.

To make screen turn off later than after 15 minutes, you need to enter
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.session idle-delay 3600
this command will set "blank time" to 3600 seconds = 1 hour.

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To disable GNOME 3 automount function in x11-fm/nautilus, enter
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.media-handling automount false
Or untick "automount" in devel/dconf-editor

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Auto mount attached USB devices in UTF-8 locale with your Nautilus file manager.
(Also work with x11-fm/thunar, x11-fm/pcmanfm… etc)
By default x11-fm/nautilus will auto mount with HAL (add hald_enable="YES" to /etc/rc.conf) all your attached USB devices, but it won't automount them in UTF-8 locale (even if your system locale is UTF-8 locale), so if there are some folders/files that use unicode symbols (✞✞☹☹☹✞✞) or arabic/cyrillic letters in their names — you'll not be able to open it. So to change this appearance, install sysutils/gconf-editor, open it and navigate to /system/storage/default_options/vfat/mount_options and add

-L=en_US.UTF-8

to its values (or other *.UTF-8 locale).

 

[Deleted member 48958]

Using outdated GNOME Shell Extensions with new gnome-shell versions.

Many extensions on https://extensions.gnome.org/ are not avaible, because some authors stop updating it to new gnome-shell versions, so by default you even aren't avaible to view this outdated extensions. To make them visible you need to set "Compatible with" to "All versions" in gnome-extension.org.

So when you found extension that you would like to install, look at your browser url-bar and remember extension number

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/[color=red]<number>[/color]/<name>/

Then substitute this number in this url

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension-info/?pk=[color=red]NUMBER[/color]

and press return.

Find out what is the latest version supported (3.16 in my case) and add it to this url

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension-info/?pk=[color=red]NUMBER[/color]&shell_version=[color=red]VERSION[/color]

 

[Deleted member 48958]

Search for "download_url" and add it to "https://extensions.gnome.org/"

https://extensions.gnome.org/[color=green]download-extension/...[/color]

When download will be completed, extract <extension>.zip archive and edit metadata.json.

Change shell-version to your gnome-shell version and copy uuid,
rename extracted folder to uuid

and move it to

~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions

Restart gnome-shell and enable new extension via gnome-tweak-tool.

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To change gnome-shell extensions position on top panel, you need to edit "extension.js" of extension, which position you would like to change. Open

~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/

find extension folder and open "extension.js".

In most cases you need to find the line

Main.panel.addToStatusArea("<name>", name, 0, "center");

or sometimes search for something like this

Main.panel._rightBox.insert_child_at_index(<name>, 5, 'right')

To change extension position, you need to edit "<number>, "right/left/center"" part.
For example, I want to change "Clipboard Indicator" extension icon position to left, my "Main.panel.addToStatusArea" line in ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/clipboard-indicator@tudmotu.com/extension.js will look like this

Main.panel.addToStatusArea('clipboardIndicator', clipboardIndicator, 1, 'left');

"1" — is a ordinal number of extension, sometimes you need to play with it a little to get the right position.