Ubuntu – How to resize the Unity launcher

launcherunity

I want to resize the Unity launcher. Is that possible?

Best Answer

12.04 and later - Unity (3D)

The launcher icon size can be changed from a new option in System Settings - Appearance

enter image description here

You'll see a slide bar which allows you to change the launcher size.

Drag left to shrink

Drag right to expand

For 11.10:

Unfortunately this part of Unity is not customizable in Ubuntu 11.10, it is possible by editing the source in 12.04.

Ubuntu – Adding the launcher to the Unity Launcher automatically. How

I actually made a script for that. It places the icon down in the launcher, but with a minor change, you can put it at the top (or any other position) as well.

As it is, it is in python2, but simply change the shebang to #!/usr/bin/env python3 if you'd like to use it as python3. The code is identical.

To use it, the .desktop file needs to be in either /usr/share/applications or in ~/.local/share/applications, but usually that is the case.

How to use

copy the script below, save it as launcher_add.py
make it executable

Run it by the command:

/path/to/launcher_add.py name_of_desktopfile.desktop

you have to use the filename of the .desktop file, without the path.

The script

#!/usr/bin/env python

import subprocess
import sys

desktopfile = sys.argv[1]

def current_launcher():
    get_current = subprocess.check_output(["gsettings", "get", "com.canonical.Unity.Launcher", "favorites"]).decode("utf-8")
    return eval(get_current)

def add_new(desktopfile):
    curr_launcher = current_launcher()
    last = [i for i, x in enumerate(curr_launcher) if x.startswith("application://")][-1]
    new_icon = "application://"+desktopfile
    if not new_icon in curr_launcher:
        curr_launcher.insert(last, new_icon)
        subprocess.Popen(["gsettings", "set", "com.canonical.Unity.Launcher","favorites",str(curr_launcher)])
    else:
        pass

add_new(desktopfile)

The script prevents multiple occasions in the launcher list of the same application, which would cause corruption of he list.