Ubuntu – In Gnome Shell how can I remove activities button keeping the hot corner behaviour

For 11.10

The location of this was changed for 11.04, for 11.04 look below. You can do this with a quick edit of the file /usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/layout.js If you find the code:

this._corner = new Clutter.Rectangle({ name: 'hot-corner',
                                       width: 1,
                                       height: 1,
                                       opacity: 0,
                                       reactive: true });

Change reactive: true to reactive: false and it will disable the hot corner but still allow to activate the overview screen by clicking the Activities button or by pressing the Super (Windows) key.

I'm going to look into making an extension to modify this behaviour instead of direct modification of the panel.js file as it will be overwritten with updates.

For 11.04

Same as above but edit the file /usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/panel.js:

this._corner = new Clutter.Rectangle({ width: 1,
                                       height: 1,
                                       opacity: 0,
                                       reactive: true });

You can use this GNOME extension to change the messaging tray hot corner. But, it also moves the icons to the left side.

• https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/157/left-message-tray/

If you only want to change the hot corner and not the icons, you can use this extension:

• https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/309/hot-corn-dog/

By default, it only changes the hot corner of the overview. You can customize it to only change the hot corner of the messaging tray by following the instructions provided here:

• https://euhiemf.github.io/Hot-Corn-Dog/#customization

To summarize the instructions, open the js file

gedit ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/Hot-Corn-Dog.senatorn@github.com/extension.js

Edit the following line:

const SYSTEM_TRAY_HOT_CORNER = right;

to

const SYSTEM_TRAY_HOT_CORNER = left;