Ubuntu – Where does GNOME 3 store panel orientation

11.10configurationgnome-classicgnome-panel

What file does Gnome3 (without Unity) store the top/bottom panel "orientation" settings in? This sort of thing used to be available in the gconf-editor under apps/panel, but there doesn't seem to be anything about panel orientation there anymore. Where can I find it?

I don't even have a ~/.gconf/apps/panel directory, so I can't reset as described in this other question (probably Gnome2 info). I have ~/.gconf/apps/panel3-applets and ~/.gconf/apps/gnome-settings/gnome-panel, but neither of them has anything about panel orientation (the former just has applet config, as you'd expect; the latter just has a %gconf.xml containing only run history). I even removed my ~/.gconf directory entirely (well, okay, I renamed it) and rebooted, no change. Clearly not stored in there. Nor in ~/.gconfd.

Background: I moved everything to one panel (prefer not having top and bottom), then thought I'd try docking it to the left to see what that was like. What it's like is: Non-functional. When I first log in it shows, but trying to do anything with it makes it disappear. Unfortunately, one of the things that makes it disappear is trying to access the Properties dialog to dock it somewhere else…

Update: Okay, this is just weird. First I looked at all files changed under my home directory at about the time I made the change. No luck. So allowing for some poor programming, I've now looked at the name of every file found by the following command issued from the root of my file system:

find . -mmin -450 -mmin +240 -type f -not \( -wholename "*/home/tjc/.cache*" -o -wholename "*/home/tjc/.thumbnails*" -o -wholename "*/var/lib/dpkg/info*" \) -printf "%TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM:%TS %p \n" | sort > ~/changed

…which did (when I ran it) encompass the relevant timeframe (and quite a bit on either side), and for any file that looked like it could possibly contain this setting, I've opened that file and looked at it. Not a thing.

That leaves us with the absense of a setting defaulting to "dock left," which makes no sense at all.

I took a backup earlier (because I was going to be doing a lot of things to my system, mostly because I've given up on Unity, which is a great idea and may well get there in the end, but is just way too buggy / feature poor for prime time use yet). If I'd realized it was going to be this hard to undo this stoopid little docking setting, I'd've restored that backup 90 minutes ago. Crazy.

Best Answer

Settings for GNOME Panel are stored in dconf, now, and you can access them using dconf-editor under: /org/gnome/gnome-panel.

Stuff in dconf is stored in a binary format, which is why those options didn't show up in a search.

To run dconf-editor:

First install dconf-tools:
- sudo apt-get install dconf-tools or click here (apt://dconf-tools).
Then run dconf-editor.

Screenshot: dconf-editor

How to get back a "GNOME 2 look and feel" in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot

1. Install "GNOME Classic" session

sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

You now get the possibility to choose the "GNOME Classic" session when you log in, but there are some problems with this session:

The top panel's height and its icons are too large
The panel background is inconsistent

GNOME Classic:
orig

With the fixes below:
fixed

After turning sound and bluetooth off and on again:
fixed-compacticons

The fixes also work for the Radiance theme:
fixed-compacticons-radiancetheme

2. Reduce the size of the icons to 16 pixels

This will also reduce the height of the top panel from 30 to 24 pixels.

2a. Create folder for config files:

mkdir ~/.config/gtk-3.0

2b. Create or edit ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini and add this:

[Settings]
gtk-icon-sizes = panel-menu=16,16:gtk-large-toolbar=16,16

3. Fix the panel background

Note: Instead of the following solution, the background can also be fixed by using:
(Win-)Alt-rightclick on panel -> Properties -> Background -> Solid color

3a. Create or edit ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css and add this:

/* Fallback Mode Panel */
/* Fix background color (needed in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot). */
/* Based on /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-3.0/apps/gnome-panel.css. */

PanelWidget,
PanelApplet,
PanelToplevel {
    background-color: @dark_bg_color;
    background-image: none;
}

.gnome-panel-menu-bar,
PanelApplet > GtkMenuBar.menubar,
PanelApplet > GtkMenuBar.menubar.menuitem,
PanelMenuBar.menubar,
PanelMenuBar.menubar.menuitem {
    background-color: @dark_bg_color;
    background-image: none;
}

PanelAppletFrame {
    background-color: @dark_bg_color;
    background-image: none;
}

At this point, you should log out and in again using the "GNOME Classic" session in order to see the changes.

4. Further panel configuration

Use (Win-)Alt-middleclick-drag and (Win-)Alt-rightclick to configure the panel further.

Note that the panel items snap to the left/center/right of the panel, so they might need to be dragged some distance before they move at all.

Launchers can easily be added by dragging items directly from the Applications menu to the panel.

5. Fix icon spacing

There seems to be a bug which causes excessive spacing between the icons in the notification area tray:

fixed

An easy fix is to change the icons back and forth, e.g. muting/unmuting the sound and disabling/enabling bluetooth. This solution is unfortunately only temporary and must be performed again after each login.

fixed-compacticons

Final remarks

Make a note for future reference that you just added two config files in:

~/.config/gtk-3.0/

This is nice to know in case the config files mess things up with later Ubuntu releases and need to be removed again.

Results

Before:

After:

Best Answer

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