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I'm on ub20LTS and I really dislike how much top space the topmost bars use. Any idea on how to remove or reduce their numbers? PIC

Edit: Thanks to everybody's support, thishere is how my workspace looks like now. I've :

  1. Installed gnome-extensions for firefox.
  2. Turned off menu bar in ff.
  3. Installed dash to dock.
  4. Installed hide top bar.

This way you can better utilize your screen space.

Prakhar
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    Ubuntu has both yy release (such as Ubuntu Core 16, Ubuntu Core 20) and yy.mm releases such as Ubuntu 16.04 LTS & Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. They are different products, the yy releases are snap only and LTS isn't usually mentioned as they are supported for 10 years (longer than the LTS of yy.mm releases which need to be extended via ESM). Ubuntu yy releases don't normally have desktops installed, so please clarify your release. You did you tag 20.04 yet mention only yy releases in your question & heading (they are different products) – guiverc Nov 01 '20 at 01:29
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    For Firefox, you can press F11 to go "full-screen" temporarily on times when you need nothing extra besides your web page. Press F11 again to return back to normal. – FedKad Nov 01 '20 at 08:26
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    It looks like this isn't Ubuntu, this is Firefox. How about a better browser? :-) – Gábor Nov 01 '20 at 12:44
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    @Gábor: Gnome desktop is drawing a toolbar of some kind top bar, as well as a taskbar at the bottom. It's not just Firefox's fault. KDE doesn't do that by default; you could just switch to KDE to reclaim that top space for any application. – Peter Cordes Nov 01 '20 at 22:12
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    @Gábor There isn't currently a better browser than Firefox. So that won't work. As for GNOME, this is one of the reasons I'm also so glad I switched to KDE. – Michael Hampton Nov 01 '20 at 23:12
  • You could try a different window manager, one which makes better use of available space. I like i3. I have it configured so that if a program is the only one in a workspace then it doesn't show any window decorations at all. The window manager's status bar is only 22 pixels high, so Firefox gets lots of space. – Aaron F Nov 02 '20 at 11:13
  • @Peter Cordes -- fair enough, I have to admit I switched to KDE the very first day, so I might not be the best judge of Gnome behavior. :-) – Gábor Nov 02 '20 at 12:40
  • @Gábor: Yeah, I put up with Gnome for a while; I think the first release that had a Gnome configured to draw a top bar was what got me to switch to KDE. I wasn't sure if Gnome would be doing that or not so I looked at the image in the question. The more detailed configurability of KDE suits me better. Usually I don't tweak much, but for the occasional thing I want to change, it's nice to be able to, and the overall "power-user" design philosophy works better for me. – Peter Cordes Nov 02 '20 at 12:44
  • It is called the hamburger menu. – john Nov 03 '20 at 15:01
  • @john he's not talking about the hamburger menu, he's talking about the GNOME top panel, the Firefox titlebar and the tab bar. – C26 Nov 03 '20 at 15:32

5 Answers5

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You can turn off the titlebar in Firefox.

  1. Press the Alt key and select View -> Toolbars -> Customize

    enter image description here

  2. Unselect Title Bar at the bottom of the page

    enter image description here

  3. Enjoy no Title Bar

    enter image description here

muru
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Terrance
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    Good answer, this seems to be mostly a Firefox issue - alternatively the OP could use a browser like Vivaldi which doesn't have a titlebar. – C26 Nov 03 '20 at 15:34
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    Chromium, Brave etc. also have this option in their settings. – Tom Nov 03 '20 at 22:24
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    In my configuration, I put the normal icons (back, refresh, print, etc) + URL bar + bookmarks in one row. In the row above it, I have the normal application menu (File, Edit, View, etc) in the "title" bar (which strangely doesn't have a title). I could forgo the latter if I wanted. I did have to fiddle with several configuration items though. – jrw32982 Nov 05 '20 at 18:54
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There are several options.

1) Use the Pixel saver extension.

This extension will remove the legacy titlebar when an application is maximized. This will work nicely for Firefox, Libreoffice and any other application that uses legacy titlebars.

Pixel saver extension

  1. Install the extension with the command sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-pixel.
  2. Enable the extension using Gnome Tweaks or Extensions. Both are not installed by default, but can be installed with the command 1 sudo apt install gnome-tweaksorsudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-prefs`.

2) Hide the top bar

Hide the top bar. Then, only the chrome of your applications will be visible.

Install the extension: sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-autohidetopbar. Enable the extension as outlined under 1).

You can combine this with option 1) to further increase vertical screen real estate.

3) Install Dash to Panel

You currently have launchers on the bottom. The extension Dash to Panel will combine these launchers with the elements of the top bar (application menu, clock, status menu, ...) into one bottom bar.

To install the extension, install gnome-shell-extension-dash-to-panel and enable it as described under 1).

You can go a step further and combine this extension with the "Pixel saver" extension to remove the title bar at the top when the application is full screen.

4) Only for Firefox: disable the titlebar

This removes the titlebar in Firefox only. Head to the menu (☰) and select Customize. In the left bottom corner, turn "Title bar" off.

vanadium
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  • You can also install extensions from extensions website: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/723/pixel-saver/ https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/545/hide-top-bar/ – A.L Nov 02 '20 at 15:40
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    Yes, but where possible, I prefer giving advice on extensions that are bundled in the repository. These are more guaranteed to work with your current Ubuntu version, as they have been packaged and tested for the release, and officially supported in the distribution. – vanadium Nov 02 '20 at 16:50
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There are Gnome Shell Extensions that provide extra functionality. To install Gnome Shell Extensions you will need to enable the Universe repository and you will need to install a few support packages.

First, run the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gnome-shell-extensions gnome-tweak-tool chrome-gnome-shell x11-utils

Then, you will need a firefox add-on to add extra extensions.

Navigate to the Gnome Shell Integration add-on website and install the add-on.

Finally, I haven't tested this particular extension out but I've used a similar extension in the past. The following extension is reportedly working on 20.04. If it doesn't work, you may be able to find a similar extension to do the same thing:

No Title Bar - Forked - Gnome Shell Extension

Also, you might want to search for something like "remove title bar gnome shell extension" if this one doesn't work for you.

After you install your extension, you can enable and manage your extensions through the Gnome Tweak Tool application which can be found in your list of installed packages. It is sometimes simply listed as "tweaks".

mchid
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The big difference is that Ubuntu 16 uses Unity and Ubuntu 20 uses Gnome. You can configure Gnome to look more like Unity, but it's way easier to just use Unity directly:

  • sudo apt update
  • sudo apt install ubuntu-unity-desktop

Video instructions: https://youtu.be/PJTD68gl5e0

Note: This will change your entire desktop environment to be more like Ubuntu 16, not just the menu bar in Firefox, but it'll fix that too :).

Jim Fisk
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I think Unite shell extension is what you are looking for.

kureta
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