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In Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 it was possible to do a lot of tweaking on gnome-shell through the .js files. These files appear to have been wrapped up since Gnome 3.12, as explained here:

Keeping gnome shell approachable

A more recent post details the updated procedure to extract the .js files and test the modifications:

How do I extract shell

However, these posts do not explain how to make the changes permanent.

I tried to recompile the original file using the command glib-compile-resources resources.gresource.xml but managed only to break gnome-shell.

boba
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1 Answers1

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Unfortunately, there is no middle way to permanently implement modifications made on the JavaScript files and it is necessary to build the whole gnome-shell package again, as explained in this thread:

Gnome-shell list 2016 October

Or wait for an extension to make tweaking of the application overview easy.

NOTE: It is possible to make some tweaking without re-compiling gnome-shell, by editing /usr/lib/gnome-shell/libgnome-shell.so in a hex editor. For instance, you can change the number of columns and/or rows in the application overview by doing the following:

  • Make a backup of libgnome-shell.so in case something goes wrong.

  • Open libgnome-shell.so with an hex editor (I used Bless) and search for MAX_COLUMNS = 6 as text.

  • Replace 6 with ascii value of the number of columns that you want. If you want a 2-digit value, you will need to delete the space between the = equal sign and the original 6, like in MAX_COLUMNS =10.

  • You can do the same for the number of rows by changing MIN_ROWS, and for the icon size by changing ICON_SIZE (search for const ICON_SIZE).

  • Save and replace libgnome-shell.so.

  • Restart gnome-shell (press Alt+F2 and in the popup enter 'r' or 'restart' and press enter).

Many thanks to VoOoLoX for suggesting this procedure in a related post.

boba
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