Tell me more ×
Ask Ubuntu is a question and answer site for Ubuntu users and developers. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 5 down vote favorite
2

Is there any setting/plugin/hack/workaround that will allow me to run Ubuntu with the Gnome 3.x/Gnome Shell desktop while retaining a 2x2 or n x m workspace grid instead of the default Gnome one-dimensional line-up of workspaces?

share|improve this question

4 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

There is now the plugin Workspace Grid, which seems to do the job.

enter image description here

share|improve this answer
Workspace grid does not work for 3.6.2. – fakedrake Mar 27 at 12:42
It's since been updated, and works fine on 3.6.3 here. – supervacuo May 9 at 10:23
up vote 4 down vote

I was actually looking at this today, and the short answer is no. A hacky workaround is to have a gnome-panel running, with the workspace-switcher applet on it. This applet provides a setting for number of rows of workspaces, so you can create a grid layout.

I used to have a hack that was a daemon running in the background, which would handle this for me, so I wouldn't need the workspace switcher applet. It doesn't work any more though. However, I'll be rewriting it soon, so that it works again with GNOME 3.x, and using dconf/gsettings. It will only be configurable from editing the settings directly using the gsettings command line tool, or dconf-editor, though.

share|improve this answer
up vote 3 down vote

With a combination of two extensions, it is possible. The downside is that you will have a bottom bar.

My blog post explains various ways on how to do this. Here is the cleanest way of doing so:

Open, and edit ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/Bottom_Panel@rmy.pobox.com/stylesheet.css on line 6, change the height to 0px.

Credit goes to Brian McSweeney.

Hope that helps!

share|improve this answer
1  
Nice! You can hide the bottom panel by editing ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/Bottom_Panel@rmy.pobox.com/extension.js. There, replace lines 787 and 788 with this.actor.set_position(primary.x,-h); and this.actor.set_size(primary.width,h);, respectively. – Rasmus Jul 2 '12 at 18:33
Sweet! I tried looking at the code myself at first, but was overwhelmed, but this is incredible! Thanks for sharing. – whirlwin Jul 2 '12 at 21:13
Could you add the basics of the answer in the answer, instead of just the link? – Nanne Oct 30 '12 at 10:10
@Nanne I've added the how-to. – whirlwin Oct 30 '12 at 10:20
up vote 2 down vote

You can get a 1X1 workspace grid using the new WorkspaceBar extension I wrote. I will look into adding a 2X2 option if people want it. It would be small little buttons to fit on the panel.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.