How can I remove “Show Desktop” from the Alt-Tab (application) switcher?

Question

Is it possible to remove "Show Desktop" from the Alt+Tab application switcher?

Answer 1

It can be done!

I've uploaded a Unity build for 12.04 that fixes this (no Show Desktop in the Alt-Tab switcher).

• To install, open a terminal and:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:izx/askubuntu -y
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unity

• You can enable the "Show Desktop Icon" setting in the Unity Plugin in Compiz (using ccsm) to get the icon on the Launcher on the left:

  

• If/when a new Unity update is released, Update Manager will download it automatically. I will try to "fix" the update and put it in the PPA as soon as possible; please add a comment to this answer to alert me if you upgrade and "Show Desktop" re-appears in the Switcher!

How did you do it?

I modified the Unity Source. It consists of two steps:

1. Comment out line 900 in plugins/unityshell/src/LauncherController.cpp, which by default adds the "Show Desktop" icon to the switcher:

// results.push_back(pimpl->desktop_icon_);

1. Change line 1638 in plugins/unityshell/src/unityshell.cpp from:

     if (!(results.size() == 1 && results[0]->GetIconType() == AbstractLauncherIcon::IconType::TYPE_DESKTOP))

   to

     if (!results.size() == 0))

   • While the list of Alt-Tab switcher icons was at least 1 before (the show-desktop icon), now it is 0 and we need to modify this to show the switcher only when there is at least one item in the list (i.e. at least one app running).

Answer 2

13.04

For 13.04, to enable or disable the "Show desktop" option in application switcher you can use unity-tweak-tool

12.10

For 12.10, a new setting has been added to CCSM to enable or disable the "Show desktop" option in application switcher.

Run this command in a terminal to install CCSM:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Now open CCSM and go to Ubuntu Unity plugin.

Switch to Switcher tab. Then tick the check box next to Disable Show Desktop in the switcher option.

Answer 3

One option could be to revert back to the behavior of Alt+Tab prior to 11.10.

I realize that this is a bit drastic, but it might be better than nothing.

Answer 4

So, I'm not sure if this is of any help to you, however while using Unity 2D, sick of not having graphics drivers I dived into gnome fall-back. Then unsatisfied, I left back to the Unity interface. I no longer have the displayed "Show Desktop" in the ALT+TAB application switcher. I believe this to be a side effect of the Gnome interface having it set in the lower left hand corner, and when I switched back, I no longer had it. Seemed to work for me... worth a shot.