HOW TO: Display more than 5 bookmarks in gnome-panel "Places" menu

[w0ng]

Derived from:
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/14381/
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=733808

1) Open Terminal

2a) Install apt-build

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apt-build

2b) Configure apt-build:

• Optimization level: Medium
• Add apt-build repository to sources.list: Yes
• Architecture: <SELECT YOUR ARCHITECTURE>

3) Install files required to build gnome-panel from source and download the source

sudo apt-get build-dep gnome-panel
sudo apt-build source gnome-panel

4) Navigate to the downloaded gnome-panel source folder and open the menu items file

cd /var/cache/apt-build/build/gnome-panel-*
sudo gedit gnome-panel/panel-menu-items.c

5) Set the the maximum number of bookmarks to display before placing them in the Bookmarks submenu

Find the line:

if (g_slist_length (add_bookmarks) <= MAX_ITEMS_OR_SUBMENU) { 

and replace it with:

if (g_slist_length (add_bookmarks) <= 20) { 

Save the file.

6) Install the modified gnome-panel and restart it

sudo ./configure
sudo make
sudo make install
killall gnome-panel

Before and after pics:

[schnauzer93]

Instead of changing

 if (g_slist_length (add_bookmarks) <= MAX_ITEMS_OR_SUBMENU) {

you could change

#define MAX_ITEMS_OR_SUBMENU 5

to whatever you want. That way, it would work with volumes, too. Personally, I think this should reside in a configuration file, so one doesn't have to edit the source and recompile to fix such a trivial issue. But that's just me.

[binbash]

Both works fine but i prefer changing MAX_ITEMS_OR_SUBMENU

[w0ng]

If Network Places and Removeable Media aren't a concern, changing MAX_ITEMS_OR_SUBMENU is the way to go.

[nielsrune]

Thank you so much for this.
The five item limit is so annoying. And the last time i tried to compile from source the whole system went wrong.
It seemed like I installed the originale gnome-panel instead of Ubuntu's edit.
Guess it had something to do with the .dsc anf .diff.gz files, but i never figured it out then.
So I was surprised your guide not included these files in any way, but it seemed thorough, so I followed the guide, and it works just fine!

Thanks

[vahnx]

Thanks. I wasn't sure on the archetecture. I know the Q6600 is AMD64 and that didn't appear as an option, so I chose the amd10 (or whatever is was) and it worked.

[juamez.]

If I'd do this, would I lose all customizations made to my panels, like applets (and their settings), custom icons, etc? Or would everything just stay the way it is now, with the larger number of bookmarks and volumes the only change noticable?

[mc4man]

If I'd do this, would I lose all customizations made to my panels, like applets (and their settings), custom icons, etc?

I think you should be ok there, posted a bit more in the nautilus thread

[juamez.]

I followed the instructions from the startpost with the difference that I changed the line in the third step from this:

sudo apt-get build-dep gnome-panel

to this:

sudo aptitude build-dep gnome-panel

... because I would get an error, dependency problems, if I didn't.

That was all I had to change from the instructions, which worked nicely.

I also noticed my launchers and applets and everything is just the way it was, with the exception of more bookmarks and devices visible underneath eachother. Yay!

Conclusion:
1) it works
2) the configuration of the gnome-panel is completely kept and reused

[loomsen]

sudo ./configure
sudo make

moooep!

OUCH!
You shouldn't, you really shound NOT build packages as root. Most probably you'll run into segmentation faults, wondering why, cause a Seg Fault only tells you it just seg faulted.

Regressions based upon these commands are very likely.