[18.04] Unity vs Gnome 3 - Vertical space

[alainb06]

Yes Monkeybrain20122, that is possibly the simplest.

I've tried it, it looks fine, although applications like VLC are not localised... weird but possibly not related to Unity.

I always dual boot LTS N-1 / LTS N, and always wait some time to make LTS N my main.

[kerry_s]

i use unite extension to get everything back to the top.
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1287/unite/
Screenshot from 2018-05-01 09-34-46.jpg

[monkeybrain20122]

Yes Monkeybrain20122, that is possibly the simplest.

I've tried it, it looks fine, although applications like VLC are not localised... weird but possibly not related to Unity.

I always dual boot LTS N-1 / LTS N, and always wait some time to make LTS N my main.

That is probably because you install vlc from the software center, it is a snap package. To get the 'normal' (apt) package either use the command

sudo apt install vlc

or use synaptic.

The software center appears to have the policy of pushing snap packages also it listings are very small comparing to what you would find in synaptic.

[alainb06]

Thanks Kerry.

But in fact you don't (get everything back to the top)!

That has been establish on the French thread.

Unite work only for "Title bar", not for the "menus"!.. So it solves half the issue.

It happens, as I said in my first post, that Firefox already ditched the menus (they are counter intuitive) so in your image you show a Firefox without menu where the title bar has been merged with top panel (what Unite does).

If you where to use any other application, like say simply the Terminal, and have that maximised, you would see "Gnome Terminal" (or whatever) on the top panel, then a bar with the terminal menu: "Terminal / File / Edit / etc..."

What Unity does best is that it completely removes the "Gnome Terminal" label (who need it when it is full screen!) and replace it with the menu in the top panel, so that you save that bar also on top of the title bar.

So yes, Unite is probably nice, it has the positive side to be supported an not experimental (unlike Global App Menu) but solves only half of the issue unfortunately.

... unless you show us with a screenshot of a full screen terminal with terminal's menu on the top panel that we were wrong... but indeed there is absolutely no mention in the page of this extension that it does anything with menus!

[alainb06]

That is probably because you install vlc from the software center, it is a snap package. To get the 'normal' (apt) package either use the command

Wow, thanks a lot for that!

I usually do

sudo apt-get install whatever

because I find it quicker than playing with the mouse and trying to figure where to click... and the terminal is anyway one of the first thing I open in a session.

But true this time I tried the Software Center... in 14.04, Software Center was desperately slow, it improved a bit in 16.04 and wanted to test that in 18.04

But I'll unsintall it the same way and do the command line method again. I would have found that in the end, but you saved me probably several hours searching why.

Thanks again!

[kerry_s]

yeah, i don't have menu enabled in terminal preferences.
Screenshot from 2018-05-01 09-55-40.jpg

i forgot to mention, i'm using devilspie2 to do the maximizing of the apps i want maximized.
here's what unite preferences looks like:
Screenshot from 2018-05-01 09-59-58.jpg

[alainb06]

Yes Kerry!

You are sort of "cheating". Indeed you noticed that vertical space is a scarce resource, and same as Cruzer001 at post #4 (https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread....4#post13761934) you removed menus one by one when the application allows it.

Sure that works too, but as I said, I'd prefer a "global" solution rather than doing that for each and every application... when it is ever possible!

Also you get to loose the menu which is still useful (true that I almost never use it with the terminal since I know my keyboard shortcuts) and get instead the window title which is sort of useless here!

But Unite would be my second solution if "the community" falls too much behind supporting Unity 7.

[kerry_s]

i have seen an extension that does that, but i don't remember the name & never tested it with unite.

good luck on the hunt.

just for future knowledge: ubuntu-mate has the old netbook type setting in mate tweak for more screen space, if you ever find yourself that way. it has that menu applet your looking for.

[alainb06]

You mean this extension: https://github.com/lestcape/Gnome-Global-AppMenu (the one I am referring to)

The extension (1st line) is poorly named. It does NOT display a "Global Menu" as in "System Wide Menu" like we had in Gnome 2 or any W$ release. This is a feature I absolutely don't want. The "Global Menu" (top left button) in Mate is that. A copy of the W$ Seven "Start" menu.

So yes, Mate shows in the "flavours" gallery an image with Mutiny and some other components like a dock that makes it look like Unity... but then goes in the wrong direction displaying that "Global/Sytem Menu" à la Gnome 2/W$

Mate + Mutiny + Dock indeed does the job of pulling the menu of an app in the top panel, but:
- it does also keep the window title in front of the menu which looks weird and completely wrong
- it has this "Global/System menu" that I profoundly dislike (I would prefer to use Gnome Shell with Activities and global natural search).

But true, that does "sort of" do the job, and is probably amongst the acceptable solutions!

[kerry_s]

in mate there applets, so you can move/remove as you please to get that look your after.

i'm sure what you want can be done in gnome-shell, it's just nobody has done it or wants to do it enough to create an extension.
maybe a polite request to the unite extension developer to add that feature?