{"id":715,"date":"2010-10-24T09:40:40","date_gmt":"2010-10-24T16:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/?p=715"},"modified":"2015-04-26T20:53:08","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T03:53:08","slug":"optimizing-gnome-screen-real-estate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/optimizing-gnome-screen-real-estate\/","title":{"rendered":"Optimizing GNOME Screen Real Estate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Small screens suck. Even worse,<em> once you get used to a high resolution screen, having to use anything smaller is torture. <\/em>I find this to be true for desktop moniors, laptop screens, and even phones now (I don&#8217;t watch or own a TV, but I&#8217;m sure it applies there also).<\/p>\n<p>Having wide-screen is\u00a0certainly\u00a0nice, but please, don&#8217;t take away my\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.len.ro\/2010\/10\/why-am-i-loosing-screen-height-on-each-new-laptop\/\" target=\"_blank\">vertical space<\/a>, to get it!\u00a0I spent top dollar on my laptop (back in the day) to get a higher resolution than 1280&#215;800, the gold standard for 15 inch screens at the time. I searched for a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newegg.com\/Product\/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220199\" target=\"_blank\">laptop<\/a> with a 14-inch screen at 1440&#215;900 resolution, because it seemed like a decent balance of inches and pixel density and price.<\/p>\n<p>As time passes tough, and when going back and forth from my desktop to laptop, <em>I ever yearn for a higher resolution screen on my laptop.<\/em> Since the physical display hardware is fixed, the only thing left to change is software display settings for getting more screen space.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some tricks in Ubuntu I use to get the most out of my laptop&#8217;s small screen, especially after a <a href=\"http:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/yet-another-fresh-ubuntu-install-setup-script\/\" target=\"_blank\">fresh install<\/a>. Actually, I do all tweaks these for my desktop monitor too, because I like the\u00a0minimalism, but the space saving is more\u00a0noticeable\u00a0on smaller sized screens.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Remove the bottom GNOME panel<\/strong>. The only useful stuff it contains are the Window List and Workspace Switcher applets, just move them to the top panel. This saves quite a bit of room, and it&#8217;s nice to have everything together at the top.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Use smaller font sizes. <\/strong>The default fonts are huge (10+ pt). I usually lower each one down to about 7+ pt.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Change the size of the GNOME panel.<\/strong> The panel properties allow for adjusting the height in pixels. The default is 24, just lower that until you reach the minimum allowed size, which depends on font size.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Set the GNOME panel to auto-hide.<\/strong> This slides the panel on and off the screen as needed. Sometimes gets annoying to me, but you gain back as many vertical pixels as the panel is set to.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Install GNOME Color Chooser. <\/strong>This is a recent random discovery of mine, and is actually what prompted me to write this post. This\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/sourceforge.net\/projects\/gnomecc\/\" target=\"_blank\">hidden gem<\/a> enables access to tons of core GNOME desktop settings, and is not limited to color. Simply open the program, and at the bottom, there will be a Profile selection drop down menu. Select the profile\u00a0<em>compact<\/em>, hit Apply, then Close. This\u00a0tightens up the padding around buttons, text, and icons in GNOME menus and dialog boxes. Finer tuning can be done with the rest of the options in GNOME Color Chooser, but using the Compact profile is the easiest start.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lower the Dots Per Inch (DPI). <\/strong>The default is 96 dpi, and lowering this number makes everything smaller, but at the cost of quality. Usually lowering to ~92 dpi is a good balance of more space and lesser quality. I usually do this as a last resort.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_736\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-736\" style=\"width: 257px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/before-e1287925926662.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"736\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/optimizing-gnome-screen-real-estate\/before\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/before-e1287925926662.jpg?fit=267%2C417&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"267,417\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"gnome-before\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;GNOME Color Chooser | Before&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/before-e1287925926662.jpg?fit=267%2C417&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"size-full wp-image-736 \" title=\"gnome-before\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/before-e1287925926662.jpg?resize=267%2C417\" alt=\"GNOME Color Chooser | Before\" width=\"267\" height=\"417\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-736\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">GNOME Color Chooser | Before<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_737\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-737\" style=\"width: 245px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/after-e1287925887354.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"737\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/optimizing-gnome-screen-real-estate\/after\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/after-e1287925887354.jpg?fit=255%2C355&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"255,355\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"gnome-after\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;GNOME Color Chooser | After&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/after-e1287925887354.jpg?fit=255%2C355&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"size-full wp-image-737 \" title=\"gnome-after\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/after-e1287925887354.jpg?resize=255%2C355\" alt=\"GNOME Color Chooser | After\" width=\"255\" height=\"355\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-737\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">GNOME Color Chooser | After<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Above is the result of\u00a0changing\u00a0only the <em>font size <\/em>to<em> 8<\/em> and using the <em>Compact <\/em>gnome-color-chooser <em>profile.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ah, now you have a bit more room on a small display! Hope you found this useful! Got any tips to add?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Small screens suck. Even worse, once you get used to a high resolution screen, having to use anything smaller is torture. I find this to be true for desktop moniors, laptop screens, and even phones now (I don&#8217;t watch or own a TV, but I&#8217;m sure it applies there also). Having wide-screen is\u00a0certainly\u00a0nice, but please, &#8230; <a title=\"Optimizing GNOME Screen Real Estate\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/optimizing-gnome-screen-real-estate\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Optimizing GNOME Screen Real Estate\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[218,129,205,127],"class_list":["post-715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gnome","tag-linux","tag-resolution","tag-ubuntu"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pZdXI-bx","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1101,"url":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/1366x768-sucks\/","url_meta":{"origin":715,"position":0},"title":"Stupid 1366&#215;768","author":"mcclanahoochie","date":"March 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, it seems laptop LCDs are all going from 16:10 aspect ratio to 16:9, to match the HDTV standard format.\u00a0The most popular 16:9 HD resolution, 1366 x 768, has taken over the laptop market and taken away precious vertical space on almost every new laptop LCD screen!\u00a0I'm sure 16:9 is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"laptop\"","block_context":{"text":"laptop","link":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/tag\/laptop\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2762,"url":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/2012\/12\/yet-another-hackintosh-build\/","url_meta":{"origin":715,"position":1},"title":"Yet Another Hackintosh Build","author":"mcclanahoochie","date":"December 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A Christmas present to myself this year: rebuild my desktop into a Hackintosh... Ever since I gave into Lightroom and started using my macbook for photo editing, I had been missing my desktop's larger monitor and faster processor. Since I can't run Lightroom on Linux, and since I can't stand\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"computer\"","block_context":{"text":"computer","link":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/tag\/computer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/-kR2Wra3-Bo4\/UNe23Cvps7I\/AAAAAAAANVQ\/DnXLnhUByCc\/s462\/20121223_110236_HDR.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":201,"url":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/droid-1-vs-droid-x\/","url_meta":{"origin":715,"position":2},"title":"Droid 1 vs. Droid X | First Impressions","author":"mcclanahoochie","date":"July 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I just upgraded from the original Droid to the Droid X. Since PCWorld's\u00a0article comparing the original Droid and the new Droid X is just sad, I decided to do my own comparison. I'll do my best to list some first impressions, and highlight the key differences between the phones, based\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"android\"","block_context":{"text":"android","link":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/tag\/android\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/home1b-300x257.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1783,"url":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/modified-build-prop-lcd-density-fi\/","url_meta":{"origin":715,"position":3},"title":"Fix Android Market Update Issues [build.prop]","author":"mcclanahoochie","date":"September 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I have been using a custom build.prop file for a while now on my Droid X. There are several benefits [example] for doing so; the main one for me is a higher virtual screen resolution,\u00a0also known as \"LCD density\". This can be done via various methods, including programs such as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"android\"","block_context":{"text":"android","link":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/tag\/android\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Lock Screen: density 240","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/d240b-168x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1678,"url":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/remapping-macbook-pro-keys-for-emacs\/","url_meta":{"origin":715,"position":4},"title":"Remapping Macbook Pro Keys for Emacs Use","author":"mcclanahoochie","date":"August 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Background: I recently took the $$$ plunge and got a fancy new 15\" Macbook Pro to replace my 5-year old ASUS laptop. Though I'm not too fond of Apple's business model, I just couldn't seem to find (hardware wise) a more quality built and ascetically pleasing laptop than a Macbook\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"emacs\"","block_context":{"text":"emacs","link":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/tag\/emacs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/DSC_1579_L2-200x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1153,"url":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/computer-vision-on-android-opencv\/","url_meta":{"origin":715,"position":5},"title":"Computer Vision on Android with OpenCV","author":"mcclanahoochie","date":"April 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"March 2011 With the help of Motodev Studio for Android, I've\u00a0extracted\u00a0the\u00a0android-opencv JNI\u00a0camera example and spawned a fork of my original computer vision app,\u00a0Viewer, to an OpenCV version: ViewerCV. Both are\u00a0available on Git Hub\u00a0as open source software example of doing Computer Vision on Android with OpenCV. Viewer Features: *FAST Features (default\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"android\"","block_context":{"text":"android","link":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/tag\/android\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/viewercv1.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcclanahoochie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}