alex diavatis | February 23, 2013

How to create custom AppFolders in GNOME Shell 3.8

This post was made with another stylesheet and it might be messed up!

gnome-shellThis is a bit too early and I will probably will re-print this when GNOME 3.8 is out. However it seems many guys and girls are already using the latest GNOME which is great, as I guess they give some feedback.

So in GNOME 3.8 categories were replaced by AppsFolders, and if you aren’t quite satisfied, there is a simple workaround.

Let Categories out!

First I want to say that I am very lucky to be part of  a big (non open) web-project and around 1 month ago we were working towards to remove categories from an application similar to e-bay (smaller though!). Categories can be proven a real disaster specially on systems that 3rd-party people are placing items. But even if we place and categorize the items our-selves it can’t be a perfect categorization and we just have to add more and more categories, even for just one single item.

Of course I am referring to categories that are supposed to help us out in searching and not in discovering (there is a huge difference).  Anyway there are plenty techniques that replace categorization from UI.

However you have to think that the only reason that categories “somehow” works in GNOME is just because there aren’t lots of items. Just install 200-250 Apps and you will find out the real issues with the categories ;)

I don’t want to talk about the problems with categories but I want to extend into a more “controversial” aspect.  In my opinion GNOME at some point should also drop the “Video, Music, Documents, Pictures”  views from their system.

  • Is a Music VideoClip, Music or Video?
  • A WebM images-slideshow is video or pictures?
  • A printed Document is Image or Document?
  • Etc etc

Right now the separation is done by the file-format and not by the meaning/semantics of the files. I think this is a mistake.

Creating AppsFolders

First of, categories haven’t been dropped from GNOME’s infrastructure but just from the Shell UI. That basically means that if you want categories back you will probably get them with some extension. Instead of Categories, in GNOME 3.8 there now are AppsFolders which work better(?) than Categories in usability. Someone let a comment how he can group his “Games”. There you go..

games-AppFolder

All you need to do is to play a bit with dconf-editor.

dconf-editor

What I am doing here is just to add the [games] value to the [app-folders-categories] schema. Don’t be scared to use dconf-editor, there is  a”Set to Default” button in case you messed up with it :)

Of course for every change you make here you can also make the equal with gsettings.

$ gsettings set org.gnome.shell app-folder-categories "['Utilities', 'Sundry', 'Games' ]"

Furthermore, you can create as many cutom Categories/AppsFolders as you wish with Alacarte. I will add this in a next post, I haven’t tried it :)

Creating AppsFolders 2

In the next GNOME (3.10) application groups will be customizable from inside the Shell. That was the initial design, but the UI changes weren’t ready yet.

overview-app-picker-all-inside-group

We will be able to customize the AppsGroups from the button on the Right Bottom Corner. The only way for Categories / AppsForlders to work, is to drop items there ourselves, the same way we do with our Files. The old, good (dirty?), classic way and GNOME will let us to do so ;)

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  • TehJack

    So in 3.8 there will be no categories (Internet, Games, Office, etc.) and there will be no way to create folders via UI?

    • alex285

      In an absolute answer that is correct. But we need to wait for Alacarte and Tweak Tool, maybe they implement something there. However if you don’t want to use dconf, I guess you can bring the categories back with some extension.

    • Ian Brunelli

      To create you can drag a icon into another, and to name these folders you can use dconf-editor (an UI for dconf) or wait for someone to make an extension…

      • alex285

        huh? I lost you, what do you mean? > To create you can drag a icon into another

        • Ian Brunelli

          This isn’t the default way to create folders? I read someone saying this (I thought it was you on the post showing the new interface). Sorry…

          • alex285

            No that doesn’t wok (at least for now). I rebooted to my 3.8 just to see what you were saying. I was like, “how I missed that?” ;)

          • Ian Brunelli

            LOL
            They really should implement this :)

          • sramkrishna

            I agree. It’s not done yet, but right now I think they were going to use alacarte as a stopgap till they can get that worked out.

      • Jonthue Michel

        I am having a problem because I try to drag an icon to another and its not doing it.

    • JJ

      The plan is to create the appfolders from within the ‘Software’. That app is not yet ready

  • Serge Wagner

    you seem to know quite well the “inside” of gnome-shell 3.7.90

    Can you explain to me,why it’s impossible to get more than 6 icons in a row and to minimize the space between app icons?
    Till 3.7.5 it was very easy by editing gnome-shell.css

    I’ve got actually that problem with my gnome-shell theme (http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Darkair+for+gnome-shell+3.6%2B3.7+(3.7.90)?content=156215) – that , for the rest is now 3.7.90 compatible

    But if you use a 1920×1080 resolution (or even a 1366×768), you are just wasting a lot of space

    I really would appreciate any kind of help

    • alex285

      @google-464941de4f96da67448ac9375f7b12fc:disqus I am sure you know more than I do. But to change the item numbers displayed per row you have to change the MAX_COLUMNS = 6; in gnome-shell/js/ui/appDisplay.js. I see some people that ship also extensions together with the theme. You can write simple extensions that just override default values of shell.

      For Search you can change the #searchResultsBin value. I think you need to ask on shell mailing lists.

  • Serge Wagner
  • http://twitter.com/JaminSamuel Jamin Fernandez

    Tablets …

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  • Paulo

    Thank you for the tip!
    Do you perhaps know how to go about categories with two words in them?
    Adding System Tools did not work. Tried it with two words, with one word but keeping the capitals, with a dash and an underscore. Is there a particular way to add such categories?