GNOME Desktop top bar - waste of space?


Hi,

I used to be a big fan of GNOME the way it got out of my way when I didn’t need it and no icons in the bottom to take up desktop space. But the top bar just seems so… useless. It holds a few useful icons in the right side (and you can get extensions to add more) but other than this, it’s just taking up space. After a trip past Xfce I’m now on KDE with the bar in the top.

Have I missed anything about the top bar in GNOME Desktop?

in reply to vandsjov

Install an extension to hide it, I just tried this and it works for me: extensions.gnome.org/extension…

You can install extensions by searching for it in the GNOME extensions manager. Once installed, you can edit the settings in the same place (I found I had to move off the window to another application before hiding was applied).

in reply to vandsjov

When I first started using GNOME the top bar was a bit off-putting but I got used to it TBH. It's not something I think about much nowadays.

However, you actually can move it to the side or to the bottom, and/or change it in other ways, with the dash-to-panel extension so definitely check that out if the top bar is bugging you extensions.gnome.org/extension…

This entry was edited (4 days ago)
in reply to vandsjov

One solution is to replace the panel and dock with something like the Dash to Panel extension. It consolidates both into a single bar/dock/panel, is highly configurable and works very well. I wanted to get rid of the top panel for your reason as well as my muscle memory wanting the window controls of maximized windows to be on the top of my screen, not below a what essentially is a menu bar.
in reply to vandsjov

I guess it depends on your use, for me it's sometimes too small. I use it for
- workspaces
- ram + cpu + network speed monitoring
- clipboard manager icon
- music controls
- all background running apps (nextcloud, keepass, ...)

Know that you can make the panel thinner or remove it completely with the extension "Just perfection". I highly recommend it as it does a ton of useful stuff and is always updated on time with new Gnome versions.

I had to use my old .ml account because of the Cloudflare outage. Shame on Dessalines, fascist tankie.

in reply to vandsjov

I just use the "Just perfection" extension to hide to top bar and only make it visible in overview. It may sound annoying to have to use overwiew each time you want to see or interact with the top bar, but honestly for me it's not that often to make that 1 or 2 extra keypresses annoying. When you get used to it it saves a lot of space.
This entry was edited (2 days ago)