Upgrading to GNOME 3.20 from 3.18

Every 6 months the GNOME team releases a new version of the Desktop. Running Arch Linux its great to be able to have quick access to the new features quickly. Running near to the bleeding edge always has a few quirks and here are a few I encountered.

Extensions claiming they are not supported

This is a common issue for me on every GNOME upgrade. I discovered this check can quickly be disabled as follows :

$ gsettings set org.gnome.shell disable-extension-version-validation "true"

No Topleft Hot Corner Extension stopped working

One of my ‘must have’ extensions is no topleft hot corner which stopped working. I found that removing the extension from the extensions site and then installing it from the AUR works as its a newer version :

$ packer -S gnome-shell-extension-nohotcorner-git

This installs the extension as follows :

$ ls /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/nohotcorner@azuri.free.fr/
extension.js  metadata.json

Excessive Padding in Applications

The css selectors changed in GNOME 3.20 which means that the padding on titlebars e.g. Firefox and terminal is large. GNOME provides a config file for users to tweak their own environment ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css. I updated mine to :

/* shrink headebars */
headerbar {
    min-height: 0;
    padding-left: 2px; /* same as childrens vertical margins for nicer proportions */
    padding-right: 2px;
    padding-top: 1px;
    padding-bottom: 1px;
}

headerbar entry,
headerbar spinbutton,
headerbar button,
headerbar separator {
    margin-top: 1px; /* same as headerbar side padding for nicer proportions */
    margin-bottom: 1px;
}

 /* shrink ssd titlebars */
.default-decoration {
    min-height: 0; /* let the entry and button drive the titlebar size */ 
    padding-left: 2px; /* same as childrens vertical margins for nicer proportions */
    padding-right: 2px;
    padding-top: 1px;
    padding-bottom: 1px;
}

.default-decoration .titlebutton {
    min-height: 5px; /* tweak these two props to reduce button size */
    min-width: 5px;
}

/* reduce the padding size of buttons */
button, entry {
  min-height: 0;
  min-width: 0;
  padding: 2px;
}

/* reduce the padding of tabs */
notebook tab {
  min-height: 0;
  padding-top: 3px;
  padding-bottom: 3px;
}

/* reduce the padding of buttons */
notebook tab button {
  min-height: 0;
  min-width: 0;
  padding: 2px;
  margin-top: 2px;
  margin-bottom: 2px;
}

notebook button {
  min-height: 0;
  min-width: 0;
  padding: 2px;
}

/* add padding for Vte-terminal */
widget {
    padding: 4px;
}

Restart GNOME shell with Alt + F2 then type ‘r’ which will restart the desktop to ally the changes.