Gnome goodies: common keyboard shortcut. Remembering state of num lock.

If you have been using linux and there is a key on your keyboard with windows logo, it is known as Super key. This super key will be widely used in gnome 3. Today, we will learn some of the commonly used keyboard shortcut. You can also find other keyboard shortcut in gnome-control-center keyboard shortcut.

Keyboard Shortcut	Description
Super+Up	Maximize window
Super+Down	Unmaximaze window
Super+Left Arrow	Fill half to the left side of the screen
Super+Right Arrow	Fill half to the right side of the screen
Super+click then move	Move window anywhere on screen
Super+m	To bring up a message tray at the bottom of the screen.
alt+tab	switch between applications
alt+`	switch through window of current applications.
super	bring up a new apperance known as activities overview
drag application to dash	this is to add an application which you used often to the dash so you can easily accessed.
drop application to grid	remove application from dash by dragging from dash and then drop into the grid
ctrl+alt+up arrow	switch to the workspace above
type in a file window	To quickly search for file in the file windows.
alt+PrintScn	take a screenshot of the current window only.
shift+PrintScn	select a specific area of the screen.

Not sure why each time of operating system reboot, the state of num lock on keyboard get forgotten. This is really quite puzzling considering gnome has been evolve for so many cycle. But that's okay, we will learn to configure gnome so that it will remember the state of num lock between system boot. Let's launch dconf-editor and expand in the tree in such path. org -> gnome -> settings-daemon -> peripherals -> keyboard. Check remember-numlock-state and check the screenshot below.



With this article, I hope you navigate better in gnome-shell environment.

Gnome goodies: How to set gnome-screenshot default saved directory. How to add network speed applet on gnome panel.

This is another gnome3 applet howto blog. The reason pretty much stated in the previous blog. Read it here. So today, we will configured two more applets.

How to set gnome-screenshot default saved directory

When you pressed the 'Print Screen' button on your keyboard, you start to wondering where has the screenshot saved to by gnome-screenshot. The configuration in org.gnome.gnome-screenshot.auto-save-directory in dconf-editor no longer seem to take effect. See the screenshot below. No matter what value you configured, the value just won't take effect if you print screen.



Apparently there is a change in gnome3. Let's see the keyboard shortcuts in gnome-control-center. See screenshot below, apparently all screen shots are saved to Pictures. You can change the shortcut here but can you change where it saved to?



To do that, you need to change the value in a configuration file in $HOME/.config/user-dirs.dirs . Hence, XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures" always point to user home directory and a folder called Pictures. You can change the value in this configuration file or you can change using xdg-user-dirs-update command. I choose the latter.

user@localhost:~$ xdg-user-dirs-update --set PICTURES "$HOME/myScreenShot"

Logout and login again to the gnome environment. Now when you print screen, the screenshot will saved to $HOME/myScreenShot. :-)

 

How to add network speed applet on gnome panel.

For some reason, there is no network applet for gnome3 in debian repository. Not sure what was the reason but hey, we are not going to pursue the why and why not. Rather, I find an alternative gnome3 network applet from ubuntu. There are some network applets and I will list them down unfortunately not all of them work. At least not at the time this blog is written. But I suggest you revisit this network applet, someone nice out there might put efforts to include it into debian repository.

• http://sensors-applet.sourceforge.net/index.php?content=packages
  does not work on gnome version 3.14.0, probably earlier gnome3 release.


• https://launchpad.net/indicator-sysmonitor
  don't actually work on debian sid gnome 3.14.0 but this one really nice, the applet show the statistics on top of the gnome panel.


• https://launchpad.net/indicator-multiload
  this is the network applet that I will demonstrate how to install on debian sid and how to configure it later in this article.


• https://github.com/mgedmin/indicator-netspeed
  this one is good unfortunately it does not have package. That could well means if there next time there is gnome3 upgrade, you could either forget where this source got it from and probably the source not maintain later.

As you can read, there are many network applets listed above and it could be at this point of time, someone else written one for debian too. So choose whichever one suit you best but today, we are going to install the package indicator-multiload from ubuntu repository.

So get the package from the repository and install. You can visit this link. Pick the latest version and at this time of writing, I'm using version 0.5-0~131~31~25~ubuntu14.10.1. To install, run the command $ sudo dpkg -i indicator-multiload_0.5-0~131~31~25~ubuntu14.10.1_amd64.deb . If there is any unsatisfying dependency, you can apt-get install the dependency. My system does not have libappindicator3-1 installed, so I installed using command $ sudo apt-get install libappindicator3-1 . Repeat the same steps for any library that is required by indicator-multiload.

Then launch dconf-editor and go to the entry de->mh21->indicator-multiload->general . If the property autostart is not check, then check it. See screenshot below.



It's such a pity, this applet is not showing on the top gnome panel. Rather, it is hidden under message tray. You can bring up the message tray by pointing mouse cursor on bottom right and click or using keyboard shortcut key super+m. See screenshot below, it show statistics of cpu, mem, net (the one we want in this howto), swap, load and disk.



There is a nice gnome extension known as TopIcons where it will place legacy tray icons on top panel. Unfortunately, it does not work for me. I have download the master version at of this writing, according to description, it mentioned it support gnome version 3.14. I extracted the zip to /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/topicons-master. User logout and login, reboot unfortunately it does not work. If you know how to get it to work, please leave a comment below.

Thank you and that's it. Happy gnome-ing. :)

Gnome goodies: How to sort directory and then file. How to enable weather in the gnome panel

Today we will take a look at two gnome3 applets. I used to have these settings back in gnome and gnome2 and I think this is a very nice goody that should remain in gnome3.

How to sort directory and then file

In gnome3, file and folders are mixed, that's if the folder is sort by modification dates. See example screenshot below.



Well, for personal preference would be, folders are group first and then with normal files. See example screenshot below.



In order to achieve this behaviour, gnome configuration need to be alter. Launch dconf-editor in the command line and navigate in such a fashion. Go to org -> gnome -> nautilus -> preferences . Then check sort-directories-first. See screenshot below. Easy :)



 

How to enable weather in the gnome panel

During gnome2, it is as easy as adding a location and in the drop down of the date/time applet. See screenshot below.



However, thing get changed in gnome3. Date/time applet no longer showing weather information. There is an alternative, gnome-shell-extension-weather package add weather information to the gnome panel. See screenshot below.



To install this extension, it is as easy as apt-get install gnome-shell-extension-weather

To enable gnome-shell-extension-weather in the gnome panel, you need to enable it. To enable, launch gnome-shell-extension-prefs from the command line and then search for OpenWeather and flip the switch to on position. See screenshot below.



Now the weather information should shown in the gnome panel! Start adding more places of interest in the applet! :)

To end this article, try to add places of interest in the weather applet :) I will leave this as an exercise for you.

Set date in gnome3 gnome-shell panel

If you came from gnome2 or before, you can easily alter configuration date and time in the panel. I don't know why the changes in gnome3 make everything so painfully to configure. It supposed to be easy and intuitive and can be achieve in few seconds but this is not the case anymore. Today, we will change the default configuration to something we used to. See screenshot below.



Introducing dconf-editor.

The dconf-editor program provides a graphical interface for editing settings that are stored in the dconf database. The gsettings(1) utility provides similar functionality on the commandline.

So install this package if it is not available. Let's launch the app.

user@localhost:~$ dconf-editor

dconf-editor window popup. On the left tree menu, expand in this succession. org -> gnome -> desktop -> interface . Check the button for the field you would like to enable. In the screenshot below, I have enable my use to desktop setting, show the date and show seconds.



That's it, in the next article, we will probably look into the earth daylight map on the date / time calendar. I like that feature too but somehow it is not available in gnome3.