Dash to Panel is a fairly new GNOME Shell extension that moves the dash into the top bar, to achieve a single panel (combined app launchers and system tray) design similar to that of KDE Plasma or Windows 7+.
The extension provides numerous features, including the ability to move the panel to the top or bottom, change the panel size, live window previews, and more.
Since this extension doesn’t create a new panel but instead, it modifies the GNOME Shell Top Bar, it’s compatible with other extensions that change the Top Bar look or behavior. So for instance, while Dash to Panel doesn’t support autohide, you can use the Hide Top Bar extension for this.
Dash to Panel features:
- move the Application Dash from the Overview into the main panel (top bar);
- set the panel position to the top or bottom;
- change the panel size;
- change the running indicator (dots) position to the top or bottom;
- set the clock location;
- the “Show applications” icon can be hidden and its animation can be disabled;
- displays window previews on hover (optional, enabled by default);
- option to isolate workspaces (only shows an app icon if it’s on the active workspace, unless it’s a favorite application);
- configurable click actions (including shift+click, middle+click and shift+middle+click);
- customize the panel appearance, like the app icon margin, tray font size, icons padding, etc.
Note that while Dash to Panel integrates the system tray into the panel, that’s not the case for the legacy tray. Legacy tray icons continue to be displayed as a drawer in the bottom left corner of the screen (above Dash to Panel, if it’s set to be displayed at the bottom).
Here are some screenshots showing Dash to Panel (and its settings) running in Ubuntu 16.10 with GNOME Shell 3.20:
The application menu that’s usually displayed on the GNOME Shell Top Bar is no longer displayed when using Dash to Panel.
To get access to this menu, it’s recommended you disable displaying the applications menu in GNOME Tweak Tool (set Top Bar > Show Application Menu to OFF) so the menu is displayed as a button in the top left window corner:
A bug report regarding this was submitted to GitHub, and it looks like a way to integrate the GNOME AppMenu with Dash to Panel might be available in the future.
Another feature that’s not available in Dash to Panel is multi-monitor support. This was already implemented, but has not been merged so far.
I should also mention that using this extension on my pretty old laptop (Intel graphics) results in severe lag when accessing the activities/applications. However, this issue does not occur after disabling the “Animate Show Applications” feature from the Dash to Panel settings (Behavior tab). A bug report regarding this has already been submitted.
Install Dash to Panel
Dash to Panel should work with GNOME 3.18+ and it can be installed by using the GNOME Shell Extensions website.
Tip: see how to get Chrome to support installing GNOME Shell Extensions from extensions.gnome.org, HERE.
For more information, source code, bug reports, etc., see the Dash to Panel extension GitHub page.
via WOGUE @ Google+
Originally published at WebUpd8: Daily Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.
