Get Back Normal Title Bars For Some Gnome Apps in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: September 2, 2014

Gtk3 Apps

In Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 14.10, some Gnome applications use client-side decorations which don’t work properly in the default Unity Desktop.

The applications with client-side decorations look broken in Unity and they are unresizable. Here are some examples:

Gnome Clock in Ubuntu 14.04

The Latest gthumb 3.3.2 (gthumb from Ubuntu repositories is old and does not use CSD)

gtk3-nocsd, a hack by one of the LXDE founders, is a small module used to disable the client side decoration of gtk+ 3. It works on most, but not all CSD applications.

After disabled client side decoration, above applications will look like:

Gnome Clock with CSD disabled (Picture was taken in Gnome-Shell)

gthumb with CSD disabled

How to Install & Use gtk3-nocsd

This module has been made into Webupd8 PPA, available for Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 14.04.

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, paste the commands below and run one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install gtk3-nocsd

To disable client side decoration, for gnome clock as example:

First run command to edit the application shortcut file, .desktop file under /usr/share/applications or .local/share/applications.

gksudo gedit /usr/share/applications/gnome-clocks.desktop

When the file opens, add env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/gtk3-nocsd/gtk3-nocsd.so to the value of Exec as a parameter, so it looks like:

Save the file and done. Note that gtk3-nocsd does not work for gnome-tweak-tool, gnome-music, etc.

via: webupd8

Twitter

I'm a freelance blogger who started using Ubuntu in 2007 and wishes to share my experiences and some useful tips with Ubuntu beginners and lovers. Please comment to let me know if the tutorial is outdated! And, notify me if you find any typo/grammar/language mistakes. English is not my native language. Contact me via ubuntuhandbook1@gmail.com Buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/ubuntuhandbook1 |