Change the window title buttons

The window title default buttons layout in GNOME 3 will show only a closing button on the right side. No more minimize, maximize and application menu buttons like in the previous GNOME releases.

The buttons layout on the window title bar can be restored or changed to any wanted combination using a single command inside a terminal window. The syntax for change the buttons layout is:

gconftool-2 --set --type str /desktop/gnome/shell/windows/button_layout "LEFT_SIDE:RIGHT_SIDE"

The LEFT_SIDE refers to the left side of the title bar, while the RIGHT_SIDE will refer to the corresponding opposite right size of the window title bar. At each side can be placed zero or more buttons but a button cannot be repeated more than once.

After executing the required command a GNOME Shell restart is needed. It will be enough to logout the current session and then login again.

The available buttons are:

• menu is the application menu with options to minimize, maximize, move, restore, always on top and workspaces management
• minimize is the button used to minimize the window to icon
• maximize is the button to make the window size at the max available size
• spacer is a dummy button to let a little space between buttons
• close is the X closing button

With that buttons a lot of combinations can be made. Multiple buttons ought be separated with commas.

The default GNOME 3 layout uses only a close button on the right side and no buttons on the left side, so the command to achieve this will be:

gconftool-2 --set --type str /desktop/gnome/shell/windows/button_layout ":close"

To add a minimize button behind the close button we could use:

gconftool-2 --set --type str /desktop/gnome/shell/windows/button_layout ":minimize,close"

A menu button could be added and placed on the left side the following command could be used:

gconftool-2 --set --type str /desktop/gnome/shell/windows/button_layout "menu:close"

To add both minimize and maximize buttons to the previous layout such command will be needed:

gconftool-2 --set --type str /desktop/gnome/shell/windows/button_layout "menu:minimize,maximize,close"

A space could be added as separator between the buttons:

gconftool-2 --set --type str /desktop/gnome/shell/windows/button_layout "menu:minimize,maximize,spacer,close"

Each button can be moved on the other side so here’s the close button on the left side of the title bar:

gconftool-2 --set --type str /desktop/gnome/shell/windows/button_layout "close:"

Obviously in the same way, the others buttons could be added to obtain the desired layout:

gconftool-2 --set --type str /desktop/gnome/shell/windows/button_layout "close:minimize,maximize"

Make sure to restart the GNOME Shell (or restart the current GNOME session) to apply the changes.

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