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WinEunuuchs2Unix
Asked: 2018-03-19 09:08:46 +0800 CST

Bash one-liner to display ALL `gsettings` in GUI dialog window

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Recently I've been encountering many questions in Ask Ubuntu that require changing gsettings to solve the problem. For example this question: How to prevent shutdown when one of two batteries is empty? references a gsettings that is new to me:

org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power use-time-for-policy false

Rather than stumble across gsettings randomly every week (or so it seems), is there a bash one-liner to dump all the current gsettings to zenity (or yad) so I can scroll through everything?

gnome bash gsettings zenity yad

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Yad works but not Zenity (yet)

    I tried doing this with zenity but couldn't figure it out. I managed to make it work with yad but after a couple of clock days had to turn to google groups to get help from the yad experts. They fixed my one-liner bash code in 12 hours!

    If you don't have yad installed already you need to use:

    sudo apt install yad

    yad lets you sort the list by any column in ascending/descending order. You can grab the scroll bar to quickly move up and down the list. The Up/Down arrow, PgUp, PgDn, Home and End keys navigate as expected.

    The one-liner bash code

    Here's the bash one-liner code you can copy and paste into your terminal window:

    gsettings list-recursively | sed 's/  */\n/;s/  */\n/;s/\&/\&/g' | yad --list --title "gsettings" --item-seperator='\n' --width=1800 --height=800 --wrap-width=600 --column=Group --column=Key --column=Setting --no-markup

    This is for a 1080p display where the screen is 1920 pixels wide. If your screen is smaller, reduce the size of these arguments:

    --width=1800 --height=800 --wrap-width=600

    Sample output

    When the yad scroll box opened I:

    • Clicked on the Group column heading to sort by group. Otherwise the order is random as gsettings list-recursively dumps out the database.
    • Scrolled down org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power section.
    • Noticed a gsettings I've never seen before but might help me solve suspend problems I've encountered (as highlighted in screen shot below)

    yad gsettings.png

    The one-liner pays for itself right away

    Here is the new gsettings I discovered:

    $ gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power lid-close-suspend-with-external-monitor
false

    The gsettings contradicts a systemd setting I have:

    $ cat /etc/systemd/logind.conf | grep -i lidswitchdock | grep -vF "#"
HandleLidSwitchDocked=suspend

    dconf-editor a complete GUI application

    There is also dconf-editor a full blown GUI you can use: What is dconf, what is its function, and how do I use it?

    To summarize the link, install it using:

    sudo apt install dconf-tools

    The whole link is highly recommended reading and it covers gsettings in depth as well.

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