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jayb151
Asked: 2013-09-08 13:53:51 +0800 CST

Increase Panel size

  • 772

I'm wondering if there is a way to increase the Panel size at the top of the screen. I installed 12.04 on my home theater PC, but the mouse isn't as precise as on my laptop.

I want to make it easier to use the Panel and easier to click the Minimize and Close buttons. I'm using Unity, but I'm not super adverse to switching UIs.

unity

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    As far as I know... to change the size of the Panel in Unity you should edit the Source Code.

    NOTE: In this example I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity 5.20.0

    Download & Edit Unity Source Code.

    1) Make sure you have enable the Source code repository

    • Open Ubuntu Software Center.
    • In the Menu Bar choose Edit -> Software Sources. Click to enable "Source code repository".
    • Just in case I use the "Main Server" to Download.

    enter image description here

    2) Open a Terminal and install the necessary packages.

    • sudo apt-get install build-essential

    3) Install build dependencies.

    • sudo apt-get build-dep unity

    4) Create a folder to download the source code.

    • mkdir ~/Downloads/src

    • cd ~/Downloads/src

    5) Download the source code.

    • apt-get source unity

    6) Edit the the files "PanelStyle.cpp" & "PanelIndicatorEntryView.cpp"

    • gedit unity-5.20.0/plugins/unityshell/src/PanelStyle.cpp

    Search for the line "63" and change it.
    eg:(In my case I changed it from 24 to 42)

    enter image description here

    Before:

    : panel_height(24)

    After:

    : panel_height(42)

    • gedit unity-5.20.0/plugins/unityshell/src/PanelIndicatorEntryView.cpp

    Search for the lines "208" & "215" and change them.
    eg: (In my case I changed them from 22 to 24)

    enter image description here

    Before:

    pixbuf = gtk_icon_theme_load_icon(theme, proxy_->image_data().c_str(), 22,

GtkIconInfo* info = gtk_icon_theme_lookup_by_gicon(theme, icon, 22,

    After:

    pixbuf = gtk_icon_theme_load_icon(theme, proxy_->image_data().c_str(), 24,

GtkIconInfo* info = gtk_icon_theme_lookup_by_gicon(theme, icon, 24,

    7) Go to the "unity-5.20.0" folder to build the deb packages.

    • cd unity-5.20.0/
    • dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b

    8) Now you can install the deb packages.

    • cd ..

    • sudo dpkg -i *deb

    9) increase the font size from 11 to 12.

    • gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface font-name 'Ubuntu 12'

    10) Finally you can logout and Login or Restart to see the changes.

    Before:

    enter image description here

    After:

    enter image description here

    enter image description here

    Hope it helps.

    • 3

  2. Now with the correct answer I would like to complement this tutorial.
    To achieve this effect in Unity 7.1.2 the process is much simpler

    Open and edit with gedit the file 

    ~/Downloads/src/unity-7.1.2+14.04.20140303/unity-shared/PanelStyle.cpp

    Look for the section below:

    40 Style* style_instance = nullptr;
41
42 DECLARE_LOGGER(logger, "unity.panel.style");
43 const int BUTTONS_SIZE = 16;
44 const int BUTTONS_PADDING = 1;
45 const int BASE_PANEL_HEIGHT = 22;

    Change the value of BASE_PANEL_HEIGHT to greater or lesser according to your preference

    • 2