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Asked: 2017-10-31 13:55:37 +0800 CST

How can I script the settings made by gnome-tweak-tool?

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I like to be able to configure things from the command line, so that when I reinstall the OS I can just run a script and get my preferred configuration back.

Since "upgrading" to Ubuntu 17.10, I found I had to use gnome-tweak-tool to get some settings the way I want them.

Once I find a setting in the gnome-tweak-tool GUI, how can I figure out its scriptable translation?

For example the following gsettings lines match the relevant entries in the gnome-tweak-tool screen shot below...

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences titlebar-font "Tahoma Bold 8"
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface font-name "Tahoma 8"
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface document-font-name "Tahoma 8"
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface monospace-font-name "FixedSC 10"

screen shot from gnome-tweak-tool ...but how could anyone guess that? And how would I, for example, figure out where to get the corresponding settings for hinting and antialiasing?

command-line

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Easily find out what is being set

    Instead of searching through a whole directory of options:

    1. Open a terminal window

    2. Run the command:

      dconf watch /

    3. Make your changes and see what the terminal shows:

      enter image description here

      ...and there you are.

    Dconf & gsettings

    In the example, you see the output from dconf. Gsettings is the cli- frontend to dconf. Many times, you can use both a dconf command or a gsettings command. In this case either:

    dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/background/show-desktop-icons false

    or: 

    gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons false

    If the gsettings key exists however, the latter is considered to be better practice, to protect the integrity of your dconf database.

    See also here and here.

    • 36

  2. For most of the settings you can use this approach:

    • Export the list of gsettings into a temporary file:

      gsettings list-recursively > /tmp/gsettings.before

    • Make your changes by gnome-tweak-tool (or unity-control-center);

    • Export the list of gsettings into an another temporary file:

      gsettings list-recursively > /tmp/gsettings.after

    • Compare the two files (.before and .after) and get the differences:

      diff /tmp/gsettings.before /tmp/gsettings.after | grep '[>|<]'

      Or compare and get only the new values (source):

      diff /tmp/gsettings.before /tmp/gsettings.after | grep -Po '> \K.*'

      Or compare and get only the new values, but replace the beginning of the lines with gsettings set to prepare a list of commands, that cold be stored directly within your script file (source):

      diff /tmp/gsettings.before /tmp/gsettings.after | sed 's/>/gsettings set/;tx;d;:x'

    You can run all these commands from one line (or you can create a script to automate the process):

    gsettings list-recursively > /tmp/gsettings.before; gnome-tweak-tool; gsettings list-recursively > /tmp/gsettings.after; diff /tmp/gsettings.before /tmp/gsettings.after | grep '[>|<]'

    The next demo is created within Ubuntu 16.04. I think the approach shall work also within 17.10:

    enter image description here

    Update: I just found an easy way within Ubuntu 17.10:

    enter image description here

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