Anyone know how to get the gnome icon grid icons bigger?

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
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So I am in a bit of a pickle. I have a 25 inch 1440p monitor, and the dpi is juuuuuuuuust high enough to cause me some frustration.

Gnome has decided to lock a lot of the icon sizes down to a max of 128.

The icon grid uses 96 pixels and no more. I can use the theme to make the icons smaller, but if you try to go bigger, nothing happens.

All I need is for Nautilus to go from 128 square pixels to 150-160 and the icon grid to go from 96 to 128. Here is a picture to show you the acres and acres of available UI space that just isn't being used.

icongrid.jpg2048x1152 637 KB

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I think this will help if you haven't tried this already...

To configure the layout of the application icons in the GNOME Shell, you have to modify /usr/share/gnome-shell/theme/gnome-shell.css. Note that the contents of this file may vary as it is dependent on the particular theme that you are using.

3

Already tried.

That approach no longer works for two reasons.

1: That file no longer exists. The theme folder has been moved to usr/share/themes.

2: If you download a custom shell theme and then try to edit it in the icon size, you can only make the icons smaller.

So for instance if I edited that document to say 128 pixels, it would still default to 96. Even if I winged it to 256 pixels, its still 96.

4

LOL Everything is small but the dock.

Have you tried the GNOME Tweak Tool? I believe their is an option for window scaling. I do not know if that would fix the small icons in the activity launcher tho.

If that does not work, you would have to go on a safari thru the source code and manually insert the number you need, then presumably recompile GNOME if they are locking the number via a non-scripting language.

1 Like
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Yeah it sounds more like you want window scaling than making the icons bigger (what about everything else...)

6

Thought I could help, but I learned something too, Good luck

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@Eden

@Miguel_Sensacion

Yeup. This is probably what I have to do.

There is a java script file for the icon grid that limits the size to 96 pixels.

Honestly, I am probably gonna have to fork gnome all together. I have been trying to get blur to work, and I have been trying to make it so that the user can freely control the DE.

IDK why we have gone from the old gnome 3 where you could customize everything to something where you really can not do jack shit.

And as for scaling, it does not work. As soon as you enable scaling, everything blows up to ridiculous proportions and the icon size stays the same in the grid.

1 Like
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Can you edit the script?

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Since it is javascript, cant you edit the 96 to a number you want to and then restart GNOME?

Its cool you found the exact file that is causing the problem so fast. I never have success looking thru source code. And cool that you want to fork GNOME.

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This sentence gives me nightmares, don't do it to yourself!

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I enocourage @Tjj226_Angel to do so. Hell, if there's any way i could help let me know !

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Oh I do not want to fork gnome.

I could think of a billion things I would rather do than fork gnome. Unfortunately gnome is really starting to piss me off, and I think forking it is really my only option.

I mean who honestly uses gnome in its stock form? No one. Because its fucking awful. With mods its great, but the UI elements get screwed over in the process.

Its also starting to look old. Plasma 5 has blur, OSX has blur, and even windows has blur. Gnome and anything GTK based has really fallen behind, when it comes to a modern UI appearance.

The bottom line is this file does not exist within gnome once you have installed it.

This file, plus many other useful files used to exist in gnome 3.14 and earlier editions, but ever since 3.16 files like these have completely disappeared.

I assume the file gets swallowed up into some other file. At least that is my guess.

2 Likes
13

I wanted to get back to you on this.

Windows scaling will do everything I need it to, so long as I can use a scaling factor of 1.25.

In order to do that I need to set a custom resolution in xrandr and then apply a scaling factor of 2 to balance the UI out to roughly 1.25.

Unfortunately I used to be able to save an xrandr script in gdm and now the code for gdm has changed so much that IDK where to put the script in etc/gdm/Init/default

All the guides say to put xrandr scripts before this line.

initctl -q emit login-session-start DISPLAY_MANAGER=gdm

And now that line no longer exists

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Me. . . ;(

But I honestly don't know better at the moment

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gnome tweak tool

gnome extensions

profit

1 Like
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I only have drop down terminal :)

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Can you not achieve scaling with gsettings?

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You can, but a scaling factor of 2 on a 1440p screen makes everything huge.

Scaling was really mean for really high dpi screens. In my case I have slightly higher than average DPI, so I am kinda screwed unless I figure out a way to set a new custom resolution and embed the script in GDM

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So this doesn't do the trick?

xrandr --output eDP1 --scale-from 3200x1800 --panning 3200x1800
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor 2

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Possibly. Truth is I have not be able to test it thoroughly because every method I know of for saving that script does not exist anymore.