gnome-shell 3.16 window titles

Question

Before 3.16, it was easy to remove the window titles from maximized windows - just editing the metacity-theme.xml file. However, 3.16 is using client side decorations, and metacity has no control over the window decorations. Is there another way of hiding the window titles, or at least making them much smaller?

Answer 1

Pixel saver helped on Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool

Then press "super" button and type "tweaks" - select "tweaks", go to "Extensions" - enable "Pixel saver" radio button. That's it

Answer 2

I tried the extension Maximus NG, which did not install successfully. But via its comments I found Pixel Saver which works better. However it displays a cross to close the windows among the status buttons in the top right, which I find annoying. But after disabling Pixel Saver again, the top bar of maximized windows has not reappeared, and the cross has disappeared. So everything is perfect for me now. EDIT: This effect only lasts the current session.

I use Gnome 3.18, on Ubuntu-Gnome 16.04 LTS Beta 1.

Answer 3

You can minimize (not remove) the title bar by removing the padding from it. Just add the following code to the file $HOME/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css (create if not exists):

.maximized .header-bar.default-decoration {
    padding: 0;
    font-size: 0.7em;
}

.maximized .header-bar.default-decoration .button.titlebutton {
    padding: 0;
    border-width: 0;
}

Apart from that you can use the GNOME extension Maximus Two to get completely rid of title bars on maximized windows. A version supporting 3.16 is available from here: http://michaeltunnell.com/blog/16-linux/56-my-updated-316-packages-for-gnome-extensions

Here is a very short script that does more or less the same as Maximus Two (using the _GTK_HIDE_TITLEBAR_WHEN_MAXIMIZED atom): https://gist.github.com/tuxor1337/74e76d3d153c67593454 You need to run it on GNOME startup and leave it running in the background (might be helpful: Start Script when Gnome Starts Up).

By the way, here you can get an idea of how to remove the title bar from all windows: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/156300/xprop-set-motif-wm-hints-hides-maximized-window