On every computer I’m using I like to get the maximum screen estate I can. I also like to enjoy my wall papers without having the two default Gnome panels in the way.

Here are some tweaks I do on every computer I use (that’s true especially for notebooks and netbooks like the eeePc ).

Set your panels to auto hide:

Right click on each panel, select Properties and activate the autohide checkbox.

panel1

Now we have panels automatically hiding. But the response it’s too slow to be really usable. And even when they’re hidden, you can see a small part of them. That brings us to the next point.

Tweak panels gconf properties:

Start the gconf editor:

you@yourcomputer:~$ gconf-editor

then browse to /apps/panel/toplevels. There you’ll find two folders: bottom_panel_screen0 and top_panel_screen0.

panel2

Note: the picture doens’t show all the keys to tweak. Refer to the explaination below.

For each one, you need to tweak the following keys:

  • auto_hide_size: 0
  • enable_animations: unchecked
  • hide_delay: 0
  • unhide_delay: 0

Now you’re done. The panel are almost completely hidden, but also show up very fast when you hover your mouse on the top/bottom of the screen!

Making panels a little more usable

Now that your panels are hidden the most of the time, there’s no reason to have them so small. You probably want’em big to be a easier target for your mouse. Also, they look much nicer if you increase their size.

Open again the properties windows of each panel and increase the size to 48 pixel. Depending on your theme you may also want to change their background. I like them to be white, for example.

bigpanels

This is just beautiful to me.

Drawbacks

Gnome ain’t perfect. The a row 1px tall still shows for each panel. Also, not every application has icons that scale gracefully to 48px.

Let me know if you like this panel set up !

What’s next ?

If you like MacOsX-like docks, you may want to try Docky !