Ubuntu 20.04 LTS was released on April 23rd 2020. Like all things new, there are often changes that you will love or changes you may find terrible.

This is where tweaks come in handy. You can customise the system to suit your own needs and make it personal. The first thing that caught my eye in Ubuntu 20.04 was Dark Mode. We’ll start there.

Dark Mode

Dark Mode is, in my opinion, one of the best modifications you can make to any OS. If something I’m using supports dark mode, I will give it a go. I find it is puts less strain on the eyes and its look good too!

To enable Dark Mode for the default theme in Ubuntu open Terminal and run the follow command:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme "Yaru-dark"

Gedit Colour Scheme

Gedit’s default colour scheme currently does not play nice with dark mode. This was an easy fix as Gedit allows you to change the default colour scheme and comes with a few pre-set schemes. I like the scheme “Cobalt”. To change to “Colbalt” open Terminal and run the following command:

gsettings set org.gnome.gedit.preferences.editor scheme cobalt

Dash to Panel

I’ve never been a fan of the default Ubuntu Dock. Thankfully I came across a blog post by Kev Quirk that mentions Dash-to-Panel. Dash-to-Panel combines the Ubuntu Dock with the Top Bar and makes for a cleaner and highly customisable panel.

You can install Dash-to-Panel by opening Terminal and running the following command:

sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-dash-to-panel

After installing Dash-to-Panel you will need restart Gnome shell. To do this press ALT + F2, type the letter r, and press Enter.

After this has completed you can open the Extensions menu to enable Dash-to-Panel and start modifying your dock and top bar. Open the extensions menu by running the following command:

gnome-shell-extension-prefs

Dash to Panel Tweaks

Here are some of the tweaks I have added to my panel. These commands can be run from Terminal.

Pin the panel to top of screen

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-panel panel-position 'TOP'

Show clock left of system indicators

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-panel location-clock 'STATUSLEFT'

Taskbar position – Left with plugin icons collapsed to right

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-panel taskbar-position 'LEFTPANEL'

Running indicator for focused and unfocused apps

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-panel dot-style-focused 'SQUARES'
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-panel dot-style-unfocused 'SQUARES'

Show running indicators for apps on individual monitors

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-panel isolate-monitors true

Hide the status bar from secondary monitor

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-panel show-status-menu-all-monitors false

Change primary monitor

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-panel primary-monitor 0

To clear any modifications to the panel run the following command:

dconf reset -f /org/gnome/shell/extensions/dash-to-panel/

More to come

I’ll continue to add tweaks that I perform on my system. If you have any tweaks you think I may like feel free to send them through.