Is that possible to change launcher panel width?

Possible, yes, but its not designed to scale the tiles if you resize it (patches welcome).

To widen the Launcher, check out line 33 of libunity-2d/src/launcherclient.cpp

If you increase the tileSize property in LauncherList.qml, you can make it look ok.

I'll take a look at the source code today to try to do something like this in the next days.

Actually, I'm trying to make the launcher smaller. I successfully made icons and tiles smaller by configuring those qml files but the panel stayed at the same size. Is there a way of doing this without coding?

Sorry, no. The width is hard-coded into the C++ files, and that width is used to define the Launcher's window size. I cannot see any way around coding :(

I understand. It worked fine changing that const value to 42 and adjusting those qml files. I will try to implement a parameter that could be changed within dconf-editor to set this MaximumWidth property. When I finish I come back here to tell if it worked, and if so how to commit the changes. :-D

I made it. That fixed property is now parametized. I'll clean up the code and make a little more testing. How can I submit those changes?

Hi tnsantos, push your branch to launchpad somewhere and request a merge :) Here's some info https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Branches that should get you started.

I finished my unity tests. Here is the result:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110087482713516380726/Unity2d#5665219246796182626

What do you think? Is that ok? :D

"Page not found" !

Sorry, it was not public. @_@ Now it is.

Looks like the workspace switcher icon doesn't follow.

Also, could you turn that into a bzr branch and a merge request?

I can't find where to set wokspace switcher icon width. I think I know why this is happening. Application icons does have little arrows left and right of the icon. Workspace switcher doesn't have arrows.

I will commit this into a branch around 20h00 GMT-3.

Branch pushed.

https://code.launchpad.net/~thiago-nsantos/unity-2d/launcher-width

Thanks Thiago, this should be great. it's on my list of things to review, I'll try to get to it soon.

Any develop? Is there a ppa, so we can test it out, or should we build one?

Compiled branch by myself, by typing:

sudo apt-get build-dep unity-2d
bzr branch lp:~thiago-nsantos/unity-2d/launcher-width
cmake
make

then I went to dconf-editor
and under:
com/canonical/unity-2d
I had a maximum-width option

then started it by:

killall unity-2d-launcher
./launcher/app/unity-2d-launcher

Wow! Man that's great! Merge it in the default branch, so that anyone can enjoy this!

The following report indicates that my 3-year old netbook is Unity 3D supported (samsung NC-10, 10.2" Wide, 1024 x 600 WSVGA , Intel Atom processor N270, 1.6 GHz, 533 MHz Front Side Bus, 512 KB Level 2 Cache, 2GB RAM).

$ /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p
OpenGL vendor string: Tungsten Graphics, Inc
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GME x86/MMX/SSE2
OpenGL version string: 1.4 Mesa 7.11

Not software rendered: yes
Not blacklisted: yes
GLX fbconfig: yes
GLX texture from pixmap: yes
GL npot or rect textures: yes
GL vertex program: yes
GL fragment program: yes
GL vertex buffer object: yes
GL framebuffer object: yes
GL version is 1.4+: yes

Unity 3D supported: yes
marty@mercury:~
$

To suggest that running 11.10 Unity 3D on this netbook is 'sluggish' is an gross understatement. EVERYTHING, logged in using Unity 3D, from login to launching any and all apps, takes FOREVER! Really, really painful.

Thus the 'Unity-2d' login option is the only way that 11.10 is usable on this netbook, but the default icon size in the launcher on this 10.2" screen looks awful.

I tried <iltony (iltony) said on 2011-11-06:>'s steps to compile. I ran the 'sudo apt-get...', 'bzr...', cmake, make commands which seems to end successfully, and then launched 'dconf-editor' and go to 'com/canonical/unity-2d', but there is NO 'maximum-width option' to reconfigure size? Arrrgghhhh!

Has anyone any updates as to whether this unity-2d functionality' has any hope of being added to 11.10?

Thanks.

Hi! I'm afraid that I'm out of time to keep this work done. I lost a 1TB partition. I'll try to finish this ASAP.

Hey,
for the moment I'm sorry to say that there are no plans to add this to 12.04 unfortunately. There are plans for future work on resizable components in Unity2D which will therefore enable a resizable Launcher. But not for this cycle.
-G

Hi,
Should I close, or wathever, this branch since resizable componets in Unity2D is already planned?

Hi Thiago,
yes I recommend you close it. Hopefully we'll have it in Unity2D soon.
Thanks for all your work
-G

when will the fix be available in official ubuntu repository?

so if i sum up correctly, to be able to set a icon-size for the launcher within unity 2d, one either has to compile unity himself and see what happens when the unity package is updated through the repos for other fixes or wait until at least 12.10 (since this feature wont make it into 12.04).
i wished there would be a more end-user-friendly approach but nevertheless, thank you very much for you efforts!

We have done work on this
https://code.launchpad.net/~fboucault/unity-2d/launcher_dynamic_size
but it's not satisfactory, hence we're holding it back.

This feature is surprisingly difficult to get right, and we will only release it when it's perfect. My apologies but that does mean there is no easy way to hack around this.