How can I remove "Show Desktop" from the Alt-Tab (application) switcher?

Question

Is it possible to remove "Show Desktop" from the Alt+Tab application switcher?

Answer 1

13.04 and newer

For 13.04, 13.10 and 14.04, to enable or disable the "Show desktop" option in application switcher you can use unity-tweak-tool

12.10

For 12.10, a new setting has been added to CCSM to enable or disable the "Show desktop" option in application switcher.

Run this command in a terminal to install CCSM:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Now open CCSM and go to Ubuntu Unity plugin.

Switch to Switcher tab. Then tick the check box next to Disable Show Desktop in the switcher option.

Answer 2

It can be done!

I've uploaded a Unity build for 12.04 that fixes this (no Show Desktop in the Alt-Tab switcher).

• To install, open a terminal and:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:izx/askubuntu -y
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unity

• You can enable the "Show Desktop Icon" setting in the Unity Plugin in Compiz (using ccsm) to get the icon on the Launcher on the left:

  

• If/when a new Unity update is released, Update Manager will download it automatically. I will try to "fix" the update and put it in the PPA as soon as possible; please add a comment to this answer to alert me if you upgrade and "Show Desktop" re-appears in the Switcher!

How did you do it?

I modified the Unity Source. It consists of two steps:

1. Comment out line 900 in plugins/unityshell/src/LauncherController.cpp, which by default adds the "Show Desktop" icon to the switcher:

// results.push_back(pimpl->desktop_icon_);

2. Change line 1638 in plugins/unityshell/src/unityshell.cpp from:

     if (!(results.size() == 1 && results[0]->GetIconType() == AbstractLauncherIcon::IconType::TYPE_DESKTOP))

   to

     if (!results.size() == 0))

   • While the list of Alt-Tab switcher icons was at least 1 before (the show-desktop icon), now it is 0 and we need to modify this to show the switcher only when there is at least one item in the list (i.e. at least one app running).

Answer 3

In 14.04, I was able to accomplish this in CompizConfig Settings Manager.

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

By visiting:

• "Desktop" section of the listing in the wide, white, right area →
• "Ubuntu Unity Plugin" item →
• "Switcher" tab →
• "Disable Show Desktop in the Switcher" item.

This was a default, uncustomized C.C.S.M. straight from the repos.

Answer 4

So, I'm not sure if this is of any help to you, however while using Unity 2D, sick of not having graphics drivers I dived into gnome fall-back. Then unsatisfied, I left back to the Unity interface. I no longer have the displayed "Show Desktop" in the ALT+TAB application switcher. I believe this to be a side effect of the Gnome interface having it set in the lower left hand corner, and when I switched back, I no longer had it. Seemed to work for me... worth a shot.

Answer 5

One option could be to revert back to the behavior of Alt+Tab prior to 11.10.

I realize that this is a bit drastic, but it might be better than nothing.

Answer 6

Warning: I got this to work exactly once. When I restarted, I had two instances of unity running, and couldn't figure out why or how. killing them didn't work, and uninstalling reinstalling didn't help.

I resolved it by installing 13.10. I'll use the other fixes listed here.

I couldn't get this to work in 12.04, the package provided in another answer wasn't new enough (version 5.14), and the guide wasn't quite flawless. (though it was very helpful) Here's how I managed to apply the fix for unity 5.20

1) Download the source:

sudo apt-get source unity

2) Change the source:

diff -ru org/plugins/unityshell/src/LauncherController.cpp patch/plugins/unityshell/src/LauncherController.cpp
--- unity-5.20.0/plugins/unityshell/src/LauncherController.cpp  2013-04-12 04:24:42.000000000 -0400
+++ unity-diff/plugins/unityshell/src/LauncherController.cpp    2013-12-23 12:22:50.154961579 -0500
@@ -761,7 +761,7 @@
 {
   std::vector<AbstractLauncherIcon::Ptr> results;

-  results.push_back(pimpl->desktop_icon_);
+  //results.push_back(pimpl->desktop_icon_);

   for (auto icon : *(pimpl->model_))
   {
diff -ru org/plugins/unityshell/src/unityshell.cpp patch/plugins/unityshell/src/unityshell.cpp
--- unity-5.20.0/plugins/unityshell/src/unityshell.cpp  2013-04-12 04:24:42.000000000 -0400
+++ unity-diff/plugins/unityshell/src/unityshell.cpp    2013-12-23 12:24:36.718966737 -0500
@@ -1909,7 +1909,8 @@

   auto results = launcher_controller_->GetAltTabIcons(show_mode == switcher::ShowMode::CURRENT_VIEWPORT);

-  if (!(results.size() == 1 && results[0]->GetIconType() == AbstractLauncherIcon::IconType::TYPE_DESKTOP))
+//  if (!(results.size() == 1 && results[0]->GetIconType() == AbstractLauncherIcon::IconType::TYPE_DESKTOP))
+  if (!(results.size() == 0))
     switcher_controller_->Show(show_mode, switcher::SortMode::FOCUS_ORDER, false, results);

   return true;

3) Install other packages:

sudo apt-get build-dep unity
sudo apt-get install cmake

5) Run cmake.

cd <source folder>
# from the INSTALL file
mkdir build; cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DCOMPIZ_PLUGIN_INSTALL_TYPE=package -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/opt/unity
make
sudo make install

Note: if you set your DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX folder to /usr instead of /opt/unity, you won't have to rsync later, but I wanted to try linking the file first. I gave up.

I suppose to undo the best option is to reinstall unity, which would put the standard files overtop.

6) Replace the files:

sudo rsync -av /opt/unity/ /usr/

7) Reinstall unity-greeter. Apparently the files rsynced break unity-greeter. Which is apparently needed to get unity running.

sudo apt-get install --reinstall unity-greeter

Answer 7

If you're using dconf to manage your Unity settings, then the path to this setting (by inspection with dconf watch /) is:

/org/compiz/profiles/unity/plugins/unityshell/disable-show-desktop

Set this to true and the desktop will be removed as an alt-tab option.