cinnamon-tweaks/README.md

cinnamon-tweaks

Two small GTK 3 desktop utilities for the Cinnamon desktop environment, each one built around the same frustration: a setting you change often enough to resent how many clicks it takes to reach through Cinnamon Settings.

Tool	Replaces	Interface
shortcut-manager	Settings → Keyboard → Shortcuts → Custom Shortcuts	GTK window, menu launcher
panel-tweaks	Settings → Panel	GTK window, menu launcher

Neither tool invents its own storage. Both read and write exactly the same gsettings/dconf keys Cinnamon itself uses, so every change is live immediately, survives logout, and shows up in Cinnamon Settings as if you had made it there. Nothing needs to be restarted and no daemon runs in the background.

They install independently — take one, both, or neither.

Requirements

• Cinnamon (the tools read org.cinnamon.* gsettings schemas, so they will not do anything useful on GNOME, KDE or anything else)
• Python 3
• PyGObject with GTK 3
• dconf command-line tool — used by shortcut-manager to discover orphaned shortcut slots and to delete shortcuts cleanly. Optional; the tool degrades gracefully if it is missing.

On Linux Mint and other Debian derivatives:

sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-gtk-3.0 dconf-cli

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shortcut-manager

A window that lists every custom keyboard shortcut registered on your desktop and lets you add, edit and delete them.

Features

• One list of everything. Name, key combo and command for every custom shortcut, in one sortable table.
• Capture instead of type. The shortcut field records the next combination you press rather than asking you to spell out <Super><Shift>T. Escape or Backspace clears it.
• Conflict warnings. Before you save, the dialog tells you if the combination is already taken — by another custom shortcut, or by a built-in one. It checks the Cinnamon desktop, window manager, media-key, Muffin and GNOME window-manager schemas.
• Command presets. The new-shortcut dialog offers quick-fill commands for a terminal, file manager, screen lock, screenshot tools, volume mute, browser and text editor. Only presets whose binary is actually installed are offered, so the list never suggests a command that would fail.
• No orphans. New shortcuts claim the lowest free customN slot, taking into account slots left behind in dconf by other tools, and deleting a shortcut resets its dconf path rather than just unlisting it.

Installing

cd shortcut-manager
./install.sh

Copies the app into ~/.local/share/cinnamon-shortcut-manager and adds a "Custom Shortcuts" launcher to your applications menu under Settings.

To run it without installing:

python3 shortcut-manager/shortcut_manager.py

Where the settings live

Cinnamon stores custom shortcuts as a relocatable schema. Each one lives at /org/cinnamon/desktop/keybindings/custom-keybindings/customN/ with name, command and binding keys, and the list of active ids sits in custom-list under org.cinnamon.desktop.keybindings. This tool writes precisely those, so anything it creates is indistinguishable from a shortcut made by hand.

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panel-tweaks

A window with the handful of panel settings worth a one-click toggle.

Features

• Auto-hide the panel on or off.
• Edit mode on or off — the mode that lets you drag applets around the panel.
• Panel height on a slider, from 20 to 80 pixels, applied live as you drag.
• Applet list for the panel, with a checkbox to enable or disable each one.

Installing

cd panel-tweaks
./install.sh

Copies the app into ~/.local/share/cinnamon-panel-tweaks and adds a "Panel Tweaks" launcher to your applications menu under Settings.

To run it without installing:

python3 panel-tweaks/panel_tweaks.py

Limitations worth knowing

• It only manages one panel. If you have several panels configured, the tool operates on the first one listed in panels-enabled and ignores the rest.
• Disabling an applet is one-way within a session. Unchecking an applet removes it from enabled-applets immediately. You can re-check the box while the window is still open, but once you close and reopen the tool the applet is no longer in the list, and you will need Cinnamon Settings to bring it back.
• It deliberately does not try to be a layout editor or an applet manager. That is Cinnamon Settings' job; this is a shortcut to the knobs used often.

Where the settings live

All under the org.cinnamon schema: panels-enabled, panels-autohide, panels-height, panel-edit-mode and enabled-applets.

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Tested on

Linux Mint 22.2 with Cinnamon, on an X11 session. Both tools depend on Cinnamon schemas specifically and are not expected to work on other desktops.

Licence

No licence has been chosen yet.