Window Buttons Extension Available For GNOME Shell 3.4 [Ubuntu 12.04]

The GNOME Shell Window Buttons extension has been updated for GNOME Shell 3.4 and is now available in the WebUpd8 GNOME 3 PPA.

Window Buttons is an extension that displays the minimize, maximize and close window buttons on the top GNOME Shell bar, like in Unity. The buttons order or theme can be customize and the extension comes with 5 built-in themes: Ambiance, Radiance, Zukitwo, Zukitwo Dark and a generic (default) theme.

Install and configure GNOME Shell Window Buttons extension

To add the WebUpd8 GNOME 3 PPA and install GNOME Shell Window Buttons extension in Ubuntu 12.04 (there's also an older version available for Ubuntu 11.10 with GNOME Shell 3.2), use the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/gnome3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-extension-window-buttons

Once installed, restart GNOME Shell and activate "Window Buttons" using GNOME Tweak Tool.

The extension has been tested with Ubuntu 12.04 and GNOME Shell 3.4.1 but it should work on other Linux distributions too (not tested!) - you can download it from HERE.

Window Buttons on the top GNOME Shell bar, window titlebar removed using Maximus

The extension can be configured using Dconf Editor - if it's not already installed, use the command below to install it:

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

Then run Dconf Editor and navigate to org > gnome > shell > extensions > window-buttons. Here, you can change various settings, such as:

• theme: set the theme you want to use: "Ambiance", "Radiance", "Zukitwo", "Zukitwo-Dark" or "default"
• pinch: set the window buttons like Mutter, Metacity or Custom.
• order: if you've set the pinch (see above) to Custom, here you can set the button order
• onlymax, hideonnomax: enabling these two options, the window buttons will be hidden when there are no maximized windows. This option is a bit buggy, to get it to work, use the maximize/unmaximize button on the top GNOME Shell bar a few times and the buttons should dissapear when there are no maximized windows.

After changing some of the settings, like the theme, you must restart GNOME Shell.

 To automatically remove maximized windows titlebar, you can use Maximus  - for more info, see: How To Remove Maximized Windows Titlebar In GNOME Shell


You can get the window buttons on the panel using the Classic (Fallback) GNOME Session too, see:  `Window Applets`, Finally Available For GNOME 3 (Classic / Fallback)

Thanks to tiper, Sander Deryckere and barravi for updating the extension to work with GNOME Shell 3.4!