GNOME Shell Arc Menu v38 Adds Budgie, Windows 10 And KRunner Layouts
Arc Menu, a traditional applications menu for GNOME Shell, was updated recently with 3 new layouts in the style of Budgie, Windows 10 and KRunner, a few new customization options and bug fixes.
GNOME Shell gives users the alternative of using a traditional application menu by using the official Applications menu extension. Arc Menu was created as a replacement for this with extra features like search functionality, quick access to files on your system, and on top of this it's also highly customizable.
Arc Menu features include:
- multiple applications menu layouts with customizable menu height, colors, font size and more
- custom hotkey to open the menu
- the default Arc Menu view can be set to categories list or pinned applications
- configurable menu button appearance (custom icon, icon size, icon color, etc.)
- Shortcuts for user directories (Documents, Downloads, etc., including user bookmarks) and power actions (suspend, logout, lock)
- the ability to pin applications to the menu and add custom application shortcuts
- import and export Arc Menu settings and color theme presets
The latest Arc Menu v38 brings 3 new layouts in the style of Budgie menu, Windows 10 menu, and KRunner:
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| Budgie style for Arc Menu |
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| Windows 10 style for Arc Menu |
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| KRunner style for Arc Menu |
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Each of these new layouts can be further customized. For the KRunner style you can set the position on the screen (with top being default, but you can also set it to be centered on screen), the Windows 10 style lets users customize the pinned apps and the avatar icon shape (which defaults to circular), while the Budgie style has an option for setting the category activation method to either mouse click (default) or mouse hover.
The option to activate an applications category on mouse hove was also added as to the Mint, Whisker, Brisk and GNOME menu layouts, while the pinned app customization that was added with the Windows 10 style was also included to the Mint Menu layout.
More improvements in Arc Menu v38:
- Super_L & Super_R hotkey rework
- Add Alt menu button icon
- Add menu button icon padding settings
- Add "Gap Adjustment" settings
- Add tooltips to pinned apps and category menu items, and some tooltip tweaks
- Fix "Pin to Arc Menu" and "Unpin from Arc Menu"
- Fix Dash to Panel multi-monitor support
- Other bug fixes and improvements
In case you're wondering what dock / panel I'm using in these screenshots, it's Dash to Panel, a GNOME Shell extension that was updated with vertical panel orientation support back in October. Besides being highly customizable, Dash to Panel integrates nicely with Arc Menu.
Install Arc Menu
The extension supports GNOME Shell versions 3.34, 3.32, 3.30 and 3.28.
To install Arc Menu, follow the GNOME Shell browser integration instructions if you haven't already, then go to the Arc Menu page on the GNOME Extensions website. Next, click the OFF switch to the right-hand side of the extension name to turn it ON and install the extension.
You'll also need to install some dependencies required by Arc Menu to function - you'll find them mentioned on extension page description.
