I don’t have data to back it up, but anecdotally it seems GNOME 43‘s new Quick Settings menu is a massive hit. People dig the improved look, layout, and functionality the new pod-based menu provides.
But hey: not everyone.
There are those who prefer the more traditional, straightforward list of GNOME’s old system menu. Those folks may want to check out a new GNOME extension released this week called “Compact Quick Settings”.
To quote the GitHub page, this nifty bolt-on “…reduces the width of the new quick settings popup menu introduced in GNOME 43, by using only one column instead of two”.
Rather than a grid of pods to poke at the extension delivers a list of pods to poke at. It’s a simple change that some will surely appreciate.
Better yet, all of Quick Settings new features work, so users can continue to switch between wired networks and wi-fi networks from the relevant pod sub-menu, or quick switch audio output device from the volume slider.
The reduced width does result in a fair bit of label truncation, as this screenshot shows:
Other Quick Settings extensions I’ve written about recently — like the one that shows your user account avatar, or the one that bakes in better Bluetooth handling — do not work when ‘Compact Quick Settings’ is enabled. This may change in the future of course, but it’s something users should be aware of when trying this out.
Compact Quick Settings is free, open source software designed for GNOME 43. You can install Compact Quick Settings extension from the GNOME Extensions website using a web browser, or (as I love to suggest) the epic Extension Manager desktop app.