I recently tried Gnome 3.22. It's very nice, but I feel I'm still missing a few things more experienced Gnomers might know (or should that be "gnow"?).

So I thought I'd ask:


In the Gnome Dock:

1. Is there a way of adding a shortcut to a specific folder, rather than just a shortcut to a file manager?


2. Is there a way of grouping together applications under one icon? E.g. can I make one icon called "Office" that, when clicked, reveals Writer, Impress, etc.?

Addendum: It seems the answer to both (1) and (2) is "no". But I have found an unexpected and pleasant workaround, an app called Gnome Pie (see here for an example YT video about it). In Gnome Pie, a shortcut (mouse and/or keyboard key) can be configured to reveal and circular array of icons which can be shortcuts to websites, folders, files or programs, amongst other things.


In Plank:

I also tried Plank looking for these options, but didn't find them.

3. Also, when using Plank, I disabled the Dash-to-Dock extension because I wanted only one dock on my desktop. But when I press the Super key, I found that Gnome's dash icons still appeared on the left. Is there a way of disabling that?



General Gnome questions:

4. When I click the desktop and start typing, a little text-box appears bottom right showing what I'm typing. But then, nothing further appears possible. What is that called/about/for?


5. I found Gnome's default file manager (Nautilus) to be hugely limited. So I installed Nemo. However, I cannot find any menu/option in Gnome to select Nemo as the default file manager. Is there such an option?


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Thanks for you help on any of the above!

I'm running Gnome on this VM of CentOS because its the CentOS default. I looked in the "Settings" and could find nothing regarding file associations. I fear I don't have the time to look into the other questions tonight.

You may have to use DConf. This article from the Arch wiki might be a good place to start: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME

Aside: I loathe Gnome with a passion, though I sometimes use it if it's the default in something I've installed in a VM. That you must ask questions like these is illustrates why I feel that way. You might consider taking a look at MATE or Cinnamon, which are re-implimentations of Gnome 2. Cinnamon is slightly more resource-intensive than MATE.

Gnome spells "simplify" D-U-M-B-D-O-W-N.

Thanks for the heads up on Dconf. Seems like a complicated way to change things, if indeed the things I'm looking for are possible.

On desktop prefs: Never seen a nice looking Cinnamon (which is GTK3, not 2, btw) that doesn't try to look like Win. Mate & XFCE look dated, Plasma (up to 5.9) buggy/crashy/hard to theme. Gnome seems over-simplified (as my post suggests), but I like the look and feel, which - although it might sound trivial - is important to me for something I stare at a lot. So I'm going to try to make Gnome work for me for at least a while, but I can't pretend the things I listed above would be quite useful to have out-of-the-box.

One thing I noticed, e.g. on YouTube, is that a lot of Arch users seem to go for Gnome, so that would suggest it has customizability of the type people who like customizability would like. Otherwise, what am I missing?

I have found a partial answer/workaround to the Gnome folder shortcut questions. See "Addendum" under points 1 and 2 in the OP.