How to make ALT+TAB switcher icons smaller

Is there any way to reduce the size of the default Ubuntu 13.04 window switcher icons, shown when pressing ALT+TAB? Changing Compiz settings (with a text editor, if not in the CCSM GUI) or installing a different window switcher, for example. Thank you for your help, have a good day.

Solution 1:

As far as I know...the size of the default "Switcher View (Alt+Tab)" is hardcoded in the Unity source.
You can try to edit the source code to change the size according to your needs.

NOTE: I recommend you to do this in a Virtual Machine or in a Test Machine to see if you get the desired results.
In this example I'm running Ubuntu 13.04 with unity 7.0.0 and I will change the "Switcher View" (icons, tiles, etc.) to the half-size.

1) Make sure you have enable the Source code repository.

• Open the Ubuntu Software Center
• In the Menu Bar choose Edit -> Software Sources. Click to enable "Source code repository". Just in case I use the "Main Server" to Download.

Open a Terminal window Ctrl+Alt+T and type:

• sudo apt-get update

2) In the Terminal type the following to install the necessary packages.

• sudo apt-get install build-essential python-windowmocker quilt

3) Install build dependencies.

• sudo apt-get build-dep unity

4) Create a folder to download the source code.

• mkdir ~/Downloads/src

• cd ~/Downloads/src

5) Download the source code & Export variables.

• apt-get source unity

• export QUILT_PATCHES=debian/patches

• export EDITOR=gedit

6) Create the patch and Edit the source code.

• cd unity-7.0.0daily13.06.19~13.04/

• quilt new 99-custon-switcher-size.patch

• quilt edit launcher/SwitcherView.cpp

Edit the lines... 46 to 50.

I changed them from:

  , border_size(50)
  , flat_spacing(20)
  , icon_size(128)
  , minimum_spacing(10)
  , tile_size(150)

To:

  , border_size(25)
  , flat_spacing(10)
  , icon_size(64)
  , minimum_spacing(10)
  , tile_size(75)

7) Build the deb packages.

• quilt refresh
• fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage

8) Install the deb packages.

• cd ..

• sudo dpkg -i *deb

9) Finally you can Restart your machine to see the changes.

Before:

After:

Hope this helps.