Apply changes or restart Unity dash/launcher/... without reboot or logout

Solution 1:

Press Alt+F2 type unity and press Enter.

Solution 2:

• Unity is just a Compiz plugin, you can reload it using:

  compiz --replace
  

  Or to let you close terminal

  compiz --replace & disown
  

  To confirm, you can check:

  $ file `which unity`
  /usr/bin/unity: Python script, ASCII text executable
  
  $ more /usr/bin/unity
  

• Another way, light reload only the plugin (very quick)

  1. Create the compiz_plugin_reloader script

     Source: iXce’s blog: Compiz plugin reloader

     #!/usr/bin/env python
     
     '''Compiz plugin reloader (through compizconfig)
     Copyright (c) 2007 Guillaume Seguin <[email protected]>
     Licensed under GNU GPLv2'''
     
     import compizconfig
     from sys import argv, exit
     from time import sleep
     
     if __name__ == "__main__":
         if len (argv) < 2:
             print "Usage : %s plugin1 [plugin2 ... pluginN]" % argv[0]
             exit (2)
         plugins = argv[1:]
         context = compizconfig.Context (basic_metadata = True)
         print "Unloading " + " ".join (plugins)
         for plugin in plugins:
             if plugin not in context.Plugins:
                 print "Warning : %s plugin not found" % plugin
                 plugins.remove (plugin)
                 continue
             context.Plugins[plugin].Enabled = False
         if len (plugins) == 0:
             print "Error : no plugin found"
             exit (1)
         context.Write ()
         print "Waiting for settings update"
         sleep (2)
         print "Loading " + " ".join (plugins)
         for plugin in plugins:
             context.Plugins[plugin].Enabled = True
         context.Write ()
     

  2. Fix permissions

     chmod +x compiz_plugin_reloader
     

  3. Run as:

     ./compiz_plugin_reloader unityshell