Per-Mode Panel Layouts in Cinnamon Using dconf Snapshots

Once the display mode switching was working reliably, the next small thing that started to bother me was the panel layout. Going from two screens down to one and back again meant the Cinnamon panel arrangement got left stranded in whatever state it happened to be in when the displays changed underneath it, with a single centred panel when two screens were up, or a sprawling two-panel setup squashed awkwardly onto one monitor. The wrong layout never broke anything; it just made the desk feel slightly off in a way that, after enough switches, started to wear on me.

Fortunately, Cinnamon stores all of its panel configuration in dconf, which makes the solution pleasingly clean: snapshot each layout once, restore the right one whenever the mode switches.

How Cinnamon stores panel config

The relevant keys all sit under /org/cinnamon/ in dconf:

• panels-enabled - which panels exist, which monitor they’re on, and their position (top/bottom). Format: ['id:monitor_index:position', ...]
• panels-height - height in pixels per panel
• panels-autohide, panels-hide-delay, panels-show-delay - autohide settings
• enabled-applets - which applets are loaded and on which panel. Format: ['panel_id:zone:order:applet_uuid:instance_id', ...]
• next-applet-id - the counter used when adding new applets

The monitor index in panels-enabled is zero-based and only reflects currently connected monitors, which is the kind of detail that will silently break your snapshots if you miss it. With two screens active, DP-0 is index 0 and DP-2 is index 1. With only DP-2 active, it becomes index 0. The work layout snapshot needs to reference monitor 0 even though it’s physically the right-hand screen.

Snapshotting and restoring

Saving a layout means reading each dconf key and writing a restore script of dconf write calls. The restore script runs on each profile switch, and cinnamon --replace picks up the new values and redraws the panel. Without that restart, the dconf values update but the running compositor doesn’t reread them until the next login.

The workflow is straightforward: switch to a profile, arrange the panel as needed, snapshot it. From that point, switching profiles carries the panel layout with it.

A typical personal layout snapshot looks like:

dconf write /org/cinnamon/panels-enabled "['1:0:bottom', '2:1:bottom']"
dconf write /org/cinnamon/panels-height "['1:40', '2:40']"
dconf write /org/cinnamon/enabled-applets "['panel1:left:0:Cinnamenu@json:17', \
  'panel1:left:1:[email protected]:16', \
  'panel1:right:0:[email protected]:24', \
  'panel1:right:4:[email protected]:13']"

And the work layout with a single panel on monitor 0:

dconf write /org/cinnamon/panels-enabled "['1:0:bottom']"
dconf write /org/cinnamon/panels-height "['1:40']"
dconf write /org/cinnamon/enabled-applets "['panel1:left:0:Cinnamenu@json:17', \
  'panel1:left:1:[email protected]:16', \
  'panel1:right:0:[email protected]:24', \
  'panel1:right:4:[email protected]:13']"

Combined with the xrandr switching from the previous post, switching modes carries monitors, refresh rate, and panel layout in one step.

This panel snapshotting is now part of display-profiles, where it lives as a Cinnamon-specific hook. Other desktop environments can be supported by adding a hooks/<de>/ directory with equivalent save and restart scripts, and I love when a small piece of code can be useful to people running setups quite different from mine. If you are on a different DE and you would like to add support for it, the door is genuinely open.