How to fix gnome-panel item size

[James Michael Fultz]

* Santanu Chatterjee <thisissantanu at gmail.com> [2009-10-19 22:08 +0530]:
> I find the gnome panel's items to be too large (in height). Please see
> the attached screenshot (the "Games" item, for example). I would like
> to reduce the height as much as possible. I feel I should look into
> the theme's gtkrc file for this. But I could not pinpoint any
> particular line I should modify.

Firstly, your menu does not display any icons.  Is it your intent that
menu icons are not displayed?  If it is not then checks the state of
settings from the following.

Menu: System > Preferences > Appearance

Interface tab of the Appearance Preferences window.

Check box for Show icons in menus.


> Could you please point me to the correct line to edit? Also, I feel
> directly editing the theme's gtkrc file is not the right way. Is there
> any file in my home directory which I should be editing so that this
> change becomes theme independent?

The text of menu items are spaced for display of icons.  I am unsure how
to change that if the display of icons is undesired.  The
"toggle-spacing" GtkRc property may be applicable, but I do not know.