Is there a way to reduce desktop icon spacing

[stevef]

Depends on how you define 'too complicated'

By default, each desktop icon has a small margin around it and the accompanying text. You can set these margins to zero (or any pixel value). To do this you can create (or modify) a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) file for gtk.

Before starting, set the Icon size to the smallest you are comfortable with.

The CSS file will be edited using terminal commands.
To open a terminal press 'Ctrl' 'Alt' and 'T' keys together.

In the terminal, type or paste in the following command.

Code:

cp ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css ~/.config/gtk-3.0/original-gtk.css

followed by the Enter key.

If the file already exists, this command will make a backup copy of it.
If the file doesn't exist the command will reply saying 'No such file or directory'

Next, in the terminal, type or paste in the following command

Code:

nano ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css

followed by the Enter key

This will open a text editor within the terminal showing the contents of the file.  The text editor cursor will be at the beginning of the file.  Copy the following text and insert it at the beginning of the file by right click and paste.

Code:

XfdesktopIconView.view {
    -XfdesktopIconView-cell-spacing:0;
    -XfdesktopIconView-cell-padding:0;
}

Exit the text editor by pressing Ctrl and X keys together.
The editor will ask 'Save modified buffer?'
Press Y key
The editor will check the file name
Press Enter
The editor will close.

The lines you've added set padding for the icon and associated text.

To observe the effect, position the Terminal window so that you can see the icons on the desktop and apply the changes by
typing or pasting in the following command

Code:

pkill xfdesktop

followed by the Enter key

The Icons now have zero spacing.  To revert to default spacing remove the lines from the file.