Those are some of my custom settings for Gnome 3 on Ubuntu 12.04
With a standard user :
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.media-handling autorun-never true gsettings set org.gnome.shell.calendar show-weekdate true # Depending on the gnome shell version : gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface clock-show-date true gsettings set org.gnome.shell.clock show-date true gsettings set org.gnome.SessionManager logout-prompt 'false' gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences always-use-location-entry true gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface menus-have-icons true gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface buttons-have-icons true gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons false gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop network-icon-visible false gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop home-icon-visible false gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop computer-icon-visible false gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop trash-icon-visible false gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.desktop volumes-visible false gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences enable-delete true # or : gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences show-delete-permanently true # Cf gsettings list-recursively | grep nautilus gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences default-folder-viewer 'list-view' gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.icon-view default-zoom-level small gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences audible-bell false gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences visual-bell true gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences visual-bell-type frame-flash # Highlight the mouse cursor when you press Ctrl gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.interface locate-pointer # Change the max screencast duration gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys max-screencast-length 600 # Old key : GSETTINGS_BACKEND=dconf gsettings set org.gnome.shell.overrides button-layout ":minimize,maximize,close" # New key : gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout 'appmenu:minimize,maximize,close' dconf read /org/gnome/shell/enabled-extensions # you can write also...
Additional tags : gnome3, tweak