Ask HN: What GNOME Shell extensions do you use? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What GNOME Shell extensions do you use?

35 pointsmdwalters36 comments

I personally use Blur my Shell and Ubuntu AppIndicator, I use BmS mostly for asthetics, and Ubuntu AppIndicator because `pkill`ing Discord has the tendency to not start at all.

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On Fedora, one first things I do on a new install:

- flatpak install com.mattjakeman.ExtensionManager

- Disable the fedora's "Background Logo" extension.

- Install the "AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support" extension.

And that's it. No fancy things. Avoiding the weird way to install a shell extension, the browser extension - which won't work for me because I use Firefox from flatpak.

Remove alt tab delay: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/2741/remove-alttab-de...

Removes the 150ms delay on alt tab that remains even with animations are disabled. Not sure why there is a delay in the first place.

There's likely a delay so that you can use Alt-Tab to quickly go back to your last window without the pop-up showing. I use AltTab on macOS like this, which has a configurable delay.

https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/

Vitals: A glimpse into your computer's temperature, voltage, fan speed, memory usage and CPU load https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1460/vitals/

GSConnect: Implementation of KDE Connect for Gnome https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1319/gsconnect/

Impatience: Speed up the gnome-shell animation speed https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/277/impatience/

Focus changer: Change focus between windows in all directions using your keyboard https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4627/focus-changer

Clipboard Indicator: Clipboard Manager extension for Gnome-Shell https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/779/clipboard-indicat...

I'm currently using 4 extensions.

system-monitor (https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/120/system-monitor/). It is nice to see my CPU and memory usage at a glance with some history. I don't look too often but it can be good for understanding how builds are progressing, check that my software is utilizing parallelism well and see when things are in an infinite loop gobbling RAM.

Clipboard History (https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4839/clipboard-histor...)

I can't live without a clipboard manager, this seems to do a decent job.

Bing Wallpaper (https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1262/bing-wallpaper-c...)

I don't see my wallpaper often but when I open the menu or log in it is nice to have a new beautiful picture.

AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support (https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/615/appindicator-supp...)

I like icons in my toolbar.

Clipboard history, Pop! Shell, and workspace scroller (scroll across the top bar to quickly go through workspaces), on NixOS.

I also set up dconf options so I always have 10 workspaces, not just one more than the number currently being used, which is a pretty bad default imo. Muscle memory works much better when you can quickly go to the workspace you associate with some program of your workflow, say, Win+8 for a music player, rather than having to adapt to whatever order you happen to open programs in on this reboot.

One extension that I find really clever is Tactile [0], but unfortunately it doesn't synergize very well with Pop shell. One day I'll switch to qtile and build a custom everything with both those ideas.

[0] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4548/tactile/

I worked this way for many years, having 8 workspaces in a 2x4 grid for a long time where each workspace was "dedicated" to something. However, I have grown to really like gnome shell's dynamic workspaces.

I find that I have to multi-task on a lot of different things throughout the day, and often am getting interrupted before completing tasks. Each task gets its own workspace, and everything tied to that task (terminal, emacs, browser window with task specific tabs) is isolated there. When I complete the task, all windows are closed and that workspace goes away.

If I realize I need to work on another task, I create a new workspace, and drag the email message or a terminal with a short description of what I need to do. I go back and finish my other task first, but now there is a whole workspace set up for my next task. I find this can be a useful reminder of what tasks I am currently working on and what I still need to do.

Currently on my personal laptop, I have a workspace open with an email that I need to respond to. Another open with a browser window to the Google Play store since I need to update my personal apps before the targetSdk deadline on the 31st. Another open with emacs + a few browser tabs with documentation for a personal project. Another with a browser window for the county business license website, since I need to renew that this weekend.

I usually end up with 4-12 workspaces at any given time.

I really like this way of working, I have a hard limit of workspaces of 1, mainly because I want all of my stuff in one place. I should really try having multiple workspaces for tasks one day...

Workspace Matrix to organize virtual desktops in a grid. https://github.com/mzur/gnome-shell-wsmatrix

gTile for tiling window manager type functionality https://github.com/gTile/gTile

Vitals for quick view of system monitoring information https://github.com/corecoding/Vitals

Extension Manager via Flatpak for managing extensions https://github.com/mjakeman/extension-manager

smart-auto-move for remembering and restoring window positions across restart (disclaimer: i'm the author): https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4736/smart-auto-move/

Customized-Workspaces for customizing dash shortcuts and isolating apps across workspaces: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1583/worksets/

I disabled all my extensions while trying to debug random logouts while I was away from the computer, and realized I didn't miss them. (Turns out the issue was a faulty hard drive)

The only one I use is a system tray because some applications, like Steam, stick an icon in it to manage them.

When you have an application upgrade in the background, you can no longer access by launching the icon since it doesn't relate to the running application anymore.

If it's not a laptop that would have Steam then I don't need any extensions either.

- Forge

A tiling window manager, It makes working with an ultrawide more practical

Looks like Dash to Dock is the only extension I have installed.

The rest of the changes were done through Gnome Tweak or Accessibility settings.

I'm a fan of Dash to Panel.

I'm surprised more people aren't mentioning these two extensions.

Just Perfection (https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3843/just-perfection/) for all the little tweaks (like moving OSD notifications popups, taskbar to the bottom, etc etc).

Arch Linux Updates Indicator, Bluetooth Quick Connect, Blur my Shell, Burn My Windows, Caffeine, Clipboard Indicator, Desk Changer, Espresso, GSConnect, Night Theme Switcher, Pomodoro, supergfxctl-gex, Tray Icons: Reloaded.

Burn My Windows is great for visually seeing the Crash to Desktop on a heavily modded game.

- Alphabetical App Grid (I don't see how this is not a default thing)

- Blur my shell

- Clipboard Indicator

- Sound output device chooser

- Windows is ready Notification Remover

- Ubuntu AppIndicators (this comes with Ubuntu)

And to make it usable I also purged everything that has anything to do with snaps.

I use a bunch.

Caffine (disable sleep), Clipboard Indicator, Night Theme Switcher (I like manually controlling dark/light theme), Open Weather, Window Is Ready Notification Remover, Launch New Instance, Window List (gnome2 style bottom bar)

I'm currently on Ubuntu

- PopOS! Shell - Tiling window WM for Gnome

- Clipboard history

- Dash to dock (macos style dock instead of dash bar)

- OpenWeather

Blur My Shell, Espresso, Just Perfection, Pomodoro, Reorder Workspaces, Top Bar Organizer.

none, and I do use gnome.

to be honest, I'm not even sure where I'd get a shell extension, or what I'd want out of one. I tend to run apps in full screen and switch between virtual desktops.

You get them even via you package manager or e.g. from https://extensions.gnome.org/

What you can get out of one: e.g. caffeine, without it the "screensaver" will blacken the window, which I do not want..... You cannot disable soem features in window manager or apps. The workaour ist to use a shell extensions or sometimes called applet.

Dash to Dock. Freon. GTK Title Bar. Netspeed.

I use Clipboard History on Pop!_OS. Pretty neat.

workspace-indicator@gnome-shell-extensions.gcampax.github.com

Basically multiple desktop applet.

Gnome is pretty useless to me without that

You'd probably get a more meaningful discussion if you had instead asked what desktop environment they use.

Most Linux users abhor what Gnome has become.

Just to balance the narrative, I think Gnome is the best DE. It does the best job staying out of the way and letting me focus on my work. Most Linux users I know (maybe 20 or so SEs I work with) use Gnome (or maybe the slightly modified ones by Pop/Ubuntu). I don't really see this widespread antipathy you speak of.

It is actually pretty decent. Since GNOME ~40 the desktop is pretty much out of your way and a joy to use imho.

e.g. NixOS survey from last year. https://discourse.nixos.org/t/2022-nix-survey-results/18983 has Gnome as highest with 259, followed by Plasma at 201. Though, prob'ly NixOS survey population isn't a good representation of wider Linux users. (xmonad got 108 on the same poll).

Here's this poll from r/fedora from last year. https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/z5pt2z/what_is_your... which has Gnome at 2.4k to KDE's 963.

Here is another statistic from Arch: https://pkgstats.archlinux.de/compare/packages#packages=budg...

I like XFCE a lot. It's really great especially if you're one who uses the browser for a lot of stuff, and don't care about Wayland.

I install arch from scratch. Arc dark gtk theme. XFCE. I just delete the dock and make the menu the inbuilt whisker menu so it looks like the windows ui which I am comfy with. Add key bindings for win+numpad for window snapping, add super key binding for start menu. Looks nice, very very fast.

None of it's inbuilt apps tho. I use the browser to open basically every file. The Google docs extension handles office files. Pdf, images, are opened natively obviously. VLC for media.

> You'd probably get a more meaningful discussion if you had instead asked what desktop environment they use.

Possibly, but that’s not what GP wanted to know.

Guess I'm an exception then. Gnome 3 had a slow and dumpy start but it's improving more and more now to me

Did that almost a month ago.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37007315

- Tray Icons Reloaded

- Simple System Monitor.

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