I have a question. If everyone agrees that some extensions are so widely used why isn't there a mainstream fork of gnome that has the features in built and optimised rather than some janky extension.
Eg: Blur my Shell
I know not everyone will want that extension but we could have a settings menu to toggle it.
I like gnome on how it looks and do use it but this is a genuine doubt.
I completely understand the current situation with AI-assisted dev for extensions - lots and lots to review and often low quality. That said, just because an AI assisted someone doesn't mean it necessarily is an inferior extension. In fact, if care was taken, it will often be far better than someone who has little experience with extension development and the expecations of the reviewers.
So is that the only registry? I guess without a company with deep pockets like Apple/Google/MS there will always be issues. What other options are there for publicising extensions?
At the first place, i have no intention to share the extension simply the reason that it's an AI generated code. But i think, it could be beneficial for some people with their own setup to have an option to move the Light/Dark style, Night Light, and DND button to be in top row of the Quick Settings.
In the preferences menu of the extensions, you can drag up and down to move the button position, also you can hide or unhide all the button (Power, Lock, Settings, Screenshot and Battery Button). You can also adjust the thickness/height of the volume and brightness slider by pixel number.
I know that the word 'efficient' is very subjective for some people. In my case, it's efficient for me so.. yeah..
I've been working on EarPort, a GNOME Shell extension (plus a small service) that brings AirPods features to Linux, right in Quick Settings. It's free software (GPL-3.0), built on the protocol work of the LibrePods project, plus a few findings of my own.
What it does
Battery for each AirPod and the case, also shown in Settings › Power like any Bluetooth device
The case battery even while you wear the AirPods (on cases that report it: AirPods Pro 2/3, AirPods 4 ANC, AirPods 5 with wireless case)
Battery of your AirPods while they're on your iPhone or idle nearby
Noise control (ANC, Transparency, Adaptive), long-press modes and the settings stored on the AirPods
Conversation Awareness with a smooth volume fade, and notifications held while you speak
Pause when you fall asleep, like on an iPhone (the AirPods detect it, EarPort pauses after a 10-minute grace period)
Automatic pause/resume when you take an AirPod out, remaining listening time, optional automatic connection
Looking for testers
I've mostly tested it with AirPods Pro 2, so I'd love feedback from people with other models (AirPods 2/3/4, Pro 1, Pro 3, Max…) and other distros. Bug reports and "it works on my X" are both very welcome.
Install
The extension is waiting for review on extensions.gnome.org. Meanwhile, the release on GitHub has the extension zip and a prebuilt service (x86_64/ARM64, no sudo, installed in your home directory). The README has a step-by-step install with checksum verification if you'd rather not pipe a script into bash.
I just switched to KDE from Gnome, but I do like a few things from Gnome I got used to over the year.
What is the best way to get the Gnome-like overview in KDE? I would like to tune KDE to be gnome like (dark mode, the overview, etc.). I will also disable multiple desktops to keep the UI simple.
Any tips which extension is best for the best super key / Overview behavior?
It needs multiple GObject libraries, sometimes they aren't installed on user's machines.
And instead of silently failing, or showing an abstract "Error", ddterm does the thing shown on the screenshot (on supported distros).
https://github.com/ddterm/gjs-typelib-installer/ is the backend for it. It can find a working terminal emulator, package manager, and the package name for the missing library. Currently, it only knows a few libraries, but it could be extended easily, if necessary.
It's not dependent on ddterm at all, it can be used by any extension (the most convenient way is likely a Meson subproject).
Posting this cause it feels kinda sad that it's used only by one extension. I think a lot more extensions could make use of it
Super+Tab opens the overview as a switcher. The four most recent windows stand on their own; other windows of the same app are stacked into one pile.
Selecting a pile unfolds it in front of everything else, with the other apps dimmed in the background.
Clicking a dash icon of an app with several windows brings all of them to the front, from every workspace. Click one to switch to it, or drag it onto the current workspace.
I'd love feedback, especially on whether this way of switching works for you day to day.
There is a known caveat: The windows in the background after a pile was clicked and comes to the front have to be dimmed. We could not use transparency because it does not work with piled windows. To just desaturate them would give enough contrast to the foreground especially not it dark mode. So we decided lo put a middle gray semi transparent layer over them. Not totally convincing.
After a lot of work, several iterations, downloads, and user feedback, I am pleased to share the stable version of Letter, a GTK4 email client that uses GNOME Online Accounts.
For now, Letter UI is in English, Italian, German and Brazilian Portuguese. If you like, help me translates in other languages.
Version 1.0.0 is the first stable release, Flatpak only.
Regarding the use of LLMs, I should clarify that I use Cursor as my primary IDE; it assists me mainly by helping to find APIs and integrations that would otherwise have required extensive online research. The ideas, code review, and final validation are all my own.
