%% Use bold for emphasises and italics for quotes or phrases %% ## Sections %% What problem does it solve %% ### Preface Gnome is perhaps the most popular **desktop environment** on Linux operating systems family. One of the undeniable features it offers is the freedom to customise the looks of the environment's **shell** to a high extent. [[#^1|(1)]] [[#^2|(2)]] Typically the desktop environment consists of a few parts: - a window manager, - a file explorer, - default programs (terminal, text editors, other) GNOME offers customisation of the UI part, which pre-defines the behaviour and looks of components such as 'Panel', 'Activities Overview', 'Message Tray'. [[#^3|(3)]] This note aggregates my handpicked extension choices with justification for why they were chosen. %% How does it solve it %% ### Recommended GNOME Shell extensions Each extension usually offers its own settings windows, where it can be adjusted according to the user's needs. #### 'App Icons Taskbar' > [!tip] App Icons Taskbar' by 'andrew.zaech' [[#^4|(4)]] >*Adds icons of applications currently present on a specific monitor to its individual panel's taskbar.* ![[Pasted image 20260310221629.png | GNOME Taskbar without icons - Screenshot by 'Mateusz Adamczyk' / blog.amatthew.eu, CC BY-SA 4.0]] ![[Pasted image 20260310221619.png | GNOME Taskbar with icons - Screenshot by 'Mateusz Adamczyk' / blog.amatthew.eu, CC BY-SA 4.0]] #### 'AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support' >[!tip] 'AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support' by '3v1n0' [[#^5|(5)]] >*Adds minimised applications' (tray) icons to the taskbar.* #### 'Auto Activities' >[!tip] 'Auto Activities' by 'CleoMenezesJr' [[#^6|(6)]] > *?* #### 'Bing Wallpaper' >[!tip] 'Bing Wallpaper' by 'sonichy' [[#^7|(7)]] >*Replaces the wallpaper using Bing's 'image of the day'.* > > [!warning] Does not work on Fedora Silverblue! #### 'Blur my Shell' >[!tip] 'Blur my Shell' by 'aunetx' [[#^8|(8)]] > *Makes the taskbar semi-transparent and blurred.* ![[Pasted image 20260310223007.png | Black GNOME taskbar - Screenshot by 'Mateusz Adamczyk' / blog.amatthew.eu, CC BY-SA 4.0]] ![[Pasted image 20260310221619.png | Semi-transparent GNOME taskbar - Screenshot by 'Mateusz Adamczyk' / blog.amatthew.eu, CC BY-SA 4.0]] #### 'Tiling Shell' >[!tip] 'Tiling Shell' by 'domferr' [[#^9|(9)]] > *Allows to define tiling layouts within stacking window managers.* > ![[Pasted image 20260312225024.png | Tiling window layouts - Screenshot by 'Mateusz Adamczyk' / blog.amatthew.eu, CC BY-SA 4.0]] #### 'Top Hat' >[!tip] 'TopHat' by 'fflewddur' [[#^10|(10)]] > *Adds custom monitoring widgets to the taskbar.* ![[Pasted image 20260310223302.png | GNOME taskbar with custom widgets - Screenshot by 'Mateusz Adamczyk' / blog.amatthew.eu, CC BY-SA 4.0]] ![[Pasted image 20260310223325.png | GNOME taskbar with custom widgets - Screenshot by 'Mateusz Adamczyk' / blog.amatthew.eu, CC BY-SA 4.0]] ![[Pasted image 20260310223345.png | GNOME taskbar with custom widgets - Screenshot by 'Mateusz Adamczyk' / blog.amatthew.eu, CC BY-SA 4.0]] #### 'Transparent Window Moving' >[!tip] 'Transparent Window Moving' by 'Noobsai' [[#^11|(11)]] >*Makes moved windows semi-transparent.* #### 'Vitals' >[!tip] 'Vitals' by 'corecoding' [[#^12|(12)]] >*Adds custom widgets for monitoring, e.g. CPU and GPU temperatures.* ![[Pasted image 20260310223710.png | GNOME taskbar with custom widgets - Screenshot by 'Mateusz Adamczyk' / blog.amatthew.eu, CC BY-SA 4.0]] #### Comments I would like to highlight some settings I find important in the extensions: - 'Hide Dash in Overview' in the 'App Icons Taskbar' extension - this setting will by default hide the GNOME 'Dash' when 'Super' key is pressed (GNOME 'Overview'). I find it inconvenient. ## References ### Section 1 - Preface - https://extensions.gnome.org/about/ ^1 - https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/9/html/getting_started_with_the_gnome_desktop_environment ^2 - https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell ^3 ### Section 2 - Recommended GNOME Shell extensions - https://gitlab.com/AndrewZaech/aztaskbar ^4 - https://github.com/ubuntu/gnome-shell-extension-appindicator ^5 - https://github.com/CleoMenezesJr/auto-activities ^6 - https://github.com/sonichy/GNOME_extension ^7 - https://github.com/aunetx/blur-my-shell ^8 - https://github.com/domferr/tilingshell ^9 - https://github.com/fflewddur/tophat ^10 - https://github.com/Noobsai/transparent-window-moving ^11 - https://github.com/corecoding/Vitals ^12 ## Metadata Date of creation: 2026-03-10 Date of revision: <...>