Edit: Thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts. I know this might sound a bit funny after I questioned whether to keep going, but somehow the comments suggesting I spend my time elsewhere actually made me more motivated to continue.

For now, I want to develop it far enough that the differences and what it brings to the table are easier to see. If I get it to a polished state and it still feels like something nobody really needs, I’ll let it go.

Thanks for your honest feedback and for taking the time to reply!

---
Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on a second extension for a while now: Better Panel. The idea is similar to Better Tray Icons: give users full control over functionality, appearance and behavior—with a particular focus on making intellihide less buggy.

It’s still early in development, and a lot of it is currently proof of concept. But I wanted to share the main idea and get some honest feedback.

The biggest difference is the applet system:

• Every element in the taskbar and GNOME’s top panel is an applet, with its own settings.
• Other extensions can register as applets through an API key and share settings with Better Panel. For example, extensions that modify Quick Settings often only affect the main monitor when using panels across multiple screens. The idea here is to let participating extensions apply their settings across all monitors or configure each one individually.
• Better Panel and Better Tray Icons already work together through this system. You can adjust how they interact, with the goal of building an ecosystem where the extensions work together.
• And, as you’d expect from Better Tray Icons, you can customize the hell out of it: position, colors, behavior, and more. Same philosophy: give users control through an intuitive settings interface.

There are other features in the works, but I’m keeping a few things under wraps for now. This is mostly about the direction rather than a full feature announcement.

Which brings me to my actual question: does GNOME need another panel extension?

With all the established options and newer alternatives, I sometimes wonder whether this space is already too crowded and whether my time and energy would be better spent on a different project.

Would this approach give you a reason to try another panel extension? What do the existing options still get wrong or leave out for you?

I’d appreciate your honest thoughts on whether to keep going or put that effort into something else. Thanks!

Thanks again for continuing to help me improve Letter.

I’m now sharing the new version 1.6.0, with you.
There are quite a few changes under the hood, and I’ve also introduced some improvements you requested for both the UX and the UI.

Also thanks to Kansa Fu for Japanese translation.

This version highlights:

• Drag & Drop messages from the list onto a folder to move them
• Optional account pictures could be set in Preferences ->Account pictures
• Japanese translation
• Move mail window has now a live filter search
• UI improvements for better overall consistency

If you like, help me translates in other languages.

Here is the full CHANGELOG for the new version. Download the new Flatpak version from my GitHub Page:

https://github.com/stalvatero/letter

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.

I would welcome further feedback 😄

Hi everyone,

I just updated Dhruva 4.0, a dock extension for GNOME Shell. This is the biggest update so far, and a lot of it came from issues and ideas you posted on GitHub. Thank you for that.

What's new

• Panel mode. An optional mode that moves the GNOME top bar into the dock. Workspaces, an extension tray, Quick Settings and the clock with its calendar all sit in one bar. It works on any screen edge, and a dock on another monitor gets its own clock.
• Extension tray. Small icons from other extensions sit behind an arrow. You can pin any of them to the bar or reorder them.
• Overflow menu. When there are more apps than space, the extra ones go into a menu instead of being cut off.
• Folder customizat!on. Rename folders, change the plate colour and letter style, or use your own image or an emoji as the icon. Apps inside a folder can be reordered by dragging.
• A new emoji picker with search, categories and recently used emojis.
• Redesigned preferences with a live preview of the dock and a new Panel page.

F!xes and improvements

• Folders no longer jump to the end of the dock on multi-monitor setups, and renamed folders keep their names.
• Unpinned running apps keep their position, so repeated clicks cycle through windows of the same app.
• A dock on an edge shared with another monitor no longer blocks the pointer or window dragging.
• The extension no longer fails to load at login when the Trash is still mounting.
• Icon click animations work again.
• Hover zoom settles back properly, and the Magic Lamp effect has been rewritten.
• File and D-Bus calls are now asynchronous, so the dock never blocks the shell.

One honest note: the Music Pill currently works with Spotify only. Supp0rt for other players is something I'd like to add.

Links

• Updated notes and screenshots: https://github.com/NarkAgni/dhruva/releases
• Source code: https://github.com/NarkAgni/dhruva

I have been closely following this project and it's now on FlatHub.

It is a GTK4/Libadwaita manga/comic reader that allows you to use Mihon-compatible extensions. This allows you to get a similar experience to what you would get from Mihon/TachiJ2K on your phone. You can read, download, track manga/comics and add your own sources.

For someone who reads alot of manga, I find this app to be really helpful.

The app bundles Suwayomi so you can simply download the Flatpak and run it OR you can connect it to a pre-existing Suwayomi instance.

Some trivia behind the name:
Kaori is a small tribute to Kaori Miyazono from Your Lie in April, a character who left a lasting impression on the app's author.

Here's the FlatHub link: https://flathub.org/en/apps/io.github.riyaniii.Kaori
Here's the Github repo: https://github.com/riyaniii/Kaori

I'm working with the author to get a macOS release. If you have a Mac or know how to achieve this, then you can help with this.

I switched from Zorin to Fedora 44 two days ago and even though they both use Gnome, I decided to go on a ricing project with Fedora. Fedora is great too, don't think I'm going back to Zorin

I wanted to share a desktop extension I've been developing called Vitals Widget.

If you prefer keeping your top bar clutter-free, vitals widget moves system monitoring out of the panel and places customizable, clean circular progress rings and metrics directly onto your desktop.

We just released v8, featuring support for modern GNOME Shell versions (GNOME 45 through 51).

You can position the widget anywhere on screen using precise percentage controls, adjust orientation (horizontal/vertical), font sizes, and container background/padding.

I’d love for you to give it a try and share any feedback.

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/9072/vitals-widget/

https://github.com/stinmark/vitals-widget

There's a configurable shortcut to make window follow active workspace, but none for making ii Always on Top. Why? And are there any extensions/workarounds for it?

I built Tasklane, a simple open-source GNOME task timer, and I'd love to hear your feedback!

Github: https://github.com/penerbangkode/Tasklane

Like the title asks, is gnome 'actually' doing anything new or is their vision just a mediocre one. This is not my original idea, it comes from reading the community here and studying a lot of youtube ideas and comments.

I think we all would like to experience a ground breaking technology, a source code that takes the tech in a whole new unexplored direction, and breaks us free of the two core ecosystems of Debian (1993) and Arch (2002) that exist today.

Remember when Ubuntu tried it with Unity, Mir, Convergance? After realizing the digital powerhouses (Intel, IBM, et:al) would not support this grand plan to escape mediocrity, Shuttleworth accepted defeat graciously as we returned to mainstream boring visions complete with new wallpapers, icons and a couple new buttons and called this exciting, innovating.

Wayland slowly took over from X11. Wayland was not new tech. It simply did a few things differently and got celebrated as best new tech vision. Wayland began in 2008.

Systemd began in 2010, Rust 1.0 in 2015. Pipewire is not fresh tech either... I get it, complex technology takes time but my questions are:

What is the next new tech being developed? Is it going to be based on the two antiquated foundations as usual or take us in a whole new direction?

Canonical tried and failed but at least they tried.

What are your thoughts? What would most users like to see in Gnome of the future?

any help?

strange artifacts when moving blurred kitty above text

I'd like to make my wallpaper show up unblured on the lock screen. I've seen an extension to do this but it seems to no longer be available.

Firefox is OK, but it doesn't integrate well with the rest of your GNOME Desktop. Meanwhile, GNOME Web has the best look, feel, and integration with GNOME, but it's missing certain features like: better performance, less crashes, DRM support, Extensions, etc.

I'm wondering if we should organize a sort of GoFundMe campaign to better fund this project.

Typesetter, the Typst editor for focused writing, gets its biggest update yet with version 0.16.

The headline feature is sandbox-compatible multi-file projects. Typesetter now uses a new default archive-based project format, .typz, that keeps your document and everything it references (images, imports, and other assets) together in a single file. Projects work the same wherever you open them, and they’re easy to share and back up. Because Typesetter now only ever needs access to the files you explicitly open, never entire folders, multi-file Typst projects now work easily and reliably within the Flatpak sandbox.

A project can hold as many sub-files as you like, so you can split a long document into chapters or sections, keep reusable functions and styles in their own files, and bring everything together with #include and #import statements.

This replaces the previous “project folder” workflow, which was required to make imported files available to single-file .typ documents. That approach presupposed access to whole directories, which the sandbox is designed to prevent, and it was easy to get wrong. Removing it means there is now one secure, consistent way to include files in a document.

Typesetter can still open and edit standalone .typ documents, but they can no longer reference external files. To include assets in an existing document, open it and choose “Save As Project” when prompted, then add the files through the navigator.

Other noteworthy features include:

- GUI bibliography manager: You can now add and edit references through a dedicated graphical interface.
- Adjustable preview pane: The preview pane can now be manually resized to suit your workflow.
- Comments navigator: A new navigator lets you list, view, and jump directly to author comments throughout your document.
- New templates: Typesetter now includes several additional templates to help you get started with new documents. (More to come.)

Since the previous release announcement, Typesetter has also gained advanced export to HTML and Markdown, making it easier to share documents in other formats.

There have also been a range of performance improvements, bug fixes, and smaller feature updates across the application, continuing Typesetter’s focus on being a fast, distraction-free writing environment.

Typesetter 0.16 is available now on Flathub.

I’m using Gmail and WhatsApp web apps from chrome browser. I turned on gnome notifications settings to on, do not disturb is off, WhatsApp and Gmail notifications settings is on. I get notification banner but if I don’t check them banner goes and does not show in notification tray when I click the clock. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Using Fedora 44 gnome 50.

• Music player - https://flathub.org/apps/ca.edestcroix.Recordbox
• Video player - https://flathub.org/apps/io.github.diegopvlk.Cine
• E-mail client - https://flathub.org/apps/net.donnybeelo.Convey

Github repo: https://github.com/gavindi/lookout

For reasons I still can't explain to my therapist, I've spent the last however-long writing a mail client. Yes, another one. Yes, I know about Thunderbird. Yes, I know about Evolution. Yes, I'm aware that your i3 setup reads email with cat and honestly it's fine.

The problem is that Linux email in 2026 is a choice between a calendar app that dies on Tuesdays and a webmail tab that eats 4GB of RAM and one day shows you a "your browser is no longer supported" banner from your own provider. So obviously the solution was to rebuild Microsoft Outlook, the interface we've been traumatized by at work for two decades, in Rust.

That's the pitch. It's called Lookout. It has the ribbon bar. It has the three panes. It has the entire "your inbox is now a spreadsheet of folders" energy. It's the corporate UI your boomer manager forced on you in 2012, lovingly recreated in GTK 4 and libadwaita, free as in you can read the source code and find all of my shame.

But don't worry, it's modern: it has conversations, instant search, color tags, and snooze — because email definitely needed to become Tinder. It has a dashboard that tells you who you email the most, in case you forgot your wife and your boss both deserve apologies. It has a tray icon with an unread-count badge, because the only thing better than anxiety is a permanent, visual reminder of it. It caches everything locally so it works offline, which is great news for the three people who read their mail on a train.

The calendar can do recurring events, which I'm told is the lowest bar in software history — congratulations, it supports "every Tuesday", a feature Outlook had in 2010. It accepts meeting invites straight from the email, so your calendar can now be weaponized against you more efficiently. It has tasks. It has contacts. It's everything you never asked for, in one application, on your desktop, forever.

The composer even moves its formatting toolbar into the main action bar while you type, so you feel like a real productivity professional. Pop it out into its own window and the little toolbar follows it, like a dog carrying its own bowl.

It ships as Flatpak, snap, .deb, and .rpm, because one packaging format clearly wasn't enough war. It's free, it's open source, and the README claims the entire roadmap is complete, which is either true or the saddest sentence ever written.

TL;DR: another Linux mail client, this time with a ribbon. I could have just installed Thunderbird. I didn't.

Hi!

Basically, this year was the first time I had experience using macOS. It was a no-brainer, the macbook air m4 was so much faster than my Lenovo that I had to switch to a more powerful computer. I decided to switch because, at my current job, the Lenovo notebook cannot keep up with a recent MacBook Air.

After I discovered that you need to install several 3rd party software programs to make the thing more productive, by chance I discovered this small calendar, available in brew, called "Itsycal".

I've liked it so much that, unfortunately, I couldn't find a version of this software for Linux. So I decided to create one for myself.

Of course, with the assistance of AI and the help of the GNOME extension community, I was able to release it on gnome.extensions.org.

Key features of Litsycal:
- Compact month calendar in a panel popup, with an agenda of your upcoming events
- Works with your existing calendars (GNOME Online Accounts / Evolution Data Server, so Google, Nextcloud, etc.)
- Create, edit and delete events without leaving the panel, plus quick-add from one line ("Lunch tomorrow 12pm at Cafe Nero")
- Search all your calendars with Ctrl+F
- Join video meetings in one click, with an optional countdown to your next meeting
- Extra time zone clocks, each showing its offset from your home zone
- Lots of keyboard shortcuts, including vi-style h/j/k/l navigation
- Pin it open while you keep working
- Adjustable: resize the grid, week numbers, font size, short day names, panel icon styles
- Available on extensions.gnome.org for GNOME 48–50

GNOME extension Litsycal website: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/10933/litsycal/

Also, the original author of Itsycal approved the name (Litsycal) and the port to JavaScript/Linux.

Thanks!

I teach a technology focused class for Middle School and High School and over the last couple years I've salvaged some decent laptops and upgraded them with Arch and GNOME. They've been running great and there are always a handful of students that need them regularly because they're stuck with Chromebooks that can't run the software required for my class.

I am interested in hardening these laptops against tinkering and creating backups to make resetting them in the unlikely event of a catastrophic failure.

Up until yesterday, I thought I'd done a decent job at preparing them; the user is unprivileged and I've set a pretty good block list in /etc/hosts. However, I had a student yesterday (who has gotten into deep trouble for messing with work computers at home) that is pretty AI obsessed that wanted to try to install ChatGPT onto the laptop he was using after having his personal computer confiscated. I "let him cook" as a white-hat hacking exercise to see what kind of progress he could make, and he was able to circumvent some of my protections. Specifically, he installed a free proxy plugin on the Chromium browser, then enabled Proxy in the settings and was able to get to openai's web site.. these things are so much easier to do when you're not concerned with your own privacy or security.

Following this, I used malcontent to block the user's access to all of the installed Flatpak browsers and to add some more web filters. The default browser is Ephiphany, which is actually perfect for my use because they can't install extensions on it and it has the option to start in incognito mode. Here is the script I wrote with the malcontent commands.

These laptops are only used with supervision, so this isn't a truly dangerous problem, however it presents an opportunity to learn more about my systems and prepare for my own children growing up with technology.

So, here are my questions: 1. What else can I do to harden my systems against tinkering? 2. What is the best way to backup the user's home directory in order to restore it quickly? Should the user have their home folder on a dedicated partition that's backed up, or is it enough to backup the home folder in something like a tarball? 3. Are there ways in GNOME to prevent the changing of settings? What about dconf?

Cheers!

EDIT: Here are some things I've changed thus far 1. Enabled passwordless login for user

• Make a student group and add the user to it
• Create and edit /etc/pam.d/gdm-password to enable passwordless login for the student group (example here)
• Delete the user's password with sudo passwd -d user
• Delete the user's keyrings rm -rf /home/user/.local/share/keyrings/*, then when the user logs in, search in the overview and when the prompt appears, leave the fields blank and confirm.

1. Use setfacl to restrict application access

• sudo setfacl -m g:student:--- /usr/bin/dconf-editor
• sudo setfacl -m g:student:--- /usr/bin/gsettings
• sudo setfacl -m g:student:--- /usr/bin/gnome-control-center
• sudo setfacl -m g:student:--- /usr/bin/gnome-tweaks
• Any other apps you want to restrict

1. Edit /boot/loader/loader.conf to set the timeout to 0.
2. Lock BIOS/UEFI behind a password.

BetterTrayIcons has finally been approved on GNOME Extensions! 🎉 You can now install it directly from the website or through Extension Manager.

A huge thank you to everyone who shared feedback, reported issues, and helped make the extension better. I really appreciate all your support!

If you give it a try, let me know what you think!

Github: https://github.com/nexaknight/BetterTrayIcons

Gnome Extension: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/9975/better-tray-icons/

About a month ago I unvailed my comic reader app to you guys, back then it was called Kaghez, it has gone through a name change, is fully standalone now (bundles Suwayomi Server) .

Kaori is a comic reader for GNOME, which allows you to discover, download and read comics with a beautiful libadwaita UI, natural touchpad gestures + keyboard control and lots of improvements that I added in the new versions.

The name Kaori is a small tribute to Kaori Miyazono from Your Lie in April, a character who left a lasting impression on me.

Please the project a start on Github: https://github.com/riyaniii/Kaori

The poll has closed, and the results are in!

635 people said they use an extension to enable a Gnome dock, compared to 463 who said they don't. The difference is 172.

This was surprising, as I originally hypothesized that most users just have the default vanilla Gnome setup.

Hey Gnome Users,

Shipped my first gnome shell extension. It's a beautiful weather widget for the top panel called Weatherglass 🌦️

The top-bar icon animates with the actual sky. Click it for an hourly temp/rain/wind chart and an 8-day forecast. Weather models from Open-Meteo, Met.no and NOAA.

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/11077/weatherglass/

I have 3 monitors and i installed the gnome display manager on my login screen, but the problem is that now the login only appears in one screen (you can see in the left), its different from the plasma login where you can use all the 3 by switching the screens with the mouse, is there a way to do the same thing or at least choose 1 specific monitor to show the login?