extensions.gnome.org - Public Alpha Now Available

From: "Jasper St. Pierre" <jstpierre mecheye net>

To: gnome-shell-list <gnome-shell-list gnome org>, desktop-devel-list gnome org, gnome-announce-list gnome org

Subject: extensions.gnome.org - Public Alpha Now Available

Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2011 16:16:26 -0500

We're happy to announce that extensions.gnome.org is now in public alpha testing at: https://extensions.gnome.org If you have GNOME Shell 3.2 on your system, you should be able to install extensions from the website via your browser. This uses the "GNOME Shell Integration" browser plugin which is likely already installed on your system if you have GNOME 3.2. The plugin only works with Firefox currently - see "Known Bugs" below. We've seeded the site with a small set of extensions, including the extensions from gnome-shell-extensions. If you are the author of an extension that has been uploaded, and you want to take over uploading future releases, please contact us, and we'll get you access. The set of extensions on the site is still small compared to the total number of extensions available. We expect more extensions to be available over the next few weeks as authors upload them and they are reviewed. About GNOME Shell Extensions ============================ GNOME Shell extensions are small pieces of code written by third party developers that modify the way GNOME works. (If you are familiar with Chrome Extensions or Firefox Addons, GNOME Shell extensions are similar to them.) Since extensions are created outside of the normal GNOME design and development process, they are are supported by their authors, rather than by the GNOME community. Extensions provide a way to prototype out new possible features for future versions of GNOME, and for advanced users to make customizations in ways that aren't necessarily compatible with the overall design vision of GNOME, but are still cool and useful to a subset of users. Since extensions become part of the core operating system, they need to be checked for potential security problems. Extensions uploaded to extensions.gnome.org go through code review before they are made available for download. More information can be found at https://extensions.gnome.org/about/. Known Bugs and Problems ======================= * There are some bugs that currently cause the browser plugin to not work correctly in WebKit-based browsers like Epiphany or Chrome. We will fix these bugs in subsequent releases of GNOME Shell, but for now using Firefox to access extensions.gnome.org is advised. * Extensions that use GSettings to store user settings cannot be currently installed as a user; this limitation will be fixed for GNOME 3.4. In the mean time, extension authors should avoid the use of GSettings if they want to make their extension available via extensions.gnome.org. * Due to a bug in GNOME Shell 3.2.1 code, the uninstall button will not work for some extensions. Disabling extensions still works, but if you want to remove an extension entirely, you'll need to manually delete it from ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions. Reporting Problems ================== If you find problems with the site, please file them in bugzilla.gnome.org against the 'extensions.gnome.org' component of the website product. Problems with individual extensions should be reported using the "Help! It didn't work!" link on the extension's page. Thanks to everybody that made this happen! -- Jasper St. Pierre