Extensions in GNOME 45 – GNOME Shell & Mutter
blogs.gnome.org

By now it is probably no longer news to many: GNOME Shell moved from GJS’ own custom imports system to standard JavaScript modules (ESM).

Extensions that target older GNOME versions will not work in GNOME 45. Likewise, extensions that are adapted to work with GNOME 45 will not work in older versions.

You can still support more than one GNOME version, but you will have to upload different versions to extensions.gnome.org for pre- and post-45 support.

Please file bugs with your favorite extensions or have a friendly conversation with your extension writers so that we can help minimize the impact of this change. Ideally, you could help with the port and provide a pull or merge request to help maintainers.

  • A Phlaming Phoenix@lemm.ee
    261·
    2 years ago

    I am a daily Gnome user. There are many things which I actually dislike about Gnome, but I have solved them all through extensions. Fine, I’m not bothered because it can be customized.

    But every time they introduce something like this, it takes me a while to get a functional desktop back. It takes time for those extensions’ developers to respond to these things. They have to research the change, implement it, test it, go through extra work to stay backward compatible, etc. These people aren’t being paid for this, so it takes some time.

    I’m just frustrated about this. I know someday I will run updates and suddenly find all my extensions broken.

    • regalia@literature.cafe
      17·
      2 years ago

      Agree, my work flow is basically entirely broken without dash-to-panel, which is maintained by like one guy lol.

    • ZephrC@lemm.ee
      15·
      2 years ago

      I really, really hope Cosmic turns out to be a good DE, because Gnome does a lot of cool stuff that I really like, but the actual experience of using it is miserable for me. It always feels like it’s fighting against everything I want to do.

      I’m glad Gnome exists, but we need an option that does some of the cool and unique things they do while also being less opinionated.

    • DryTomatoes@lemmy.world
      4·
      2 years ago

      I literally just moved to Gnome 44 from a long time Gnome 3 setup. I only found one extension that makes Gnome 4x feel usable the way gnome 3 was and that’s v-shell. If v-shell breaks then I’m never moving to gnome 45.

    • skadden@ctrlaltelite.xyz
      1·
      2 years ago

      Yeah, it’s kind of ridiculous. At this point my most starred git repos are all patches to get various extensions working on the current gnome release.

      I’ve been looking to switch away but nothing I’ve used has had the it factor I want.

  • bennyp@kbin.social
    273·
    2 years ago

    It will be annoying for a minute but this change is good: it will help developers ship extensions faster and with fewer bugs by using standard JavaScript modules and IDE support. As mentioned in the blog: modules were standardized in 2015! At what point does it become acceptable to drop non-standard features?

  • regalia@literature.cafe
    14·
    2 years ago

    So what I’m reading is to wait to upgrade until my dash-to-panel and app-indicator extensions are updated

    • d_k_bo@feddit.de
      4·
      2 years ago

      gnome-shell-extension-appindicator moved to the new modules system 3 weeks ago

  • OldFartPhil@lemm.eeEnglish
    13·
    2 years ago

    See, this is the beauty of running Debian stable as your daily driver. I’ll be on Gnome 43 for two more years, so by the time I upgrade to Gnome 45+ extensions should be compatible. Only half-joking, I really do avoid a lot of early adopter regressions and breakage.

  • IHeartBadCode@kbin.social
    12·
    2 years ago

    Extensions that target older GNOME versions will not work in GNOME 45

    So basically it’s just another GNOME release gotcha.

    Seriously though, a stable API is not the GTK/GNOME developers’ agenda here. Nobody wanting a stable API should write software with this toolkit. That said, if you’re a true front end aficionado and you’re looking to make your software look awesome every six months, GNOME has got you so covered like the chocolate on a peanut M&M.

    For those wanting to write software that won’t magically kerslode without yet another recompile (or heavily relying on your distro to do that dirty work) stick with KDE/Qt group. They tend to be less breaky each release.

    • Gecko@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      So basically it’s just another GNOME release gotcha.

      AFAIK, the extension developer needs to explicitly set each version of Gnome they support. Even when the Gnome version doesn’t have any breaking changes, the extension developer still needs to update their extension to enable their extension for the new Gnome version.

    • Ban DHMO 🇦🇺@aussie.zoneEnglish
      101·
      2 years ago

      It’s probably the best scripting language, especially for developers of C-style languages. Python has weird syntax and is slow, Lua is really fast but also has weird syntax. JavaScript looks pretty much like C syntax wise. It’s also possible to use a wide range of existing JavaScript projects to make extension development less burdensome

    • bamboo@lemm.ee
      41·
      2 years ago

      Yeah! They should have invented their own obscure language for no reason rather than use probably the single most well known programming language on earth!