I write this here and not in apps tag because the idea is to discuss some extensions enabled by default in Endless OS not with the idea of customizing the desktop, but to compensate for some existing needs, for example:
Gnome doesn’t have an integrated method for safely extracting external devices such as a flash drive, this is why an extension such as Removable Drive Menu is required in Endless OS. See Bug 768067.
You’re correct that there isn’t a way to do this integrated into GNOME Shell, but you can from Files (Nautius) right?
True, but it is cumbersome to always resort to the file manager for that task when it is not always necessary (Neither is it intuitive). I included the upstream bug issue because they mention some use cases such as inserting a pendrive and downloading photos from a specialized software… as you can see here open a file manager only to safely extract an external device is unnecessary. The same goes for many of the content-based gnome-apps (books, documents, music, photos, etc.).
Also following the metaphor of the smartphone would also be possible to safely extract a external device without file-manager. I don’t like this since Endless OS 3.2 went from using gnome 3.8 - which included a method to extract devices from the notification system - to gnome 3.22 where this doesn’t exist.
Is there a way to ad gnome shell extensions by myself? Endless seems to support those and comes with a couple, like the gradiants for the titlebar, the window transparency, todo reminder and others. Those semm to work O.K…
Because we use a customized shell, not all extensions will work. It’s currently restricted to a whitelist of known good ones, and we’re working closely with upstream to try and ensure that more can be used without everything breaking
to satisfy transparency of open-source - is this whitelist something we can view and check?
So it appears I misspoke, the Endless shell doesn’t currently ship with any extensions, so there’s not even a whitelist. With the 3.2 release we made a big jump forward from GNOME 3.18 to 3.22, which “in theory” will make it easier to support extensions in the future, but for the time being it’s not something we enable in Endless
I don’t think it’s good to include the same “open” Gnome extensions platform in Endless OS, but simply as it is done so far limiting a subset of extensions that extend their functionality depending on some need, such as I proposed earlier.
For example another good extension to consider is gnome pomodoro, since the pomodoro technique is very popular among students and is a target audience for Endless.
Is GNOME Pomodoro a shell extension, or just an app that uses standard APIs for notifications and indicators?
It’s an extension. Previously it was distributed in the gnome extensions web and now it is distributed independently, but when it is installed it appears automatically in the extensions section of Tweak Tool or Installed Extensions in the web and all its content is in /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/pomodoro@arun.codito.in except some plugins.
No extensions?
I found Coverflow Alt-Tab,Glassy GNOME, Gradient Bottom Bar, Time Tracker and Todo List. All of those came with Endless and can be activated. They do work by the way, i have got a gradient bar ,transparent Windows, Coverflow Alt-Tab, etc…
So it appears I misspoke, the Endless shell doesn’t currently ship with any extensions, so there’s not even a whitelist. With the 3.2 release we made a big jump forward from GNOME 3.18 to 3.22, which “in theory” will make it easier to support extensions in the future, but for the time being it’s not something we enable in Endless
Yeah, as @Thomas_Sattler says we do have some extensions which were added by the Endless Coding project late last year although it’s not guaranteed they will work at all, because since then we’ve moved forwards about 3 years in shell development as you said.
However, we don’t have any white/blacklist or do anything explicitly to disable them, but the thing we lack is a UI to install/enable them. The best thing I think would be a Flatpak of GNOME Tweak Tool, which would meet this and some other needs. Otherwise I guess you can unpack stuff into ~/.local/gnome-shell/extensions/ but I don’t know how @Thomas_Sattler was enabling them… 