Documentation for writing GNOME Shell extensions

Question

I\'ve been asked to customise the layout of the GNOME 3 desktop. Apparently the way to do that is by writing an \"extension\".

I\'ve managed to do some of the things I w

Answer 1

An extensive list of references can be found on the Gnome Developer - API Reference page.

I used the following for my extension, but your use may vary:

• GTK+ 3
  GTK+ is the primary library used to construct user interfaces in GNOME applications. It provides user interface controls and signal callbacks to control user interfaces.

• GDK 3
  GDK is an intermediate layer which isolates GTK+ from the details of the windowing system.

• Clutter
  Clutter is a GObject based library for creating fast, visually rich, graphical user interfaces.

• GObject Introspection
  GObject Introspection is striving to provide a middleware layer between (GObject based) C libraries and language bindings.

• Shell
  Shell Reference Manual

• St
  St - Shell Toolkit - is the GNOME Shell's custom Clutter-based toolkit that defines useful actors. Some of these actors, such as StBoxLayout and StBin implement various layout options.

• Icon Theme Specification
  This freedesktop.org specification describes a common way to store icon themes.

NOTE: These last two are very helpful in finding visual element parameters!

• PyGTK
  PyGTK is GTK+ for Python. This reference contains a chapter for each Python PyGTK module (that corresponds to the underlying GTK+ library) containing the class descriptions.

• PyGObject
  PyGObject is a Python extension module that gives clean and consistent access to the entire GNOME software platform through the use of GObject Introspection. Specifically speaking, it is Python Bindings for GLib, GObject, GIO and GTK+.
  This reference contains a chapter for each PyGObject module containing the class descriptions.