bp

Debugging GNOME Extensions with dbus-run-session

a generative ai nightmare for which the prompt was: "garden gnome gets stretched out from head to toe"

GNOME extensions let you customize the way your desktop environment works. You can use them to do things like always keep a certain type of window on top of the others, automatically tile windows, add eye candy to the overview, and much more. They are written in a type of JavaScript called gjs.

I learned a trick for developing GNOME extensions which saved me a bunch of time and hassle. Before I learned how to do this, I would have to log out and back in for every change I made to the extension - there's no built-in way to "reload" extensions in GNOME. With this technique, instead of logging out, I create a new, nested GNOME session and run the latest code from the extension I'm working on in there.

When you're ready to test, all you have to do is:

  1. package up your extension in a zip file as usual,
  2. install the new version,
  3. launch a nested session, and
  4. test your code.

Here's how that looks for my "Firefox PiP Always on Top" extension:

npm run build; # zip up the extension
gnome-extensions install --force ./firefox-pip@bennypowers.com.zip; # install
dbus-run-session gnome-shell --nested --wayland; # run a new session

Note the --force flag when installing to make sure the old version is overwritten.

I hope this quick tip helps you to build and share your GNOME extensions.