Gnozzard

_{Gnozzard is not affiliated with or endorsed by upstream projects such as Debian GNOME, GNOME Shell, Resources, Nautilus, Blender, or Krita. Applications are shown only to demonstrate desktop and application-menu functionality.}

Gnozzard is a simple classic GNOME desktop extension for Debian 13 (Trixie) and newer, with native support for portable applications and AppImages. It is designed for the standard Debian GNOME desktop and assumes that Nautilus is the file manager.

The panel provides:

• a tall, upward-opening, scrollable Applications menu;
• pinned applications at the menu's bottom edge;
• one task button per window (never grouped);
• click-to-focus/minimise task buttons;
• task-button actions for graceful Close and red Force Kill;
• drag-to-reorder task buttons with one shared order on every monitor;
• the same complete taskbar and open-window list on every connected monitor;
• a small, text-free Show Desktop button;
• application actions for pinning and creating desktop shortcuts;
• one-workspace and minimise-button defaults while the extension is enabled.

The implementation follows the old XFCE-style model: ordinary desktop files, one button per window and event-driven updates. It is not an overview skin and does not create workspace previews, live thumbnails or grouped app models.

The Debian package also installs Desktop Icons NG, native AppImage and portable application support, AppImage MIME integration, and Nautilus actions for launching an AppImage or adding it to Applications with one click. Local .desktop launchers can also be added to Applications, while local .deb packages get a direct Install Debian Package… action. The package includes a lightly adapted fork of the GPL-3.0-or-later Resources 1.8.0 system monitor.

Supported systems

The initial package targets Debian 13 (Trixie), GNOME Shell 48, and amd64. The extension metadata declares Shell 46–48 because it uses the GNOME 45+ ESM extension API. Later Debian releases are in scope, but a compatibility update is required before the package can be installed with GNOME Shell 49 or newer.

Install the Debian package

To download the newest published release and install it with APT in one command, run:

wget -qO /tmp/gnozzard_amd64.deb https://github.com/openresearchtools/gnozzard/releases/latest/download/gnozzard_amd64.deb && sudo apt install /tmp/gnozzard_amd64.deb

APT installs any missing declared dependencies and leaves dependencies that are already satisfied alone. Log out and back in after installation.

Alternatively, download gnozzard_amd64.deb from the GitHub Release and install the local file:

sudo apt install ./gnozzard_amd64.deb

The session bootstrap enables Gnozzard and Desktop Icons NG for each user without replacing the rest of the GNOME top bar.

Repository layout

• extension/ — GNOME Shell extension and settings schema
• helper/ — AppImage launcher/registrar and desktop shortcut helper
• integrations/nautilus/ — AppImage right-click actions
• data/ — MIME, desktop, and session bootstrap integration
• third_party/resources/ — pinned Resources v1.8.0 source
• debian/ — Debian source package metadata

License

This project is licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later. Third-party packages retain their own licenses.