Re: Obtaining an extension from extensions.gnome.org even when on Windows or incompatible GNOME.

["Jasper St. Pierre" <jstpierre mecheye net>]

On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 3:08 AM, Amy C <mathematical coffee gmail com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Sorry to bother the list with so many emails, but I'm having a lot of
> fun tweaking extensions and in the lack of documentation have nowhere
> else to turn to!
>
> Is it possible to get an extension (by which I mean the folder that
> gets put into ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions) from
> extensions.gnome.org even if my current shell is not compatible with
> it? Or if I'm using Windows?
>
> For example, I was interested in looking at the 'Activities Button'
> shell extension
> (https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/77/activities-button-text/),
> but as it is not compatible with GNOME 3.2 (current computer's shell),
> the 'on/off' button doesn't work, and I can't look at the source

https://extensions.gnome.org/review/239

If you want to know how you can find the link, well, you can't, not
easily. So, first, you need to understand something about the site. As
you might know, extensions target a list of shell versions. Extension
authors can also upload multiple versions that target specific shell
versions, so they might have version 1 target 3.2, and version 2
target 3.4. If multiple versions target the same shell version, we
take the highest version: if version 1 targets 3.2 and 3.4, and
version 2 targets 3.4, we'll install version 2 if you're on 3.4.

This lookup table of shell versions to extension versions is known
internally as the "shell version map", or "svm". If you view the
extension page's source, search for "data-svm". This decodes to a JSON
object containing the aformentioned map. If you have Firebug/Chrome
tools, you can try $(".extension").data("svm") to get a handle on the
object.

So you have to pick which shell version you want to see, and then grab
the VPK and prepend the review URL to it.

It's a bit messy right now. I've sort of been waiting for the
designers to help me design the site a bit better, but I haven't
gotten much response from them about the site, which I'm disappointed
with.

> One of the most constructive ways for me to learn about writing
> extensions is reading other people's, so I'd like to know how to do
> get the code even if I'm on (say) Windows at the time.
>
> cheers!
> _______________________________________________
> gnome-shell-list mailing list
> gnome-shell-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list



-- 
  Jasper