--- title: GNOME Shell design plans: what the team is working toward description: GNOME interaction designer Tobias Bernard has outlined the GNOME design team's plans for GNOME Shell. Key areas include richer search results with inline... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/gnome-shell-design-plans-what-the-team-is-working-toward-gmwctcvex twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: GNOME Shell design plans: what the team is working toward | daily.dev og:description: GNOME interaction designer Tobias Bernard has outlined the GNOME design team's plans for GNOME Shell. Key areas include richer search results with inline... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/gnome-shell-design-plans-what-the-team-is-working-toward-gmwctcvex og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/gMWCTCvEX.png og:image:alt: GNOME Shell design plans: what the team is working toward og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # GNOME Shell design plans: what the team is working toward **[Collections](https://daily.dev/sources/collections)** · 4 min read · 5 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary GNOME interaction designer Tobias Bernard has outlined the GNOME design team's plans for GNOME Shell. Key areas include richer search results with inline actions (potentially landing in GNOME 51), customizable Quick Settings with notifications integrated, and several window management improvements such as overview drag-and-drop, an auto-tiling mosaic mode, and a revamped Alt+Tab switcher. Visual changes include a login screen grid, a dynamic battery icon, and an adaptive transparent panel. The team is actively seeking developers to help implement these designs, with Mutter Devkit and GNOME Builder lowering the barrier to contribution. Nothing here is a firm roadmap — it reflects design thinking at varying stages of maturity. ## Content GNOME interaction designer Tobias Bernard recently posted a rundown of where the design team wants to take GNOME Shell over the next few years. Some of this is close to landing. A lot of it is still just sketches and merge requests waiting on someone with the time to build them. ## The one that's actually happening: search overlay The most concrete item here is a redesigned search experience, and there's a real chance it ships in GNOME 51 this September. Right now, opening search swaps out your whole view for a dedicated results screen. The new design instead spawns a floating overlay directly out of the search entry box, sitting on top of your workspace or app grid instead of replacing it. There's already a merge request open, and it's picked up positive feedback from contributors like Cassidy James Blaede and Sam Hewitt. A freeze request went in after discussion pushed the timeline back a bit, but Bernard says it will "likely" make the cut for GNOME 51 — which would put it in Ubuntu 26.10 come October. The team's ambitions for search go further than the overlay itself. Think richer results with inline actions, closer to what Raycast does on macOS, where you're not just launching an app but doing something with it directly from the search box. ## Everything else is a dream, not a plan The rest of the post is a grab bag of ideas at very different stages of readiness. None of it is confirmed. All of it depends on someone actually having the time and funding to build it. - **Editable Quick Settings** — letting you customize which toggles show up, instead of living with whatever GNOME decided you need. - **A simpler Calendar Popover** — splitting notifications out from the calendar/events view, since right now they're crammed together in a way that doesn't really work for either. - **Drag-and-drop window organization** in the Overview, so arranging windows across workspaces feels less like fighting the interface. - **Mosaic** — an auto-tiling concept for window management. Details are still fuzzy, but the idea is smarter, more automatic tiling than what's there now. - **A reworked Alt+Tab** that separates your most recent windows from older ones, which get grouped instead of cluttering the switcher. - **A grid-based login screen** with user tiles, replacing the current list. - **A dynamic, wider battery icon** that actually shows useful charge information at a glance instead of a vague symbol. - **A transparent top panel** for wallpapers with enough contrast to pull it off. Bernard is upfront that these range from well-thought-out to "needs prototyping before we even know if it works." Nothing here is locked in — GNOME's own post frames these explicitly as proposals, not commitments. ## Why some of this might actually happen Here's the part that makes me slightly more optimistic than usual about a GNOME design wishlist actually turning into shipped code: GNOME got a €1 million grant from the Sovereign Tech Agency covering 2023 and 2024, and a design team member has joined as a funded fellow. That's real money attached to design work, which is usually the bottleneck for this kind of thing. The team also points out that contributing to Shell is easier now than it used to be, thanks to the Mutter Devkit and Builder improvements — which reads a bit like an invitation for developers to come pick off items from this list. So: the search overlay is coming soon-ish. Everything else is a genuinely appealing set of ideas that may or may not survive contact with actual implementation. I wouldn't hold my breath for Mosaic in the next release, but I also wouldn't be shocked to see two or three of these land over the next year or two, given the funding now behind them. ## Questions this post answers ### What new features are planned for GNOME Shell in GNOME 51? Richer search results with more inline actions, animating out of the search entry rather than appearing as a separate layer, are far enough along to potentially land in GNOME 51. Other plans — customizable Quick Settings toggles, notifications moving into Quick Settings, overview drag-and-drop, an auto-tiling mosaic mode, a revamped Alt+Tab switcher, a transparent panel option, and a dynamic battery icon — are at varying earlier stages of maturity. _Developers tracking GNOME releases and planning contributions follow design signals like these on daily.dev._ ### How can I start contributing to GNOME Shell development? Getting into GNOME Shell development is more accessible now through Mutter Devkit and GNOME Builder. The GNOME design team is actively looking for developers to help implement planned designs, and how much of the roadmap ships depends heavily on who picks up the work. _Open source contributors looking for where to plug in on GNOME find community signals and project news on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 2 discussions and 12 comments across lobsters, hackernews (as of 2026-08-13). **TL;DR:** The community is broadly enthusiastic about GNOME Shell's design direction, praising it as the most coherent desktop available, though there is notable pushback on merging notifications into Quick Settings and some wishlist items around keyboard shortcuts and window management flexibility. **Sentiment:** 65% positive · 25% mixed · 10% skeptical **The case for** - GNOME Shell is widely regarded as the most consistent and well-designed desktop environment currently available. - The 'Mosaic' auto-tiling concept is welcomed by those who miss tiling window managers. - The post's openness to contributions and the improved developer tooling (Mutter Devkit, Builder) are seen as positive steps. **The pushback** - Merging notifications into Quick Settings is criticized for disrupting muscle memory and conflating push (notifications) vs. pull (settings) interactions. - The lack of a global menu bar and the shift to hamburger menus is seen as reducing feature discoverability and depth. - There is no option to use the Super/Meta key for shortcuts, causing friction for users who switch between Linux and macOS. - The inability to bring your own window manager to a GNOME session limits flexibility for power users. **By community** - lobsters (positive): Commenters are genuinely excited about GNOME's trajectory and praise its design coherence, while raising specific concerns about notification/Quick Settings merging and missing keyboard shortcut flexibility. - hackernews (mixed): No comments were available to assess sentiment. **Hottest debate:** Whether notifications should be merged into Quick Settings or kept separate, given the fundamental difference between push interruptions and intentional state changes. **Open questions** - Will GNOME ever support bringing a custom window manager (e.g., niri) into a full GNOME session? - Could GNOME adopt a Super/Meta-based shortcut scheme to avoid conflicts with terminal control characters? **Highlights** > in my opinion, notifications (and dynamically changing/resizing content) belong nowhere near a quick settings menu. combining them will require users to visually scan for the actions they build muscle memory around every time they open the panel. > — [rvrb on lobsters · 2 points, 2 comments](https://lobste.rs/s/b3uky6/gnome_shell_design_dreams#c_xg7mtn) > GNOME is my desktop environment of choice on Linux. There's a lot to love, but there are two things I miss terribly from macOS: 1. The option to use Command (or Meta, Super, whatever) for all keyboard shortcuts. This reserves Control for control characters in the terminal. Having to remember that Copy is Ctrl-C in most places, but Ctrl-Shift-C in terminals makes me sad. 2. A global menu bar. Sadly, GNOME has gone the other way and gotten rid of menu bars entirely in favor of hamburger menus. This dumbs down apps – fewer features fit in hamburger menus – and makes existing features less discoverable. Ctrl-F might open a Find bar, but there's no menu item that lets you discover that. Proxy icons in titlebars are a bonus third thing I'd love to have. Apple has unfortunately deemphasized those too, though there's an accessibility setting that you can toggle to show them all the time. > — [davidbalbert on lobsters · 1 points, 1 comments](https://lobste.rs/s/b3uky6/gnome_shell_design_dreams#c_lj1bxi) > Very cool stuff. GNOME is still the most consistent and well designed desktop you can use on any platform right now. The mosaic stuff will be interesting. I really wish GNOME would go back to allowing you to bring your own window manager (yes, this used to be a thing many moons ago). Imagine niri with a full gnome session. Would be a dream - a pipe dream more likely. But good to see window management some love even though I’ve moved away from gnome shell personally. > — [Fingel on lobsters · 2 points](https://lobste.rs/s/b3uky6/gnome_shell_design_dreams#c_hx59l2) > I think they're their own thing. push versus pull. reading my calendar, weather, is an intentional pull action. notifications are interrupting push. quick settings are state change. of course, I am also quite radically against any application that isn't human to human communication using push notifications for literally anything, so I guess I am probably in the minority. > — [rvrb on lobsters · 2 points](https://lobste.rs/s/b3uky6/gnome_shell_design_dreams#c_v7ryts) > I've really come around on Gnome 3 over the past 3 years or so. It reminds me a lot of MacOS, but only in good ways. I'm very interested in the "mosaic" behavior described in this post, since automatic tiling is the one thing I miss from my bspwm days. > — [henderson on lobsters · 1 points](https://lobste.rs/s/b3uky6/gnome_shell_design_dreams#c_jb4g9z) **Source threads** - [lobsters](https://lobste.rs/s/b3uky6/gnome_shell_design_dreams) · 48 points · 12 comments - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49258320) · 9 points · 0 comments ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@mudassirkhan13** · 0 upvotes > It would be nice if they also improved the window title bars—making the minimize, maximize, and close buttons round like macOS and slightly smaller. It would also be great to keep the title bar height consistent across all native apps, such as Terminal, and give the window title bars a more modern look, similar to macOS. --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#ui-design](https://daily.dev/tags/ui-design) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/gnome-shell-design-plans-what-the-team-is-working-toward-gmwctcvex) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"GNOME Shell design plans: what the team is working toward","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/gnome-shell-design-plans-what-the-team-is-working-toward-gmwctcvex","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/gnome-shell-design-plans-what-the-team-is-working-toward-gmwctcvex"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T18:20:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-13T13:07:38.971Z","description":"GNOME interaction designer Tobias Bernard has outlined the GNOME design team's plans for GNOME Shell. Key areas include richer search results with inline...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/b8bddbf219c8686fb001a314f277b7ff?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/b8bddbf219c8686fb001a314f277b7ff?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Collections","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Collections","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--fk_6ycEi--/f_auto,q_auto/v1780996001/logos/collections?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/collections"},"commentCount":1,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/gnome-shell-design-plans-what-the-team-is-working-toward-gmwctcvex","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":5},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}],"keywords":"linux,ui-design","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Collections","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/collections"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"GNOME Shell design plans: what the team is working toward"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/gnome-shell-design-plans-what-the-team-is-working-toward-gmwctcvex","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"It would be nice if they also improved the window title bars—making the minimize, maximize, and close buttons round like macOS and slightly smaller. It would also be great to keep the title bar height consistent across all native apps, such as Terminal, and give the window title bars a more modern look, similar to macOS.","datePublished":"2026-08-12T14:28:37.649Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/gMWCTCvEX#c-eZSAeMN1Z","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Mudassir Khan","url":"https://daily.dev/mudassirkhan13","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocK3b2RNuds6HLFiMVDQayR_EZb7K7ttFzKYhcyw8AffqkU1x_f_=s96-c"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/gnome-shell-design-plans-what-the-team-is-working-toward-gmwctcvex#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What new features are planned for GNOME Shell in GNOME 51?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Richer search results with more inline actions, animating out of the search entry rather than appearing as a separate layer, are far enough along to potentially land in GNOME 51. Other plans — customizable Quick Settings toggles, notifications moving into Quick Settings, overview drag-and-drop, an auto-tiling mosaic mode, a revamped Alt+Tab switcher, a transparent panel option, and a dynamic battery icon — are at varying earlier stages of maturity. Developers tracking GNOME releases and planning contributions follow design signals like these on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How can I start contributing to GNOME Shell development?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Getting into GNOME Shell development is more accessible now through Mutter Devkit and GNOME Builder. The GNOME design team is actively looking for developers to help implement planned designs, and how much of the roadmap ships depends heavily on who picks up the work. Open source contributors looking for where to plug in on GNOME find community signals and project news on daily.dev."}}]} ```