Sanket GNOME extension adds customizable date menu, Quick Settings layouts

Sanket is a new GNOME Shell extension that provides granular control over the desktop's date menu, calendar, notifications panel, and Quick Settings. Users can reposition notifications as a floating island beneath Quick Settings or embed them directly inside it, while Quick Settings toggles can shrink to compact dots when screen space is limited and expand on demand. The extension also supports dual-row control layouts, persistent or hidden volume and brightness sliders in compact mode, and drag-and-drop reordering via an edit mode.

The extension runs on GNOME Shell versions 45 through 51 and is distributed through the GNOME Extensions website. It includes visual previews in its settings panel to show layout changes before applying them, and allows selective use of its features without mandating a complete interface overhaul.

What Sanket changes in GNOME Shell

• Notification placement: Notifications can be detached from the calendar popover and displayed as a floating island below Quick Settings, or embedded within the Quick Settings menu itself.
• Quick Settings compaction: Toggles shrink to dot-style indicators when space-constrained and expand automatically, similar to Android's adaptive controls, with optional dual-row layouts.
• Slider visibility controls: Volume and brightness sliders can be configured to remain visible or hide in compact mode, independent of other toggle states.
• Edit mode and reordering: A dedicated edit mode enables drag-and-drop rearrangement of Quick Settings controls without manual configuration file editing.
• Calendar and weather integration: The calendar popover loses notification duties to become more dashboard-like, with GNOME Weather forecasts compacted to a single animated icon and GNOME Clocks timezones shown as analog icons.

Why it matters

Sanket addresses a long-standing gap in GNOME's customization story by exposing Shell UI layout decisions that were previously hardcoded, giving power users and distribution maintainers tools to tailor the desktop experience without patching GNOME itself. Its compatibility across six GNOME Shell versions suggests active maintenance that could influence upstream design discussions about notification and settings panel flexibility.