This release adds an optional avatar picture next to your name in the top panel and extends support to GNOME Shell 51.

What’s New

Avatar Picture (PR #35)

Show the picture of your user account, the same one used on the login screen and in GNOME Settings, in the top panel. Choose where it goes in the preferences:

  • Hidden — no avatar (default)
  • Before Display text — avatar on the left of your name
  • After Display text — avatar on the right of your name
GNOME top panel showing the username "William Brendaw" next to the network, sound, and power indicators, without avatar (default) and with the optional avatar picture

The picture is cropped to a centered square and masked into a circle that follows the panel height. When you change your account picture in GNOME Settings, the panel updates right away.

GNOME Shell 51 Support (PR #37)

The extension now declares support for GNOME Shell 51. It is compatible with GNOME Shell 45 to 51.

Fixes

  • Avatars with an alpha channel (typically PNG, including custom photos) no longer render as a black circle.
  • The avatar now refreshes when the account picture file changes, without needing to log out.
  • Errors fetching the avatar are logged once instead of on every panel change.
  • The avatar position selector falls back to Hidden if the stored value is invalid.

Good to Know

  • After updating, log out and log in again. GNOME Shell on Wayland keeps the previous extension code loaded until the next session.
  • The spacing (margin-left / margin-right) and font size now apply to the whole indicator, including the avatar, instead of only the username text. Nothing changes if the avatar is hidden.

Installation

Update to the latest version:

gnome-extensions install [email protected]

Or install from GNOME Extensions.

Full Changelog

See the CHANGELOG for complete details.