I really like gnome and how it looks. However every time I try it I find myself in need of more functionality and so I install a bunch of extensions. For example I can’t live without a dock and some sort of system tray that shows which apps are running in background.
Sometimes the extensions have small UI inconsistencies or use more memory than usual. That’s why I totally ditched gnome and switch to KDE.
Also I tend to think it’s been designed for people who are more comfortable using a keyboard. I’m mostly a mouse person.
Do any of you run pure gnome with no extensions? How do you cope with the lack of a dock and system tray?
To answer your question about lack of dock and system tray, I use the top left hot corner to snap windows in Activities often, and I launch mostly from the built in Applications menu. Don’t use the dock much. As for system tray, it’s a fairly minimal work computer so I boot it every day, run slack, browser, etc. and I know there’s nothing really on the background. Don’t need an icon for slack, it’s always on my screen. In my GNOME-based work environment it’s either running and I can see it or it’s closed.