Zed's beautiful. Now tell them apart.
A GNOME Shell 49 extension that colors Zed editor windows by project — giving each codebase a unique hue so you can tell them apart at a glance.
- Colored borders — GLSL rounded-rectangle border rendered via
Clutter.ShaderEffect, matching your DE's corner radius - Project badges — small label at the top-right showing the project name
- Color overlay — subtle tint over the entire window (off by default)
- Automatic color assignment — deterministic hash maps project names to distinct hues via golden-angle distribution
- Manual overrides — pin specific colors to projects in the preferences UI
- Live updates — all settings take effect immediately, no restart needed
- Clone-aware — decorations appear in Overview, Alt-Tab, and dock previews automatically
- GNOME Shell 49 (Wayland)
- Zed editor
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/kirushik/kodecanter.git
cd kodecanter
make build
make installThen restart GNOME Shell (log out/in on Wayland) and enable:
gnome-extensions enable kodecanter@kirushik.github.iomake pack
gnome-extensions install kodecanter@kirushik.github.io.zipOpen via gnome-extensions prefs kodecanter@kirushik.github.io or the Extensions app.
| Key | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
border-enabled |
bool | true |
Show colored rounded borders |
badge-enabled |
bool | true |
Show project name badges |
overlay-enabled |
bool | false |
Show color overlay on window |
border-width |
int | 3 |
Border thickness (1-10 px) |
border-radius |
int | 12 |
Border corner radius (0-24 px) |
overlay-opacity |
int | 15 |
Overlay opacity (0-100%) |
color-overrides |
dict | {} |
Project name -> hex color overrides |
Zed sets each window's title to {filename} — {project_basename} (with an em-dash). Kodecanter watches for Zed windows via WM_CLASS, parses the project name from the title, and assigns a color using a deterministic hash. The color drives three optional decorations — a GLSL SDF border effect, an St.Label badge, and a shader overlay — all attached to the Meta.WindowActor so they propagate through Clutter clones.
See DEVELOPMENT.md for build instructions and architecture details.