Comment 6 for bug 780079

You need to get the latest source of DesktopNova from the download page. Applying the patch most likely should work:

  cd /patch/to/source
  patch <gnome-shell.patch

After this you need to compile and install DesktopNova. (You could also modify the Debian source package, so that it applies the patch before compilation.)

After finishing my exams tomorrow, I will backport the Gnome Shell patch back to the latest stable release. This will happen in the next week (when I have the time).

Until now I didn't give Gnome Shell or Unity a try, but supporting them seems important to me — the next release definitely should have included the necessary things.