GNOME 3.16 brings a brand new notification system and updated calendar design, which helps you to easily keep track of what’s happened, and includes useful information like world times and event reminders. Other features include overlaid scrollbars, updated visuals, improved content views in Files, and a redesigned image viewer.
Major additions have also been made to the GNOME developer experience: GTK+ support for OpenGL now allows GTK+ apps to support 3D natively, a new GLib reference counting feature will help with debugging, and GTK+ Inspector has also had a major update.
Also released: GNOME Builder, an IDE for GNOME.
Since it’s so quiet on this one, I’ll try to give everyone a few things to correct me on. 🙂
First off, I think this is pretty cool news. When gnome shell first debuted, it was judged harshly, and rightly so. However, since 3.6 (give or take a release), it has been a very solid, very usable desktop with 3.10 being a real standout to me at least. Unfortunately, a lot of people (or at least a lot of very vocal people) seem to have made up their mind and never looked back. Such a shame.
I know it makes a lot of people grumble, but I like seeing all the new ideas getting thrown around in the desktop space over the past 5 years or so, especially in the free desktop space. Unity, for example, does a lot of things right. For example, the keyboard shortcut support is excellent. Good visual cues, discoverable, good multi-monitor support, etc. If only they would get the performance issues ironed out. I swear, I get the same underwhelming performance on a core solo netbook as I do on a core i5 desktop with a discrete nVidia card. It’s passable, don’t misunderstand me, but it does seem really weird to me that performance is so similar on such dissimilar machines. But I digress.
Let it be said, the Gnome folks seem to have hit on a few really good ideas with gnome shell. If you use Gnome but haven’t spent time on extensions.gnome.org, you’re missing out big time. It makes it very easy to test out new configurations and workflows. If something doesn’t work, just uncheck it. And before anyone bemoans the need for extensions to make things workable, just take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Everything is going to be fine. Turns out, Gnome is usable without extensions. Regardless of the stock configuration, most distros customize things to make it better/distinguish themselves from the field. Finally, the user has the option to make it optimal using an extension system that just works. See? Everything is fine. The system works!
And since I’m doing a modern desktop round up, if you haven’t tried KDE5 yet, opensuse 13.2 has a nice version of 5.2 available. Just switched off 4.14 and no regrets yet. I’ll admit I’m willing to live with a few paper cuts but so far I haven’t needed any bandaids. It’s been a very smooth transition and the polish that’s been put on plasma is really starting to shine.
It’s good times, I tell ya. Good times.
I saw some screenshots of the newest release and one thing that I noticed is that the file-browser doesn’t show free/used space on the storage device. Is it just a configuration option or is the functionality missing entirely?
Aside from the properties window for each drive there isn’t a screen like Explorer’s My Computer that would. There is just the sidebar for access. However there is the Disk Usage program, the first screen of which shows your partitions and how much you’ve used vs is free. It’s there by default on gnome systems to.
Okay, so there’s a good reason why people still don’t like Gnome 3. That’s just ridiculous.
It’s a useful utility. What’s ridiculous about it?
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/72905.html
A file management utility that is incapable of showing free and used space sounds kind of ridiculous to me, to be honest. I mean, knowing the amount of free space is kind of tied to the whole concept of managing files in the first place, and having to open a separate app while doing that just to check the amount of space is a laughable proposition.
Gnome’s devs are big on minimalism at the moment, not just in UI but also in functionality. Their programs do only as much as is necessary. This has it’s good side and it’s bad sides. Within most file managers usage information would be displayed on a screen that lists your partitions. Nautilus/Gnome Files doesn’t have such a screen, the reasoning there being that if all the entries are in the sidebar then such a screen becomes redundant. I do have to agree with them there, the sidebar is arguably much better for accessing the partitions. As I mentioned the usage info is still in the properties dialog that nautilus generates just not in the main window. The Disk Usage program is more for a detailed list of what is taking up space within a give partition or folder, I mentioned it purely because it initially gives a list of your drives and how much is used for each of them.
The traditional way of doing it is simply showing it within the status bar where it’s exceedingly accessible yet wholly out-of-the-way.
That’s not any better than having to open a whole another app, though. You’re still jumping through hoops just to view very relevant info that should be accessible at a glance. In the grand scheme of things it’s a minor issue, but personally I would still feel quite aggravated about such an obvious usability – issue.
Nautilus has a floating status bar that’s displayed as needed. So it would make little sense to also put disk usage there.
http://askubuntu.com/a/289361
I am not sure I get that because most file managers I have ever don’t have a status bar showing that. Windows Explorer hasn’t had it since at least Win 7 (I had to check that, would’ve checked XP but none of my housemates has a computer with that on there) and Nautilus has only ever had information about the size of the selected objects which is still there just in a floating status bar like chrome has.
That’s just not the unix way. You don’t choose place to put a file from a bunch of drives like in the days of the floppy disk (or under Windows), you simply choose the correct directory for that kind of file. Disk management and file management are two separate tasks.
Nautilus will tell you how much space you’ve got on a file system if you right click a directory and click ‘properties’ or similar.
Yeah, try telling yourself that when dealing with e.g. removable media.
It’s the way it is. Neither the Enlightenment file manager, Konqueror nor Dolphin show free space in the main window. Thunar does, but sucks.
Of course, the file manager should always check disk space before copying, and they do.
Edited 2015-03-29 17:03 UTC
> Neither the Enlightenment file manager, Konqueror nor Dolphin show free space in the main window.
Krusader does, if anybody is interested 🙂 .
Dolphin does:
Settings –> Configure Dolphin –> General –> Status Bar –> Show space information
Although I will admit is not on by default and don’t exactly know why… 😉
It’s the same with Ubuntu and to be honest, its not a feature I have ever missed.
I’ve been on the XFCE bandwagon for too long. I must admit the new Plasma seems and feels like a quantum leap ahead from the perspective of an XFCE user. I can’t wait to try a stable version of some Debian-based or Ubuntu-based distro sporting the latest KDE. It’s a very well thought out environment, in my opinion. I hope the developers don’t mess it up.
Gnome 3.x is a smart tv interface not a desktop UI.
Its funny that developers found useful the concept of split panels in Builder, but not in the File Manager. Thats the Gnome Way…
Uh… I always thought Anjuta was the official GNOME IDE. Guess this isn’t true (anymore)…
I’d be curious to know what the Anjuta developer has to say in this regard… 😉