3.22 Release Notes Items
Changes in GNOME 3.22, to be potentially mentioned in the release notes.
Please note that this page does not need to be pretty or well-written. It's just a list that will be used to make the actual release notes.
See also the advice about the schedule and translation.
Also see feature plans for 3.22
Attention Press/Reviewers This is a work in progress. Items aren't checked for correctness. Statements may be completely wrong. Very large changes could be forgotten. Please wait until the final release notes are done. This page will not contain everything that will be in the final release notes. |
Contents
How-to
List any changes that:
- Affect users, administrators or developers.
- Are something people have been hoping for or discussing widely.
- Feature, usability, performance, internationalization or accessibility improvements.
Even small changes are interesting, and can sometimes be combined into wider themes.
Provide this information:
- What the module (application) is.
- What the change is.
- How it will look and work from a user perspective.
- Why it is better than what we had before.
Be as descriptive as you like. It is better too long than too short. Links and screenshots are very welcome!
What's new for users
Calendar
- Support for alarms
- Major improvements of the event editing dialog
- Add the option to move events between agendas
- Restyled date picker
- Enable rescheduling events with Drag n' Drop
- Responsive Year view
- Minor improvements
Maps
Now uses Mapbox as a provider https://www.gnome.org/news/2016/08/mapbox-steps-in-to-help-gnomes-maps-application/
- Horizontal map wrapping
Music
- Performance improvements
Photos
- Upload / sharing
Uploading images to Google Photos: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=751181
- E-mail attachments
Hammer to discard all edits: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=763156
Files
- Added GVfs admin backend based on polkit
- You can now work with files with admin privileges over admin:///
- Updated view controls
- Now possible to switch between grid and list view with a single click
- Easier zoom controls
- Added a tool for renaming multiple files at once
We allow to search & replace.
- We provide the possibility of using files metadata, like "track number", "album name", "artist name" for music files; or "episode" and "season" for movies and TV shows; or "camera model" and "date taken" for pictures.
- Added compressed files integration and ability for compression and decompression.
- Now there is progress status, undo, redo and operation perseverance (operation keeps going if you close Nautilus).
- We avoid opening another application window.
- Separate desktop from Nautilus.
- If the desktop crashes, Nautilus won't.
- Allows us to rework the Nautilus views for a modern and animated visualization.
- Better folder creation from selection. We search for a common prefix on the selected files and make that as the preset name
- Hide floating bar on mouse hover. In this way we avoid to obscure the view content if the user needs it.
Here there is an extensive explanation for these items (except the admin:/// access) https://csorianognome.wordpress.com/2016/08/31/nautilus-3-22-news-changes/
Flatpak Integration
- In Software:
- Shows when apps are sandboxed
- Shows the source of applications when they aren't provided by a distribution
- Able to install Flatpak repository files, to allow easy repository installation
Settings
Redesigned keyboard settings panel - https://feaneron.com/2016/07/21/the-new-keyboard-panel/
- Sharing services are more reliable, and use "systemd" to start and stop screen, media and file sharing (implemented in gnome-settings-daemon, used by the Sharing panel)
- In the Displays panel, interlaced and non-interlaced resolutions are now clearly marked
- Removed support for Enterprise networking features (Team, Bonding, etc.), which wasn't complete enough to be useful, we recommend using Cockpit to configure those instead
- Edge scrolling is back!
Software
- Flatpak integration (see above)
- Polish and refinement:
- More engaging, colorful landing page - relocated categories are more prominent and use color, updated banners
- Uses standard search pattern
- Polished lists - better layout, fewer distractions
- Color-coded badges indicate licensing terms more clearly - easy to tell whether something is Free Software or not
- Refined application page layout - looks better
- Star ratings now shown on application tiles, makes it easier to find the best apps
- View more buttons shown in the landing page, makes it easier to browse
Web
Paste & Go in address bar context menu
- Keyboard shortcuts dialog
Redesigned error pages http://i.imgur.com/DSSVwhb.png http://i.imgur.com/s4H11o6.png http://imgur.com/a/JAvOe
Videos
- Variable rate playback
Books
- Initial support for ePub display
dconf Editor
- Complete rework of the UI, pathbar-based
- New “delay mode”, that allows to apply multiple changes at once
- Allows erasing keys without schemas
- Allows recursive reset of keys, erasing keys without schemas
Polari
- Support for automatic Nickserv authentication.
Games
- List more games:
- Atari 2600
- Atari 7800
- Game Boy Color
- Game Gear
- Mega-CD/Sega CD
- Mega-CD 32X/Sega CD 32X
- Mega Drive 32X/Sega 32X
- PC-Engine CD-ROM²
- Sega Pico
- SG-1000
Allow to switch between the multiple discs of PlayStation games, display the disc's title if it has one
- Add gamepad support to Libretro based games
- Add session and idle inhibitors
- Various UI improvements:
- Add fullscreen support, it can be toggled with buttons in the header bar, Ctrl+F, F11 or Escape
- Pause or resume the game when the window's focus change
- Simplify the 'Resume' dialog
- Prompt what to do when resuming a game failed
- Warn the user of lost progress when quitting a non-resumable game
- Display game loading errors in an error page rather than an info box
- Reduce UI freezes when parsing MAME games on startup
- And many smaller ones
- Display covers for many games:
- Double the thumbnail size to better see them
- Get covers from TheGamesDB.net for most games and from the Steam store for Steam Games
- Use covers alongside the game file and named similarly to it - e.g.: mario.nes and mario.jpg - or named as cover.* or as folder.*
- Display icons extracted from the game files for LÖVE and Nintendo DS games
- Made Games run better in Flatpak
Shell
- Better screen rotation support under Wayland
- On screen keyboard support under Wayland
What's new in accessibility
What's new for administrators
What's new for developers
GTK+
The developer blog has been revived: https://blog.gtk.org/
CSS blend modes: https://feaneron.com/2016/07/03/css-blend-modes-in-gtk/
GSK progress (not merged for 3.22)
- Graphic tablets support in Wayland
- GtkGLArea can use GLES
Richer monitor information with GdkMonitor
- Portal support for flatpak apps: file chooser, printing, gtk_show_uri, inhibiting,...
Flatpak
- Renamed from xdg-app
- New website - flatpak.org
- Portals work
Builder
UI changes (see https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2016/07/01/builder-designs/ ):
- Refined first launch view and project creation
- New "omnibar" allows starting a build with a single click, gives feedback about build progress
- New "perspective switcher" allows switching between modes; takes up less space and looks better than the old one
- Run button allows you to easily run and stop your project [1]
- New find/replace tool [1]
- Color selection highlighting and sidebar [1]
- Built in profiler
- New quick-highlight plugin which highlights words matching the current selection
- C, Xml, and Html indenters have been expanded to support more syntax styles.
[1] https://blogs.gnome.org/chergert/2016/07/18/builder-happenings/
Glib
- GLib’s logging API has been reworked to support structured key–value log fields
- Support has been added for passing these through to systemd-journald if it’s running
- stdio-based output works as before, but has gained colour support
- The logging infrastructure has been reorganised around a ‘writer’ function where an application specifies its logging policy; log handlers are deprecated in favour of this, which reduces ambiguity about how and where logs should be handled, and eliminates conflicts between log handlers
- More of the internals of the logging infrastructure are exposed as public API, so applications are free to build their own logging policies using as much or as little of GLib’s default policy as needed
- Testing for log messages in unit tests is now more flexible as it can be done in a custom writer function, rather than internally in GLib (checking messages strictly in order, which was quite limiting)
Structured logging makes it easier to implement different and more powerful logging schemes, and should result in less confusion about conflicting log handlers from different libraries. AllanDay: because this is the authoritative logging API that people should use?
Makes it easier to include more metadata in log messages, like message IDs (as in journald: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.journal-fields.html)
Uses journald if it’s running. AllanDay: what if it's not running.