Chapter 6. Desktop

The GNOME Desktop has been upgraded to upstream version 3.14 (with some minor additions from 3.16), which includes new features and a number of enhancements. Namely:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 adds GNOME Software, a new way to install and manage software on the user's system based on a yum backend. GNOME PackageKit remains to be the default updater for GNOME (also installed by default). With GNOME Software, the user manages an integrated place for software related tasks, such as browsing, installing and removing applications, and viewing and installing software updates.

On the Top Bar, the newly-named System Status Menu groups together all of the indicators and applets otherwise accessed individually – brightness slider, improved airplane mode, connecting to Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth, Volume, and so on – into one coherent and compact menu. Regarding Wi-Fi, GNOME 3.14 provides improved support for Wi-Fi hotspots. When connecting to a Wi-Fi portal that requires authentication, GNOME now automatically shows the login page as a part of the connection process.

The default key combination for locking the screen has been changed. The previous default shortcut Ctrl+Alt+L has been replaced by the Super key+L key combination.

The new design of the gedit text editor incorporates all of previous features into a more compact interface, which gives more space for work. Use of popovers for selecting the document format and tab width is more efficient compared to the previous use of dialogs and menus. Consolidated sidebar controls also give more space for content while retaining the original functionality. Other notable improvements include new shortcuts for opening the last closed tab with Ctrl+Shift+T and for changing case.

Nautilus, the GNOME file manager, now uses the Shift+Ctrl+Z key combination, not Ctrl+Y, for the redo operation. Also, a header bar, instead of a toolbar, is now used.

GNOME 3.14 includes a reimagined Videos application. Modern in style, the new version allows the user to browse videos on the computer as well as online video channels. Videos also includes a redesigned playback view. This provides a more streamlined experience than the earlier version: floating playback controls hide when the user does not need them, and the fullscreen playback view also has a new more refined look.

Evince features improved accessibility for reading PDF files. The new version of the document viewer uses a header bar to give more space to your documents. When it is launched without a document being specified, Evince also shows a useful overview of your recent documents. The latest Evince version also includes High Resolution Display Support and enhanced accessibility, with links, images and form fields all being available from assistive technologies.

The new version of GNOME Weather application makes use of GNOME's new geolocation framework to automatically show the weather for your current location, and a new layout provides an effective way to read weather forecasts.

This release also brings improved support for comments in LibreOffice - import and export of nested comments in the ODF, DOC, DOCX and RTF filters, printing comments in margins, and formatting all comments.

The GNOME application for virtual and remote machines, Boxes, introduces snapshots. Boxes now provide automatic downloading, running multiple boxes in separate windows, and user interface improvements, including improved fullscreen behavior and thumbnails.

The GNOME Help documentation viewer has been redesigned to be consistent with other GNOME 3 applications. Help now uses a header bar, has an integrated search function, and bookmarking interface.

GTK+ 3.14 includes a number of bug fixes and enhancements, such as automatic loading of menus from resources, multi-selection support in GtkListBox, property bindings in GtkBuilder files, support for drawing outside a widget's allocation (gtk_widget_set_clip()), new transition types in GtkStack, and file loading and saving with GtkSourceView. In addition, GTK+ now provides support for gesture interaction. With 3.14, the majority of common multitouch gestures are available for use in GTK+ applications, such as tap, drag, swipe, pinch, and rotate. Gestures can be added to existing GTK+ applications using GtkGesture.

A GNOME Shell Extension, Looking Glass Inspector, has obtained a number of features for developers: showing all methods, classes, and so on in a namespace upon inspection, object inspector history expansion, or copying Looking Glass results as strings, and passing through events to gnome-shell.

The High Resolution Display Support feature has been extended to include all the key aspects of the core GNOME 3 experience, including the Activities Overview, animations in the Activities Overview along with new window animations, Top Bar, lock screen and system dialogs.

As far as GNOME Extensions are concerned, this release introduces support for alternative dock positioning, including the bottom side of the screen, in Simple Dock, a dock for the Gnome Shell.

Previously, the update-gtk-immodules script searched for a no longer existing /etc/gtk-2.0/$host directory. Consequently, the post-installation script of the ibus-gtk2 package failed and exited without creating or updating the cache. The post-installation script has been changed to replace update-gtk-immodules with gtk-query-immodules-2.0-BITS, and the problem no longer occurs.