Today, after 4 years and 5 months of work, we are pleased to announce the release of Xfce 4.14, a new stable version that replaces Xfce 4.12.
In this release, the main goal was to migrate all core components from Gtk2 to Gtk3, and from 'D-Bus GLib' to GDBus. Most components also received support for GObject Introspection. Along the way, we completed work on the user interface, introducing several new features and improvements (see below) while fixing numerous bugs (see Changelog).
Highlights of this release:
- Window Manager has received numerous updates and features, including VSync support (using Present or OpenGL as a backend) to reduce or eliminate screen flickering, HiDPI support, improved GLX support with proprietary/closed-source NVIDIA drivers, XInput2 support, various compositor improvements, and a new default theme.
- The panel has gained support for the 'primary RandR monitor' feature (you can specify which monitor the panel will be displayed on), improved window grouping in the tasklist plugin (enhanced user interface, visual group indicators, etc.), panel icon size customization, a new default clock format and a clock format validity checker, along with an improved default panel layout. New CSS style classes have been introduced for use in theme creation, such as a separate button class for window group operations and specific settings for vertical and horizontal panel placement.
- The Desktop now features 'primary RandR monitor' support, an icon orientation option for arrangement, a context menu option 'Next Background' to cycle through the wallpaper list, and it now synchronizes the user's wallpaper selection with AccountsService.
- A totally new settings dialog has been created to manage color profiles. For most users, this means built-in support for color printing (via cupsd) and scanning (via saned). For monitor profiles, you will need to install an additional service like xiccd.
- Settings dialog display received numerous changes during the development of the release: now users can save and (automatically) restore full configurations with multiple displays, which is especially useful for those who often connect their laptops to various docks or setups. Additionally, a lot of time was spent making the user interface more intuitive, and a hidden option for screen scaling through RandR was added (configurable via Xfconf).
- We have added an option to enable Gtk window scaling in the appearance settings dialog. as well as an option for monospaced font. However, we had to drop the theme previews due to issues arising when using Gtk3.We decided to forgo the startup splash screen settings from
- the session manager, but we added many features and fixes. Among these are support for hybrid sleep, improvements in the default session startup to avoid race conditions (ensuring support for launching applications considering priority groups, allowing the definition of dependency chains at startup. Previously, applications were launched all at once, which created issues, for example: the theme disappearing in xfce4-panel, launching multiple instances of the nm-applet applet, etc.), the ability to add and edit autostart entries, a user switch button in the logout dialog, and improved session selection and configuration dialogs (the latter with a new tab showing saved sessions). Furthermore, you can now run commands not only in 'autostart' mode during login but also while your computer is shutting down, logging out, etc. Finally, Gtk applications are now managed by sessions through DBus, and screensavers also exchange data via DBus (for example, to cancel their appearance). As always,Thunar
- As always, Thunar Our file manager has received numerous features and fixes. Among the visible changes are a completely redesigned top path panel, support for larger thumbnails (preview), and support for the file "folder.jpg", which changes the folder icon (for example, for music album covers). Experienced users will also notice improved keyboard navigation (zooming, tab navigation). The Thunar volume manager has gained Bluray support. The Thunar Plugin API (thunarx) has been updated to include introspection support for GObject and bindings for various programming languages. File sizes are now displayed in bytes. There is a new option to assign handlers for specific user actions. Thunar UCA (User Configurable Actions) can now be used for external network resources.
- Our service for displaying thumbnails has received many fixes and support for the Fujifilm RAF format.
- Application search can now be opened as a single window if desired, and it is now easier to access it using only the keyboard.
- The power manager has received numerous fixes and some minor features, including support for the XF86Battery button and the newly created xfce4 screensaver. The panel plugin also has several improvements: it can now additionally display the remaining time and/or percentage ratio, and it uses standard UPower icon names to work with a wider range of icon themes out of the box. When LXDE switched to Qt, the LXDE panel plugin was removed. Improved support for desktop systems, which no longer show a warning about the absence of a battery. Added filtering for power-related events sent to xfce4-notifyd for logging (for example, brightness change events are not sent).
Many applications and plugins, often referred to as "goodies", are part of the Xfce ecosystem, making it great. They have also received important changes in this release. To highlight a few:
- Our notification service Support was received for the 'persistence' mode = notification logging + 'Do Not Disturb' mode, which suppresses all notifications. A new panel plugin was created that shows missed notifications (especially useful in 'Do Not Disturb' mode) and provides quick access to toggle the 'Do Not Disturb' mode. Finally, support for displaying notifications on the main RandR monitor has been added.
- Our media player Parole has received improved support for network streams and podcasts, as well as a new 'mini-mode' and automatic selection of the best available video backends. In addition, it now also prevents screensavers from appearing during video playback, ensuring that users do not need to periodically move the mouse while watching a movie. Functionality on systems that do not support hardware-accelerated video decoding has been significantly simplified.
- Our image viewer Ristretto has received various user interface improvements and support for setting desktop wallpapers, and recently, its first development release based on Gtk3 was launched.
- The program for screenshots now allows users to move the selection rectangle while simultaneously displaying its width and height. The imgur upload dialog has been updated, and the command line provides greater flexibility.
- Our Clipboard manager now has improved support for keyboard shortcuts (via the GtkApplication port), improved and more consistent icon sizes, as well as an icon for the new application.
- The pulseaudio panel plugin has received MPRIS2 support for remote control of media players and support for multimedia keys for the entire desktop, essentially making xfce4-volumed-pulse an unnecessary daemon.
- The application has been updated Gigolo with a graphical interface for configuring network storage sharing using GIO/GVfs. The program allows you to quickly mount a remote file system and manage bookmarks for external storage in the file manager.
There is also a group of new projects, which have become part of our project:
- Finally, we have our own screensaver (Yes — we understand that it’s 2019;)). With many features and close integration with Xfce (obviously), this is a great addition to our application catalog.
- Panel plugin for notifications provides a next-generation system tray where applications can display indicators. It replaces the Ubuntu-oriented xfce4-Indicator-Plugin for most application indicators.
- For most Xfce users, Catfish a file search tool was well known — it is now officially part of Xfce!
- And finally, Panel Profiles, which allows users to create backups and restore panel layouts, has come under the wing of Xfce.
As always, it's time to say goodbye to some old unsupported or deprecated projects. (Fortunately, our projects are archived at git.xfce.org when they reach their end.) With a salty tear of sadness, we bid farewell to:
- garcon-vala
- gtk-xfce-engine
- pyxfce
- thunar-actions-plugin
- xfbib
- xfc
- xfce4-kbdleds-plugin
- xfce4-mm
- xfce4-taskbar-plugin
- xfce4-windowlist-plugin
- xfce4-wmdock-plugin
- xfswitch-plugin
A simple and clear overview of the changes in Xfce 4.14 can be found here:
https://xfce.org/about/tour
A detailed overview of changes between Xfce 4.12 and Xfce 4.14 can be found on the following page:
https://xfce.org/download/changelogs
This release can be downloaded either as a set of individual packages or as one large tar archive, including all these separate versions:
http://archive.xfce.org/xfce/4.14
With best wishes,
The Xfce development team!
Source: linux.org.ru
