After six months of development release of the desktop environment Compared to the last release, around 24,000 changes were made, with the involvement of 780 developers. Specialized Live images have been prepared to quickly assess the capabilities of GNOME 3.36 based on and .
Key :
- The release includes a separate application called Extensions, designed to manage GNOME Shell extensions (formerly managed through GNOME Software). This application allows actions such as updating, configuring, removing, and temporarily disabling extensions.
- A button has been added to the notification output dialog, enabling 'Do Not Disturb' mode to hide new notifications.
- The design of the login and screen unlock interfaces has become more functional, user-friendly, and elegant.
- The capabilities of the GNOME Shell have been expanded:
- It is now possible to launch applications using a discrete GPU on systems with hybrid graphics (an energy-efficient integrated Intel GPU and a high-performance NVIDIA GPU) and NVIDIA's proprietary driver.
Launching is done by selecting 'Launch on Discrete GPU' from the menu.
- The power off and session ending dialog has been reorganized to include a visible option for entering sleep mode.
- In dialogs that contain a password input field, a button with an eye icon has been added, which shows the entered password instead of asterisks when clicked.
- Most system dialogs have been redesigned, featuring a unified style and improved readability.
- Work has been done to enhance the interface overall. The pop-up calendar and search in overview mode have been improved.
- In overview mode, it is now possible to rename application folders. The folders are now displayed as dialogs rather than pop-up windows.
- It is now possible to launch applications using a discrete GPU on systems with hybrid graphics (an energy-efficient integrated Intel GPU and a high-performance NVIDIA GPU) and NVIDIA's proprietary driver.
- In the configuration tool, the settings sections have been reorganized. The privacy settings section now provides a list of applications that have been granted additional permissions to access location services, camera, and microphone (access can now be revoked separately for each application). The user management interface and the general system information window have been redesigned.
- The application installer manager (GNOME Software) now automatically detects network connections with traffic-based billing, such as when using a mobile operator's network. If a non-unlimited connection is detected, the downloading of updates is paused to save bandwidth.
- The interface of the initial setup wizard has been revamped. A feature has been added at the initial setup stage to enable parental control, allowing users to limit access to certain applications.
- In GNOME Boxes, the virtual machine and remote desktop manager, a tutorial for using the program has been added. A new virtual machine creation wizard has been proposed, allowing the configuration of the number of CPUs for each virtual machine and supporting booting via UEFI.
- In the GNOME Web browser (Epiphany), the ability to download and view PDF documents directly in the browser window has been implemented. The interface has been redesigned using responsive design methods, ensuring comfortable use regardless of screen resolution and DPI. A dark theme has been added, activated when the user selects dark desktop themes.
- In GNOME Music, support for connecting to Last.fm and ListenBrainz services has been added, as well as the automatic downloading of missing album art.
- The contact editing interface in the address book has been updated.
- The clock widget has been completely redesigned with a responsive design that displays correctly on small screens.
- In the IRC client Polari, link preview support has been added in the chat window.
- In the file manager, the use of hidden files as templates for new documents is now permitted.
- The password and encryption key manager interface has been adapted for proper use on small screens. It now displays SSH public keys.
- In Fractal, the decentralized communication platform Matrix client, the ability to play videos directly in the chat window has been added.
- In the window manager Mutter Support for independent updates when rendering only the changed parts of the interface has been implemented. Optimizations related to the use of for rendering off-screen before copying content to the actual screen buffer. Improved window tracking when working on Wayland. Reduced CPU load when rendering desktop wallpapers with scaling.
- Improved screencast recording. The new version utilizes features introduced in the multimedia server. the ability to use DMA buffers (dma-buf), allowing for avoiding intermediate data copying from the screen framebuffer to RAM.
- For Wayland, rendering of the entire screen has been excluded when using dma-buf or EGLImage buffers in favor of partial window updates, reducing the amount of data transferred between the GPU and CPU. Combined with independent updating of interface elements, this optimization has significantly reduced power consumption during battery operation.
- Increased performance of games running in fullscreen mode using Xwayland.
- Eliminated numerous bottlenecks in the operation of GNOME Shell and Mutter identified using Sysprof tools. For instance, GNOME Shell now avoids performing I/O operations on the main thread when saving notification data to the disk and caches the timezone settings. When rendering programmatically or accessing remotely via VNC, animated effects are disabled.
Source: opennet.ru
