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 port all major components from Gtk2 to Gtk3, and from "D-Bus GLib" to GDBus. Most components also received support for GObject Introspection. Along the way, we've finished working on the user interface, introducing quite a few new features and improvements (see below) and fixing a lot of bugs (see changelog).
Highlights of this release:
- Window Manager received many updates and features, including VSync support (using Present or OpenGL as backend) to reduce or eliminate display flickering, HiDPI support, improved GLX support with NVIDIA proprietary/closed source drivers, XInput2 support, various composer improvements, and a new software theme. by default.
- Panel received support for the βRandR main monitorβ function (you can set the monitor on which the panel will be displayed), improved window grouping in the task list plugin (improved user interface, visual group indicator, etc.), setting the icon size for each panel, new default clock format, and a clock format validation tool, as well as an improved default panel layout. New CSS-style classes are introduced for use when creating skins, for example, a separate button class is added for operations with groups of windows and specific settings for vertical and horizontal placement of the panel.
- Π£ desktop there is now support for "RandR main monitor", an orientation option for icon layout, a "Next Background" context menu option for navigating through the wallpaper list, and it now syncs the user's wallpaper selection with the AccountsService.
- A brand new settings dialog has been created to control color profiles. For most users, this means native support for color printing (via cupsd) and scanning (via saned). For monitor profiles, you will need to install an additional service such as xiccd.
- Settings Dialog Box display got a lot of changes while working on the release: users can now save and (automatically) restore full configurations with multiple displays, which is especially useful for those who frequently connect their laptop to various docking stations or installations. Also, a lot of time has been spent on making the UI more intuitive and a hidden option has been added to support screen scaling via RandR (configurable via Xfconf).
- We have added an option to enable Gtk window scaling in the settings dialog appearance, as well as a monospace font option. However, we had to drop theme previews due to problems with using Gtk3.
- We have decided not to configure launch screens from session manager, but we've added a lot of features and fixes. Among them are support for hybrid sleep, improvements to the default session launch to avoid race conditions (support for launching applications based on priority groups, allowing you to define a chain of dependencies at launch. Previously, applications were launched all at once, which created problems, for example: disappearance of a theme in xfce4-panel, running multiple instances of the nm-applet applet, etc.), a feature to add and edit autostart entries, a switch user button in the logout dialog, and improved session selection and configuration dialogs (the latter with a new tab that shows saved sessions). What's more, now you can run commands not only in "autostart" mode during login, but also when your computer is shutting down, logging out, etc. Finally, Gtk applications are now session-managed via DBus, and screensavers also communicate via DBus (to cancel their appearance, for example).
- As always, Thunar - our file manager - got a lot of features and fixes. Visible changes include a completely redesigned top path bar, support for large thumbnails (preview), as well as support for a folder.jpg file that changes the folder icon (for example, for music album covers). Experienced users will also notice improved keyboard navigation (zoom, tab navigation). The Thunar volume manager has received Bluray support. Updated the Thunar Plugin API (thunarx), which provides support for GObject introspection and the use of bindings in various programming languages. Provided display of file size in bytes. Now it is possible to assign handlers to perform user-defined actions. Implemented the ability to use Thunar UCA (User Configurable Actions) for external network resources.
- Our service for thumbnail display in the programs received many fixes and support for the Fujifilm RAF format.
- Application Search now you can optionally open as a single window, and now it is easier to access it only from the keyboard.
- Power manager received many fixes and some minor features including support for the XF86Battery button and the newly created xfce4 splash screen. The panel plugin also has a few improvements: it can now optionally display the remaining time and/or percentage, and it now uses standard UPower icon names to work with more icon themes out of the box. When LXDE moved to Qt, the LXDE panel plugin was removed. Improved support for desktop systems that no longer display the battery out of battery warning. Added filtering of power-related events passed to xfce4-notifyd for reflection in the log (for example, brightness change events are not passed).
Many apps and plugins, which are often referred to as "goodies", are part of the Xfce ecosystem and make it great. They also received important changes in this release. To highlight a few:
- Our notification service got support for "persistence" mode = notification logging + "do not disturb" mode which suppresses all notifications. A new panel plugin has been created that shows missed notifications (especially useful in Do Not Disturb mode) and gives quick access to toggle Do Not Disturb mode. Finally added support for displaying notifications on RandR's primary monitor.
- Our media player passwords received improved support for network streams and podcasts, as well as a new "mini-mode" and automatic selection of the best available video backend. In addition, it now also prevents screensavers from appearing during video playback, which ensures that users do not need to periodically move their mouse while watching a movie. Significantly simplified work on systems that do not support hardware-accelerated video decoding.
- Our Image Viewer Ristretto received various user interface improvements and support for setting desktop wallpapers, and recently released its first development release based on Gtk3.
- Program for screenshots now allows users to move the selection rectangle and display its width and height at the same time. The imgur upload dialog has been updated and the command line provides more flexibility.
- Our clipboard manager now has improved support for keyboard shortcuts (via a port for GtkApplication), improved and more consistent icon sizes, and a new application icon.
- pulseaudio panel plugin 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.
- Application updated Gigolo with a graphical interface for setting up network storage sharing using GIO/GVfs. The program allows you to quickly mount a remote file system and manage bookmarks to external storage in the file manager
There is also group of new projectsthat became part of our project:
- We finally have our own screensaver (yes - we understand it's 2019 ;)). With a lot of features and tight 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-based xfce4-Indicator-Plugin for most application indicators.
- For most Xfce users, Catfish the file search implementation was very familiar - now it's officially part of Xfce!
- Finally, Panel Profiles, which allows you to backup and restore panel templates, has moved under the Xfce wing.
As always, it's time to say goodbye to some old unsupported or obsolete projects. (Fortunately, our projects are archived at git.xfce.org when they die.) With a salty tear of sadness, we say goodbye 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 pictures in Xfce 4.14 can be viewed here:
https://xfce.org/about/tour
A detailed overview of the changes between the Xfce 4.12 and Xfce 4.14 releases 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 tarball containing all of these individual versions:
http://archive.xfce.org/xfce/4.14
Regards,
Xfce development team!
Source: linux.org.ru