One thing I genuinely hated about GNOME has finally been solved with the GNOME 44 release. It includes some big improvements and new features.
As dumb as it sounds, one of the most important new features is the added grid view for the file picker. Honestly, I still can't believe it took this long but it's finally in. You can now actually see proper previews of images. As they said in the release announcement that for years GNOME users have been requesting it. Apps will need to use GTK4 though, so hopefully plenty will.
There's also various security improvements, accessibility upgrades like redesigned settings for accessibility with these new features:
- An over-amplification setting has been added, to increase the volume above the usual maximum threshold.
- Under Typing, an option has been added to enable accessibility features using the keyboard.
- There is now a test area for the cursor blinking setting.
- A new setting to make scrollbars be always visible has been added to the Seeing section.
Sound settings also got upgraded:
- Volume level control has been moved into a separate window, making the more commonly used output and input controls easier to access.
- It’s now possible to disable the alert sound, and a new alert sound window makes it easy to browse the available sounds that are available.
- The sound test window has been redesigned, eliminating previous scaling issues when there are many outputs, and providing a more attractive interface.
Mouse and touchpad settings were overhauled, updates to the quick settings menu like being able to see a list of running apps without a window (Flatpak only for now), the GNOME Software app should be faster now and it has better Flatpak support, the terminal app Console now has a tab overview option, you can share from the Contacts app with a QR code, the GNOME Web browser was upgraded to GTK4 and the list goes on.
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Direct Link
Direct Link
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
All posts need to follow our rules. For users logged in: please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Guest readers can email us for any issues.
SirBubbles Mar 23, 2023
No, that'll probably be what happens if GNOME ever allow proper theming back in "their" desktop environment again. Anyone else looking for an alternative that lets you fiddle with it?GNOME 44 is out now finally adding thumbnails to the file picker
Well, that's it. Hell has frozen over.
1 Likes, Who?
fenglengshun Mar 23, 2023
Well, at least it's finally there, and with the work done on Treeview on Nautilus, maybe I don't have to groan whenever I see gtk filepicker because it's just so much less feature complete than KDE. It was to the point that I remember I turned on the debug feature to try to force everything to use portal, so that it'd use the KDE filepicker.
I really don't care which toolkit or DE or whatever it is -- if it works, it works, and thank god someone finally did the work. Even if it's not the most thanked job, I salute the devs tackling this ages old issue.
I really don't care which toolkit or DE or whatever it is -- if it works, it works, and thank god someone finally did the work. Even if it's not the most thanked job, I salute the devs tackling this ages old issue.
0 Likes
Nobody is 'forcing' anybody to do anything with their time. Im not sure if this escaped you but this is a discussion forum, where people in particular tend to voice their opinions.
Whether you like them or not.
That's a text book straw man argument. The thing that you're arguing against neither represent my views nor what I have said. Please be better.
Last edited by mattiasb on 23 March 2023 at 8:45 am UTC
0 Likes
I think the problem is more what you're doing is a rather tiring argument, that people often repeat against others in the FOSS space when this type of thing comes up again and again.Nobody is 'forcing' anybody to do anything with their time. Im not sure if this escaped you but this is a discussion forum, where people in particular tend to voice their opinions.
Whether you like them or not.
That's a text book straw man argument. The thing that you're arguing against neither represent my views nor what I have said. Please be better.
Yes, people are free to spend their time developing what they want - but the whole point of this discussion and the years of discussion on the feature in question is people wanted it. Trying to argue it away and silence people because of how they spend their free time is just unhelpful. Because with that line of thinking: we might as well never want or discuss anything about FOSS, because the answer will always be the same: you don't have to use it / it's their free time they do what they want etc. Let people discuss and want things.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 23 March 2023 at 10:13 am UTC
6 Likes, Who?
CyborgZeta Mar 23, 2023
I don't think this is an issue if you use something like the Firefox Flatpak, which uses. I know that, ever since I switched to the Flatpak, Firefox has always used the KDE file picker OOTB without me needing to do anything; unlike when I used the .deb package.Apps will need to use GTK4 though, so hopefully plenty will.Ouch, IIRC Firefox still uses gtk3.
Honestly, the file picker is one of the reasons I left GTK behind for KDE/Qt. I was never a big GNOME user, but I was/am a fan of Xfce (Xubuntu); the lack of thumbnails in the file picker always bugged me.
0 Likes
Please be better.
I'm working on a list of extensions i can add to myself to make me more functional.
3 Likes, Who?
Please be better.
I'm working on a list of extensions i can add to myself to make me more functional.
Haha! ❤️
0 Likes
I think the problem is more what you're doing is a rather tiring argument, that people often repeat against others in the FOSS space when this type of thing comes up again and again.
Yes, people are free to spend their time developing what they want - but the whole point of this discussion and the years of discussion on the feature in question is people wanted it.
Trying to argue it away and silence people because of how they spend their free time is just unhelpful. Because with that line of thinking: we might as well never want or discuss anything about FOSS, because the answer will always be the same: you don't have to use it / it's their free time they do what they want etc. Let people discuss and want things.
I understand *fully* that people have wanted this and I don't think anyone mind when people express their wishes. Honestly people being excited about software you're making and having ideas for improvement is, when put forward in a nice way, just gravy! Just be humble about it and be aware that you're not customers and therefore don't get to send *demands*.
But *please* discuss the software and send ideas for improvements. That is generally appreciated.
(Also there's no need to imply that I'm trying to "silence" anyone).
0 Likes
slaapliedje Mar 24, 2023
Well, Utah is hell, and it Froze over earlier this year... :PGNOME 44 is out now finally adding thumbnails to the file picker
Well, that's it. Hell has frozen over.
1 Likes, Who?
[...]
Jokes aside, if a thing is free, it doesn't mean we can't talk about its flaws.
Ofcourse, that's obvious.
0 Likes
As a GNOME user since about 2003, I'm frankly surprised they didn't just take away our ability to pick files instead.
3 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje Mar 27, 2023
What's always weird is when you use an old Qt program, and the file picker is some weird crappy one (not KDE's, but like a default Qt one). Chitubox on Linux does that to me. It's awful.I didn't know that using gnome is a privilege. I feel unworthy though, so I'll stick to kde plasma for now.... so seems to me any excuses Gnome might make were probably . . . excuses.
It could just have been that they prioritized their time and choose to work on other things? Why would they have to make excuses for that?
The way you're framing this is so entitled. Free software is a privilege not a right.
Jokes aside, if a thing is free, it doesn't mean we can't talk about its flaws. Lack of thumbnails in a filepicker is a huge flaw. If you are trying to select a picture, such filepicker is absolutely useless. For every application that has hardcoded gnome/gtk filepicker, I have to open a file manager to drag and drop a picture from there, because that's the only way to see what file I am picking, that's what I think about gnome usability. Now they present to us bluetooth quick menu (already in kde) and background apps list (finally they invented system tray). maybe in 20 years they will add minimize and maximize buttons to the window titlebar, and a taskbar.
taskbar is another interesting topic. for some reason a bar with tabs is fine in a browser, but in a desktop environment a bar with running windows is a suddenly outdated evil thing to get rid of
thankfully we have kde, yet I am glad for gnome. at least its filepicker won't waste my time in apps that don't implement support for a default DE filepicker
0 Likes
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me