GNOME 48 released with Notification Stacking, Performance Improvements and initial HDR support

GNOME 48 is a big new release including multiple major enhancements to one of the most-used desktop environments on Linux. There's some big stuff in this one!

For those of you with a HDR monitor you can finally use some of it! This brings the initial introduction of system-level HDR support enabling you to turn it on in the display settings. There's also a new Digital Wellbeing settings section that allows you to adjust screen time limits (good for kids), break reminders and more.

Notification Stacking is another nice one. Bundling together similar notifications in the top bar to not overwhelm you, and it just overall looks a whole lot better.

The developers noted various performance improvements too like introducing dynamic triple buffering, finally, after going through "significant review and testing over a period of five years". They said it should improve the "perceived smoothness of changes on screen, with fewer skipped frames and more fluid animations". On top of that some other performance improvements included:

• GNOME’s JavaScript engine, a core part of the desktop, has reduced CPU and memory usage for many common operations.
• File indexing now uses less memory when crawling large folders, and has faster multimedia metadata extraction.
• Users with monitors directly attached to a discrete graphics card will experience improved performance and stability.
• In Files, significant performance improvements have been made to folder load time and scroll rendering. These enhancements primarily apply to folders which contain a lot of thumbnails. In testing they resulted in a ×5 speed increase when loading, and a ×10 rendering speed increase for scrolling.
• Optimizations in the latest GTK version result in faster performance when app interfaces are created and resized.

There's also an enhanced image viewer, new fonts and a feature to let you adjust maximum battery charge level to help preserve its life. Also added is Decibels, a new minimal audio player and an updated text editor.

Some of the other listed new features:

• Global shortcuts: apps can now create their own system-wide shortcuts. This is useful for cases when you want to control an app when not directly interacting with it, for example when recording screencasts. Apps must request permission to add global shortcuts, and global shortcuts can be removed from the Apps page in the Settings app.
• Window placement improvements: new windows are now placed in the center of the screen by default, for a more natural and balanced layout. There have also been several improvements to window placement when using multiple displays.
• Enhanced support for special function keys: if your keyboard includes Copy, Paste, Cut, Undo, or Redo keys, they can now be used in entries and text fields. The Find key is now also supported in many contexts to initiate searches.
• Contacts UI improvements: the layout of contact editing has been improved for better usability, and birthday editing is now adaptive, enhancing support for different devices.
• Settings refinements: in Region and Language, the formats dialog has been updated for improved locale and format selection. The Power settings have also been restructured to aid navigation.
• Orca screen reader on Wayland: Orca shortcuts now function correctly in GNOME with Wayland, including the use of the Caps Lock key as the Orca modifier key. This is a major step forward in making assistive technologies available with the default GNOME display manager.
• Refined app interfaces: app interface colors have been slightly tweaked, buttons and entries are slightly more rounded, and banners and toasts have been restyled.
• Maps modernization: Maps includes various interface enhancements, including updated spinners, animated star buttons, and a redesigned point of interest editing window.
• Accessibility support in Web: accessible contents of web pages are now available when Web is running as a Flatpak. This is a major security enhancement for users of accessibility features.
• Calendar refinements: the event editor dialog in Calendar has been significantly improved, with redesigned date/time scheduling, improved calendar selection, and the ability to set the timezone. Additionally, various other UX improvements and bug fixes have been implemented, and performance has been significantly improved when showing many events at once.

Check out the full release notes.