| Gnome 2.8 arrives on Linux desktops |
Sep. 15, 2004
 The Gnome project released version 2.8 of its popular Linux desktop environment today. Gnome 2.8, the culmination of six months effort by Gnome contributors worldwide, was released on schedule -- to the day -- the group says.
What's New In Gnome 2.8?
From Gnome.org's website . . . - The File Manager -- The Gnome file manager now uses an improved and standardized file-type system. This allows applications to tell Gnome that they can open certain types of file. The same system will soon be used by other desktops such as KDE, so this will allow different desktops and applications to work together more smoothly. Because this is a new system, applications must update how they register their file types. This should happen automatically when Linux distributions provide an upgrade to Gnome 2.8.
For each file-type there is a default application that will open the file when you double-click on the it. However, other applications might also be able to open the file type, so you can right-click and choose "Open With" to select one of these applications.
In the rare case that an application has not registered itself properly, or when you wish to use a different application to open a certain file type, you can add it manually. You can also use the properties page to select your default application for files of that type.
Gnome now supports DNS-Based Service Discovery, also known as Rendezvous in Apple's products. This allows you to view locally-available shares in your Network view.
Removable storage devices, such as CDs, DVDs, USB memory sticks, and cameras, can now be recognised and mounted automatically. Gnome can even start an appropriate application automatically, such as a music or DVD player, or a photograph organiser. This uses the Hardware Abstraction Layer from freedesktop.org, which we also expect future versions of other desktops to use.
Other File Manager improvements include: - Now allows access to password-protected FTP sites.
- Copying a folder over a folder of the same name now offers to merge the two directories.
- The CD burner's preferences dialog has been simplified.
- Desktop -- Gnome contains several user interface themes, allowing you to change the appearance of your whole environment via the themes control panel. And GNOME 2.8 contains the new "Glider" theme. It's intended to be simple yet attractive. The Keyboard control panel can now show an on-screen preview of each keyboard layout. Just press the key on your keyboard to see how it will be recognised with the layout.
- Panel Applets -- Gnome 2.8 offers a clearer way to choose panel applets. This replaces the previous hierarchical menu.
- Calendar Integration -- Never miss another appointment. The calendar view, available by clicking on the clock, now connects to Evolution to show your calendar and tasks.
- Network Monitor -- The network monitor has been improved and now has support for wireless interfaces, showing signal strength in the properties dialog and on the panel.
- Battery Support -- The battery monitor has been improved dramatically. It now estimates the time remaining as well as the remaining battery capacity. In addition, the low battery warning is now more visible, more informative and vanishes automatically when you plug your laptop back in.
- Weather Alerts -- The weather applet now has more locations then ever before. As well as support for the new United Kingdom weather forecasts.
- Evolution -- Gnome 2.8 now includes Evolution 2.0, the integrated Email and Groupware client. Evolution supports traditional mail setups, as well as Novell Groupwise and Microsoft Exchange. With Evolution you can read, write, and manage your emails, contacts, and calendar events. Evolution is already well known and successful, but this new version has some extra features, such as:
- Support for Novell Groupwise and Microsoft Exchange.
- Support for S/MIME, for authentication and encryption.
- View multiple sets of appointments on one calendar.
- Support for online calendars, in the Webcal format.
- Improved offline support for IMAP accounts.
- Support for Usenet newsgroups (NNTP).
- Junk mail filtering, via SpamAssassin.
- Many user interface improvements.
- Web Browser -- Gnome's "Epiphany" web browser, based on Mozilla, has some more enhancements. For instance, working with bookmarks is now even easier:
- Bookmarks toolbars are easier to manipulate.
- Bookmarks hierarchies are preserved when importing.
- Topics can be added directly from the new bookmark dialog.
- Whole bookmarks folders can be opened in tabs.
Other web browser improvements include: - Popup windows can now be blocked for specific web sites.
- There is now an offline mode.
- System administrators can now lockdown more features.
- Users can subscribe to Webcal online calendars in Evolution by clicking on their links in the web browser.
- System Administration -- Based on feedback from system administrators, Gnome 2.8 provides several new features to make their lives easier.
- Remote Desktop -- VNC server -- Gnome 2.8 now includes a VNC (virtual network computing) client, allowing remote control of a user's desktop. For instance, a system administrator could control the user's applications, to make make changes, or to just demonstrate how to perform tasks. The new Remote Desktop Preferences control panel lets users choose how much control should be allowed.
- System Tools -- The new system tools allow you to configure your system clock and your network connection, as well as manage the users and groups on your system. Previously, most Linux/*BSD/UNIX distributors provided their own tools, all with their own problems. The Gnome developers hope that they will work together on these unified tools to provide a consistent and reliable solution. At present, these system tools are most appropriate for single computers rather than large networks of computers.
- Network Tools -- The new network tools allow users to provide diagnostic information to system administrators when they have problems with their network connection or with certain network services. Although the same functionality is avaiable from the command-line, we think that system administrators will find it much easier to guide users through the simpler user interface of the network tools.
- Configuration Editor -- The configuration editor has the following new features:
- Search the configuration database for a particular key, value, or description.
- Edit default and mandatory values.
- See recently-modified keys, in case you need to change their values again.
- Platform Improvements -- The Gnome 2.8 Development Platform adds a few small API improvements, while maintaining backwards compatibilty and API-stability. In particular this time we have:
- New API in gnome-vfs to allow detection of local servers via DNS-Based Service Discovery.
- New API is also wrapped in the Platform Bindings, which allow application in programming languages other than C.
- GNOME 2.8 now includes official Python bindings, in addition to C++, Java, and Perl bindings, via the gtkmm, java-gnome, gtk2-perl, and pygtk projects.
Note: The above text is excerpted from the Gnome.org website and is Copyright © 2003, The Gnome Project. The complete discussion, including numerous screenshots, is available here
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