Gnome 2.0 RC1

lurgyman writes "The GNOME Desktop 2.0 release candidate 1 has been released! It looks like it's finally on schedule for its projected June 21 release." The release notes have some good information.

Comments

Re:screenshots

[Tack]

If you're looking for GNOME 2 screenshots that don't look like barf (and I agree, the ones posted here look hideous), then try these images from Jimmac's site:

• One
• Two
• Three (sexy)
• Four
• and Five.

Jason.

Re:UI Features?

[IamTheRealMike]

While I realize this release wasnt supposed to 'look' much different, they still could have taken advantage of new eyecandy availible to x and gtk2. Even kde supports tranparent menus. Besides anti-aliased fonts and alpha blending in widgets, nothing else looks much different.

Well like you said, this release is about under the hood changes, much like the difference between Windows 95 and 98 - a lot of good changes, but not really in the visuals department.

2.) cool little features like drop shadows on the menus and windows, alpha blending and animations on mouse over widgets or icons, faded menus, transparency, etc....

Drop shadows on menus will have to wait for real transparency, which doesn't rely on taking a screen grab of the underside (which is how current X transparency is implemented, it means once blended it'll get out of date). This doesn't exist in X yet, but will once Keith Packard has finished his transparency server. I wish I knew when this would be.

Animations on mouse over widgets and icons is implemented in KDE3, so I dunno why GNOME doesn't have it either - guess it's just priorities. For faded menus, I guess you mean transparent menus, see above. In fact, that list basically comes down to "transparency". It's coming. Hold tight.

Meanwhile, here is a shot of GNOME that actually looks good. And look - the terminal is transparent. Happy now?

Re:screenshots

[epukinsk]

The following was posted on desktop-devel-list@gnome.org:

From: Rui Miguel Silva Seabra
To: GNOME Desktop Hackers
Subject: Re: GNOME 2.0.0 Desktop Release Notes Contributions
Date: 14 Jun 2002 12:37:21 +0100

A sawfish known issue that people might pointout: viewports are
''gone''.
Suggest adding the following to ~/.sawfishrc
;; Get viewports back
(setq customize-command-classes '(default viewport))

;; (setq viewport-dimensions '(NUMBER_OF_COLS . NUMBER_OF_ROWS))
(setq viewport-dimensions '(6 . 1)) ;; example

Not only do GNOME developers know this is an issue, there are GNOME developers who want the functionality viewports offer to be a part of GNOME. I wouldn't be surprised to see there be a GConf key that enables viewports in 2.0.1, BUT...

GNOME 2 developers can't listen to GNOME 2 users unless the users speak directly to them. File a bug in bugzilla.gnome.org. That's the best way to put this request on the developers' plate. And don't just say "RE-ENABLE VIEWPORTS," explain exactly what it is about viewports that you miss... is it that windows can straddle viewports? Is it navigation?

It's my understanding (after lurking on the gnome lists for a while) that the intention is not to leave viewport users in the dust, but to try to allow viewport users to use workspaces in the same way they used to used viewports. I.e. put a checkbox somewhere that says "allow windows to straddle workspaces" etc.

But this functionality won't be implemented unless the GNOME developers know people want it. So file a bug. File several bugs, one for each bit of functionality you miss that viewports had.

-Erik