GNOME 3.24 Released (softpedia.com)

prisoninmate quotes a report from Softpedia: GNOME 3.24 just finished its six-month development cycle, and it's now the most advanced stable version of the modern and popular desktop environment used by default in numerous GNU/Linux distributions. It was developed since October 2016 under the GNOME 3.23.x umbrella, during which it received numerous improvements. Prominent new features of the GNOME 3.24 desktop environment include a Night Light functionality that promises to automatically shift the colors of your display to the warmer end of the spectrum after sunset, and a brand-new GNOME Control Center with redesigned Users, Keyboard and Mouse, Online Accounts, Bluetooth, and Printer panels. As for the GNOME apps, we can mention that the Nautilus file manager now lets users browse files as root (system administrator), GNOME Photos imitates Darktable's exposure and blacks adjustment tool, GNOME Music comes with ownCloud integration and lets you edit tags, and GNOME Calendar finally brings the Week view. New apps like GNOME Recipes are also part of this release. The full release notes can be viewed here. Softpedia notes in conclusion: "As mentioned before, it will take at least a couple of weeks for the new GNOME 3.24 packages to land on the stable repositories of your favorite distro, which means that you'll most probably be able to upgrade from GNOME 3.22 when the first point release, GNOME 3.24.1, is out on April 12, 2017."

Comments

Finally, I can switch to Gnome!

[Anonymous Coward]

Said no one, ever.

Re:Finally, I can switch to Gnome!

[sconeu]

Actually, I have, and would rather use Motif thatn GNOME.

Re:Finally, I can switch to Gnome!

[Anonymous Coward]

I used CDE (and thus Motif) for many years. It may look outdated now, but it was years ahead of its time. While it may not be as usable as, say, GNOME 2 or KDE 3 were, it's actually still managed to be better to use than GNOME 3 or KDE 4+ have been. That's how far our "modern" open source desktop projects have regressed.

Gedit, a simple text editor for GNOME, is a perfect example of how stupid things have gotten. This is what Gedit's UI used to look like, back before the GNOME 3 disaster. And this is a more recent GNOME 3 version of Gedit. It's unbelievable how far it has regressed, and how quickly this has happened.

And that's just a text editor! We see the same sort of nonsense throughout so much of GNOME 3. What were once usable and consistent menus and toolbars have been replaced with jumbled buttons and hamburger menus, among various other idiotic UI changes.

What's worse is that all of these regressions are justified as making the applications "easier to use on tablets", yet most GNOME 3 users are likely using a desktop with a mouse! They've ruined the desktop's entire user experience for a class of users that doesn't even exist!

Hate on Motif if you must. It and CDE provided a much better UI than GNOME 3 ever has or ever will.

Re:Finally, I can switch to Gnome!

[arth1]

Actually, I have, and would rather use Motif thatn GNOME.

I do use mwm. It works great. They haven't broken things like being able to paste into a window without changing z-order.
I also use a hammer that isn't painted a uniform color and doesn't play El Condor Pasa when I hit something.
It's not about bells and whistles, it's about productivity.

Re:Finally, I can switch to Gnome!

[Bill Hayden]

I'd upvote you a thousand times if I had mod points today.

Ubuntu (via Unity), GNOME, and Microsoft have all completely jumped the shark to support a class of users that, as best as I can tell, does not exist. I use Linux as my main work OS, day-in day-out. I know exactly zero people who use Ubuntu, GNOME, or Windows on tablets. These three are removing usability piece by piece to support a glorious future that no one wants. At least on Linux there are sensible UI alternatives like xfce that allow people like me to get work done, but that does not spare us from the destruction of useful apps running in that UI, like gedit as mentioned above.

Re:Finally, I can switch to Gnome!

[goose-incarnated]

Actually, I have, and would rather use Motif thatn GNOME.

I use a slightly modified WindowMaker (which means that I use a version I compiled myself after making a few changes). Many people are surprised at how minimal it is, but the productivity gains make it fully worth it.

Re:Finally, I can switch to Gnome!

[Tranzistors]

I looked at the screenshots and GNOME 3 looks better. Perhaps you can clarify your dissatisfaction? What I see:

• Missing file browser: it is still in gedit 3.x, just not enabled in the screenshot
• Some missing buttons: all of those are sill available where they should be — either in menu or context menu. All of those have keyboard shotcuts.
• Reduced wasted space: button bar, menus and title bar are are now compressed in one, reducing waste by 50% (excluding tabs).
• Some settings are more accessible: code highlighting, tabulation setting per file, text line rendering options. Now status bar not only informs you of status, but lets you fix it, if something is not as it should be.
• Of course there are visual differences, but those are customizable.

It is left as an exercise for the reader

[Hognoxious]

It is left as an exercise for the reader to make a sarcastic quip about systemd.

Re:Found the LUDDITE!

[RightwingNutjob]

It's an act of courage to remove features everyone uses and doesn't think about, and then to tell those people with a straight face that it's an improvement. No, really. You can't have any vestigial shred of fear in you to do that.

Well I'm gonna break up the hate party

[flacco]

There is a perplexing amount of GNOME hate in the top comments. I'm a very happy user. I've been using Linux almost exclusively in all capacities since about 1999 and have sampled and/or used a lot of desktop environments. GNOME is the best, IMHO.

Re:sunset mode

[Trogre]

Well it will be nice to not have to install Redshift for my GNOME users, but since most of my Linux users do not use GNOME as their desktop environment this isn't going to affect me much.

A useful feature for GNOME users though, but hardly worth top billing in the feature list.

Re:No thanks

[afgam28]

I'm really surprised that you (and others) care so much about gedit. Regardless of whether we're talking about the gnome 2 gedit or the gnome 3 one, neither of them are serious text editors for power users.

All it does is provide a simple-to-use default editor for new users (who edit text files very occasionally). It's like Notepad on Windows. And the current gedit serves this purpose just fine.

Serious users will install a serious text editor (e.g. vim, emacs, sublime, atom). This was true back in the gnome 2 days, and is still true today.

Re:No thanks

[dbIII]

neither of them are serious text editors for power users.

No but it's a good example of drastic changes to a functioning piece of software that leave some users unimpressed.

Re:sunset mode

[Misagon]

No, that is a serious thing. Colour temperature of the ambient light around you affects with your day-night cycle. We are made to respond to the sun's light which is colder in the morning (to wake you up) and warmer in the evening (which helps you sleep).
When the primary light source is your computer/device screen then that is what affects you the most.

This has been covered several times before here on Slashdot. Some that are easy to find.
Can Blocking Blue Light Help Bipolar Disorder As Well as Sleep Issues?
Microsoft To Add Flux Like Night Mode In Windows 10, Rendering 3rd-Party App's Existence Useless

However, I think that the change should not be abrupt but be gradual to better cohere with the sun's natural cycle. But I suspect that they chose to make it a special mode so as not to interfere with colour accuracy during work time.

Myself, I wish that I could also get LED bulbs that changed colour temperature gradually depending on the time of day, and that they wouldn't be expensive and hackable (Like Phillips ... ). I live in the North where some winter days are darker than summer nights, and thus artificial light is important all day.