I N_XkËje\n`e>efd\)%)+6 >EFD<E The traditional Fall release of the Gnome desktop ushers in a number of plet [5], reveal that this desktop is still in its prime. useful new features. BY CHRISTIAN MEYER The Nautilus developers have intro- duced some very visible changes. For he news is out – the current opers are just planning clean-up work many years, users have asked for a split Gnome branch [1] is getting old, in the form of API consolidation for the view (see the “Split View” box), and Kslowly but surely, and the time is first major 3.X release. The first evidence both developers and usability experts right to think about a major version of this library upgrade is Glib 2.18 or have turned down this request many change. At the Gnome Users’ and Devel- Gtk+ 2.14, the underpinnings for times. The new tabbed mode included opers’ European Conference (Guadec) Gnome 2.24. It is not entirely clear with tools such as the Epiphany [6] web [2], which took place in Istanbul early whether the new Gnome really will be browser (Figure 1) and the Gedit [7] text in July 2008, Gnome developers looked around in two years; in the meantime, editor is a more open response to a simi- into their options for Gnome 3.0. The work on the current Gnome components lar idea. Users can press the keyboard result is that the number before the dot is continuing at top speed. The tried and shortcut Ctrl+T to open a new tab in a will change after version 2.28. trusted architecture, which has been style reminiscent of Firefox. Of course, a major new version neces- around for more than six years, is far Tabbed view, which is only available sitates changes to the underlying Glib from the end of its tether. in browser mode, supports drag and and Gtk+ libraries; however, the devel- drop: Dragging a file or folder to another @dgifm\d\ekj tab causes Nautilus to move the tab into Christian Meyer started to work with In Gnome 2.24, the developers have the foreground. Of course, actions be- Linux in the mid-1990s and was a again focused on details – and on the tween windows work too. The develop- member of the Gnome Germany stability of the libraries and programs ers have also added a space-saving com- board from 2004 to 2006. Right now, pact view (Figure 2), and the file man- Christian is working on his theses and added last spring. preparing for his finals. Although he In addition to the stability enhance- ager now supports all the view modes does not have much leisure time, ex- ments, improvements to the Nautilus [3] that its competitors offer. perimenting with new technologies in file manager and new tools, such as the In previous versions, files or folders THE AUTHOR THE and around Linux is always at the top Empathy Instant Messenger client [4] with long names tended to mess up the of his list. and the Hamster time management ap- way icons were grouped. This phenome- 48 ISSUE 98 JANUARY 2009 048-050_gnome.indd 48 13.11.2008 17:20:06 Uhr Gnome 2.24 I The media player thumbnailer now uses cover art – if it finds it – for movies, too. ;\jbYXi8ggc\k The developers of the Deskbar applet, which serves as a kind of Swiss army knife for desktop search tools (Figure 3), have reintroduced some new features. The program again displays the history in a separate window, which was normal up to version 2.18. By pressing Del, you can delete individual history entries. All told, the new version contributes six new add-ons to the existing collection: such as 2*78-6*1.5 directly and re- =`^li\(1K_\e\nkXY]\Xkli\c\kjlj\ij[iX^Xe[[ifg]`c\jY\kn\\e`e[`m`[lXckXYj% turns the results along with the re- quest. non is a thing of the past: Nautilus now last spring, now work more reliably. displays the first three lines of the file or Right now, about 90 percent of programs Yahoo search. Note that you need an folder name. rely on the new virtual filesystem library external package for this (python-sim- Experienced users might want to use – perfect conditions for finally burying plejson) on Ubuntu. the GConf /apps/nautilus/icon_view key GnomeVFS sometime in the near future. to change the default number of lines. plugin for developers that searches for The eject icon for removable media – Dlck`d\[`XGc\Xjli\ functions in public source code. such as USB sticks or iPods – is another The latest release fixes many bugs in the new feature. Clicking the icon tells the Totem [10] multimedia player, which on the basis of requests entered by the computer to unmount the medium. now not only plays movies and audio user. In the past, copying data from FAT32 files, but also YouTube videos. Totem partitions caused trouble if the filenames also offers support for digital TV (DVB). included non-standard characters. Nauti- Fans of home entertainment PCs no for suggestions. lus would tend to trip over its own feet longer need to waste time configuring - and fail to copy the files. The new ver- the remote control (LIRC). LIRC support ging services. sion removes this issue, at the same time now works for most remote controls out On top of these add-ons, Sebastian Pöl- implementing the Freedesktop specifica- of the box. sterl has integrated Capuchin [11], a tion for the trash can. Files a user deletes accidentally are re- stored to their original paths. Nautilus remembers the original filesystem loca- tion of every file or folder. If you want to add files to an archive called test.tgz, you can just drag the files to the icon and drop them on it. Internally, Nautilus launches File Roller [9], which handles the remaining tasks. The developers have also corrected some errors in Nautilus. Gio and GVFS, which replaced the legacy GnomeVFS Split View File managers typically display the con- tents of one directory per window. In split view mode, which Gnome Com- mander [8] and other programs offer, the tool displays two folders adjacently in a single window. In many people’s opinion, this makes file operations eas- ier. =`^li\)1EXlk`cljËZfdgXZkm`\n[`jgcXpj]Xidfi\fYa\Zkj`eXj`e^c\n`e[fn% JANUARY 2009 ISSUE 98 49 048-050_gnome.indd 49 13.11.2008 17:20:11 Uhr I dering engine. Al- now on a par with Gecko in many areas, it still has some issues with accessibility. As a result of these issues, the developers decided integration until Spring 2009. The Conduit [14] syn- chronization tool was also delayed. =`^li\,1K_\?Xdjk\igifa\Zkf]]\ijk`d\b\\g`e^]fi[X`cp In all likelihood, =`^li\*1;\jbYXi`ek\^iXk\jj\XiZ_kffcjn`k_ kXjbj%K_\gif^iXd\mXclXk\jnfib]cfnj`ek_\]fidf] _\cg]lc[\jbkfgXggjjlZ_XjKfdYfp% ^iXg_jXe[\m\e^\e\iXk\j?KDC]`c\j% Conduit will make the next version of background service that downloads and merly known as GnomeMeeting – is now Gnome. installs plugins. available. Besides adding a completely Gnome 2.24 offers no spectacular new user interface, the developers have changes to basic libraries. For the most I\dfk\8ZZ\jj also been working on the SIP features. part, the developers have focused on sta- The Vinagre VNC client [12] and the More modern video codecs and a bility, although several new tools and Vino VNC server also offer some new smoother display – in full screen mode features debut with the latest version. features. In full screen mode, Vinagre too – make it quite clear how much According to the Gnome project, at does not display the toolbar until you work has gone into the program in re- least two more Gnome releases will fol- move the mouse pointer to the top of the cent months. For the first time, Ekiga low this version before Gnome 3 arrives. window. The new features also include The next release in the 2.X series is improved screen content handling if the Gnome version 2.26, which is scheduled remote machine uses a higher resolution E\nGif^iXdj to appear in mid-March 2009. p than the local machine (Figure 4). A new Developers have added two new pro- Panel applet supports fast access to grams: Empathy, an instant messenger INFO bookmarks and host systems. based on Gossip, and the Hamster proj- [1] Gnome: http:// www. gnome. org In a style similar to VirtualBox [13], ect, which helps users keep track of the [2] Guadec: http:// www. guadec. org Vinagre now supports the keyboard time spent on various tasks. Although [3] Nautilus: http:// www. gnome. org/ shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Del to shutdown the most users previously installed Pidgin – projects/ nautilus/ remote system. formerly known as Gaim – as their IM [4] Empathy IM wiki page: tool, the program’s limited functionality http:// live. gnome. org/ Empathy M`[\f:fe]\i\eZ`e^ made it difficult to use. Empathy is a [5] Hamster project wiki page: http:// After much work, version 3.0 of the welcome return to the KISS (Keep It Sim- live. gnome. org/ ProjectHamster Ekiga video conferencing program – for- ple Stupid) principle, and it supports all [6] Epiphany: http:// www. gnome. org/ the major messaging protocols, includ- projects/ epiphany/ ing ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and Jabber. [7] Gedit: http:// www. gnome. org/ Empathy relies on libraries that keep to projects/ gedit/ the Freedesktop specifications, although [8] Gnome Commander: it also uses Libpurple, on which Pidgin http:// www. nongnu. org/ gcmd/ was based. [9] File Roller: The Hamster project provides a simple http:// fileroller. sourceforge. net approach to managing time require- [10] Totem: http://www. gnome. org/ ments for daily tasks. Output in HTML projects/ totem/ and several helpful visualization features [11] Capuchin: http:// capuchin. k-d-w. org leave a positive overall impression for [12] Vinagre: http:// www. gnome. org/ this fairly recent project (Figure 5). projects/ vinagre/ Some components failed to make the [13] VirtualBox: http:// www. virtualbox. org Gnome 2.24 freeze. The new version of =`^li\+1LYleklËjI\dfk\;\jbkfgM`\n\i Epiphany, for instance, was originally [14] Conduit wiki: http:// live. gnome. org/ Conduit `jYXj\[fek_\M`eX^i\ME:Zc`\ek% - 50 ISSUE 98 JANUARY 2009 048-050_gnome.indd 50 13.11.2008 17:20:12 Uhr