davyd: Episode IV: A New Hope

Davyd (

davyd) wrote,
@ 2006-02-17 19:28:00

Episode IV: A New Hope
I originally said that I wasn't going to do this, but it seems that there was an awful lot of demand for it. Being one to cave into peer pressure, I thought, "why not, we may as well pimp the shiny features". Even though this is very late this time, these are still pre-release, so they could contain errors, omissions, be missing that last minute change we haven't made yet, &c. All in all, the document is subject to change at any moment.

Anyway, for your weekend reading enjoyment:
A Look at GNOME 2.14
Also, for those of you who got here via other means and did not see my blog post, but love GNOME: check out the GNOME Journal. The latest issue just came out yesterday and it's really good.

(Post a new comment)

	typo :) (Anonymous) 2006-02-17 12:05 pm UTC (link)
	There's a typo in the "Look Through Any Window" section: "To help users who utilise remote X windows, Metacity will mark windows that are running on a different host to Metacity itself. This will help users identify what machine a graphical application is running on and help to prevent possibly destructive tasks from accidently being run on the wrong machine." (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: typo :) davyd 2006-02-17 01:36 pm UTC (link)
	I always misspell that word. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	Oooo! (Anonymous) 2006-02-17 12:26 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks for this page, its awesome - I really didn't know there was THIS much to look forward to in GNOME 2.14. Now Im excited :) (Reply to this)

	Small typo (Anonymous) 2006-02-17 12:27 pm UTC (link)
	"Introducing Deskbar, an fabulous" ;-) (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Small typo davyd 2006-02-17 01:35 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks. This is what happens when you change adjectives. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Small typo kadeton 2006-02-17 02:26 pm UTC (link)
	Let me guess: "awesome". ;) (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Small typo davyd 2006-02-17 03:12 pm UTC (link)
	I wish I'd thought to use the word awesome. It's more of a Stephanie word. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	Wonderful (Anonymous) 2006-02-17 12:57 pm UTC (link)
	That's a really sexy preview. Hope you keep doing them for the next releases. (Reply to this)

	Marketing is everything. CONGRATS! (Anonymous) 2006-02-17 01:25 pm UTC (link)
	GNOME needs more pages like this. Excellent work! (Reply to this)

	Still missing (Anonymous) 2006-02-17 01:31 pm UTC (link)
	All these wonderful features and Metacity still can't remember the size and/or placement of a window. What a shock - GNOME developers continue to ignore the user community and do what they think is cool. (Reply to this) (Thread)

Re: Still missing

davyd
2006-02-17 01:39 pm UTC (link)

There is a good technical reason for this. Doing this kind of thing can break lots of applications, particularly older applications that can't deal with the window manager giving them a different allocation to the one they requested.

Additionally, there is no reason this functionality has to be in Metacity, thanks to libwnck and the window manager spec we share with the other modern X11 desktops, you have have this functionality in a third party piece of software like Devil's Pie.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	Thanks (Anonymous) 2006-02-17 01:34 pm UTC (link)
	Hi Davyd, Thanks for the nice write-up! It's good to see all new features in GNOME written in a nice short overview with pretty screenshots. You're helping the community greatly with these documents. Can't wait for 2.14 to arrive in Debian experimental to give it a try. (Reply to this)

Thank you so much Davyd!!
(Anonymous)
2006-02-17 01:45 pm UTC (link)

Thanks a million for this review of the new features!!!

When i read you didnt want to do this review for 2.14 i was sad, because i have been waiting for this since the one for 2.12!!!

I love the way you show the new features. I think this is the correct way to make good advertising of gnome. People need to see the features and get excited, because the hard work of the developers deserve it!

Than you again Davyd.

(Reply to this)

	thank you! (Anonymous) 2006-02-17 02:08 pm UTC (link)
	thank you a lot for doing this! it's really appreciated! (Reply to this)

	Network Manager (Anonymous) 2006-02-17 03:51 pm UTC (link)
	Nice preview, but you didn't mention NetworkManager's coolness anywhere. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Network Manager davyd 2006-02-17 05:16 pm UTC (link)
	NetworkManager, while cool, isn't actually part of GNOME :( Very exciting stuff coming from that corner though. Our it-just-works-ness is reaching dizzying heights. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Network Manager fooishbar 2006-02-18 06:18 pm UTC (link)
	I <3 Chris Blizzard (Reply to this) (Parent)

	fast user switching? opengl - 3d required? (Anonymous) 2006-02-17 06:51 pm UTC (link)
	I don't see a mention of fast user switching. did it get forgotten? Also, to enjoy the OpenGL compositor, is this 2d opengl or 3d? Do I need working opengl 3d acceleration? I am a sad owner of a savage chipset-based notebook and getting 3d to work meant downloading drivers from opendesktop which worked on the notebook but screwed up the external monitor. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: fast user switching? opengl - 3d required? davyd 2006-02-18 03:43 am UTC (link)
	Shit. I did forget it. You'll find it there now. Part of the reason for doing these is to get people who are excited and want to run and test our betas. Part of it is also to find out what we've missed that belongs in the release notes, so thankyou. You'll find FUSA is mentioned now. I'm not sure on the OpenGL requirements of the compositor. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	I love you, I love GNOME (Anonymous) 2006-02-17 08:24 pm UTC (link)
	I Davyd, I've just seen your usual prerelease tour, you rock, GNOME too ;) I think this is a good way of do marketing! PS: Do you love GNOME? I hope yes :D (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: I love you, I love GNOME davyd 2006-02-18 03:36 am UTC (link)
	I am filled with the love. Use. Love. GNOME. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: I love you, I love GNOME (Anonymous) 2006-02-18 11:31 am UTC (link)
	I Davyd, I LOVE GNOME too :D Thank you for your usual pre-release page. I've blogged about it in my blog here http://kugghiuns.altervista.org/xoen_blog/2006/02/18/gnome-214-preview/ So I do marketing too ;) Aldo "xoen" Giambelluca (Reply to this) (Parent)

	Thanks! (Anonymous) 2006-02-17 09:42 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks heap for doing this - it makes it a hell of a lot easier to explain things to people who don't track GNOME development (eg. win32 people), and just have a vague idea that "there's GNOME and KDE and they keep trying to be as good as Windows and they keep rewriting bits" ;) (Reply to this)

	Ekiga (Anonymous) 2006-02-17 11:28 pm UTC (link)
	Is it just me, or does Ekiga to everyone seem like it always ducks under HIG zealots... the interface looks terribly disorganised, as always. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Ekiga davyd 2006-02-18 03:26 am UTC (link)
	Getting a softphone to fit with a strict interpretation of the HIG would be quite a challenge. The UI for Ekiga still looks strange, but perhaps it will evolve over time. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Ekiga (Anonymous) 2006-02-18 12:47 pm UTC (link)
	I've just tryed Ekiga a little bit, The GUI isn't perfect, but seems to be usable. I don't know how to use it, I've tryed to find "someone", and chat with him but probably I've done something wrong somewhere. I don't know. I will find a friend for test ;) Aldo "xoen" Giambelluca (Reply to this) (Parent)

	Re: Ekiga (Anonymous) 2006-02-18 04:44 pm UTC (link)
	Just report a bug if it feels disorganised to you and suggest improvements. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Ekiga (Anonymous) 2006-02-18 05:03 pm UTC (link)
	Indeed. The GUI is mostly a matter of taste. And for my taste it's not disorganized (you can't disorganize that less items that much it hurts). But my taste is of course not everyones taste. So, people that think it is bad, should say WHY it is bad, otherwise there's no difference to what trolls do (and I'll treat them like trolls then). (Reply to this) (Parent)

	Thanks (Anonymous) 2006-02-18 04:34 am UTC (link)
	Thanks for taking the time to create and post the 2.14 preview. It made my Friday! (Reply to this)

	(Anonymous) 2006-02-18 03:39 pm UTC (link)
	Simply thanks man, you made it again. These summaries are very healthy and good for marketing. Keep it doin. (Reply to this)

	Wireless (Anonymous) 2006-02-21 06:18 pm UTC (link)
	How about wireless? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Dapper Drake gonna come with GNOME 2.14 (Anonymous) 2006-02-21 09:03 pm UTC (link)
	Don't worry fellas Ubuntu's "Dapper Drake" is going to ship all the advanced features on GNOME 2.14. LAst time even for 2.12 ubuntu made live CD for its Demo. Ubuntu Rox! It may be out on April 20th. So stay alive! --Lunatic 2.0 \m/ (http://geek-tale.blogspot.com) (Reply to this) (Parent)

	Re: Wireless (Anonymous) 2006-02-21 09:23 pm UTC (link)
	Dapper Drake is going to have a full wireless support. Don't worry pronto its gonna rok! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	ezhan 2006-02-26 02:08 pm UTC (link)
	http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39245577,00.htm This is the truth. Once apon a time I was a fan of GNOME, but now KDE is a way better and modern. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	davyd 2006-02-26 02:35 pm UTC (link)
	If Linus jumped off a cliff, would you do it too? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	ezhan 2006-02-26 03:01 pm UTC (link)
	I have my own opinion. Linus just says what I'm seeing and feeleing too. I'm on KDE since KDE 3.2, what is way before this Linus posting... (Reply to this) (Parent)

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