Gnome2.14抢先预览

GNOME 2.14 Beta 2

The GNOME hackers continue to grind away on GNOME 2.14 which is now in the UI Freeze of their development cycle.

Screenshot 11: About GNOME

Here are some significant GNOME improvements since the previous release.

A Few Notable GNOME Improvements

In addition to all the impressive speed improvements in GNOME 2.14 there have been many user interface improvements made as well. Below are some of the more notable improvements since the previous release.

GNOME Terminal

The GNOME Terminal is where many of us spend a great deal of time hacking on our projects. The GNOME Terminal has had tabs for a while now but there was never a way to close a tab with a single mouse click, until now. The GNOME Terminal now has 'X's on its tabs providing a quick and easy to use UI element to close individual terminal tabs.

Screenshot 12: GNOME Terminal Tabs

GEdit

GEdit is a great little text editor with a very clean, simple and easy to use interface. But don't let its pretty face let you think it is soft on the inside. GEdit is a very powerful development tool as well, with features like syntax highlighting and more. In order to show off its power and usefulness GEdit now has a new MDI interface that allows you to optionally display Python and shell script output from within its own interface.

Screenshot 13: GEdit Default Interface

Click the thumbnail for the full size screenshot

Screenshot 14: GEdit Panes

Click the thumbnail for the full size screenshot

Yelp

Yelp, GNOME's help documentation viewer has received a lot of attention recently which has lead to many improvements. The most notable improvements are dramatic speed increases and the ability to search the available documentation. Documents that sometimes used to take up to 30 seconds to display now display in under 2 or 3 seconds. Searching, a much needed feature, allows you to search all the available documents helping you get the help you need faster and easier.

Screenshot 15: Yelp

Screenshot 16: Yelp Search Results

Ekiga Softphone (was GnomeMeeting)

Ekiga, which was formerly known as GnomeMeeting, is a VoIP (Voice Over IP) Internet softphone. From Egika's About Dialog: "Ekiga is full-featured SIP and H.323 compatible VoIP, IP-Telephony and Videoconferencing application that allows you to make audio and video calls to remote users with SIP and H.323 hardware or software."

Screenshot 17: Ekiga Softphone

GNOME Screensaver

No more xscreensaver. Dapper now uses the shiny new GNOME Screensaver. Here is a screenshot of the new GNOME Screensaver Preferences window.

Screenshot 18: GNOME Screensaver Preferences

GNOME Power Manager

Ubuntu 6.04 now also includes the GNOME Power Manager application installed and active by default. The GNOME Power Manager allows you to control the power saving features of your machine via a nice clean and simple interface.

Screenshot 19: GNOME Power Manager Notification Icon

The GNOME Power Manager icon is the plug and cord icon to the far left.

Below is a screenshot of the GNOME Power Manager Prefereces dialog where you can configure your machines power saving options to your liking.

Screenshot 20: GNOME Power Manager Preferences

Rhythmbox 0.9.3.1

Rhythmbox 0.9.3.1 brings with it many bug fixes and additional stability for all of its great new features such as Podcasting support, Ratings, Recent Activity, and much more.

Improved UI

Screenshot 21: Improved Rhythmbox UI

Click the thumbnail for the full size screenshot

Song Notification

When Rhythmbox is running in the background preventing you from seeing your play list it will pop up a notification window to let you know what song is now playing each time it switches to a new song.

Screenshot 22: Rhythmbox Song Notification

X-Chat GNOME Notifications

X-Chat GNOME also uses notifications. If X-Chat GNOME is running in the background and someone pings you, you will get a nice little notification pop up in the bottom right corner of your screen. The notification displays what channel the message is comming from, the person who sent the message and the message itself.

Screenshot 23: X-Chat GNOME Notifications