GNOME 3.2 has been released and is the first follow-up release to its ground-breaking GNOME 3.0. It has undergone a major redesign and now has the user interface for the next generation of the desktop. From 3.2, GNOME is refining the project and starting to introduce new, modern GNOME applications that will deeply integrate with the GNOME 3 experience and which are designed for modern users.

Get Gnome 3.2 Here

Features at a Glance

Online Accounts

Documents, contacts, calendars — They can be stored locally on the computer, but storing this type of information online is becoming increasingly popular. In GNOME 3.2, Online Accounts provides one place to manage these online sources.

GTK+ 3.2

GTK+ 3.2 is the latest release of the GTK+ toolkit, which is at the heart of GNOME. GTK+ 3.2 includes new features for developers, as well as extensive bug fixes.

Clutter 1.8

GNOME’s graphics library for hardware-accelerated user interfaces Clutter that has been updated to 1.8.

Web Applications

Certain web sites are used as if they are applications. GNOME 3.2 makes it possible to use a site as an application thanks to Epiphany, our standard web browser. To do so, press Ctrl-Shift-A, or access the File menu and select Save as Web Application. Once the web application has been created, it can be launched from the overview.

Contacts

Contacts is a new application focused on people. The goal is to provide one overview of people, whether the contacts are stored online, within Evolution or the chat application Empathy.

Documents and Files

When dealing with a lot of documents, it can be hard to keep track of them. In GNOME 3.2, steps have been taken to make this easier.

Quickly Preview

File Manager can now quickly preview movie, music, picture and other files. The preview can be shown and hidden again by pressing space.

Login screen

The GNOME 3 login screen has been integrated with the rest of the user experience.

Media Hotplugging

GNOME 3 now features integrated media hotplugging notifications.

Even more improvements

• It is now easier to resize a window as the area for this has been increased.
• System Settings now includes links to related settings found in other locations. For instance, the Keyboard section now has a link to the keyboard layout.
• Titlebars, buttons, and other controls are less tall, making it easier to use GNOME on small screens.
• Notifications in the lower-right corner now include a counter. This makes it easier to see how many emails are waiting for you without having to open your email program, or to determine how many messages you have missed in a particular chat.
• The highlight effect that indicates that an application is already running has been made more obvious.
• In the user menu, notifications can be configured independently from the chat status.
• The workspace switcher in the overview remains expanded by keeping its full width displayed when you are using more than one workspace.
• Instead of assuming Evolution, the application for the calendar drop-down can now be customized.
• The battery power status is now shown using a bar.

There’s a lot more but we leave it to you, get it, discover it and live it. From Ubuntu 11.10 onwards, Gnome 3.2 will be 1 click away.

Njoy !