Gnome 2.4 Released

GNOME 2.4 Release Notes

Introduction

The GNOME 2.4 Desktop is the latest release of the popular, multi-platform free desktop environment.

GNOME 2.4 expands the offerings of the popular free software desktop, with a new web browser based on the most standards-compliant rendering engine available, improved accessibility tools, a number of new applications to make day-to-day desktop use easier and a continued commitment to creating a computing environment that "just works".

GNOME 2.4 includes 11 new applications and more than 100 user-requested enhancements, evidence of the user-driven community development process used to create each GNOME release.

GNOME runs on a variety of platforms, including GNU/Linux (commonly called Linux), Solaris, HP-UX, BSD and Apple's Darwin. GNOME includes powerful features such as world-class smooth text rendering, a first-class accessibility infrastructure, and a complete internationalization infrastructure that includes support for bi-directional text.

GNOME provides a user-friendly environment that "just works" for everyday users, without excess complexity, while at the same time providing the rich flexibility experienced developers demand. We have tried to avoid unnecessary complications or obscure features, sticking instead to a clear, unified vision of a usable, powerful desktop.

Of course GNOME 2.4 includes all of the improvements made in GNOME 2.2, which you can learn about in the GNOME 2.2 release notes.

The Desktop release contains all the applications needed to provide basic user functionality. Major applications such as Gnumeric and Evolution also are available, but are developed in parallel on their own release cycle rather than being included in the core GNOME release.

GNOME is part of the GNU Project, and is free software.

1. What's New In GNOME 2.4
1.1. Desktop

1.1.1. The File Manager

Nautilus, the GNOME file manager, has added important functionality since the release of GNOME 2.2, including an integrated drag-and-drop CD burner and the ability to change the properties of multiple files simultaneously.

Figure 1. CD Burner

Other changes in Nautilus for GNOME 2.4 include:

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Desktop objects are now handled in memory rather than as actual files in the desktop directory.
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The desktop directory has been moved from .gnome-desktop to the user-visible Desktop directory in the user's home directory.
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Text-beside-icons mode in the icon view
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Startup notification support when launching files
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Improved context menus
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"Keep Aligned" mode on the desktop
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Multi-rooted tree view
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Support for ".hidden" files, allowing users to create a list of files that will be hidden by Nautilus

1.1.2. The Panel

The GNOME panel has been simplified with the elimination of the multiple panel types in favor of a single type that can be configured with the same characteristics as each of the old panel types, preserving functionality while simplifying use:

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You can move and resize the panel using the keyboard.
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The panel can be any arbitrary size.
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Floating panels now have grab handles.

Additional usability improvements to the panel include:

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A new property dialog for panels and drawers.
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New Run Application dialog
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Improved Xinerama support
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Accelerators added to main menu
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Bigger icons in main menu
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Applets can be locked to the panel
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The panel and all applets now comply with "Fitt's Law" — You can click on them at the very edge of the screen
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Applets no longer change positions when their size changes.
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The "Window Menu" and "Menu Bar" from the old Menu Panel are now separate, moveable applets.
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"Force Quit" button.
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Calendar for the clock applet.

In addition to those user-visible changes, significant improvements in behind-the-scenes panel infrastructure have been made, including:

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Reworked panel gconf functionality, so configuration keys are now documented with associated schemas and notifications.
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Global keybinds for the panel are no longer handled by the panel. That responsibility has been handed off to the window manager. (This is currently implemented in Metacity.)

1.1.3. Gedit Syntax Highlighting

Paolo Maggi and the Gedit hackers have added syntax highlighting to GNOME's workhorse text editor:

Figure 2. Gedit Syntax Highlighting
With the use of the GtkSourceView package, Gedit now supports syntax highlighting for text written in Ada, C, C++, IDL, Java, HTML, Latex, XML, Perl and Python.

1.2. Control Center

The Control Center is the heart of "the desktop that cares." Jonathan Blandford and his collaborators have given the Control Center a new central control panel for GNOME's accessibility features (courtesy of Bill Haneman) and integration with Dr. Wright, an application that gives you timed breaks from your busy work day, written by Richard Hult.

Figure 3. Typing Break

Other new Control Center features include:

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Themus, Andrew Sobala's new tool for managing themes.
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A new font management system.
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A tool from Alex Larsson to take advantage of the new XRandR capabilities in X 4.3, which allow you to change screen resolution on the fly.
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Usability improvements from Dennis Cranston and Christian Neumair to bring the Control Center into conformity with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

1.3. Applets

Maintainer Kevin Vandersloot and the many GNOME Applets hackers have done substantial work on the GNOME applets package, one of the core sources of GNOME's functionality. A new Sticky Notes applet by Loban Rahman has been added, and major effort, primarily by Dennis Cranston, has gone into usability to make the applets behavior consistent with GNOME's Human Interface Guidelines.

Figure 4. Sticky Notes Applet

Other improvements to the applets include:

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Fitts' law complience for the applets. You can now click on the screen edge to control an applet.
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IPv6 support for Modemlights and the Inbox Monitor
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You can now edit/add/remove palettes to the character picker and select them from a menu.
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Character Palette can now display any UTF8 character.
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You can now select which channel to control with the Volume Control.

1.4. Games

No computer experience is complete without games, and GNOME Games' new maintainer Callum McKenzie has put together a package for users' enjoyment.

Included in GNOME 2.4 is a new blackjack game by Jon McCann:

Figure 5. Blackjack
Other GNOME Games improvements include widespread use of Gconf for configuration and extenive attention to usability and consistence via the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.

1.5. Accessibility

GNOME 2.4 includes major advances in accessible free software on the desktop with the first editions of the Gnopernicus screen reader/magnifier and the GOK dynamic on-screen keyboard. Support for people with disabilities has been a key goal and focus of the GNOME 2 desktop platform, and successive releases have included increasing support for accessibility. With 2.4, users will be able to evaluate GNOME with assistive technolgies.

The editions of Gnopernicus and GOK that will be part of GNOME 2.4 are well along in their development cycle; however the GNOME accessibility community — and specifically BAUM and the University of Toronto Adaptive Technology Resource Centre who are the maintainers of these projects — feel that Gnopernicus and GOK need further testing and development before they are ready for production use by people with disabilities. By including Gnopernicus and GOK in GNOME 2.4 we will make it easy for a large audience to explore these assistive technologies, and provide feedback to their developers. Essentially this is a large, public beta test of the GNOME desktop assistive technologies.
1.5.1. Gnopernicus

Gnopernicus is an open source screen reader/magnifier that enables users with limited vision, or no vision, to use the GNOME 2 desktop and GNOME applications effectively. By providing automated focus tracking and full screen magnification, Gnopernicus aids low-vision GNOME users, and its screen reader features will allow low-vision and blind users to access a large range of applications via speech and braille output.

Figure 6. Gnopernicus
BAUM Retec AG is guiding Gnopernicus development, and is also the principal author and project maintainer. BAUM has been developing screen reading and magnification software, as well as other software and hardware products for the blind, for over 20 years. More information about Gnopernicus can be found at http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/AT/Gnopernicus.

1.5.2. GOK Dynamic On-Screen Keyboard

GOK is a dynamic on-screen keyboard that enables users to control their computer without having to rely on a standard keyboard or mouse. Supporting the majority of single-switch devices already on the market, GOK allows users with limited voluntary movement to completely control and interact with their GNOME 2 desktop via one or more alternative input devices, choosing from a wide range of input techniques and configurations. These input methods may be controlled by actions such as blowing and sipping to activate a pneumatic switch, an eye blink and/or directed gaze with an eye tracking system, head movement, muscle contractions, or limb movements.

Figure 7. GOK

Using innovative dynamic keyboard strategies, and leveraging the built-in accessibility framework of GNOME 2, GOK makes desktop and application control and interaction tremendously more efficient for users with severe physical impairments. GOK directly presents on the dynamic keyboard the users' menu options, toolbar choices, and text manipulation commands, thereby saving the user the time and frustration of having to enter lengthy series of keyboard sequences to invoke those commands. GOK also includes a word completion dictionary to speed text entry.

The Adaptive Technology Resource Centre is guiding GOK development, and is also the principal author and project maintainer. The University of Toronto's ATRC research and development lab brings strong leadership to the project with expertise in alternative input devices and software, and also a sincere passion regarding accessibility issues. The team has already produced a full-featured onscreen keyboard for another platform.

More information about GOK can be found at http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/AT/GOK and at http://www.gok.ca.

2. Applications

GNOME 2.4 includes many new and improved applications.
2.1. Epiphany

With Epiphany, GNOME 2.4 brings a clean and simple browser to the free software desktop based on the same rendering widget used in Mozilla — the most standards-compliant rendering widget available.

Figure 8. Epiphany

Developed by a team led by Marco Pesenti Gritti, Epiphany uses the simplest interface possible for a browser. Simple does not necessarily mean less powerful. Its design is based on the belief that commonly used browsers of today are too big, buggy, and bloated. Epiphany achieves simplicity by focusing on web browsing, and by tightly integrating with other parts of the GNOME platform, instead of reproducing that functionality in the browser.

Epiphany also works to ensure freedom of choice by being standards compliant. Respecting web standards, so that users can see the same content regardless of their choice of browser or platform, is an important step towards guaranteeing freedom of choice. Epiphany and GNOME seek to ensure choice by using Gecko, the most standards-compliant rendering engine available.
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Epiphany introduces a dependency on Mozilla.
2.2. GnomeMeeting

GnomeMeeting brings free internet telephony (VoIP) and video conferencing support to GNOME 2.4, with full support for callto: and h323: URIs.

Figure 9. GnomeMeeting

With its development led by Damien Sandras, GnomeMeeting can carry out video conferencing, PC-to-PC and PC-to-Phone calls, and text chat. Its full compliance to standards, such as H.323, means that it can communicate with any other compliant conferencing application.

The current feature set is documented on the GnomeMeeting website.
2.3. Gcalctool

Thanks to the efforts of Rich Burridge, GNOME 2.4 includes Gcalctool, a new version of the venerable Calctool calculator originally released to comp.sources.unix in the late 1980's. Gcalctool replaces the GNOME Calculator, which used to be included in the gnome-utils package.

Figure 10. Gcalctool

Gcalctool has Basic, Financial and Scientific modes. Calculations are performed from left to right, with no arithmetic precedence. If you need arithmetic precedence, then you should use parentheses. Basic Mode provides standard calculator functions. You can store numbers in 10 different memory registers, and easily retrieve and replace the numbers in the memory registers. Basic Mode is the default mode. You can use all of the Basic Mode functions in each of the other modes. Financial Mode provides several complex financial functions. Scientific Mode provides many additional mathematical functions, including trigonometric and logical functions. You can also store your own functions and constants, when you use Scientific Mode.
2.4. Zenity

Written by Glynn Foster, Zenity is a new dialog creation tool that can be used to provide user input dialogs in shell scripts. It replaces gdialog, which was included in the gnome-utils package. Zenity's functionality is based on the dialog application.

Figure 11. Zenity

2.5. Gucharmap

Written by Noah Levitt, Gucharmap is a full-featured unicode character picker. It allows users access to the full array of unicode characters, allowing you to paste them into another application when they are unavailable directly through the keyboard.

Figure 12. Gucharmap

Gucharmap replaces gnome-character-map, which was included in the gnome-utils package. With it, users can:

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find out all about each character
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view in any font at any point size, switch among fonts quickly
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browse characters by Unicode block
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identify the first character in the clipboard
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copy arbitrary characters and paste into other programs
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search for a character by name
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jump to a character by code point
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drag selection into the charmap to identify a character
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drag and drop out of the charmap
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magnify the active character
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see which font is actually being used to draw each character

2.6. GPDF

GNOME 2.4 includes a new viewer for PDF files. GPDF, written in its most recent incarnation by Martin Kretzschmar, is based on XPDF and features high-quality rendering of PDF files not previously available as part of the GNOME desktop.

Figure 13. GPDF

Epiphany

GnomeMeeting

GPDF

问一下，这个epiphany到底和mozilla有什么不同？

比较土，从没用过这个。。


另外，gpdf号称基于xpdf，有人搞定了中文支持么？

gpdf是xpdf的作者写的，但不是基于xpdf，目前尚无中文支持，gnome界的好几个重量级人物都参与了这个项目。说实话，这也不得以而为之，ggv对pdf支援太差了一点，已经沦落成专用的ps阅读器了。

epiphany跟galeon一样，就是一个mozilla的壳，使用gecko引擎和gnome界面，目前算是gnome hig的范例程序，比galeon稳定，速度比firebird要快，但功能选项少了一点。听说最新版好象已经增加了一个插件接口。

关心什么时候能有debian的 source.list的地址，这样就可以直接升级了。

debian-gtk-gnome上个月就讨论过了
如果暂时进不了sid，可能会用另外的方案来解渴
一是进入experimental，二是由james st...（制作gnome2.2 woody backport的大侠）制作一个unofficial apt source

期待……毕竟自己编译还是比较麻烦

我现在用的GNOME2.2.2也是非官方的APT-SOURCE。不过这就够了。呵呵。希望快快出来啊。