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A few days after releasing the alpha version of the upcoming GNOME 45 desktop environment, the GNOME Project released the first development version of the GNOME Shell UI and Mutter window and composite manager, two key components of the GNOME desktop.
The alpha version of GNOME Shell 45 comes with several improvements to the built-in screen recorder by implementing a fallback mechanism for GStreamer pipelines and fixing some issues, an improved Background Apps menu in Quick Settings, improved calendar styling, and a complete GTK4 port.
In addition, GNOME Shell 45 adds color-scheme setting support for the default stylesheet, adds support for user-defined names in the Bluetooth menu in Quick Settings, and adds support for icons for ornaments in pop-up menus.
Another interesting change is the removal of the AppMenu indicator, which appears to have become an issue as of lately. The GNOME devs plan to implement a more elegant solution, but it’s not clear if that will make it into the upcoming GNOME 45 desktop environment series.
Several bugs were addressed as well in GNOME Shell 45 alpha, such as the stuck authentication dialog in remote sessions, glitches in the Calendar pop-up when using large text options, or the IM popup getting stuck on engine changes.
On the other hand, the alpha version of the Mutter 45 window and composite manager for the GNOME 45 release brings improved support for server-side decorated windows, non-DMA remote sessions, and display-attached tablets.
Mutter 45 also improves screencast on fractionally scaled surfaces, reimplements strict focus mode policy, and improves multi-monitor support by fixing window focus unexpectedly moving to a secondary monitor when changing the workspaces, an issue with legacy full-screen windows appearing on all monitors, and ensuring that the preferred monitor mode is always included.
Support for XWayland windows was improved as well in Mutter 45, which also fixes issues with X11 full-screen windows, re-enables client modifiers with the AMDGPU graphics driver, and implements physical pixel rounding for Wayland surfaces.
To see what else is new in the upcoming GNOME 45 desktop environment, due out on September 20th, 2023, check out our dedicated blog post for the alpha release.
Last updated 10 months ago
