#36 Forty-two!

• Curated by Felix

Update on what happened across the GNOME project in the week from March 18 to March 25.

This week we released GNOME 42!

Is 42 the answer to everything? Who knows, in any case GNOME now has an answer to the infamous dark mode question:

Another question that has now been answered: How to make screenshots and screencasts easily? - Just press Print Screen on your keyboard:

GNOME 42 also includes other notable new features. Several apps have been ported to GTK4 / libadwaita, there is a new text editor, a new console app, and much more. More information can be found in the release notes.

Readers who have been following this site for a few weeks will already know some of the new features. If you want to follow the development of GNOME 43 (later this year 2022), keep an eye on this page - we’ll be posting exciting news every week!

Core Apps and Libraries

Libadwaita

Building blocks for modern GNOME apps using GTK4.

Alexander Mikhaylenko announces

I’ve released libadwaita 1.1 and libhandy 1.6: https://blogs.gnome.org/alexm/2022/03/19/libadwaita-1-1-libhandy-1-6/

Circle Apps and Libraries

Ivan Molodetskikh says

Identity v0.2, ported to GTK 4 and libadwaita, is out, just in time for the GNOME 42 release! The old file switcher has been replaced with tabs which you can rearrange and drag between windows.

Video Trimmer also got updated with new translations.

Metadata Cleaner

View and clean metadata in files.

Romain announces

I released version 2.2 of Metadata Cleaner, my app for viewing and removing metadata from files. It now uses the GNOME 42 runtime, features some user interface improvements and fixes a few bugs!

Commit

An editor that helps you write better Git and Mercurial commit messages.

sonnyp says

Commit message editor version 3.1.0 is out

  • Now powered by GtkSourceView
  • Highlight syntax for Git, Mercurial, and diffs
  • New keyboard shortcuts, see Ctrl+?
  • Automatically capitalize the commit title
  • Smart body wrapping
  • Various fixes

Apostrophe

A distraction free Markdown editor.

Manu reports

I’ve released Apostrophe 2.6, which among other things features multiwindow support, dark style preference support, and an refreshed UI using libhandy

Third Party Projects

Forever announces

Random 1.4 was released. It completely rehauls the Roulette view, and makes the app easier to use. You can grab it off Flathub.

sonnyp says

Workbench - the sandbox to learn and prototype with GNOME technologies had a new release featuring

  • Take a png screenshot of the preview
  • The console is now resizable
  • Redesign the dark/light mode switcher
  • Show platform and dependencies in about dialog
  • Update to GNOME platform 42
  • Various fixes

https://flathub.org/apps/details/re.sonny.Workbench

Portfolio

A minimalist file manager for those who want to use Linux mobile devices.

Martín Abente Lahaye announces

Portfolio 0.9.14 released! Improved UX for unlocking devices and a few bug fixes. See all the details here.

Phosh

A pure wayland shell for mobile devices.

Guido reports

I’ve tagged phosh 0.17.0 adding a mobile data indicator and support for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.Access:

Fractal

Matrix messaging app for GNOME written in Rust.

Julian Sparber announces

Hello folks, quick update on what major things happened in Fractal-next the last two month. The most exciting addition is definitely the SSO support we merged this week and therefore we could close a 2 years old issue.

Timeline

  • You can now send files via drag-n-drop and via the file send button to a room. It also includes a nice preview for Images.
  • The timeline now shows audio messages with a small inline player.
  • Fractal-next lets you now remove messages you sent

Session verification

  • During first login, Fractal checks if the user hasn’t started session verification from another client before offering to start a new one
  • The QrCode scanning is now spec compliant, and asks for user’s confirmation after scanning.
  • We dropped screenshot support for QrCode scanning, since it makes the UX worse without adding any real benefit.

Room details

  • The room details show now the members of the room including the power level

Login

  • Fractal-Next now supports SSO 🎉️
  • We implemented auto-discovery of the homeserver via .well-known

That’s all for this week!

See you next week, and be sure to stop by #thisweek:gnome.org with updates on your own projects!