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Xubuntu Development Update September 2018

  • September 8, 2018
  • Sean Davis

A week later than expected, it’s the September development update! The theme for August (and early September) has been visual improvements, with a few bug fixes tossed in for good measure. Check it out! 

Xubuntu

Bionic Beaver (18.04)

Bionic was pretty stable in August, with only one of our packages making it through the SRU process and into the hands of our users.

We’re currently looking to get these new releases and fixes into Bionic.

  • Catfish 1.4.6
    • This is a new release with numerous bug fixes and a much-improved thumbnailer.
  • Xfce Settings: Mouse acceleration not configurable in Xubuntu 18.04 (LP: #1758023)
    • This issue is related to libinput taking over mouse configuration, and will be resolved by building xfce4-settings with libinput support.

Cosmic Cuttlefish (18.10)

The following source package updates landed in Cosmic in August.

  • elementary-xfce 0.12-1ubuntu1
    • The elementary-xfce icon theme is now available on Debian! Previously, this theme was part of the xubuntu-icon-theme package.
  • ristretto 0.8.3-1 (Debian sync)
  • thunar-archive-plugin 0.4.0-1 (Debian sync)
  • thunar-media-tags-plugin 0.3.0-1 (Debian sync)
  • xfce4-taskmanager 1.2.1-1 (Debian sync)
  • xubuntu-artwork 18.10
    • The development wallpaper is set on boot and the desktop.
    • The xubuntu-icon-theme is now a branding package, that upgrades the elementary-xfce icon theme with the Xubuntu distributor logo.
  • xubuntu-default-settings 18.10
    • “Square icons” were enabled in all supported plugins, improving size and shape consistency on the panel.
    • Orage configuration was updated to use the “paplay” command for sounds by default (LP: #1054396)
    • The panel was updated to be 80% transparent at all times. This is a settings migration to support the new GTK+ 3 panel.
    • The Xubuntu session was updated to correctly set XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP (LP: #1590089)
  • xubuntu-meta 2.227
    • This package release replaces the fwupdate dependency with the newly minted fwupd.

Xfce

New Releases

Xfce had 3 new releases in August, featuring a variety of bug fixes and usability improvements.

Xfce Display Profiles (Preview)

Simon has been hard at work implementing a nifty new feature for the Xfce Display Settings, display profiles! This feature allows you to save and switch between various display setups, useful for users on the go or presenters. This hasn’t been merged into master yet, so designs are not final.

Spacing Improvements

I’ve spent the last week submitting patches to the Xfce core applications, panel plugins, and Thunar plugins. My goal is to improve the overall look and feel of Xfce by improving the consistency of it’s preference dialogs. A few before and after screenshots are below.

I’ve based my work on the excellent GNOME 2 HIG Window Layout documentation. Xfce has long borrowed the design philosophies from this document (to varying degrees) and is once again benefiting from the well-written work.

Shimmer Project

Elementary Xfce Icon Theme

Xubuntu’s beloved icon theme has had a few significant updates in recent weeks. From build optimizations to new upstream icons, there’s a lot to unpack.

The theme has added a Makefile and build tool to convert the theme’s SVG sources to PNG. Xubuntu has included the PNG-building functionality for some time, and now it’s available for everyone. PNG-based themes are faster to load and generally crisper at various sizes. Included in the new build options are PNG optimization. Optipng is now used to optimize each of the generated files, reducing the overall file size.

Updated icons coming from upstream this month include dialog-password, selection icons, graphics icons, and manila-colored folders. The manila folders are a sharp contrast from the longtime blue, but after using them for a few days, they’re actually pretty nice.

Other Updates

Mugshot 0.4.1

I released Mugshot 0.4.1 early last month with a number of bug fixes and code quality improvements. You can check out the release notes and find downloads here.

Contributing

Ready to start giving back to your favorite open source projects? Remember that there’s something for everyone, and you can get started quickly with the Xubuntu and Xfce contributor docs. If you don’t know where to start, join us at #xubuntu-devel on Freenode… we’ll point you in the right direction.

Xubuntu Development Update September 2018

  • September 7, 2018
  • Sean Davis

Xubuntu

Bionic Beaver (18.04)

Bionic was pretty stable in August, with only one of our packages making it through the SRU process and into the hands of our users.

We’re currently looking to get these new releases and fixes into Bionic.

  • Catfish 1.4.6 (new release with numerous bug fixes and a much-improved thumbnailer)

  • Xfce Settings: Mouse acceleration not configurable in Xubuntu 18.04 (LP: #1758023)

Cosmic Cuttlefish (18.10)

The following source package updates landed in Cosmic in August.

Xfce

New Releases

Xfce had 3 new releases in August, featuring a variety of bug fixes and usability improvements.

Xfce Display Profiles (Preview)

Simon has been hard at work implementing a nifty new feature for the Xfce Display Settings, display profiles! This feature allows you to save and switch between various display setups, useful for users on the go or presenters. This hasn’t been merged into master yet, so designs are not final.

View fullsize display-profiles-1.png
 View fullsize display-profiles-2.png

Spacing Improvements

I’ve spent the last week submitting patches to the Xfce core applications, panel plugins, and Thunar plugins. My goal is to improve the overall look and feel of Xfce by improving the consistency of it’s preference dialogs. A few before and after screenshots are below.

Descriptions are displayed for improved accessibility.

Some extra spacing makes the Settings Editor feel a bit lighter.

Using the sensors plugin becomes a lot easier with a bit of breathing room.

Spacing and alignment freshen up the Timer plugin.

Thunar’s Preferences dialog needed minimal changes.

The Thunar Shares plugin looks a lot more professional with a tweaked layout.

I’ve based my work on the excellent GNOME 2 HIG Window Layout documentation. Xfce has long borrowed the design philosophies from this document (to varying degrees) and is once again benefiting from the well-written work.

Shimmer Project

Elementary Xfce Icon Theme

Xubuntu’s beloved icon theme has had a few significant updates in recent weeks. From build optimizations to new upstream icons, there’s a lot to unpack.

The theme has added a Makefile and build tool to convert the theme’s SVG sources to PNG. Xubuntu has included the PNG-building functionality for some time, and now it’s available for everyone. PNG-based themes are faster to load and generally crisper at various sizes. Included in the new build options are PNG optimization. Optipng is now used to optimize each of the generated files, reducing the overall file size.

Updated icons coming from upstream this month include dialog-password, selection icons, graphics icons, and manila-colored folders. The manila folders are a sharp contrast from the longtime blue, but after using them for a few days, they’re actually pretty nice.

Other Updates

Mugshot 0.4.1

I released Mugshot 0.4.1 early last month with a number of bug fixes and code quality improvements. You can check out the release notes and find downloads here.

Contributing

Ready to start giving back to your favorite open source projects? Remember that there’s something for everyone, and you can get started quickly with the Xubuntu and Xfce contributor docs. If you don’t know where to start, join us at #xubuntu-devel on Freenode… we’ll point you in the right direction.