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Subject: CVS commit: pkgsrc/meta-pkgs/xfce4
From: David H. Gutteridge
Date: 2021-11-30 15:04:36
Message id: 20211130140436.B27F6FAEC@cvs.NetBSD.org
Log Message:
meta-pkgs/xfce4: update to 4.16
Project summary of changes:
Today, after 1 year and 4 months of work, we are happy to announce the release \
of the Xfce desktop 4.16, a new stable version that supersedes Xfce 4.14.
4.16 was a special cycle in many respects (not only pandemic-wise, but also). \
One of the corner-stones of the non-code changes concerns our migration to \
GitLab, which is a change in development workflow and a huge step forward in \
terms of becoming more contributor-friendly and welcoming. In parts, the \
humungous changelog of Xfce 4.16 can be attributed to new contributors proposing \
merge requests (288 merge requests were merged or closed against our core \
components alone!). We also created a reference Docker container \
(xfce/xfce-build) and added CI pipelines to all components to ensure we don´t \
break the build. None of this would have been possible without our hosting being \
sponsored by Gandi and Fosshost!
Another big change concerns our visual identity, which we updated from a strange \
mix of random (partly Tango-based) icons and not following any naming scheme to \
a new, visually consistent set (following the freedesktop.org naming \
specification and a fixed color palette). We´re aware this will generate some \
work for icon theme maintainers (if they really want to override our gorgeous \
icons ;)) but we believe the longterm benefit outweighs this one-time effort.
And then finally we did some housekeeping (e.g. by dropping Gtk2 support code) \
and we also added features and improvements - all while sticking to a reasonable \
release cycle timeframe.
So without further ado, here go the main highlights of this release:
The window manager received lots of updates and improvements again in the \
area of compositing and GLX. If a primary display was set, the alt-tab dialog \
will now only be shown there. Furthermore some handy new options to zoom the \
cursor along with rest of the display as well as an option to keep minimized \
windows in the most recently used list complement this release.
We added a new plugin to the panel dubbed "statustray" which \
combines both StatusNotifier and legacy Systray items. An animated autohide \
transition now clearly shows the user "where the panel has gone" and a \
dark mode (enabled by default) makes the panel drop into the background a bit \
more with bright themes like the Gtk default Adwaita. Quite a few more smaller \
improvements were also introduced like accessing desktop actions from a \
Launcher´s right-click menu, the Window Buttons plugin now offering to `Launch \
a new instance` of an application and the Workspace Switcher now optionally \
showing automatic numbering for workspaces.
Support for fractional scaling was added to the display dialog, along with \
highlighting the preferred mode of a display with an asterisk and adding aspect \
ratios next to resolutions. Falling back to a working mode after misconfiguring \
the display layout has also been made more robust.
A new tab in the "About Xfce" dialog shows basic system \
information like CPU or GPU type. Furthermore the layout and visuals of the \
dialog were improved.
The settings manager has improved search and filter capabilities. \
Furthermore all settings dialogs now use window decorations drawn by Gtk (client \
side decorations).
The "Mime Settings" and "Preferred Applications" dialogs \
were merged into the "Default Applications" dialog - making it easier \
for users to set which application handles which filetype or action from one \
place.
Our file manager Thunar received a boatload of fixes and quite a few notable \
features, including pause for copy/move operations, support for queued file \
transfer, remembering view settings per directory and support for transparency \
in Gtk themes.
Our thumbnailing service tumbler became more flexible by being able to \
exclude paths. Furthermore support for .epub (e-book format) was added.
The session manager offers improved support for GPG agent 2.1 and the \
setting dialog was visually improved.
The power manager received a lot of bugfixes and some smaller features - \
among them a cleanup of its settings dialog, an optional visual indicator for \
when `Presentation Mode` is enabled, more accurate battery status icons and \
automatically dismissing low-power notifications upon the connection of a \
charger.
The desktop mostly received bugfixes and small improvements - and the new \
default wallpaper!
Our menu library garcon received new APIs and now doesn´t launch \
applications as children of the process hosting the menu anymore. The previous \
behavior led to applications crashing along with e.g. the panel.
The applicaton finder now allows for sorting applications by \
"frecency" - a combination of frequency and recency.
Dependency updates: Drop Gtk2, add LibGTop, bump Gtk >= 3.22, GLib and \
GDBus >= 2.50
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