We are in week number 42 of 2023, and this figure coincides with the 118th since the This Week In GNOME initiative, TWIG for friends, began more than two years ago. As we have explained on some other occasions, it is something that has been very good for GNOME and practically any Linux user, since many third-party developers have decided to bring their work to light and we are all benefiting. There are some so good that they are becoming part of the gnome circle.
It has nothing to do with GNOME, but it is also something that they publish every week and we tend to echo it, so we explain it here and we will also do it next week in a more appropriate article: this week there will be no article about KDE. This is what Nate Graham said without giving further explanations, so those who prefer KDE to GNOME do not have an article with "sweets" today. Let's go with the what's new this week in GNOME.
This week in GNOME
- The first point is about VTE, a bit long that we will try to summarize. VTE, the library for GTK-based terminal emulators, has seen significant performance improvements and new drawing techniques. Scroll buffer encryption now uses LZ4 for faster data processing. Character and attribute array management has improved bidirectional text support. Various optimizations to string operations and memory allocation have improved overall performance. The compiler has been simplified by including code and removing C wrappers from C++ code. A new drawing abstraction allows GTK 3 to use Cairo, while GTK 4 uses native render nodes with GtkSnapshot. Line drawing now benefits from GTK's OpenGL renderer, reducing off-screen framebuffer usage. Frame scheduling improvements are expected to remove the current 40fps limit.
- Tracker is a file system indexer, metadata storage system and search tool, and its extraction tool has seen its SECCOMP sandbox improved.
- Added support for the dynamic launch portal in ASHPD Demo to version 0.4.1.
- overskride is a Bluetooth app and has received a major update this week to make it easier to interact with Bluetooth devices. What it does is send and receive files, among other things:
- A year later, xdg-desktop-portal-gtk 1.15.0 has arrived with these new features:
- Meson replaces Autotools as the build system.
- Portal implementations that depend on private GNOME interfaces, such as background, screenshot/screencast, and remote desktop, have been removed to eliminate dependencies.
- The gsettings-desktop-schemas calendar settings are now included in the Settings portal implementation. The version policy has also been changed, and odd minor version numbers are no longer special.
- Crosswords now has better selections for crossword grids, and its developer used it to add a feature he's wanted for a long time: clue fragment highlighting.
- Updated the Debian Linux update flag for Gnome Shell45. Update indicator for Debian Linux-based distributions. Additionally, it checks for updates and also shows the status of the following packages (as in Synaptic):
- Updates available.
- New packages in the repository.
- Local/obsolete packages.
- Residual configuration files.
- Auto-removable packages.
- Auto Activities shows an overview of activities when there are no windows, or hides them when there are new windows. In the latest version, Auto Activities v19 has been ported to ESM, making it compatible with GNOME Shell 45. In addition to minor changes, it now uses Libadwaita widgets such as AdwSpinRow.
This week's article in GNOME ends by reminding us that registration for #GNOMEAsia2023 has opened (link) and that the GNOME Foundation has a new executive director, Holly Million.
And this has been all this week in GNOME.
Images and content: TWIG: