The GNOME Project has finally released the anticipated version 3.26 “Manchester” after six months of labourious efforts. The major addition in the latest GNOME release is the support for colored emojis that are visible on a large-scale throughout the desktop environment.
The support for emojis brings a new zeal in GNOME users and would attract them to prefer GNOME over other open source options such as KDE and Xfce. You can include your favourite emojis into chats, messages and documents.
In addition to emojis, GNOME 3.26 is based on the adoption of SpiderMonkey 52 that brings a modern JavaScript experience. There is also a new look for the Settings app with an upgraded navigation sidebar and improved network and display settings and browser synchronisation. Plus, the desktop has an enhanced system search and folder sharing option in Boxes.
Note-worthy improvements
GNOME 3.26 brings several Wayland improvements, animated transitions for maximised and unmaximised windows and transparency for the top bar. Slightly revamped activities overview and new control center called “settings” also simplifies the user experience for users. Similarly, the latest version brings a couple of new apps, including Simple Scan and To Do. The existing apps on the platform have received the update as well.
The new version of GNOME majorly focuses on the display resolution. The fractional display scaling is now introduced in GNOME 3.26 to improve the aesthetics on HiDPI displays. Other than the updated core components, the default terminal has received support for hyperlinks.
Historic release
The project is named after the city where annual GNOME User and Developers European Conference (GUADEC) that was conducted last year. The project importantly turned 20 earlier this year.
“We are happy and proud to announce GNOME 3.26, the latest major release of GNOME, “Manchester”, just a few weeks after we celebrated the 20th birthday of GNOME at GUADEC. As always, the GNOME community did a great job in delivering exciting features, completing translations, and refining the user experience,” Matthias Clasen of the GNOME release team said in a statement.
You can download the GNOME 3.26 by visiting its official website. The individual components powering the new desktop environment are also available for download as a part of the whole GNOME Project.
