We are getting closer to the first Beta release of the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment, so I thought that it would be a very good idea to drop here some of the major features that will be implemented in this release of GNOME.

Therefore, GNOME 3.12 will be the first release to fully support the modern Wayland display server, as well as the first release with a fully working version of the GNOME Software app that was introduced in GNOME 3.10 as a preview.

Moreover, GNOME 3.12 will integrate support for Windows Live email in the Evolution email/groupware client and GNOME Online Accounts, for the Pocket (formerly Read It Later) bookmarking service, as well as support for Google Cloud Print.

The upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment will also integrate Facebook photos in the GNOME Photos app, support for the Zimbra groupware email server and web client, GNOME Shell will gain color tinting, the system status area will be improved, as well as the Airplane mode, and the wallpaper.

Three new apps will also be added to GNOME 3.12, the Polari IRC client, the GNOME Logs utility for viewing system logs, and a preview version of the GNOME Sound Recorder application.

Two new apps have been completely redesigned, the Totem (also known as Videos) application and the Gedit powerful text editor tool. Both have new user interfaces that follow GNOME’s HIG (Human Interface Guidelines), offering a more pleasant experience.

Last but not least, the highly anticipated GNOME 3.12 desktop environment will also add support for the Git distributed revision control and source code management (SCM) system, allowing developers to easily manage Git repositories.

GNOME 3.12 Beta 1 will arrive next week, so make sure you read our website regularly if you want to know more about the development cycle of the upcoming GNOME desktop environment.