Juno Progress for January & February

A sneak peek at changes coming this year

As you may know, elementary operates on a task-based rather than time-based system for releases. This means before we can release Juno, there’s a lot of work to do! So far, there are a little over 350 closed issue reports associated with the first Juno beta. Here are some highlights of the things you’ll see in the next version of elementary OS:

Panel, Applications Menu, & Indicators

The panel has received a lot of love for Juno. The most immediately-obvious improvement is the addition of a search icon to the Applications menu. This helps inform users what they can expect behind that item, plus it helps balance the left side of the panel out a bit better with the right. We’ve also added a tooltip of “Open and search apps (⌘ + Space)” to provide even more feedback if the user hovers over it for a moment (signaling they’re unsure). It also gives a bit of progressive disclosure of keyboard shortcuts, helping teach users even faster ways to do things.

Something you’ll notice with certain wallpapers is a new translucent light mode. Previously, the panel had four states: transparent dark, transparent light, translucent, and maximized. In Juno, we’re splitting translucent out into translucent dark and translucent light.