

The latest development release of GNOME now shows the power off option by default

Source: Matthias Clasen

The GNOME project has released the latest development snapshot in their unstable 3.5 branch; the 3.5 branch will eventually become the basis for the stable GNOME 3.6 branch. GNOME 3.5.2 includes a new font viewer application and gives the users a power off button in the user menu by default. This addresses one of the biggest criticisms of the GNOME 3 release, as users were previously only able to shut down their computers from the menu by holding down the Alt key to make the power off option visible.

GNOME's high contrast icon theme has also been "greatly improved" to enhance accessibility. The developers are hinting at even more accessibility focus in GNOME 3.6, with "huge improvements" coming to the Orca screen reader. GNOME 3.6 is, according to the release schedule, expected to arrive on 26 September. Another new addition to GNOME 3.5.2 is the new input source dialog which aims to unify all language, locale and input device settings in one application. All of the components introduced in this release use the new application menu, which will be the norm for official GNOME applications in the future.

The GPL/LGPL licensed files needed to build the 3.5.2 release can be found on the GNOME FTP server and more information about the release is available on the GNOME Live! wiki. The GNOME 3.5 branch is for testing and development purposes only and should not be used in production environments. The current stable branch is GNOME 3.4, the latest version being GNOME 3.4.2.

(fab)