Fedora 22 Workstation will include the new GNOME 3.16 release. This release has a new notification design that’s less intrusive and easier to use.

Notifications now pop up from the middle of the GNOME top bar. Many types of notifications allow you to take action immediately through the pop-up balloon. For example, when your storage device is low on space, you can choose to examine the area that’s full, or ignore the warning directly from the notification.

If you’re away from the computer for a while, you might have more than one notification queued up for your attention. In this case, a prominent dot marker appears next to the clock in the top bar. You can select the clock in two ways: either click it with the mouse, or use your Super+M key. (The “Super” key usually has a logo on it, and is sometimes called the Win key.)

When you select the clock, you’ll see a list of the most recent notifications for each app. You can clear them individually, or you can clear an entire list of notifications from an app at one time. If you’re using a keyboard, you can use the Up and Down arrows to move around the notifications,

Of course, this is a fairly big change. Notifications used to be in a popup tray at the bottom of the screen in previous GNOME and Fedora releases. That tray also contained controls for apps using the old status icon feature.

Don’t worry, those apps are still there for now. If you go to the bottom left of your screen, there’s a sliding tray that contains old status icon type apps. So for instance, if you’re using something like Google Music Manager, you’ll find it in this slider. This may not be the long-term solution for these apps, but rather a stopgap you’ll see in Fedora 22 while designers come up with a better solution.

The new notification system will allow you to stay focused on your work, but also makes messages from your apps easy to find. It’s another of the helpful improvements you’ll find in Fedora 22 Workstation. The Fedora 22 release is currently scheduled for mid-May.