Brief: GNOME 3.26 has just been released. Check out the news features in GNOME 3.26.

GNOME 3.26 is the latest version of GNOME 3 released six months after the last stable release GNOME 3.24. The release, code-named “Manchester”, is the 33rd stable release of the free, open-source desktop.

New Features in GNOME 3.26

1. An Improved System Search

One of the major changes seen in the GNOME 3.26 shell is the improved layout that makes it easier for users to read and show more items at the same time. It is now also possible to search for system actions like the power off, lock screen, suspend orientation lock, log out and switch user. It should be noted that the last two can appear in search results if there is more than one user. Also, Orientation lock will appear only if the device supports automatic screen rotation.

2. Settings Application Got a New Layout

GNOME Control Center is now called Settings. A side bar has replaced the previous grid of icons which allows the user to switch between different areas. This helps to ease navigation in the settings application. The settings window can now be resized and is bigger and more comfortable. The GNOME network settings also saw some changes. There is a dedicated settings area for WiFi only.

3. Browser Synchronization

It is now possible to synchronize bookmarks, browser history and passwords in the GNOME browser using Firefox Sync service. Hence you can now have an online backup of browser information which you can share with Firefox desktop and mobile. This can be setup in the preference section of the Web application.

4. Color Emojis

GNOME now has color emojis in the GNOME 3.26 release. GNOME’s IRC client, Polari has got a dedicated emoji picker. It is also possible to search and copy emojis and insert into messages and documents thanks to the Characters application.

5. Other changes

Nautilus, GNOME’s file manager has a lot of bug fixes and improvements. You can now perform a full text search, a feature requested by many users. It uses both the file name and matching words inside supported documents for a better search result.

Other major changes include a redesign of the display settings and system refinements. With the new display settings, you can have a preview version of the scaling setting. With this, what you see on the screen is adjusted to match the display density usually expressed in DPI. This makes it easy for the user to read as well as displaying only the right amount of content.

System refinements include a smooth transition of windows when maximized, snapped to half screen or unmaximized; an increase in the size of windows thumbnails to make it easier to choose the window you want.

Here’s a video from GNOME showing new features in GNOME 3.26. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel for Linux videos.

Getting GNOME 3.26

Rolling release distro such as Arch and Antergos should be getting it pretty soon. Upcoming Ubuntu 17.10 will be released with GNOME 3.26.

For other Linux distributions, it will depend on when your distribution provides the update.

GNOME Trivia

GNOME gives its stable versions an even version number while the odd version number is used for the development release. And so the GNOME team might have started working on GNOME 3.27 which will be later released as GNOME 3.28 stable version.

Like Ubuntu, GNOME follows a six monthly release cycle and thus we have one GNOME release in March and another in September each year.

Another fun fact. GNOME started using codenames for its releases in 2015. These releases are named after the host city of GNOME events.

Now you can guess why GNOME 3.26 is named Manchester.