GNOME 2.2.0 released [LWN.net]

Version 2.2.0 of the GNOME desktop has been announced, one month ahead of schedule.

Five months ago, we were only just beginning to recover from the enormous task that was GNOME 2.0. We were committed to a six month release cycle for 2.2, and after such a long period of development and point-releases, we were excited to be working on new features again. We were, as the release code names suggested, "Back to the Future".

The release notes document the changes and include many screen shots. Here are a few highlights:

A matured GNOME 2 developer platform.
A UI overhaul for the Nautilus file manager with context sensitive menus.
Application startup notification via a clock cursor.
Support for themes in the panel.
A Show Desktop panel button for raising desktop icons.
Improved file searching via the Actions menu.
An Open Recent capability in the Actions menu.
An instant messenger Notification Area on the panel.
A wireless link status box on the panel.
Inclusion of the GStreamer multimedia framework.
Improved View As features for Nautilus with support for Audio.
More file formats are supported by the multimedia utilities.
New thumbnailing abilities for additional multimedia types.
A simpler and more powerful Theme Preferences dialog.
Desktop-wide support for fontconfig and Xft2.
Better font configuration and rendering.
Multihead support for systems with multiple screens.
Support for the Metacity window manager.

GNOME 2.2.0 also features a number of new and improved applications:

Spell checking and an output window for the gedit text editor.
Rotation and full screen views for the Eye of GNOME image viewer.
Unicode character support for the Character Map.
The File Roller archive manager for working with numerous archive formats.
Keyboard key assignment capabilities via the Multimedia Keys Preferences dialog.
Language support for 26 languages, including right-to-left languages.
Standards support via freedesktop.org for better KDE interoperability.

GNOME 2.2.0 also features a focus on better UI consistency, accessibility features for the disabled, and improved performance. The documentation continues to be improved, and a new comprehensive guide for administrators has been included.

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