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Main » 2010 » June » 19 » Empathy
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Empathy
The GNOME project has released a
major upgrade of its desktop environment
that adds an instant messaging (IM) client. GNOME 2.24 also features a
new task manager, screen resolution tools, and enhanced conferencing
support, and spins off a new GNOME Mobile
version for embedded devices.
(Click
for larger view of GNOME 2.24)
One of the top two desktop
environments for Linux, along with KDE, GNOME is upgraded every six
months with bug fixes and new features. Existing tools include e-mail,
groupware, web browsing, file management, multimedia, and games, says
the GNOME project. The last release was version 2.2, and the last major
release arrived a year ago with GNOME
2.20.
GNOME's
Empathy IM client
(Click to enlarge) |
With
GNOME 2.24, the project is spinning off its first formal release of the
GNOME Mobile desktop based on its GNOME Mobile and Embedded subproject.
The group says that GNOME Mobile is already being used in Linux-based
mobile device platforms
including Maemo, the Access
Linux Platform, the LiMo
Platform, Ubuntu
Mobile, Moblin,
and Poky Linux. For more information on GNOME
Mobile, please see our coverage on LinuxDevices, here.
The
following provides brief summaries of the major new GNOME 2.24
features:- Empathy
IM client -- Based on the D-Bus-based Telepathy
communications network, as well as Nokia's
Mission Control connection management utility for Telepathy, the
Empathy client comprises a collection of reusable IM widgets. It is
said to borrow Gossip's UI and offer access to libempathy and
libempathy-gtk libraries. Empathy also supports XMPP/SIP audio and video
conferencing on the Maemo-based Nokia N800/N810 Internet Tablet
devices.
- Ekiga conferencing client -- Upgraded to
release 3.0, Ekiga is a SIP audio/video conferencing client. Ekiga 3.0
features a new phonebook centered interface, as well as SIP presence
support, PBX line monitoring, "accelerated" and fullscreen video
formats, and improved video codec support (H.264, H.263+, MPEG-4, and
Theora).
Ekiga 3.0 uses a phonebook interface
- Task
management -- A new task manager indicates tasks and keeps track of
how long a user works on each task. The utility includes task
categorization by client, type, and other groupings, and provided graphs
on how much time is spent on each task type.
- Improved
file management -- The file manager now offers a compact list view,
and the browser supports rapid switching between directories in a
single windows, says the GNOME project. The file manager also features
improved automatic filename completion and conversion of illegal
punctuation marks in filenames.
File manager interface
(back to front) icon, list, and new compact formats
(Click to
enlarge)
- Deskbar -- New plugins are now
available for a calculator, Google Search (and code search), Yahoo, and
Wikipedia.
- Resolution controls -- Screen
resolution controls have been updated to support multiple monitors.
- Sound
themes -- GNOME now uses sound themes from Libcanberra,
with alert sounds that are less likely to interfere with media
playback.
- Improved digital TV support -- Starting
with GNOME 2.2, the desktop adopted the GStreamer multimedia framework
for digital television (DVB) support. The latest version adds support
for multiple DVB tuners, support for high-resolution YouTube videos, and
other enhancements.
- Internationalization --
GNOME 2.24 is said to support 45 languages with over 80 percent of
strings translated, including the manuals for many languages.
- Other
features -- Additional touted features include improved keyboard
navigation and mouse accessibility, enhanced text-to-speech and braille
device support, and new desktop backgrounds. The new release also
switches to GLIB 2.18 and GTK+ 2.14.
Availability
GNOME 2.24 is
available now for free download. More information may be found here.
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Added by: Cristi
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