If you're running Elementary OS 8, there's a new round of updates available, bringing some neat enhancements, particularly to its signature Dock and the underlying window manager, Gala. If you are not familiar, Elementary OS positions itself as a polished alternative to Windows and macOS. It runs its own custom desktop environment called Pantheon, with Gala handling all the window management magic, like animations and how windows behave.
In the new update, the Dock gets some notable new tricks, including the return of a couple of features that old-school Plank (the Dock's foundation) users might remember. For starters, the Dock now shows multiple indicator dots beneath an app icon if you have more than one window open for that application, which is useful for quickly seeing what is running. Plus, if you are dragging something and hover over an app icon in the Dock, it will cycle through that app's open windows, making it easier to drop your item into the right place.
You can also now long-press an app icon to bring up its context menu, a nice touch for those who prefer that interaction. The elementary OS team also squashed some bugs related to hide modes and memory usage, keeping things running smoothly.
Gala itself recently got a massive update, addressing around 20 reported issues and introducing a brand new Gesture Controller. This means users can now swipe up in the Multitasking View to close windows, a slick and intuitive gesture. App titles are now always shown in Multitasking View, a significant improvement for touchscreen users. Users also get notified when they take a screenshot with a keyboard shortcut, and this notification lets them jump straight to the image in Files.
Some other welcome Gala improvements include saving window states on sleep and shutdown, and fixing an annoying bug where menus might only show once. For gamers, a fix for Lutris Flatpak installations causing Gala to crash with GE Proton setups will be a relief, and users of the Postman app will be happy to know that window captures for it are no longer partially rendered.
Shifting back to Elementary OS 8, in System Settings, choosing light or dark mode properly snoozes your schedule instead of outright disabling it. The Reduce Motion setting has been expanded to cover a wider array of animations, which is a blessing for folks prone to motion sickness. Hotcorners got some fixes too, and there is a new option to keep them active even when an application is full screen.
Other notable updates include added screen reader support for notifications and the shortcut overlay, fixes for Flatpak sandbox issues that affected apps like Steam, and the latest version of GNOME Web, which brought better performance and a redesigned bookmarks sidebar.
You can download all these updates by opening System Settings, heading to System, and hitting "Update All."
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