Xfce's Xfdesktop 4.15 Released

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Xfce's Xfdesktop 4.15 Released

Xfce's "xfdesktop" desktop manager rolled out version 4.15 this week as the newest update...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Xfce-Xfdesktop-4.15-Released

[Candy]

Thunar 4.15 got also released and even more 4.15.x related packages.

Though.... Many users probably won't like the CSD changes made... 4.15 will be a hard transition for many Xfce4 users.

I still hope, they find a good middle thing to polish everything up, so both sides (the old Theme lovers) and new CSD (gnomification) lovers can get along. Specially butons that got placed in the gtk toolbar kinda thing I hope the over uglyfication with putting help and cancel in the toolbar (thunar volumemanager) can be reverted to an state that it fits the looks of the other xfce programs (e.g. new CSD but the help and cancel button still remain at the bottom).

[Awesomeness]

Uneven version numbers aren't releases. They're pre-releases.

[siyia]

Now if they would focus on porting xfwm4 to Wayland, that would be perfect.

[DanL]

Now if they would focus on porting xfwm4 to Wayland, that would be perfect.

It's not on the 4.16 agenda. One of its goals was to have a much shorter release cycle this time after 4.14 dragged out.

[xpris]

Wait... This is stable or unstable release?

[waxhead]

Well I am on XFCE 4.14 in Debian bullseye and love it just the way it is.

There is two things that I would like to see in the future tough.
1. A proper alt-tab (or super+tab rather) that aligns all open windows in a expo/ring style switcher (just like Win10 super+tab). Compiz is too messy to run, and it would be great if XFCE had this feature (which is not just eye candy - it is very useful) built in.

2. Desaturate inactive windows. The XFCE window manager allows to set opacity for inactive windows - I would much rather just have an option to reduce the brightness/saturation of inactive windows instead. Compiz did allow for this , and while it is mostly eye candy - it is quite useful if you have a gazillion windows on your screen at the same time.

Regarding XFCE in general - it is such nice desktop that does not get in your way. I usually run XFCE as just a basic taskbar, throw on top doublecommander (for proper file management) and from there I am happy. It runs great when started with tighervnc as a X server which makes managing servers (with multiple users) a joy, so for me XFCE has for me been rock solid and super stable. Just the way it should be! If anyone from the XFCE devs read this then please don't screw up future releases - keep it stable and simple!

[Candy]

Things to come with Xfce 4.15

1) Move from xfconf xml backend to gsettings backend (still optional). With other words: from xml to binary blob configuration
2) rDNS icons naming convention with new icons
3) CSD decorations where some toolbars already contain pushbuttons and other stuff as known how gnome did it
4) a lot of cleanup of the code and polish there and here

Still the recent appearance of programs look fragmented since half of the programs moved to CSD and the oher half didn't. Some put more stuff in the CSD toolbar and others not.

About stability:

The Xfce 4.15 development tree (git) looks quite stable and the programs work properly so far. You really see how much time and effort the people has put into getting the things going. But at the end... it's a transition of the Xfce4 we've all known...

[duby229]

I know, broken record...

Shoulda been called xfce5....

[mos87]

Fuse mate subj and prob lx* already
foss cant afford this stretching of the (limited) effort anymore