GNOME 42 Beta Released - Begins The UI / Feature / API Freeze, More Apps Ported To GTK4

Ahead of next month's GNOME 42.0 desktop debut, today marks the GNOME 42 Beta (or "42.beta" as they prefer) and this also initiates the start of the user-interface, API, and feature freeze for this six month update.

With GNOME 42 Beta the changes include:

- GNOME Calls now allows for SIP providers to handle "tel" URIs. There is also support in Calls for adding contacts from the call history.

- GNOME's Epiphany web browser has updated its bundled PDF.js and readability.js code.

- GJS has been updated against SpiderMonkey 91 and as a result many new JavaScript features now supported.

- Glib has added an async file move API.

- New default and supplemental wallpapers for light and dark variants have been included.

- GNOME Bluetooth now exports battery information for supported Bluetooth devices.

- GNOME Calendar has been ported to GTK4.

- GNOME Desktop adds async methods for thumbnail creation.

- GNOME Software has improvements to its dark theming and various UI updates.

- The Nautilus file manager now supports the dark mode setting.

- Other GNOME programs ported to the GTK4 toolkit in this beta include the GNOME Font Viewer, GNOME Music, GNOME Tour, and GNOME Weather.

- The many GNOME Shell and Mutter changes including the new screenshot/screencasting UI, support for dark wallpapers, improved XWayland auto-termination handling, DRM privacy screen support, and much more.

More details on this morning's GNOME 42 beta release via the release announcement.

The GNOME 42 release candidate is up in mid-March followed by GNOME 42.0 officially debuting on 23 March.