Hello! This is a preview on whats on master now, but final release might be quite different! Also for one more cycle, Files together Builder are the two apps with the higher development activity and most changes!
Before going to changes, I will shortly refer what didn’t change! And that is the visual design, which is GNOME/GTK global
The first time you’ll start GNOME 3.30 and Files, you won’t notice almost any difference in graphics. To me, the visual design is desperately outdated, but the interaction design remains one of tops in desktop, although it loses a lot on touch screens
There is a GSoC 2018 project for porting Files in GTK 4.0, that can make things a bit more interesting, specially on effects part, but at the best a tech preview will be available on 3.30 release (Sept 2018), since GTK 4.0 will hopefully release in Spring 2019 and GNOME 3.32
Anyway, to the changes! There are many, and quite good ones! Oh, and if you want to test yourselves, you can easily do by getting a nightly Flatpak of Files!
Please please don’t comment on my Medium! Use YouTube!
1. Better Resizing \o/
When we resize Files window, the icons are now smoothly re-positioning on center without leaving ugly gaps on the edges! Super!
2. Application Menu is Now Gone \o/
The appMenu from Shell Panel, is now on Files window! Super²!
This is a global UX change in GNOME! Application Menus will ported on the appWindows, in 2 steps. GNOME 3.30 will give time to app developers to port their menus back to apps, and GNOME 3.32 will completely deprecate them!
I may blog a special story on this, but in short AppMenus introduction was the worst thing ever in GNOME 3.0 design, and GNOME showed very slow reflexes to fix it. 7 years slow reflexes..
3. Pathbar and Search were Merged \o/
Yet another “natural” design choice arrived! Why to have two entries when we can have one? Super!
It consumes less space, it looks prettier, it makes more sense, and the only drawback is that we can’t see the location we are currently searching, just in case we forgot it!
4. More Distinguished Menus :)
Did you ever try to open Hamburger menu, and instead you switched a view? Yes you did! Won’t happen anymore! A small nice change!
There is now a button group for the views menus, one button to switch view, and an arrow button to open the options of the view, while the Hamburger menu (that in this case is the AppMenu) is clearly distinguished on the very left!
5. The Pathbar Menus :/
That’s a new thing I’m not sure I like for two reasons. First it just doesn’t feel nice on actual use. Second we lose our path, although we can “restore” with back button
You need to watch the video above, to understand how it works, but considering the items that menu has, remember it is a very early work!
Oh also that benefits the List View, when there is not “empty space” to open context menu
Lots More Changes!
There are some more minor UI changes, there are lots of optimization changes, there is of course the port to GTK 4.0 that will change lots of things, and in general Files is a very active developed app!
I guess you noticed that “Recent Items” is missing! That’s because they are porting that functionality to play on Sanboxed apps (Flatpak), and it is work in progress. Work in progress is also better “Starred Items” and more..!!
