Nuvola Comes With Start-Up Tips, New Documentation, and More
The latest flatpak builds of Nuvola Apps show useful tips during the start-up, add help buttons to individual features for faster access to new documentation written from scratch, and allow you to start writing a bug report with just two clicks. We added new issue templates on Github to make easier to report bugs, suggest features or just ask questions.
To install Nuvola, follow the installation instructions at the Nuvola Apps Project website. To update Nuvola, run flatpak update --system && flatpak update --user in terminal (as a regular user, not root/sudo) or use a package manager which supports Flatpak (e.g., a recent GNOME Software application with the Flatpak plugin).
This blog post applies to the genuine flatpak builds of Nuvola. If you use a third-party build, contact your distributor to find out which features are available.
About Dialog with Tips Shown on Start-Up
The very first start of Nuvola takes a while because several things need to be generated and cached (the configuration and properties of all available fonts, the database of GStreamer modules, etc.). Then Nuvola performs its own start-up checks to make sure all dependencies are satisfied, and you shouldn’t expect any surprised. But it may take long.
Nuvola used to show a simple start-up window during its initialization, but it now shows a set of useful tips instead:
- How to add an app to favorites or pin to a dock for faster access.
- How to open Preferences and a help corresponding to individual features.
- How to report a bug, suggest a feature or ask a question.
When all start-up checks are finished, the dialog usually closes automatically not to bother you. If will be kept open only if you have just installed or upgraded Nuvola and launched it for the very first time after that. You can show the tips anytime later, just click the Menu button, then About.
New Documentation Written from Scratch
Nuvola has finally received new documentation. I’ve been writing it from scratch for a while and hope it will be more useful than the old one. You can now open help pages of individual features with a single click from the recently redesigned preferences dialog:
Two Clicks to Report Bug and New Issue Templates
Nuvola now provides extra menu actions to report bugs, ask questions or suggest features more easily.
These actions point directly to the new issue templates on GitHub:
Other Changes in Nuvola 4.12.43
Other changes since Nuvola 4.12.20:
- Some labels in Preferences dialog were tweaked.
- The list of Patrons was replaced with a static widget instead of a web page.
- The Welcome screen was removed, the About dialog with tips is shown instead.
- Nuvola no longer warns if a matching GTK+ theme for Flatpak is not installed. One of the start-up tips guides users to open Preferences, and the Appearance tweaks are the very first item there.
Nuvola Contributes to Good Angel Foundation
Jiri Janousek, the core developer of Nuvola Apps project, is glad to contribute a part of the project’s revenue to the Good Angel foundation. This way, he can regularly help families with children, which face financial distress as a result of severe illness. Even small monetary donations can help these families overcome a tough period.
Thank You for Your Support
At the time of writing, the awesome people listed bellow and a few others are Nuvola Patrons, who support the development of Nuvola Apps Runtime. Thank you all!
Christian Dannie Storgaard, José Antonio Rey, Ryan Wagner, Simon Law, Bart Libert, Chris Beeley, Andrew Azores, Bryan Wyatt, Balázs, Denton Davenport, Ben MacLeod, Duco van Amstel, David Wiczer, Andrew Allen, Nathan Warkentin, Chuck Talk.
If you are a Nuvola Patron but your name is not listed, you have to enable the “Show my name and a link to my external profile page in a list of Patrons.” option in your profile settings. Obviously, it is not enabled by default to protect privacy of our patrons.
