Well gnome 3.2 is a nice evolution from 3.0 but to me it feels somewhat disappointing, it actually feels for the most part like a 3.0.2 release for the core UX with some nice added applications and a few applications that do feel like its a .1 bump rather than 0.1.
Some of the good include the new gnome-contacts app is brilliant! In fact the whole “Online Accounts” is a great idea, even if it only currently supports Google and is still a little rough around the edges. Also the ability to finally make VoIP calls directly from the contacts apps is fabulous. Evolution has evolved as it does just about every release, the mapi support continues to improve and the calendaring is back to being usable. The calendar still doesn’t have multi timezone and weather support added back in like was promised for 3.2, this is probably one of two main promises I was looking forward to 🙁
The hotplug notification is good but it needs a noticeable way to get rid of it, often I plug something in and don’t want to do anything with it, or will deal with it on the command line. On the topic of notifications… why does everything seem to change again for what used the notification area? I gnotes no longer appears down the bottom like it did previously? The other thing that has regressed again is that the “lock screen” support. WHY?!? How hard is it to get something so simple correct?
The other thing I was looking forward to returning, and it has, is Network Sharing support. Its not something I use a lot but with inbuilt 3G its something very useful when I’m travelling, and that is useful 🙂 although there’s still a number of regressions in the NetworkManager stack that move between plain annoying to why? The wireless for my Enterprise WPA AP in the office finally remembers the password when I change it, but it still pops up and prompts for the password, I click OK with the password that’s in there and it joins.
The themeing hasn’t improved, if anything its regressed. The title bar isn’t a smooth blend and there’s still not a great distinction between active and non active windows. Also the gtk2 theme still hasn’t been bought up to the same design to the rest of it so you still have the blue scroll bars. That said the dark theme’s for totem and Image Viewer is great!
Overall its certainly an improvement, but in most cases they’re small but I do wish they would pay more attention to regressions and polish.
“The dark theme for Totem and Image Viewer is great!”
Yes it is…
If you like things that stick out like a sore thumb.
Why would I want the window theme on these programs to be completely different than the themes on all my other program windows? Now my system feels like a mismatched hodge-podge. I want my theme to be universal throughout the system.