It's several months behind schedule, but GNOME 3 is getting closer to becoming reality. While we're still a few months away from the planned release date, the GNOME project team launched the GNOME 3 website showcasing the core features and focus areas as well as providing preview of the new visual style. "For GNOME 3, the GNOME Project has started from scratch and created a completely new, modern desktop designed for today's users and technologies," the site reads.
GNOME 3 is a complete revamp, especially in the looks department. The aim is to simplify the interface, cutting down on the fat while also making it more usable and intuitive.
"GNOME's new desktop takes elegance to a new level. We've swept away the clutter and made a simple and easy-to-use desktop, and we've made this the most beautiful GNOME desktop ever, with a new visual theme, a refined new font and carefully crafted animations," the team continues.
Simple lines, monochromatic icons and easy to spot control components make GNOME 3 look a lot better than what GNOME 2 has to offer, but some design choices seem odd.
The task manager has been relegated to a side panel/dock following the modern paradigm. Both Mac OS X and Windows 7 take the same broad approach, though there are differences.
Interestingly enough, Ubuntu will also be using a vertical dock in Unity, the desktop shell designed to replace GNOME in the popular Linux distro.
A vertical dock makes sense since most displays today have a wide aspect ratio of 16:9 or 16:10 making vertical space at a premium over horizontal space.
It's strange then that the GNOME team decided to keep the bottom panel, which is now dedicated exclusively to house system and app notifications.
Of course, GNOME 3 is still in the Alpha stage. What's more, as with any big reboot, it will probably be several iterations before it's becomes a true alternative to the one it's replacing.
KDE 4.0 was heavily criticized when it first landed for its lack of features, poor performance and simply looking unfinished. Three years later KDE 4.6 is arguably a huge upgrade over the first release.
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