14 DAY TRIAL // The release of the GNOME 3.16 RC (Release Candidate) desktop environment is imminent, with the final version being unveiled next Wednesday, March 25, 2015. Numerous core component, libraries, and applications of the acclaimed and controversial open-source desktop environment have been published in the last 24 hours on GNOME’s FTP site.
GNOME Shell, the user interface that allows users to interact with GNOME and its components, has been updated today, March 17, to version 3.16 RC. This development release brings the last improvements to the application before it is integrated into the final release of GNOME 3.16 and distributed to users worldwide next week.
According to the release notes, GNOME Shell 3.16 RC fixes user list accessibility in the GDM (GNOME Display Manager) login manager, improves the Classic theme, fixes ordering and dismissing of calendar events, fixes handling of removed smartcard at startup, fixes the ‘empty user list’ issue on user switching, makes the menu selection behavior consistent with GTK, and will no longer pick random sessions for the user in the login screen.
Numerous other changes have been implemented in GNOME Shell 3.16
In addition to the above, the Release Candidate version of GNOME Shell 3.16 will now handle multiline questions in mount operations, displays notifications for password requests that have not been initiated by the user, adds legacy tray support to the CTRL+ALT+TAB pop-up, manages the visibility of the on-screen keyboard, adds pointer barriers to the legacy tray, and uses the Fallback mode when the app icon isn’t resolved correctly.
Last but not least, several language translations have been updated. As usual, Softpedia provides links for users who want to download and test GNOME Shell 3.16 RC themselves. Please keep in mind that this is an unstable piece of software and it is not recommended for production machines. Anyone else should wait for the release of GNOME 3.16 on March 25.