The applet will be installed by default in Cinnamon 2.8

Sep 2, 2015 16:00 GMT  ·  By

The lead developer and creator of the Linux Mint and Cinnamon projects, Clement Lefebvre, has announced earlier today, September 2, that the upcoming Cinnamon 2.8 desktop environment will offer a visual workspace switcher applet.

The fact of the matter is that the Cinnamon desktop environment already has a workspace switcher applet, like almost all open-source desktop environments, including GNOME, on which Cinnamon is based, but the big change is that it will offer a visual mode.

Therefore, the great news we want to share with you today is that Cinnamon's workspace switcher applet has been redesigned to offer you a visual representation of your desktops, which includes small cubes for the windows. We recommend viewing the attached screenshot on the right for more details.

"The reason I worked on that is because I’d like to make it easier for novice users not only to use workspaces but to discover them and to quickly understand what they are and how they work. So there’s a couple of changes which are being considered for the next Linux Mint release," says Clement Lefebvre.

The workspace-switcher applet will be installed by default in visual mode

Because of the implementation of the new visual workspace switcher applet, there will be some changes in the Cinnamon 2.8 desktop environment, such as the removal of the window-quick-list applet from the panel, the availability of a single workspace by default, and the addition of the workspace switcher applet on the panel by default in visual mode.

Right now, the screenshot you see on the right shows you an unthemed version of the new visual workspace switcher apple, displaying two workspaces with three windows on each one. The final version will be "dressed" with a nice theme and let users switch to the basic buttons for interacting with the workspaces.