Welcome to GNOME 3.16

GNOME 3.16 is the latest version of GNOME 3, and is the result of six months' work by the GNOME project. It includes major new features, as well as a large number of smaller improvements and enhancements. The release incorporates 33525 changes, made by approximately 1043 contributors. New features and improvements being introduced in GNOME 3.16 include:

Notifications Reimagined

GNOME 3's notifications system has been overhauled for 3.16. The previous Message Tray has been replaced by a new message list that provides straightforward access to previous notifications, and notification pop-ups (called "banners") have been repositioned in order to make them more noticeable and to prevent them from interfering with applications.

As with the previous notifications design, it is possible to quickly and directly respond to notifications through their pop-up banners. This allows you to do things like quickly snooze an alarm or reply to a chat message.

The calendar drop down, which is accessed from the time indicator in the top bar, has also been redesigned for 3.16. Not only does it now present the notifications history, but it also shows event reminders and world times. This gives a great overview of what is currently happening, as well as what is scheduled for the day. The addition of weather information and birthday reminders is planned for the future.

Files Improvements

The Files application has had a number of significant updates for 3.16. The grid and list views have been improved, so that they provide bigger thumbnails, easier to read rows, and have a more attractive appearance. They are complemented by a new popover for controlling the view, which makes it easy to change the zoom level and sort order from a single place.

File deletion has also been improved for 3.16, with the addition of a new, easy to discover undo feature. This allows files and folders to be moved to the trash using Delete alone, rather than the Ctrl+Delete keyboard combination.

Finally, many of the menus in Files have been updated for consistency and logical organization.

Updated Visuals

GNOME 3's visuals have been updated for 3.16. The Activities Overview, login screen, system menus and other system components have been given a new, more contemporary look. The new visuals are designed to integrate with the visual style of GNOME applications, for a more seamless experience.

New-Look Scrollbars

3.16 introduces a new style of scrollbar for GNOME 3. Instead of being shown all the time, these new overlay scrollbars are only shown when needed: a small scroll indicator is shown when the pointer is moved, and a larger bar appears when control is wanted. This creates a cleaner, less distracting view, which helps you to focus on window content.

Updated Image Viewer

GNOME's Image Viewer application has been redesigned for this release. The new design significantly reduces the amount of window chrome, to give more space to the images themselves. A new control provides a convenient way to quickly zoom in and out, and the properties sidebar has been refined to be easier to read and more attractive.

New Preview Applications

The drive to create a new suite of core applications continues with GNOME 3.16, with the introduction of three new preview applications. These are initial versions that are intended for testing, and to give a taste of what is to come in future versions.

  • Calendar provides simple and easy to use window on to your online schedule, and is integrated with Online Accounts for seamless setup.

  • Characters is a new character map application. Common characters are quick and easy to browse, thanks to category-based browsing. "Type to search" provides a quick and convenient way to find characters, and a recent view presents characters that you have used in the past, for ease of retrieval.

  • Books is a new e-book viewer application for GNOME. The initial version allows viewing comic book archives, with ePub support planned for the future.

Getting GNOME 3.16

GNOME's software is Free Software: all our code is available for download and can be freely modified and redistributed. To install it, we recommend that you wait for the official packages provided by your vendor or distribution. Popular distributions will make GNOME 3.16 available very soon, and some already have development versions that include the new GNOME release.

About GNOME

The GNOME Project is an international community supported by a non-profit Foundation. We focus on user experience excellence and first-class internationalization and accessibility. GNOME is a free and open project: if you want to join us, you can.