GNOME Shell 2.31.2 was released yesterday, bringing some exiting new features such as support for inline chatting in the IM notifications which now use Telepathy, an initial application menu in the top panel (for the moment it only holds a "Quit" option), restyle user status menu to match application menu and many others.

Gnome Shell consists of two big parts: the panel and overlay. The panel part is pretty much obvious - system tray, user name, and clock stuff and the activities button which activates the overlay -, and about the "overlay", well, take a look at this screenshot:

GNOME 3.8 has been released today, the new version bringing many new features and enhancements, including a new application view and overhauled window layout for GNOME Shell, new setting panels for privacy, search and notifications and of course, many updates to the core GNOME apps like Web (Epiphany), Boxes, Documents and more.

Let's take a look at what's new!

In GNOME 3, the System Status Area is a place where System Status Indicators represent the status of the system to the user. This is not an area that is variously called the Notification Area or System Tray and should not be used by applications (foreground or background) to indicate their status.

GNOME Shell is a new completely revamped user interface for GNOME. GNOME Shell brings a new window manager called Mutter which is a combination of Metacity and Clutter. This reportedly makes Compiz unnecessary(and incompatible too).

Gnome 2.30 was released a few days ago which means the next version will be (or should be) Gnome 3 (which will come with Gnome Shell). I recently came across some Notification Area mockups which might become reality.

Gnome 3 might start using monochrome colors in the System Status Area - Ubuntu style (or we could call it Mac OSX style):

GNOME Shell is the proposed interface for Gnome 3, it replaces the window manager, the panels at the top and bottom of the screen and everything that sits on them.

Fathers Day, and the end of my Gnome-Shell series. I still find it surreal to log into a session running Gnome-Shell and see a desktop devoid of familiar features. Gnome-Shell is the new direction Gnome is going for release 3, and Ubuntu seems set on following suit. Will this be a smart move?

This is my first look at gnome shell. I guess this is going to be the big thing for gnome when gnome 3 comes out in 2010. Gnome shell is in it’s early stages yet, but I miss having the ability to place things on the panel.