Bug#683427: release-notes: new in wheezy: gnome 3

[Josselin Mouette]

Hi, and thanks for the reminder.

Le mardi 31 juillet 2012 à 20:29 +0200, Julien Cristau a écrit : 
> the release notes for wheezy should have something about gnome 3, point
> out the major changes and gotchas people should be aware of on upgrade.
> I'd appreciate help with this from the maintainers :)

Here is a first draft. Comments/improvements welcome.

        == GNOME desktop ==
        
        GNOME has undergone a major interface rewrite in the upgrade to
        version 3.4. The traditional GNOME panel has been replaced by
        the “shell”, an innovative interface with major usability
        improvements.
        
        Among other things, it features dynamic workspaces, an on-screen
        keyboard (Caribou), instant messaging built into the interface,
        and integration with the GNOME keyring and PolicyKit.
        
        If you want to keep an interface closer to the GNOME 2.30
        version in wheezy, you can select the “GNOME Classic” session at
        the login prompt. It will bring you an improved version of the
        traditional panel. You can still edit the panel to add more
        applets, by using the hidden alt+right click combination.
        
        If your hardware is not compatible with the GNOME shell’s
        requirements, you will also be redirected to the “classic”
        interface.
        
        == New and removed applications ==
        
        Sushi is a new previewing application. Just press the space key
        on a file in the file manager, and enjoy.
        
        The Tracker indexation tool is now part of the GNOME desktop.
        After your first login, it will index your desktop, and is now
        available as the default search tool. It is also the key to the
        new GNOME documents tool to manage your recently used documents.
        
        Audio and mixing applications now require the PulseAudio sound
        daemon, which provides per-application mixing.

        The help system has been entirely redesigned, with a new
        documentation format.
        
        GNOME boxes is a tool to handle your virtual machines,
        integrated to the shell and using qEMU/KVM.        
        
        Some other new applications: GNOME contacts, GNOME online
        accounts, GNOME PackageKit, GNOME color manager, Rygel.
        
        Ekiga is no longer part of GNOME. Many of its features are now
        avilable in Empathy.
        
        == Settings ==
        
        Most technologies underlying GNOME are still here: the D-Bus
        messaging system, the PolicyKit permissions manager, the
        GStreamer multimedia system, the gvfs virtual file system, the
        MIME system, the ConsoleKit, udisks & upower interfaces to
        hardware management: all are kept without major changes.
        
        However, the underlying configuration system to GNOME has
        undergone a major evolution, from GConf to a new system named
        GSettings, which is much faster and more versatile. The settings
        can be browsed or edited using the (recommended) gsettings
        command-line tool, or the dconf-editor graphical tool.
        The GConf system is still available for third-party applications
        that use it.
        
        Most settings are migrated upon upgrade, but for technical and
        conceptual reasons, a selected number of settings are not:
              * default session and language (now managed by the
                accountsservice daemon); 
              * desktop wallpaper; 
              * default GTK+ theme (none of the previous themes exist
                anymore); 
              * panel and applets configuration (applets now use
                relative positioning); 
              * default browser and mailer (the settings are now part of
                the MIME system through x-scheme-handler/* types). 
        
        == Display manager ==
        
        The GNOME display manager (gdm3) has undergone a major evolution
        together with the desktop. The primary change is that settings
        for the login prompt have been migrated to GSettings as well.
        The configuration file has changed to greeter.gsettings and
        settings are not preserved. This only affects interface
        settings; daemon settings are still at the same place.
        
        The legacy GDM 2.20 package is no longer available; most of its
        former features are now available in GDM 3.x.
        
        == Interface toolkit ==
        
        The GTK+ toolkit has undergone a major lifting to version 3.4,
        which is incompatible (source and binary) with version 2.x.
        Version 2 is still maintained and available for third-party
        applications that use it, and the default Adwaita theme gives
        them a consistent look with GTK+ 3.x applications.
        
        Porting your existing GTK+ 2.x applications to GTK+ 3.x is not
        too hard and is highly recommended. Detailed instructions on how
        to port your application are available in the libgtk-3-doc
        package.

If someone could add a paragraph on a11y and another one on PackageKit,
this would be nice, too.

-- 
 .''`.      Josselin Mouette
: :' :
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