3.12 Features

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Hi all,

I thought I'd update the list with what we can expect from 3.12 in
terms of features.

The main user visible changes that we can expect, I think, will come
from some of the apps, particularly Videos, Software, Web and gedit.
Videos and gedit have have fairly dramatic redesigns, and the other
two have advanced a huge amount in terms of performance and features.
Outside of the application space, geolocation has also made a big step
forward, and will be much more visible in the shell.

In general, I don't expect 3.12 to be the biggest release in terms of
the number of big new features. However, my feeling is that it will be
the most well-rounded and high-quality 3.x release. A number of core
features have really matured in the last 6 months, lik app install and
software updates. We have also filled in some preexisting blanks, like
with app folders, and there have been a lot of polishing, both in
terms of visual tweaks and performance improvements.

You can see the feature list take shape on the wiki:

https://wiki.gnome.org/ThreePointEleven/ReleaseNotes

The other big question is Wayland. I know that intensive work is still
happening in this area, and it is probably too soon to predict what we
will have for 3.12. Wayland certainly won't be used by default in the
next release, but I think we can be confident that it will be another
big step forward and might well be the last GNOME release to be X11
only.

Please think about ways we can express these changes in our release
marketing, or try to come up with stories that we can tell in the run
up to 3.12. It would be really nice to think creatively about this.

Thanks,

Allan