The latest upgrade to Artful gives me GNOME Shell 3.25.19 with beautiful interface changes! It has new theme, new look, new login screen color, more orange color style everywhere. This new look is a new step towards GNOME 3.26 planned for Artful final version. Overall, as an Ubuntu user I like this interface. Thanks to all Ubuntu developers especially Didier Roche.
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Read my previous Artful review at Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Upgrade
Today 06 September 2017 I upgraded & dist-upgraded my Artful so that I got the latest changes on whole system. It costs 160MB (upgrade) plus 70MB (dist-upgrade) data download. You can read the full list of packages' names and changing versions + total download size of mine:
New Theme!
The latest update got GNOME Shell 3.25.91 with customized Ubuntu theme! Now, the top panel is transparent, button colors became 'orangified' from the bluesy one, and (thanks to DashtoDock) the side panel is just like Unity Launcher. It's exciting to follow this change on Didier Roche's articles.
Panel Transparency
The top panel is transparent by default until your app title bar touch it.
Transparent, when untouched:
Black, when touched:
Menu Launcher
The menu got new interface improvement! Now, if you open it and type something it shows the application icons, plus setting suggestions, and another GNOME-related feature suggestions. The menu got better integrated to GNOME desktop.
Orange Switcher
The Alt+Tab got orange color style following Ambiance in Unity, leaving the blue color style from default GNOME.
Orange Button
The blue buttons from GNOME default style got changed to orange now.
Orange Frame
The app overview (panorama when you press Super) got orange frame for window under cursor.
New Login Screen
And the login screen is changed from grey to purple (Aubergine, Canonical color) with orange button on hold and orange color style for username choice.
Further References
Didier Roche is the leader of Ubuntu Desktop Team. Didier's articles are the ultimate sources:
- https://didrocks.fr/2017/09/04/ubuntu-gnome-shell-in-artful-day-9
- https://didrocks.fr/2017/08/21/ubuntu-gnome-shell-in-artful-day-6/
- https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-desktop/2017-April/004907.html "Look Ahead at GNOME 3.26" by Jeremy Bicha
- https://didrocks.fr/2017/08/03/ubuntu--guadec-2017-and-plans-for-gnome-shell-migration