Faster, more useful and more yours ⋅ elementary blog

The latest version of AppCenter comes with a few more improvements to the update view, including showing all ongoing app installs, upgrades, and removals. Additionally, the “Last Checked” information is now always shown in the “Up to date” application header. And we fixed an issue where in-app notifications were sent for every update installed.

There are also a few more performance improvements, including much faster startup times, faster information retrieval for apps that can be installed from multiple stores, and a lot of code simplification and cleanup, thanks to leonhard.

The latest version of Code comes with a number of fixes and some new tricks. In the Project’s sidebar, sorting project folders is now a toggle setting rather than a one-time action, the Terminal panel now follows the currently selected project’s path, and Jeremy Fixed an issue that could cause the number of results for a global search to be incorrect. Plus, Loric fixed an issue that could cause a crash on startup or during certain global searches, and added a new setting to disable syntax highlighting for a more distraction-free editing experience. The High Contrast style has improved contrast for line numbers, thanks to the help of Micah. And it is no longer possible to open multiple PasteBin dialogs thanks to Street.

We recently removed System Settings as a default dock item—since it’s accessible from several other places and dock space is at a premium—but there were some concerns raised about discoverability. So we added some additional information to the last page of Onboarding to close the gap. This page shows even after you select “Skip All,” so people are always shown how to access additional system settings and configure their PC the way they like it.

We also now support a new accent color option thanks to Ryo: the smooth and creamy “Latte”. This is a great new option for big fans of soft neutrals and can be selected both during onboarding and from Desktop settings. And desktop settings now support long-press secondary clicks on touchscreens to remove backgrounds.

Font settings have also been expanded to allow an open-ended choice. So whether you need a font like OpenDyslexic for accessibility reasons, feel more productive with a coding font like Fira, or just want to have some fun, you now have an option to customize text to your liking.

In keyboard settings, Ryo also addressed an issue that would cause IBus to send a notification in Secure sessions, and Lion Added support for using the “Tools” key present on some keyboards in custom keyboard shortcuts.

And of course we have a few more window manager improvements, including performance improvements when zooming in and a fix for an issue that would cause workspaces to change during pinch gestures by Lion. And leonhard Fixed issues with full-screen Firefox videos, flickering when the Reduce Motion setting was enabled, and an issue where the correct window for multi-window apps would sometimes not be focused when selected from the Dock.

Get these updates

As always, open System Settings → System on elementary OS 8 and hit “Update All” to get these updates plus your regular security, bug fix, and translation updates. Or set up automatic updates and get a notification when updates are ready to install!

Quite a lot has been happening lately to prepare for OS 9, but I think it deserves its own blog post, so stick around! For now I’ll say we’re getting close to a place where we might have bootable daily builds and we’re making good progress on some big projects like a new design for Portals, improved CJK input support and a new on-screen keyboard, a GTK4 powered panel, our next generation app framework and visual design and more!

Right now we’re at 20% of our monthly funding goal and 287 backers on GitHub! Shoutouts to everyone who helps us reach our goals here. Your monthly sponsorship funds development and makes sure we have the resources we need to give you the best version of elementary OS we can!

Monthly release candidate builds and daily early access builds are available for GitHub Sponsors from any country! Beware that Early Access builds are not considered stable and you will run into new problems when exporting them. We would greatly appreciate reporting any issues you encounter with the Feedback app or directly on GitHub.