Xfce is one of the best desktop environments. It’s light, fast, and user-friendly. Several popular Linux distributions either ship the Xfce desktop by default like MX Linux, Kali Linux, Xubuntu, Fedora Xfce spin, and Manjaro.
Currently, Xfce 4.14 is the most recent stable version. André Miranda, one of the core developers of Xfce, has now announced the first preview release of the upcoming Xfce 4.16.
Xfce 4.16 changes and improvements
Above all, let’s starting with the most important update. Xfce has dropped a lot of code owing to the removal of support for GTK2. With v4.16, it has fully started to support the latest GTK3 for modern user interface and better maintainability.
In addition to improvements to GTK support, the interface now contains new icons to all core components to extend Xfce’s visual identity.
A revamped and improved “About Xfce” dialog that also holds general system details.
Xfce has finally adopted the client-side decorations concept for its settings dialogs and merged “Mime Settings” and “Preferred Applications” into a new “Default Applications” dialog.
Another significant improvement in version 4.16 is the ability to configure the “fractional scaling” tool of XRandR config. Thanks to the new feature, users can adjust the “fractional scaling”, choosing one of the three basic options 1x, 1.5x or 2x.
Also, there is a new plugin “Status Tray”. It is a merger between the systray and the statusnotifier plugin. In addition to, it will make life for users much easier and less confusing, now supports the panel’s global “icon size” setting.
Other important changes
- Launchers now show desktop file actions on right-click
- Dark mode for the panel
- Thunar copying and moving can be paused
- The workspace switcher can optionally show numbering for workspaces
- Initial support to remember view settings per directory
In conclusion, Xfce 4.16pre2 will be released at the end of this month. If necessary pre3 will be released in October. The final stable version of Xfce 4.16 will be released in November.
