14 DAY TRIAL // With only two days left until the upcoming Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) operating system hits the Final Beta milestone, developers are still working on adding finishing touches to this release, and they've again improved the Ubuntu Dock.
In his latest report, Ubuntu contributor Didier Roche talks about the Ubuntu Dock, a dock implementation for Ubuntu 17.10 based on the popular Dash to Dock extension for the GNOME 3 desktop environment. This time, the developer managed to add support for progress bar and badges for pinned apps to the Ubuntu Dock.
"One of the latest things we wanted to work on as we highlighted on our previous posts is the notification for new emails or download experience on the Shell," said Didier Roche. "Similarly, we now have progress bar support on Nautilus, Firefox downloads and every applications using that API to get updated on transactional actions."
A GNOME desktop just like Unity
Canonical promised to ease the migration from Unity to GNOME for those using any of the currently supported Ubuntu releases, so they're working with upstream and doing everything in their power to make your stay enjoyable. And we have to admit that Ubuntu Dock is turning out to be quite remarkable.
Especially that you'll be able to remove it, easily place it in any other part of the screen from System Settings, as well as to change its theme, size, and numerous other things that are also possible on the Dash to Dock extension. And now, Thunderbird will show notifications for new messages and Firefox a progress bar for downloads.
The Nautilus (Files) file manager will also show a process bar for file transfers, as well as any other app that uses the API which makes this possible. In addition, you'll now see indicators for every opened window under the app's pinned shortcut. For example, if you have four Terminal windows opened, you'll see four dots under or next to the icon.
Didier Roche says that he's work on transforming the GNOME Shell user interface into something more familiar for Unity users is almost done, yet there's still a bit of work to be done for enabling better support for HiDPI displays by implementing a fractional scaling experience in the Display panel in System Settings.
