Nautilus, the GNOME file manager, has several significant improvements in GNOME 2.6. In particular, it now has a simpler and more intuitive user interface, and has improved responsiveness. This should make users feel more comfortable and productive.

This new "spatial" user interface presents just one window for each folder, and remembers their location and size. The user can then think of the window as being the folder. When the user opens a folder again, it will appear just as it did before, so that the user can recognize it. If it is already open, it will just be brought to the front.

Figure 2. Simplified file management - the window is the folder

Continued use should show that a great deal of thought has gone into this new user interface, though at first you might notice only that new folders are opened in new windows instead of changing the existing window. As you navigate to a folder, you might find that there are too many folders open on your screen. You can:

The parent-folders button shows the folder's full path, and lets you quickly open one of the parent folders. You can find this button at the bottom-left of the folder window.

Figure 3. The parent-folders button

Because some users are more familiar with the previous "browse" user interface, this is still available from the right-click menu.

The top-level "Computer" location brings together file system, removable media, and network shares.

Figure 4. The Computer location

This is also where you will see your network drives, because you can now mount Windows SMB servers, and ftp, sftp (ssh), or WebDAV locations here. For instance, you can use this to change the files on your website as if they were in a local folder. And, in GNOME 2.6 you no longer need to repeatedly enter your password for network servers.

Figure 5. A network drive

Other new file manager features include:

GNOME 2.6 and GNOME applications benefit from improvements in the user interface toolkit. Most importantly, you will notice an improved file selection dialog box when opening or saving files. This shows the same filesystem icons as you see in the "Computer" location on your desktop, and can remember bookmarks for your favourite locations, so you can quickly get to your files.

Figure 6. The new File Chooser dialog

Other basic improvements include

GNOME 2.6 makes it easier to use multiple keyboard layouts. For instance, you might want to change from a U.S. English keyboard layout to a Russian keyboard layout, and then back again, to enter one Russian word in the middle of an english sentence. This is particularly useful to the millions of people in the world who regularly communicate in more than one language. You could click on the Keyboard Indicator panel applet to switch layouts, or you might choose a key combination instead, such as pressing both shift keys together.

Figure 7. Keyboard Preferences - Layouts

GNOME 2.6 also integrates the multimedia keys into the regular Keyboard Shortcuts control panel, making it easy to use your keyboard's special keys to change volume or control music or video applications. This functionality was previously in the Acme utility.

Figure 8. Keyboard Shortcuts

GNOME 2.6 has a new easy-to-use Desktop Background control panel, which you can access quickly by right-clicking on the desktop. When you add new pictures, it will remember whether each one should be scaled or tiled.

Figure 9. Desktop Background

The new Network Monitor applet shows whether your connection is active. It can also tell you how many megabytes you have uploaded and downloaded.

Figure 10. Network Monitor

The new Keyboard Indicator applet shows the current keyboard layout and lets you choose another, without using the keyboard shortcut.

Figure 11. Keyboard Indicator

See the accessibility section for information about the new Keyboard Accessibility Status applet.

GNOME's Epiphany web browser is one of the most-used applications, so you will be glad to hear about its enhancements in GNOME 2.6 based on user feedback. The user interface has been fine-tuned yet more, to make browsing an even more pleasant experience.

Improvements include:

Figure 12. The web browser

GnomeMeeting allows users to see and speak to each other via internet telephony (VoIP) and video conferencing. In GNOME 2.6 you will notice a redesigned dialpad, easier speed dialing, and an improved setup assistant.

Other improvements include:

GNOME's Unicode character picker has been improved, so it is now even easier to paste unusual characters into your documents. Improvements include:

Figure 13. Character Map

The PDF viewer now has several features that users missed in the previous version, such as:

Figure 14. PDF Viewer

The Sound recorder now offers a selection of audio profiles, such as "Voice Quality", which the user can edit. Other applications, such as the CD ripping tool Sound Juicer, can use these same audio profiles.

Figure 15. Sound Recorder

The Volume Control now supports ALSA as well as OSS sound drivers, as used by many Linux distributions and the Linux 2.6 kernel. The simple volume control panel applet also supports this.

Figure 16. Volume Control

The latest GNOME search tool is faster, and you can now drag and drop files from it to the file manager, or right-click to delete files.

The gedit text editor now has a simpler preference dialog, and supports syntax highlighting for more file formats.

Figure 17. Text Editor

The new Keyboard Accessibility Status panel applet gives quick access to the Accessibility control panel, and provides visual feedback when using the sticky-keys feature. The sticky-keys feature allows people with limited mobility to press modifier keys, such as shift, in sequence instead of simultaneously.

Figure 18. Keyboard Indicator

The Gnopernicus screen reader and magnifier has some new features in GNOME 2.6, based on user needs.

GOK provides a suite of adaptive onscreen keyboards which dynamically respond to the user's working context, for users who cannot use a standard keyboard. The onscreen keyboard in GNOME 2.6 includes many improvements for non-English language users, including full localization of the standard GOK "prebuilt" keyboards, and full emulation of non-Latin physical keyboards.

Other improvements include:

Dasher is an innovative predictive input system that should be particularly useful to people with severe motor disabilities. At the moment, it is primarily used for text entry, but it offers an alternative way to interact with user interface controls as well. It also is useful on small devices such as PDAs, to allow more efficient text entry without a keyboard.

Figure 19. Dasher

GTK+ 2.4 adds significant new functionality while maintaining source and binary compatibility with GTK+ 2.2. Major new features include:

The GNOME Virtual File system allows applications to support several protocols and file systems via the same unified API. Improvements in GNOME 2.6 include

The GStreamer multimedia framework is gradually maturing, and is now used by several applications, such as Sound Juicer, Rhythmbox, Totem, and Marlin.

Improvements in GNOME 2.6 include