quantal quetzal

Starting with Nautilus' 3.x series, its theming, under Ubuntu's Ambiance and Radiance, triggered a solid amount of negative user feedback, related to various inappropriate elements integration, faulty visual mix that generated, according to various users, an improper inconsistent blending of Nautilus into the Ubuntu desktop.

Starting in the latest cycles, Ubuntu gained a development cycle seriously oriented towards its default shell, Unity, meaning, a solid amount of developer "energies" are focused on progressively improving, enhancing, adding new features, etc, as related to Unity, progressive approach that carefully lands, along with fixes and stability improvements, new major features during Ubuntu releases (like for instance, the addition of Unity Video lens in Ubuntu 12.04).

Quantal Quetzal is, at the moment, under "heavy" development, both under-the-hood and on the user interface, constantly landing new features and enhancements, as in the case of the redesigned Indicator Session 12.10 that corroborates two indicators into a single unitary area (represented by the "cog" icon) from where the user can access "vital" informations and actions, such as help, restart, System Settings, lock, etc.

Colors are definitely an important part of Unity, featuring multiple relevancy levels, such as high, as related to Unity's chameleonic behavior used for the Dash, notifications, etc, moderate, as related to Unity launcher's tile colorization, etc.

By default, applications are represented on the launcher with a specific icons and a tile/square surrounding area that displays the icon's average color, process that properly exposes applications on the launcher, easily perceivable and integrated into their tile.

Ubuntu 12.10 is a release (currently under heavy development) after an LTS, consequently, users are naturally expecting in Quantal Quetzal new features as first-class citizens, as opposed to the latest/at-the-moment current Ubuntu version, that was build with a clear focus on stability.

Unity 6.0 has just landed in Ubuntu 12.10, as the first Unity release in the 6.x series, the first version moving from Ubuntu 12.04's 5.x series.

What is new in Unity 6.0?

Weeks ago, the developers published near-future plans related to Ubuntu indicators, with clear explanations about changes, refinements and reorganizations that are to land in the at-that-time next Ubuntu development cycle (Quantal Quetzal).

Indicator Session 12.10 has just landed in Ubuntu 12.10, starting the mentioned activity, activity that is to probably touch all of the Unity panel/top bar's indicators during the 12.10 development cycle.

The work on Ubuntu 12.10 has already started with numerous changes and improvements (mainly under-the-hood), pack of changes materialized as ALPHA 1 and ALPHA 2, development stages that introduced various "hidden" code-related changes, "preparing" the near-future landing of user-visible exciting features.

On April 2012, Ubuntu 12.04 was shipped, release characterized by a prudent approach, meaning, the developers have had clear goals oriented towards stability, precision, polish, in the detriment of new features.

First release after the 12.04 LTS, Quantal Quetzal is to probably gain new, more abrupt features, both under-the-hood and interface-wise, basically, the 12.10 version is to probably be characterized as adding new features focused release.

Ubuntu is definitely an operating system suitable for heavy activities, when, in our workflows, we tend to use workspaces for various reasons (more space, efficiency, optimal window management with, for instance, text files on a workspace, web-browsers on other workspaces, etc, fast access, etc).

Ubuntu ships, by default, four workspaces that can be summoned by clicking the Unity launcher's Workspace Switcher, action that exposes the workspaces, clicking on a particular workspace, redirects the user to the clicked workspace.

Ubuntu 12.10 ALPHA 2 has just been released, adding improvements, features and bug fixes.