This page contains the content of the old RoadMap page, before we moved to the new RoadMap/ProcessBeforeGNOME3.

Roadmap!

This roadmap is a living document- if you're a maintainer, please update it with your plans.

Old roadmap information can be found at /OldMaps. Tools not on the RoadMap but helpful for the 'power user' are listed at PowerUserTools.

Contents

  1. Roadmap!
  2. Roadmap Introduction
    1. GNOME 3.0
  3. Developer Platform
    1. 2.16
    2. 2.18
    3. 2.20
  4. User-visible Changes
    1. 2.16
    2. 2.18
    3. 2.20
  5. Infrastructure & Organization
    1. 2.16
    2. 2.20
  6. Unresourced goals

Roadmap Introduction

The GNOME Community Roadmap is a big-picture view of functionality we expect GNOME to include in the next year, i.e. in GNOME 2.16. The roadmap is based on feedback from current GNOME developers and other community members.

The roadmap is loosely organized into Developer Platform, User Visible and Infrastructure & Organization sections. But several user-visible features will obviously require platform improvements. Similarly, improvements in the development platform, and the GNOME infrastructure, will indirectly improve the user experience.

This roadmap shows the ideas and hopes of GNOME contributors for the near future. However, GNOME is primarily a volunteer community that does time-based releases, as opposed to feature-based releases. Therefore, these changes will only happen for their target releases if the contributors have the necessary time and resources. If it needs more time, then the feature will be punted to the next 6 month release cyle. We hope this roadmap allows interested people to take part. The GNOME project relies heavily on your involvement.

There is also an Unresourced section, with improvements believed to be necessary for GNOME to become a more mature and robust platform for Users, OEMs and ISVs. However, because no community members, either volunteer or corporate, have yet committed to these goals, we can not attach a time scale to them.

The roadmap is a work in progress. Developers working on projects or features for GNOME in the next year should inform the Release Team so they can update the roadmap. Experienced developers should also feel free to claim items in the 'Unresourced' section.

GNOME 3.0

Some GNOME hackers have discussed what form GNOME '3.0' would take, such as radically changing its user model or taking advantage of new technologies. However, the changes in this roadmap are more incremental, designed to fit within the basically stable UI and APIs we guarantee within the 2.x series. For more on the radical changes that could be in a GNOME 3.0, see the long-term ideas at ThreePointZero. And remember, even then, the GNOME 3 APIs would be available in addition to the existing GNOME 2 APIs, so there is no risk that today's application would break in the future.

Developer Platform

2.16

2.18

2.20

User-visible Changes

2.16

  • gedit improvements (see Gedit/RoadMap)

  • gnome-utils improvements (see GnomeUtils/RoadMap)

    • the return of the speller for gnome-dictionary
    • new addition: Baobab, the disk analysis and usage tool
  • New addition:
    • Alacarte, the GNOME menu editor
    • C# + Mono and Tomboy, the note taking applet
    • Orca, screen reader program

    • PowerManager, power managment program

  • EOG improvements (see EyeOfGnome/RoadMap)

  • Tangoification for GNOME icons

2.18

  • Improve the new Tangoified GNOME icon theme set, GNOME apps devel should check GnomeGoals/AppIcon

  • Potentially deprecate Legacy (Non-HAL) Battery Applet from GNOME Applet? As power manager has applet for this already

  • Potentally deprecate gnome-cd-player from gnome-utils as Rhythmbox now can do Audio CD Playback [BaptisteMilleMathias: AFAIK Rhythmbox in not part of GNOME Desktop and was not proposed, I think Sound-Juicer is the application to use]

  • Complete the HighContrast set in regards to the naming-spec.

  • Propose NetworkManager as new module for inclusion.

  • Potentially provide scan app and scan gimp plugin (GnomeScan)

  • glChess and GnomeSudoku have been added to gnome-games.

  • New features for GnomeUtils:

    • Baobab has a ring chart graph for displaying the disk usage.

    • Dictionary allows editing sources, selecting the matching strategy for the speller and reading local database files.
    • the Dictionary applications shows the links between definitions.
    • The Screenshot utility has an "interactive" mode when launched from the menu.

  • Epiphany/RoadMap218

2.20

  • Deprecate obsolete apps like gnome-cd-player in favor for Sound-Juicer, GNOME Applet Note in favor for Tomboy.

  • Adopting ThemeableApp and GnomeGoals/AppIcon in every GNOME apps. Once and for all deprecate and not use obsolete pixmaps. New face lift with all apps to be Tango-ed in GNOME apps. http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Fridays

  • While we're on it, we can also make highcontrast icons for those in-app-icons and application launchers as well for that matter
  • Update Icon Guideline in GNOME HIG, apps should follow GNOME HIG for universal consistency (drop custom about logo like in GEdit case, etc)
  • Possibly use airbag exception handler to submit crashes to a special server. This would be used if the user didn't have gdb or debug symbols. Depends on airbag actually working on (at least) Linux.
  • The Dictionary applet shows the speller and available databases.
  • The System Log Viewer supports plug-ins for pre-processing logs.
  • GDM deprecate Happy GNOME and Circle theme - design a better theme
  • New save dialog for the screenshot utility.
  • New standalone App for scan
  • New Scan plugin for Gimp
  • Improve gnome-pilot, gnome-control-center dialogs, etc.
  • Modules proposed for inclusion:

    • NetworkManager (expected to be proposed, because it was accepted for 2.18, but was not ready in time.)

  • Grab an area of the Desktop in gnome-screenshot

  • Update to GFloppy to support modern removable USB devices, HAL, and encryption [PaulBetts]

Infrastructure & Organization

2.16

  • Epiphany Data Server so applications can share bookmarks, history, cookies, ... ( see Epiphany/RoadMap216 )

2.20

  • Revamp GNOME website
  • Upgrade GNOME Bugzilla to 3.0 (while keeping all customizations not yet upstreamed)
  • Upgrade servers from RHEL3/4 to RHEL5.
  • Find replacement for software behind blogs.gnome.org and switch to it
  • Install alpha quality version of library.g.o on some server
  • Move GNOME buildbot to GNOME servers

Unresourced goals

  • Some developers have proposed a meta-goal of a general audit of GNOME APIs in order to ensure that all public GNOME APIs are of high quality and sustainable in the long term. Most of the remaining items in the 'Developer Platform' section of this document are related to this meta-goal. More information about this can be found here [Havoc Pennington]

  • Improved cut and paste/drag and drop format documentation, to allow better interoperability in this area.

  • Improved desktop notification and applet/tray icon APIs, and usage guidelines distinguishing between the two. [Potentially doable by MikeHearn and ChristianHammond.]

  • Improved gconf API and partial daemon rewrite (see http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/plans.html)

  • New VFS API, to allow for less UNIX-like file semantics which are easier to develop against and more appropriate for a larger class of VFS backends. Discussion at GnomeVfsPlans.

  • Replacement/update of the GNOME session manager.

  • Use GStreamer backend instead of EnlightenmentSoundDaemon. Experimental patches and discussion at wiki:gnomebug:82340 (libgnomeui) and wiki:gnomebug:94615 (libgnome) (see also GStreamer/esd )

  • Right now, when one opens an mp3 file, Totem Video Player starts up. The least that we should do is to change the name of the above program. In general, support for playing music can improve quite a bit. For example check out http://r6.ca/MMAudioPak/ on how OS/2 did this. (Unfortunately the webpage doesn't have any screenshots.)

  • ACL support for Nautilus Bugzilla bug is wiki:gnomebug:62817

  • Improved gnome-vfs uri chaining
  • Improved metadata support for non-nautilus applications

  • Panel improvements: [Potentially VincentUntz]

    • DBus interface to manage panel and the applets
    • Better lockdown support

  • Other things are slowly being moved over /FromThreePointZero

RoadMap/BeforeNewProcess (last edited 2012-05-16 13:18:11 by VincentUntz)