Last June, Danielle Foré published a monthly article with very little news. They were supposed to be preparing the next version of their operating system, and the article of this month He has shown that he was not lying. They have brought us many new features ranging from their software center, better known as AppCenter, to visual improvements, and all of them will be available on the elementary OS 7.1 It will arrive in the next few weeks.
AppCenter is the app from which apps are installed in elementary. Like all of them at first, it allows you to install programs from official repositories, but the elementary team is working on improving support for what is known in English as “sideloading”, which is the possibility of installing third-party software. They are also working on improving support for alternative stores, and to do that they have to make sure everything stays secure.
elementary OS 7.1 displays warnings when installing software from alternative stores
One of the novelties that will arrive together with elementary OS 7.1 is a group of isolated application warnings (sandbox) that will help us better understand the risks we run when installing them. app center will report if an application can read our location without prompting, whether it can access system files or our home folder, whether it can read and write system settings, or whether it can exit sandbox and gain privileges.
The views, known as AppInfo, have also been improved to be smaller and better aligned. Special attention was paid to making sure that the most important information appears at the top, especially on small screens.
In June, the Background & Autostart Portal system was implemented, which warns when an app is running in the background and makes sure that apps ask us for permission before they start automatically when you turn on your device.
Startup settings have been updated to show the apps that use Background & Autostart Portal and some changes have been made to give them a more modern design. On the other hand, they have updated the default applications page and some code cleanup has been done.
New filters
Foré says that they have introduced a screen filter group which are designed to improve problems with colors: «We're also introducing a new set of screen filters, designed to help people with color deficiency issues. This is a very common disability, with 1 in 12 men experiencing color deficiency and some people developing color deficiency as they age. Many thanks to Leo for implementing this feature in our window manager and to @G-dH for developing the GNOME Shell extension on which we base our feature. If this is a feature you are looking forward to using, please consider having them over for coffee.. ".
In addition, they are preparing a gray filter that will help avoid distractions and reduce addiction to the screen and now it is possible to make the screen appear warmer when using night color. Night color settings have been redesigned to be more responsive.
Files is the name given to the file manager, and this month it has received a novelty that has been in high demand for a long time: the possibility of rename batch files. With this function we can select several files, right click, select “Rename” and access a dialog to rename batches.
other developments
Among the rest of the news:
- Fixed issues related to folder size, date creation, temporary and duplicate files, and improved performance in Files.
- The panel now shows a Bluetooth transfers indicator.
- Fixed some visual glitches when installing third-party apps (Sideload).
- Critical notifications are sent even when Do Not Disturb mode is active.
These updates will appear in the software center when it is time. To use them you must already be subscribed to their Early Access (advance access).