• Team upload.
• New upstream version 4.16.1.
• d/control: Bump DH compat to 13.
• Update Standards-Version to 4.6.0.

Bugfix release on the 4.16 branch.

One of the fixes shipped in 4.16.9 caused a regression which can crash thunar while using the clipboard. This release fixes the regression.

Sorry for the inconvenience !

Fixes:

• Fix signal disconnect to prevent crash (#553)
• Don't go beyond THUNAR_N_VISIBLE_COLUMNS while parsing col widths

• New upstream bugfix release.
  • Fix: Python syntax issues (LP: #1870633)
  • Fix: Embed issues in GNOME (LP: #1885411)
• d/control, d/copyright, d/watch:
  • Switch to new github.com/bluesabre/sgt-launcher upstream
• d/control:
  • Bump debhelper-compat to 13
  • Bump Standards-Version to 4.5.1
• d/preinst, d/postrm:
  • Add set -e to catch errors
• d/rules:
  • Install new CHANGELOG.md
• d/watch:
  • Bump watch version to 4

GSoC 2021 is over now and I am happy to tell you that both students working on thunar did an excellent job. Alot of nice stuff has been added thanks to them !

In order to allow you to discover all these new features, Thunar 4.17.5 was just released. (Note that this is a development release. It still might have some rough edges)

For details about the new features check the summaries provided by Sergios and Yongha:

Sergios GSoC Summary

Yongha’s GSoC Summary

Besides these, here as well some more new features added during GSoC for which I thought they would be worth to mention:

• Bookmarks got moved into a separate ‘Bookmarks Menu’ and a ‘create bookmark’ option was added (MR !109 and MR !71)

• A new menu item “Set Default Application” was added to the “Open with” submenu (MR !79)

• A new section ‘Default Application’ was added to the ‘thunar-chooser-dialog’ (MR !81)

On top there are still various open merge requests with partial finished features, most of them from GSoC students for which I did not find time so far. So expect more new stuff to arrive soon !

You as well might want to keep an eye on xfce4-terminal, which received alot of activity recently, since it is now maintained by Sergios Kefalidis.

If you find a bug on any of these new features, please make use of the xfce bugtracker.

Happy testing !

Added

• Non-embedded mode for unsupported environments (GNOME, Flatpak, and Wayland),
  can be toggled with the SGT_ENABLE_EMBED environment variable.

Fixed

• Incorrect handling of withdrawn windows (#1)
• Game screens are frozen in GNOME (#3)
• Mouse clicks not recognized in GNOME (#7)
• Game launchers refuse to embed in Flatpak (#8)
• Empty launchers panel in Arch (#9)

Translation Updates

Chinese (China), Danish, Dutch, German, Malay, Malay (Arabic), Polish, Swedish

[Please note that this is a development release.]

Besides many fixes and translation updates, this development release ships various new features brought to you by our GSoC students. My personal highlights are:

• Optional checksum on copy
• Usage of *.partial~ on copy until copy process finished
• Completely reworked File-Search mode
• Support for shared thumbnails

Here the complete list:

• Listen to changes on shortcuts to update them when required
• Prevent crash on copy+paste of many files (Issue #649)
• Ctrl + L does not leave search mode (Issue #645)
• Use move action when dragging files of different users (#196)
• Prevent focus stealing of file transfer dialog (Issue #643)
• Make file transfer window non-transient (Issue #109)
• shortcut view location cursor can flicker on selection (Issue #644)
• Fix file-icon update when file is cut (Issue #588)
• Incorrect "Send To" behavior with multiple arguments (Issue #609)
• Support thumbnails for symlinks (and devices / unknowns)
• Add option to verify file checksums on copy (Issue #511)
• Open correct folder on middle-click in tree-view (Issue #626)
• Shortcut-view: Keep focus in sync with current folder
• Add a Location column that appears while in search mode
• Add "Open Item Location" option in the context menu of Recent
• Add a new 'Open Item Location' entry in the right click context menu.
• Rework Search in Thunar (Issues #2, #28, #290)
• Remove fragmented file if file transfer is interrupted
• Fix invalid filenames when copying to FAT-like filesystem (Issue #77)
• Support shared thumbnail repositories (Issue #262)
• Add preference to limit the maximum size to be thumbnailed (#310)
• Use *.partial~ as an intermediate file for copy

This is a thunar bugfix release on the 4.16 branch.

Here the changelog:

• Listen to changes on shortcuts to update them when required
• Use move action when dragging files of different users (#196)
• Fix file-icon update when file is cut (Issue #588)
• Open correct folder on middle-click in tree-view (Issue #626)
• Disable automatic queueing of file transferes (Issue #569)
• Fix GLib-CRITICAL in list-view (Issue #487)
• thunar_file_is_executable() now checks if .desktop file is safe
• Fix missing folder in history when opened in new tab (Issue #594)
• Fixing various memory leaks (Issue #573)
• Update manpage (Issue #121)

• Dont show "execute" on context menu for folders

• Translation Updates: Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Armenian (Armenia), Asturian, Basque, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (China), Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese (Taiwan), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Eastern Armenian, English (Australia), English (United Kingdom), Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Interlingue, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latvian, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Occitan (post 1500), Panjabi (Punjabi), Persian (Iran), Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Urdu (Pakistan), Vietnamese

[Please note that this is a development release.]

• Add xfce_gdk_device_grab
• Fix xfce_gdk_screen_get_active to return correct monitor number
• Switch keyboard shortcut 'tile-up' with 'tile-down' (were mixed up)
• Usage of '&lt;' and '&gt;' instead of '<' and '>' in XML (Issue #44)
• Change "Setting System" to "Settings Manager"
• Add 4.18 section to docs
• Add 4.16 section to docs
• Translation Updates: Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Armenian (Armenia), Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (China), Chinese (Hong Kong), Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Eastern Armenian, English (Australia), English (United Kingdom), Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Interlingue, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Occitan (post 1500), Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uyghur, Welsh

• Add 4.16 section to docs
• about: Replace stock with regular button
• about: Make Close button translatable (Fixes #41)
• Fix cast alignment warning
• Remove Gtk2 leftovers
• Don't reserve vertical space for subtitles in headerbars
• Translation Updates: Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Indonesian, Interlingue, Japanese, Lithuanian, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish

Xubuntu 20.04, Focal Fossa

Xubuntu 20.04.3 was released on Thursday, August 26th. It's a maintenance release consisting primarily of bug fixes and security updates. You can find the full list of changes here. Special thanks to everybody that helped test this release! Download links are available on xubuntu.org. Some important updates include:

• exo 0.12.11-1ubuntu1.20.04.1: Fixes resizing the xfce4-settings window smaller (LP: #1874954)
• xfce4-weather-plugin 0.10.1 -> 0.10.2: Fixes weather lookups due to an expired API  (LP: #1918002)
• firefox 85 -> 91
• linux 5.8 -> 5.11
• thunderbird 68 -> 78

Xubuntu 21.10, Impish Indri

Enabling the Super (Windows) Key

A popular request over the years has been to bind the Super key to show the applications menu. For technical reasons, we weren't able to implement this change using what's included in Xfce.

On the upstream bug, Andre Miranda recommended using xcape to work around this particular issue. We've adopted this solution for Xubuntu, and now the Super key shows the applications menu without breaking other Super key shortcuts! I've demoed the Super key functionality on Twitter:

Rhythmbox Alternative Toolbar Layout

Last month the Twitter community voted on whether to include the standard or the "Alternative Toolbar" layout for Rhythmbox in Xubuntu. With 89 votes and 82% of the vote in favor of the Alternative Toolbar layout, we're now shipping it in Xubuntu!

Slideshow Translations

I did some cleanup on the Xubuntu installer slideshow this month, merging in a pull request, bulk updating translations, and getting everything synced over to Transifex. I was also granted push permissions to the upstream Ubiquity slideshow codebase, making it much easier to sync the Xubuntu updates back over. Going forward, we'll have a lot more control over the delivery of our translations. If you want to help contribute to our slideshow translations, please sign up on Transifex!

Package Updates

In August, the Xubuntu packageset saw updates to several Xfce components, MATE 1.26, and the Xubuntu default settings. Remember that you can keep up with Xubuntu's latest package updates by following Planet Bluesabre (RSS, Twitter).

• atril 1.26.0-0ubuntu1
• catfish 4.16.2-1
• engrampa 1.26.0-0ubuntu1
• exo 4.16.2-1
• gigolo 0.5.2-1
• mate-calc 1.26.0-0ubuntu1
• ristretto 0.11.0-1
• xfce4-clipman-plugin 2:1.6.2-1
• xfce4-cpufreq-plugin 1.2.5-1
• xfce4-cpugraph-plugin 1.2.3-1
• xfce4-panel 4.16.3-1
• xfce4-screenshooter 1.9.9-1
• xfce4-settings 4.16.2-1ubuntu1 (proposed, waiting on glibc)
• xfce4-systemload-plugin 1:1.3.1-1ubuntu1
• xfce4-taskmanager 1.5.2-1
• xubuntu-default-settings 21.10.1, 21.10.2, 21.10.3
• xubuntu-meta 2.239

Upcoming Dates

There are some key dates just around the corner in the Release Schedule. Now's the time to start testing if you haven't already!

• September 9: User Interface Freeze
• September 20: Beta Freeze (Beta on 9/23)
• October 7: Final Freeze, Release Candidate
• October 14: Final Release

We're getting close to the final release of 21.10 and then beginning of our next LTS, 22.04. If you'd like to help out, check out the Get Involved section of the Xubuntu website. We need all sorts of help, so if you've got the time, we'd love to help you help us!