Xfce 4.14 coming soon ...

[oops]

Xfce 4.14 will be the first major update to the desktop since Xfce 4.12 debuted in 2015. One of the big themes for Xfce 4.14 is transitioning from GTK2 to the GTK3 tool-kit.
Long-awaited desktop environment out in 2019 ?

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... 4-Released

[Jerry3904]

Always interesting to see what the Xfce4 Devs themselves say: https://wiki.xfce.org/releng/4.14/roadmap

[oops]

Exact Jerry, so the suspense persists.

[Eggnog]

4.14? That's change. It makes me nervous. You kids get off my lawn!

[oops]

In a other hand, when an ED works very well, usually the fewer frequent and important changes, is the better.

[mystic]

@oops
Am not a software dev but will MX look visually different when it transitions from GTK2 to 3? More attractive?

[Jerry3904]

It makes me nervous.

It will make all of us nervous--until we get to work on it. The Devs will be very careful of how it's deployed.

[asqwerth]

I'm using xfce 4.13++ (they call it xfce-gtk3) on my secondary Manjaro install. It's ok but once in a while an update will make xfce desktop lose your chosen theme, icons and fonts, and revert to the fallback gnome/adwaita and ugly/tiny fonts.

Usually logging out and in again will work and if not, the next update will solve the issue. But XFCE 4.13++ is after all still a work in progress as it moves towards 4.14. No issues with its workability, just the occasional loss of its "clothes".

So my opinion is MX shouldn't jump the gun and try to rush 4.14 into the distro, if it's not officially released yet. Let's wait patiently for it to be fully ready. I know Xubuntu (which seems to be XFCE's official test distro) has been releasing part gtk2/part gtk3 XFCE on their recent releases, but they probably have some help or input from XFCE devs (see: https://bluesabre.org/2019/01/02/xfce-x ... in-review/ )

Is xfce-gtk3 more attractive? Not really. Heh. Very similar in looks to classic xfce.

PS. My main Manjaro install is still on "classic" XFCE, and it works fine. I'll keep using it as long as Manjaro retains it.

[Jerry3904]

So my opinion is MX shouldn't jump the gun and try to rush 4.14 into the distro, if it's not officially released yet. Let's wait patiently for it to be fully ready.

Probably better placed in the Dev Forum I would think, since it will just get lost here. Maybe it would be good to start a new thread there on Xfce 14.4 where we can discuss this as it gets closer?

[mystic]

Educated guess is that it would release before Xubuntu 19.10 since some of the xubuntu devs works on Xfce. They would like to see it released and working in a production environment this year.