How To Create A Screencast In GNOME 3

GNOME 3 has an inbuilt software that allows you to record your desktop. This makes it very easy to create a screencast in GNOME 3. Here is how you do it ...

You can start/stop recording your GNOME 3 Desktop by pressing the Ctrl+Shift+Alt+R key combination.

The first time when you press this key combination, GNOME 3 will start recording your Desktop and any movements that happen on it. A red circle is displayed in the bottom right corner of the screen when the recording is in progress. Pressing the same key combination a second time will stop the recording.

After the recording is finished, a file named 'shell-%d%u-%c.webm' is saved in the home directory. In the filename, %d is the date, %u is a string that makes the filename unique, and %c is a counter that is incremented each time a recording is made within a single gnome-shell session. The recording is saved in the WebM format.

WebM is an open media file format designed for the web. WebM files consist of video streams compressed with the VP8 video codec and audio streams compressed with the Vorbis audio codec. The WebM file structure is based on the Matroska media container.

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GNOME 3 Won't Have Minimize And Maximize Buttons

GNOME 3 is doing away with minimize and Maximize buttons for applications in its user interface. The basic premise being they don't make sense within the current shell design.

Of course, that doesn't mean you can't minimize or maximize your applications' window in GNOME 3.

If you want the same functionality as what minimize does, then you should group your applications in different Workspaces or use the Activities overview. And if you need to Maximize your applications, you can double-click on the title bar of the application or you can use the drag-to-snap functionality.

Either way, it is going to be a unique experience for all GNOME 3 users.

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GNOME 3.0 Has Been Officially Released

GNOME 3.0 has been officially released. Ushering in a radical desktop experience, GNOME 3.0 is all about usability, and it promises a distraction free computing experience for end users.

GNOME 3.0 desktop is designed in such a way that it can run on a variety of modern computing devices including PCs, tablets, cell phones, and what not. The defining technology for GNOME 3.0 user experience is the GNOME Shell.

GNOME Shell takes advantage of the capabilities of modern graphics hardware and introduces a unique user interface that makes computing simple for the lay person.

For example, try moving your mouse pointer to the top left corner of your screen and GNOME Shell puts you into the Activities Overview. The Activities Overview helps you open new applications and also switch between open windows.

In fact, you can easily open any application or manage open app windows from within GNOME 3.0 with no more than two clicks of your mouse. In many cases, a single click of your mouse would suffice.

GNOME 3.0 desktop has an integrated search facility some what similar in functionality to Gnome Do that allows you to launch applications, switch windows, and open recent documents and settings. Why, you can even search Wikipedia and Google from within GNOME 3.0 Activities view.

Here are a couple of GNOME 3.0 screenshots -

Integrated Calendar & Task Scheduler

Accessibility settings at your finger tips

The features mentioned above merely scratch the surface of what GNOME 3.0 has to offer. For the full set of features read the GNOME 3.0 release notes.

After trying out a GNOME 3 Live CD, I feel the GNOME team has indeed struck gold. The three years' of planning and development culminating in the GNOME 3 release lives up to its promises of providing a distraction free, productive computing experience to the end user.

You can download Live CDs of GNOME 3 from its website. OpenSUSE and Fedora images have been provided.

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First Look At GNOME 3 Prior To Its Release

GNOME 3, due for release in April 2011, is going to be revolutionary. The Desktop is designed to reduce distraction and interruption and to put the user in control. Messaging has been seamlessly integrated into the desktop. An improved file manager, redesigned work spaces, and better accessibility are some of the notable improvements.

The GNOME Project has published a new website Gnome3.org showcasing the GNOME 3 Desktop environment.

If you are really interested in trying out GNOME 3 just now,you can do so by compiling it yourself using GNOME's JHBuild sandboxing tool.

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