ANNOUNCE: Xfce 4.8 released

[Jannis Pohlmann]

Xfce 4.8 is now available for download.

It includes the following releases of Xfce core components:

  exo 0.6.0
  gtk-xfce-engine 2.8.0
  libxfce4ui 4.8.0
  libxfce4util 4.8.1
  libxfcegui4 4.8.0
  thunar 1.2.0
  thunar-vfs 1.2.0
  xfce-utils 4.8.0
  xfce4-appfinder 4.8.0
  xfce4-dev-tools 4.8.0
  xfce4-panel 4.8.0
  xfce4-session 4.8.0
  xfce4-settings 4.8.0
  xfconf 4.8.0
  xfdesktop 4.8.0
  xfwm4 4.8.0

Release tarballs can be retrieved from the following mirrors (please
note that it may take a few hours for the mirrors to catch up):

  http://archive.xfce.org/xfce/4.8/src
  http://archive.be.xfce.org/xfce/4.8/src
  http://archive.be2.xfce.org/xfce/4.8/src
  http://archive.se.xfce.org/xfce/4.8/src

A tarball including all individual releases can be downloaded here:

  http://archive.xfce.org/xfce/4.8/fat_tarballs
  http://archive.be.xfce.org/xfce/4.8/fat_tarballs
  http://archive.be2.xfce.org/xfce/4.8/fat_tarballs
  http://archive.se.xfce.org/xfce/4.8/fat_tarballs


Release notes for 4.8
=====================

Today, after almost two years of work, we have the special pleasure of
announcing the much awaited release of Xfce 4.8, the new stable version
that supersedes Xfce 4.6.

We hope that everyone will enjoy this release as much as we do. Sadly,
this will not be the case as the folks using any of the BSD systems will
notice a sudden loss of features. We think that this announcement is a
good opportunity to express our disagreement with the recent
"Linux-only" developments in the open source ecosystem, especially with
regards to the utilities we need in desktop environments.

Xfce 4.8 is our attempt to update the Xfce code base to all the new
desktop frameworks that were introduced in the past few years. We hope
that our efforts to drop pieces like ThunarVFS and HAL with GIO, udev,
ConsoleKit and PolicyKit will help bringing the Xfce desktop to modern
distributions. 

With Xfce 4.8 our users will be able to browse remote shares using a
variety of protocols (SFTP, SMB, FTP and many more). The window clutter
has been reduced by merging all file progress dialogs into a single one.


Our panel application has been rewritten, thereby improving positioning,
transparency, item and launcher management. It also introduces a new
menu plugin to view directories. Its plugin framework remains compatible
with 4.6 plugins. 

We also improved our settings dialogs. The display configuration dialog
now supports RandR 1.2, detects screens automatically and allows our
users to pick their favorite resolution, refresh rate, rotation. Screens
can be configured to either work in clone mode or be placed next to each
other. Keyboard selection has become easier and more user-friendly.
Also, the manual settings editor has been updated be more functional.

Aside from the features implemented in Xfce, the 4.8 development cycle
brought us a bunch of other goodies. For the first time we had a serious
release strategy formed after the "Xfce Release and Development Model"
developed at the Ubuntu Desktop Summit in May 2009. A new web
application made release management a lot easier. We worked hard on
improving the situation of Xfce translators which led us to setting up
our own Transifex server. Something else you will hopefully notice is
that our server and mirroring infrastructure has been improved so that
our servers hopefully will not suddenly surrender shortly after this
release announcement.

There is a lot more to discover and we hope a lot of you will give Xfce
4.8 a try! There is a brief tour online on 

  http://xfce.org/ and http://xfce.org/about/tour

A summary of the changes since the 4.8pre3 preview release is available
on the following URL (it also includes links to the changes introduced
in all preview releases):

  http://xfce.org/download/changelogs/4.8.0

2011 has just begun and we are already planning for the future. The 4.10
schedule will be worked on soon and hopefully, we will be able to turn
Xfce into a non-profit organization at this year's FOSDEM, so stay
tuned!  

Until then we hope you will enjoy today's release and join us in
celebrating. Thanks go out to all our contributors, bug reporters as
well as the awesome efforts of our translators and packagers.

Best regards,
The Xfce development team