A brand new version of the MATE Desktop is now available.
MATE Desktop 1.18 focuses ‘on completing the migration to GTK3+ and adopting new technologies to replace some of deprecated components MATE Desktop 1.16 still replied on,’ says MATE developer Martin Wimpress in a blog post.
As of this update the entire MATE desktop experience is now GTK3+ only, and GTK2+ code has been dropped.
Notable Changes
Although the headline change in MATE 1.18 is largely invisible, a bunch of smaller tweaks, improvements, and polish has been applied
The Caja file manager gains a copy queue and lets you pause copy transfers in progress. The lightweight file manager will also ask for confirmation before moving files to the Trash.
Other changes in MATE 1.18 include improved mouse/touchpad support; the lock screen background now matches your selected background; and notifications gain action icons support (e.g., for controlling music playback).
The MATE Terminal lets you close taps with a middle click; the font viewer supports TTC fonts; and MATE Calculator is back, now in GTK3.
Getting MATE 1.18 on Ubuntu 16.04
The various components of MATE Desktop 1.18 are available for download right now from the mate-desktop.org/releases website.
MATE Desktop 1.8 will be included in Ubuntu MATE 17.04, due this April. It’ll also be available in the Ubuntu archives for users of other spins/derivatives to install.
MATE developers have no plans to backport this release to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (though, as this is all open-source software, someone, somewhere, might).