Ubuntu 22.04 just bagged a major new feature: UI accent colours.
This personalisation staple is found in many other desktop environments and operating systems out there, including macOS and Windows 11. But a similar feature had, until now, not been offered in Ubuntu.
However, thanks to a spurt of last minute activity Ubuntu developers managed to land all of the pieces required to get the feature working in Ubuntu 22.04 (ahead of that all-important user-interface freeze deadline, the point past which no major UI changes should be made to Ubuntu without a very good reason).
Those who make the upgrade to Ubuntu 22.04 this April can pop open the (newly expanded) Appearance settings panel to pick a UI colour that suits their mood/complements their system.
Ubuntu offers 10 shades to choose from, including the default (and iconic) ‘orange’. The final line-up of shades could change between now and the final release. The ones included at present are derived from the Yaru colour palette.
Changing the accent colour affects more than just the Yaru GTK theme too. The accent colour preference affects parts of the Yaru icon set, and is respected within the Yaru GNOME Shell theme.
Other UI Changes
There are a couple of other interesting UI changes arriving alongside this e (rather more newsworthy) one. For instance, the desktop icons context menu is styled to look more in-vogue with other right click menus:
The new Ubuntu logo is also now used in the boot splash, login scree, and the About section in the system settings:
You’ll also notice that context/quicklist menus for pinned dock items sport a newer, rounded look too. They drop the “triangle callout” on the left pointing to the app they belong to (which were dropped from the upstream GNOME Shell theme in GNOME 42).
h/t Rafael