AWN was one of the first docks I tried on Linux, I then moved to Cairo and then onto Docky. Back then in terms of functionality Cairo and Docky were more featureful, however I always missed AWN for its reliability and aesthetic interface. AWN 4.0 beta is available for download and from what the beta holds it seems like this dock is about to reclaim it’s place in the land docks it once held.

As always AWN’s icon rendering is superb, along with that the new version brings a host of new and exciting features. The old AWN manager has been retired to make way for the new settings manager which has been rewritten to provide and easy to use and ergonomic user interface.

Other new features include:

Panel mode: enabling the dock to expand horizontally functioning more like a panel

New applets: a whole bunch of new applets are available, from rss readers to system tray applets

Styles: 5 new dock appearance styles, namely; Floaty, Curvy, Edgy, None, Extended

Keeping in mind that this release is still in beta and therefore you may experience a few bugs here and there, you may get this version via the AWN ppt repositories over at launchpad – https://launchpad.net/~awn-testing/+archive/ppa

Tags: Design, Desktop, GNU, GPL, GUI, Interface, Linux, Open Source, Software, Technology

This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 12:41 and is filed under Software. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.