Introduction Google Gnome (TECHNICAL)
GNOME
This article is about the GNOME desktop environment. For other uses, see Gnome (disambiguation).


GNOME 3.18.2 showing the Overview
Developer(s)
The GNOME Project
Initial release
March 3, 1999; 18 years ago[1]
Stable release
3.24.1 (12 April 2017; 31 days ago[2]) [±]
Preview release
3.25.1 (26 April 2017; 17 days ago[3]) [±]
Repository
git.gnome.org/browse/
Development status
Active
Written in
C, C++, Vala, Python, JavaScript[4]
Operating system
Unix-like using Wayland or X11
Available in
40 languages[5]
Type
Desktop environment
License
GPL, LGPL[6]
Website
www.gnome.org
GNOME (pronounced /ɡnoʊm/[7] or /ˈnoʊm/[8]) is a desktop environmentcomposed of free and open-source software that runs on Linux and mostBSD derivatives.[9]
GNOME was originally an acronym for GNU Network Object Model Environment but the acronym was dropped because it no longer reflected the vision of the GNOME project.[10]
GNOME is developed by The GNOME Project, which is composed of both volunteers and paid contributors, the largest corporate contributor beingRed Hat.[11][12] It is an international project that aims to develop software frameworks for the development of software, to program end-user applications based on these frameworks, and to coordinate efforts for internationalization and localization and accessibility of that software.
GNOME is part of the GNU Project.[13]
Design
Human Interface Guidelines
See also: The Official GNOME Human Interface Guidelines
Since GNOME 2, productivity has been a key focus for GNOME. To this end, the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) were created. All GNOME programs share a coherent style of graphical user interface (GUI) but are not limited to the employment of the same GUI widgets. Rather, the design of the GNOME GUI is guided by concepts described in the GNOME HIG, itself relying on insights fromcognitive ergonomics.[14] Following the HIG, developers can create high-quality, consistent, and usable GUI programs, as it addresses everything from GUI design to recommended pixel-based layout of widgets.
During the GNOME 2 rewrite, many settings deemed of little value to the majority of users were removed.Havoc Pennington summarized the usability work in his 2002 essay "Free Software UI", emphasizing the idea that all preferences have a cost, and it is better to make software behave correctly by default than to add a UI preference to get the desired behavior:
A traditional free software application is configurable so that it has the union of all features anyone's ever seen in any equivalent application on any other historical platform. Or even configurable to be the union of all applications that anyone's ever seen on any historical platform (Emacs*cough*).
Does this hurt anything? Yes it does. It turns out that preferences have a cost. Of course, some preferences also have important benefits – and can be crucial interface features. But each one has a price, and you have to carefully consider its value. Many users and developers don't understand this, and end up with a lot of cost and little value for their preferences dollar.
— Havoc Pennington[15]
Accessibility
GNOME aims to make and keep the desktop environment physically andcognitively ergonomic for people withdisabilities. The GNOME HIG tries to take this into account as far as possible but specific issues are solved by special software.
GNOME addresses computer accessibility issues by using theAccessibility Toolkit (ATK) application programming interface, which allows enhancing user experience by using special input methods and speech synthesis and speech recognitionsoftware. Particular utilities are registered with ATK using Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface(AT-SPI), and become globally used throughout the desktop. Several assistive technology providers, including Orca screen reader andDasher input method, were developed specifically for use with GNOME.
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