mintMenu improvements

mintMenu lets you filter the list of applications to quickly access what you're looking for. A new feature called "Suggestions" was introduced in Linux Mint 7: When filtering gives no results the menu now shows a set of suggestions related to what is being searched.

This makes it easier to install new applications or packages on the fly or to search the portal or the repositories, directly from the menu itself.

The menu can now be opened from the keyboard by pressing the left Control key and the left Super key (Windows key) simultaneously. This is configurable of course so you can assign it any key you want (note that you'll need to restart the menu for this take effect). The menu also closes itself when either the Super key or the escape key are pressed.

Favorites now come pre-filled and comments are shown under the applications. These features were already present in previous releases but weren't well known by most users.

Hovering the menu now shows the Linux Mint release version and edition as a tooltip.

The trash icon now indicates whether the trash is empty or not and a right click option was added to empty it.

mintInstall improvements

Some of the most popular applications were gathered in a new window named "Featured applications". This window shows the popular applications which are available and not currently installed on the system:

This makes it simpler for you to install most of what people are commonly looking for, all in one go.

The mintInstall frontend now comes pre-filled with all the data required to browse and install software, with the exception of the screenshots. Compared to the older versions of mintInstall this means you don't actually need to refresh the application to be able to use it.

When missing, screenshots are downloaded automatically. Of course, the "Refresh" button can still be used to download all of them at once.

The GUI layout was improved. The main window now shows less information and the once called "Versions" button was replaced with "More info".

This opens a window where you can see the versions, licenses, package names and repositories, but now also the upstream website, a long description, and the size of the packages.

MintInstall now runs in root mode and doesn't store any information in your home folder anymore.

mintUpdate improvements

The changelog tab now supports Linux Mint packages. Previous versions of mintUpdate could only show changelogs for packages maintained by Ubuntu.

mintUpdate now shows the download size associated with each package upgrade.

In accordance with the Gnome usability guidelines mintUpdate's system tray icon does not blink anymore. The presence of available updates is still quite noticeable as different icons are being used. The update manager now feels even less intrusive.