Linux Mint Retools the Cinnamon App Launcher
The developers of Linux Mint are working on an improved Cinnamon App Launcher with a better, more accessible UI.
Sometimes change happens because it's required. Sometimes change happens because it's desired. Sometimes the twain shall meet and a change happens because it's both required and desired.
I believe that to be the case with the news from the official Linux Mint blog about what's coming for the Cinnamon application menu. What the developers have designed isn't a dramatic reinvention of the app menu, but a sort of reconfiguring of the constituent parts.
Essentially, the redesign expands the side panel in the desktop menu such that it shows the full name of pinned icons (launchers), but it also adds the standard home folders (Home, Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, and Downloads). At the same time, your username and avatar will be shown in the top left corner of the new menu.
Another change to the menu includes moving the screen lock, log out, and shutdown buttons from the side panel to the bottom right corner of the menu.
These are not game-changing reconfigurations, but they will go a long way to help make the Cinnamon desktop menu a bit more efficient and give it a more modern appearance. Up until now, the Cinnamon desktop menu was somewhat sparse and looked a bit too old-school for such a modern distribution.
This revamped menu will ship with Linux Mint 22.2 and the Cinnamon 6.6 desktop (as well as with any distribution that uses the latest version of Cinnamon).
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