Computers Engineered to Unleash Your Potential

COSMIC Alpha 7: Never Been Beta

COSMIC Alpha 7 header image

ISO excited for the latest COSMIC alpha release! We’ve been busy clearing up scores of bugs while soldering together the features that we absolutely must include before the Big Betahemoth descends upon the Earth. Let COSMIC Alpha 7 commence!

Workspaces

Workspaces can now be moved by clicking and dragging. Reorder workspaces on the current display or move them across displays to your liking.

Pinning a workspace will keep it from being removed when it’s empty. This feature allows you to have a persistent or fixed number of workspaces open at a time. Simply hover your mouse over the workspace preview in the overview and click the pin. Together with workspace naming, pinned workspaces helps you keep organized as you navigate the desktop.

This user has pinned Workspace 1, designated by a pin icon in the lower-right corner of the workspace preview.
This user has pinned Workspace 1, designated by a pin icon in the lower-right corner of the workspace preview.

Accessibility Features

Four new accessibility features have been developed for COSMIC: 

  • High Contrast Mode uses a high-contrast theme affecting various elements for easier visibility — calculated automatically by COSMIC’s theming system using a specialized method.
  • Color Filters add a filter to address common forms of colorblindness: Deuteranopia, Protanopia, and Tritanopia. For those with sensitive eyesight, a grayscale filter is also available.
  • Color Inversion changes theme colors using a different calculation for the purpose of helping those affected by colorblindness differentiate between like colors.
  • Mono Sound aids those with hearing loss by combining left-right sound channels into a single channel for both ears. We plan to add more accessibility features to COSMIC in future releases!
This screenshot shows the new toggles for high contrast mode, color inversion, and color filters in Accessibility Settings. A dropdown reveals that a Greyscale filter is selected alongside Green/Red, Red/Green, and Blue/Yellow filter options.
This screenshot shows the new toggles for high contrast mode, color inversion, and color filters in Accessibility Settings. A dropdown reveals that a Greyscale filter is selected alongside Green/Red, Red/Green, and Blue/Yellow filter options.

Plus, we’ve made improvements to the Magnifier:

  • The overlay can now be disabled
  • Super + Scroll can now be disabled
  • Fixed a bug where Super + Scroll could crash cosmic-comp on some GPUs
  • Improved movement when “View moves when pointer reaches edge” is chosen

Tooltips

Hovering over an item in the app tray, workspaces, app library, and launcher now shows a tooltip that makes it easy for users to identify apps and features.

This user has hovered their cursor over an app icon to see what application it is. This prompts a tooltip to appear, which reads: “COSMIC Store”. Though the cursor’s beautiful essence was not captured in the screenshot itself, it is, in fact, present.
This user has hovered their cursor over an app icon to see what application it is. This prompts a tooltip to appear, which reads: “COSMIC Store”. Though the cursor’s beautiful essence was not captured in the screenshot itself, it is, in fact, present.

Global Shortcuts

Global shortcuts for applications allow you to use an application-specific shortcut even if that application is not in focus. This is especially useful for features like push-to-talk or push-to-mute. This is off by default to protect privacy, but can be set to recognize Modifier keys, all keys, or all keys only while modifiers are being pressed. A toggle for recognizing mouse events across applications is included here as well. While this update adds compatibility for global shortcuts, we hope to support the more modern global shortcuts portal soon.

This Applications Settings page shows which keys can global shortcuts, including modifiers, all keys after a pressed modifier, all keys, and mouse button events in X11 applications.
This Applications Settings page shows which keys can global shortcuts, including modifiers, all keys after a pressed modifier, all keys, and mouse button events in X11 applications.

Scaling Optimizations

New settings for XWayland fractional scaling give COSMIC a better approach for handling fractional scaling with X11 applications. “Optimize for applications” allows apps that don’t support applications to appear crisp and clear on-screen. Meanwhile, “Optimize for fullscreen/gaming” allows the application to match your screen resolution, though their scaling may look different alongside apps that support fractional scaling. These options can be found in Display Settings under X11 Window System Application Scaling.

Shortcuts changes

Changes have been made to COSMIC’s shortcuts system to keep the desktop feeling intuitive:

  • When moving focus outside of a stack with Super+Arrows, the tab you started from will remain shown as long as you continue to hold Super.
  • Workspaces now take priority over displays. Moving windows or window focus will navigate through workspaces on the same display first, and then switch to the next display when present. Likewise, the initial display continues to show the workspace you started from until you release Super.
  • You can now cycle back to the first workspace in the order from the last, and vice versa. This will no longer move you to another display when not moving windows.
  • The shortcut for navigating to the next or previous display has changed to Super+Shift+Arrows. You can now switch focus to another display using Alt+Super+Arrows, and move a window to another display using Shift+Alt+Super+Arrows.
  • Super+ and Super- can now be used to zoom in and out of the desktop.

COSMIC Files

A seek ahead search option has been added to the file browser. Typing the first letter of a file or folder on the current page fills in the file path in the location bar, and provides auto-complete options to speed up the process. To activate this setting in COSMIC Files, go to View → Settings.


Sound Settings

A Left-Right balance scale has been added to Sound Settings to control the weight of sound in either ear.

On this Sound Settings page, Output controls include a Left-Right balance slider for prioritizing sound volume in one ear or the other.
On this Sound Settings page, Output controls include a Left-Right balance slider for prioritizing sound volume in one ear or the other.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes, Vol. 7

Like what you see?

Share on Social Media