It's been a little while since our last update, so we wanted to share how things are going with Noctalia.
Most of the core architecture is now in place, which means we can spend far more time improving the experience instead of rebuilding the foundation underneath it. That's been a huge milestone for us.
Over the last few months we've been pouring in countless of hours, fixing issues, refining existing features, and continued polishing nearly every part of Noctalia. Some of those improvements are immediately noticeable, while others are the kind of work that simply makes everything feel more stable and reliable.
We're getting closer to the point where development is driven by features and polish instead of infrastructure, and that's an exciting place to be.
What we've been working on
Desktop widgets have seen several improvements, including background blur, better scaling, the ability to copy widgets between monitors, and plenty of bug fixes.
The bar continues to receive the most attention. We've introduced capsule groups, improved vertical layouts, added more customization options, cleaned up widget behavior, and fixed a long list of rendering issues.
The plugin ecosystem has also taken some big steps forward. Plugin browsing is now integrated directly into Settings, plugin panels behave much more naturally, and we're continuing to expand the APIs available to developers.
Beyond that, we've been improving countless smaller parts, from notifications and wallpapers to the lock screen, audio, Bluetooth, IPC, touch support, weather, translations, and much more. None of these changes make for flashy headlines on their own, but together they make Noctalia feel far more polished than it did not too long ago.
What's coming next
With the core of v5 now in good shape, we can start focusing on the features we've wanted to build for a long time.
One of our biggest priorities is the plugin ecosystem. We want it to feel like a first-class part of Noctalia, both for users installing plugins and for developers creating them. There are still improvements planned around lifecycle management, configuration, and official plugins, and we're excited to keep expanding what's possible.
Outside of plugins, we're continuing work across Noctalia with features such as drawer groups for the bar, launcher improvements, desktop widget profiles, Webcal calendar support, better power management, and plenty of quality of life improvements based directly on community feedback.
Beta means things can still change
Although the project has become much more stable, this is still beta software.
Some features are still being redesigned, others are waiting for more polish, and priorities may shift as we receive feedback from the community. We'd rather take a little more time to get things right than rush features that we'll have to revisit later.
That flexibility is one of the biggest advantages of the beta period, and your feedback continues to shape what Noctalia becomes.
Thank you
Every bug report, feature request, plugin, screenshot, and discussion helps move the project forward.
Seeing people use Noctalia every day and build things around it has been incredibly motivating, and it's a big part of why development has been moving so quickly.
There's still work ahead before v5 reaches its first stable release, but we're closer than ever.
Thanks for being part of the journey. We can't wait to show you what's next.