Cinnamon 1.8 adds desklet support

Among the community-contributed desklets is an xkcd comic viewer.
Source: Cinnamon project Desklets, a new screensaver and a Spices management component are among the major improvements of the just released Cinnamon 1.8. Like KDE plasmoids and Android widgets, these desklets can be positioned on a desktop screen's background to display information. The new version includes three default desklets: a launcher, a clock and a photo frame; further community-developed desklets are available on the project's web page.

Like applets, extensions and themes, desklets are considered Cinnamon "Spices" that can be installed and managed using a dedicated program. The Cinnamon control centre now includes configuration modules for all the components that the desktop environment has adopted from the GNOME project; therefore, Cinnamon users no longer need to have the GNOME Control Center available. The new screensaver allows users to display messages while locked, for example to let colleagues who are passing by their system know about the reason for their absence and their estimated time of return.

Improvements to the Nemo file manager are designed to enhance Nemo's integration into the Cinnamon desktop; the sidebar is now easy to hide and it's quicker to switch between the places and tree view within the sidebar. These and other new features are discussed in detail in the Cinnamon 1.8 release announcement. Mainly sponsored by the Linux Mint developers, the new version of Cinnamon will likely be the default desktop of Linux Mint 15 (code name "Olivia"), which is expected to arrive in a few weeks.

(djwm)