The Buddies of Budgie development team recently announced the release of Budgie 10.10.3 , the third maintenance update in the 10.10 series. This version introduces significant improvements to application menu management, native support for free-form icon placement on the desktop, and a thorough optimization of its Wayland integration via the labwc compositor.
Historically, the option to pin favorite apps was limited to the taskbar. Starting with this version, users can add apps directly to the Favorites section within the Budgie Menu using the right-click context menu. This same drop-down menu allows access to specific desktop actions, such as opening a new window or starting a private browsing session. Selected apps are grouped into a new category at the top of the menu, an organization that also adapts to Compact Mode to maintain quick access in the simplified view.
Main new features of Budgie 10.10.3
A critical change in this update is the technical refactoring of the Budgie Menu itself. Previously, the component used the GtkPopover class, which caused input focus issues under the Wayland protocol, preventing text from being directed to the search bar when the menu was opened, or applications from launching when the Enter key was pressed. The implementation has been migrated to its own window based on GtkWindow , definitively resolving these usability issues and ensuring a smooth search experience.
The mini-application for changing the keyboard layout , temporarily removed in the previous version due to stability issues, has been rewritten from scratch in C and reintegrated into the panel. To operate correctly in Wayland, the system uses the budgie-daemon background process as a communication hub, refining the integration bridge with the labwc composition manager.
When a user changes the keyboard layout or shortcut, the system instantly modifies the native labwc configuration file and reloads the compositor to apply the change without requiring a logout. In parallel, multimedia key support has been improved through a new driver integrated into the main daemon.
The Budgie Desktop View component , responsible for managing the desktop, abandons its old rigid grid design to allow users to freely place icons anywhere. This organization is further enhanced by new context menu options for automatically aligning, adjusting, or sorting items by name, date, or type.
Interaction becomes more dynamic by allowing multiple selections by dragging a box with the mouse or adjusting icon sizes by holding down the Ctrl key along with the scroll wheel. When dragging a file to the Recycle Bin, the icon is highlighted in red as visual confirmation, and the thumbnail system has been modernized to the freedesktop standard for sharing the image cache with the file manager.
The environment settings include a new page dedicated to multi-monitor setups, allowing you to designate a primary display that will centralize system panels, notifications, and dialog boxes. This scheme is dynamic; if the primary monitor disconnects, Budgie automatically moves the elements to the next available monitor, seamlessly reverting the change if the display reconnects quickly.
The Raven side panel now extends to cover the entire vertical height of the screen , intelligently adjusting to fit between the horizontal panels without overlapping them, and automatically closing when clicked anywhere outside its window. On a technical level, the resource monitoring widget abandons reading the proc filesystem in favor of the libgtop library to avoid crashes on non-standard architectures. Finally, the environment adds optional support for the oo7 secrets management service, paving the way for storing passwords and tokens in modern formats adopted by next-generation distributions.
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