Last cycle wasn’t particularly exciting, only featuring the new dialogs and a few smaller changes, but this one should be more interesting. So let’s look at what’s new.
Last cycle libadwaita got new dialogs, which can be presented as bottom sheets on mobile, and I mentioned that they will also be available as a standalone widget in future – so AdwBottomSheet exists and is public now.
As a standalone widget, bottom sheets work a bit differently from dialogs – they are persistent instead of being destroyed upon closing, more like the sidebar of AdwOverlaySplitView.
They also have a few new features, such as a drag handle, or a bottom bar presentation. This is useful for apps like music players.
Libadwaita also has a new spinner widget – AdwSpinner. It both refreshes visuals and addresses various problems with GtkSpinner.
GtkSpinner is a really simple widget. Both the spinner itself and the animation are set in CSS. The spinner is just a symbolic icon, and the animation is a CSS animation. This approach has a few problems, however.