GNOME 40 Redesign: Workspaces and Activities

The release of GNOME 40 marked a major milestone in Linux desktop design by replacing the traditional vertical workflow with an intuitive, unified horizontal paradigm. This article explores how GNOME 40 overhauled the Activities Overview, transformed workspace navigation with continuous spatial continuity, integrated 1:1 multi-touch touchpad gestures, and unified the application grid to deliver a faster, more cohesive desktop experience.

The Shift from Vertical to Horizontal Spatial Flow

Prior to GNOME 40, the desktop operated on a vertical axis. Workspaces were stacked vertically along the right side of the screen, the Dash sat on the left, and navigating between multiple tasks required moving in conflicting directions.

GNOME 40 aligned the entire desktop along a single horizontal axis. Workspaces are arranged left-to-right as a continuous ribbon, mirroring the natural reading direction of most users and aligning with the physical layout of modern widescreen monitors. This directional consistency eliminated the mental friction of switching between horizontal window tiling and vertical desktop management.

The Reimagined Activities Overview

Entering the Activities Overview in GNOME 40 reveals a layered, two-state design that serves as a spatial map of your open tasks:

  1. Workspace Thumbnails: The active workspace is centered prominently on the screen, flanked by previews of neighboring workspaces to the left and right. This provides immediate context about adjacent tasks without requiring users to switch away from their current view.
  2. Relocated Dash: The Dash moved from the left edge to the bottom of the display. This change balances the screen visually and allows the Dash to function identically to standard application docks, making favorites and running apps universally accessible.
  3. App Window Clutter Reduction: Within the overview, running application windows scale smoothly within their designated workspace card, maintaining their relative positions and aspect ratios to ensure recognizable window management.

1:1 Multi-Touch Gestures and Navigation

A defining feature of the redesigned workspace flow is the implementation of 1:1 touchpad gestures driven by the Wayland display server:

  • Horizontal Swiping: A three-finger swipe left or right slides smoothly between active workspaces, with the on-screen animation locked directly to the physical movement of the fingers.
  • Vertical Swiping: A three-finger swipe upward pulls the user into the Activities Overview. Continuing the upward swipe transitions seamlessly into the full App Grid. Swiping downward reverses the action, returning to the open window.

These gestures provide physical feedback and predictable navigation, bridging the gap between hardware input and desktop responsiveness.

Integrated Application Grid

Under the previous design, opening the application grid often felt disconnected from the main workflow. GNOME 40 integrated the app launcher directly into the horizontal paradigm.

When accessing the app grid, the running workspaces shrink upward toward the top of the display, and the app icons slide into view from below. The grid itself is paginated horizontally, allowing users to scroll through installed applications with the same left-to-right motion used for workspace switching. Users can also drag and drop application icons directly onto specific workspace cards visible at the top of the screen to launch programs directly where needed.