Quick-Lounge was supposed to be included on Gnome 2.6, but it failed a few requirements. Let's hope its developer will bring the gnome-panel plugin up to speed and have it incorporated on Gnome by default (useful for users who use a single panel for both the taskbar and other functions and want to save some real screen estate).
2. News Feed application
Sure, Evolution already does support RDF/RSS/etc, but in a very limited way. An application like Liferea would be great to have on Gnome by default (however some UI clean up would be required beforehand). Straw is more powerfull but it has a gazillion dependencies and it's written in Python, which is also not included by default on Gnome.
3. A modem dialer
While more and more people are moving to DSL/Cable connections, there are millions who still use a dial-up modem. For these users Gnome should catter, maybe by creating a front end to wvDial.
4. Personal Finances
A new application that deals with personal finances would be useful to many. While many try to fix Gnucash, the truth is that the code is not as flexible and its extra dependencies make it problematic. The new application doesn't have to have all Gnucash's features (which are pretty extensive), but to function as a simple finance recorder.
5. Moving fully to ALSA
The volume control and ESD should be fully ported to ALSA. If I didn't had added the OSS emulation on my Arch Linux 2 weeks ago I would get some cryptic messages from Gnome's volume control telling me that some /dev devices don't exist (they didn't).
6. The Gonvertor
I always loved little utilities that support converting to and from many categories. Area, Mass, Velocity, Time, Money, Volume, Distance, Digital Quantity are just some of the ideas. I believe that such a tool would add nicely to the Accessories menu on Gnome.
7. PDA/Phone syncing
The gnome-pilot conduit doesn't seem to support the newer PalmOS devices and there is definetely no support for Pocket PCs and smartphones. A new application taking care of these devices that are so integrated to our lives these days, would be most welcome (or it could be done via some Nautilus integration mounting the devices via serial, USB or bluetooth).
8. Blogging
It will be a lie if we couldn't see the need for a unified blog application that can take care Blogger, Movable Type, pMachine & LiveJournal. BloGTK seems to be the best solution of all currently, however it lacks LiveJournal support (found in Drivel though) and it is written in Python (which is not included by default on Gnome).
Conclusion
As you can see, there are so many nice apps that can't be included on Gnome by default because of the language that they are written, maybe the Gnome Project would consider including the C++, Java, Python and GTK# bindings on Gnome 3.0 by default. I believe that these are most important bindings and they should be further supported by the Project.
While distro/BSD makers can include some of these apps on top of Gnome for their product, the fact remains that Gnome should be the one who should provide the most-needed modern applications to the distro makers in order to free them from extra work, as this is one of the reasons OEMs would prefer a fully integrated full-featured DE than a bits and pieces put together.
On another note, all applications mentioned here are requested to be HIG-compliant (and as an additional note, the HIG itself needs an update to include some guidance besides widget placement but overall usability architecture and steps on how to get there).
If Gnome could at least pull through the applications mentioned in the first page of the article for Gnome 3.0, I would personally be a very happy user and it would also make distro makers happier as well, driving the number of distros that shipping with Gnome, higher up.
- "The must-have apps, Page 1/2"
- "The not-so-must-have ones, Page 2/2"
