Budgie Desktop 11 Preview 1 to Introduce Multi-Panel Support and Tiling

Budgie developers have outlined their priorities for Budgie 11, giving users an early look at what to expect from Preview 1 of the upcoming desktop environment as work continues on the new shell and its core components.

One of the main goals for Preview 1 is flexible panel management. Users should be able to add multiple panels and position them on any screen edge. The team is also working toward proper multi-monitor support so panels can appear on individual displays without stretching across screens. Planned extensions for this preview include the Budgie Menu, IconTasklist, system status indicators for battery and volume, the system tray, a Raven trigger for unread notifications, and the clock.

Development of Magpie Budgie 11’s window management and compositing layer — is progressing in parallel. Expected features include keyboard shortcuts for window switching and tiling, along with improved focus handling, which is already implemented.

The new configuration system will support appearance controls such as auto-hide, dock mode, panel size, and transparency. Layout options will let users choose the monitor, panel position, and extension placement. Each panel will store its settings in a profile-aware directory using unique identifiers, ensuring configurations remain separate and manageable.

Developers have also addressed issues with automatically generated configuration classes by adding manual change detection. This ensures panel views update correctly when configuration files are modified. For now, configuration files still include default values to simplify testing, though future versions will save only user-changed settings.

There is currently no release date for Budgie 11 Preview 1. Meanwhile, Budgie 10.10 continues to receive minor fixes, but most development effort is now focused on building the technical foundation for Budgie 11’s redesigned shell and component model.

For more information, see the announcement.