GNOME Core Applications is a collection of approximately 30 applications that are packaged as part of the standard free and open-sourceGNOME desktop environment. GNOME Core Applications have the look and feel of the GNOME desktop; some applications have been written from scratch and others are ports.
The employment of the newest GUI widgets offered by the latest version of GTK+ in order to implement the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) ergonomically is the only feature which all GNOME Core Applications have in common. Some of the GNOME Core Applications are essential, while several are not, e.g. GNOME Weather. Most are thin graphical front-ends, e.g. GNOME Software, to underlying Linux system daemons, like e.g. journald, PackageKit, NetworkManager or PulseAudio.
All GNOME Core Applications except GNOME Terminal, Evolution and Seahorse feature the GtkHeaderBar. GtkHeaderBar[3] is a widget introduced to GTK+ in version 3.10. It is intended to replace the Title-Bar and the Toolbar.
Control Center – main interface to configure various aspects of GNOME. Diverse panels represent graphical front-ends to configure the NetworkManager daemon and other daemons.