5 This release features a few minor fixes to behavioural regressions
6 in the previous release, as well as some build configuration file
7 self-documentation improvements.
13 There are a few minor fixes in this RC, plus a major one related to
14 layout restore under a session manager.
20 This RC features various minor fixes, and some clarifications and
21 simplifications to the license, which people seem to have had trouble
28 It seems people are a bit slow, or only scaring them with a final
29 release makes them report issues. So, still no stable release but
30 a candidate, with many minor fixes and improvements wrt. important
31 omissions. The most important changes are better behaviour of the
32 unsplit operation, better handling of main window being closed
33 before a transient, and use of the workspace's working directory
34 for run query file name completion.
40 Another attempt at last "rc" release.
46 This release features a few minor fixes. If no major problems are
47 discovered, this is likely to be the last "rc" release before the
48 first and hopefully final "stable" release.
54 This fourth "rc" release fixes some minor bugs and omissions in
61 This third "rc" release again simply fixes some minor problems in
68 This is the second "rc" release, and contains primarily bug fixes
69 and other minor improvements.
75 This is the first "rc" or "(stable) release candidate" release of
76 Ion3. This means that there will not be any further major changes
77 to it. Bugs will be fixed, and as an exception to the general
78 feature freeze, some hooks may still be added, if deemed useful.
79 Translations may also be included. After no new bugs (that can not
80 be deemed features) have been found in this or following "rc"
81 releases, the stable Ion3 will be released.
83 Most of the changes in this release to the previous one already
84 are bug fixes, in addition to some general clean-up. Other notable
87 * Winprop matching improvements: it is possible to match against
88 `is_dockapp` and `is_transient` (booleans), and there's a hack
89 to support `class` and `instance` for dockapps too.
91 * The default configuration puts dockapps in the statusbar's
94 * The autoconf kludge has been removed, as I will have nothing
95 to do with it, and nobody else seems to support or maintain
98 * Tab numbers are displayed when releasing modifiers in the
101 Distributors should pay heed to the name policy notice in the
108 This may be the last "ds" release if Ion3; if all goes well, the next
109 release is likely to be an "rc". Some minor improvements will still
110 be done, and minor requests may be accepted, so be quick.
112 The most notable changes in this release from the previous one are:
114 * Transients and queries in too small frames are "unsqueezed" out
115 of them, unless disabled with `ioncore.set{ unsqueeze = false }`.
117 * Some changes in default `cfg_ion.lua`: instead of loading
118 various other files, just `cfg_default.lua` is loaded instead.
120 * `mod_tiling.untile` (available in the context menu) may be used
121 to decompose tilings into floating frames. (This is the approximate
122 opposite of `mod_tiling.mkbottom` and the "new tiling" context menu
125 * Improved context menus.
127 * Slightly improved defaults style, using the drawing engine's
128 added possibility of partial borders.
130 * Various fixes and other improvements, in particular in relation
137 * There's been changes in padding/spacing usage in styles. Frames
138 now surround stuff inside borders not with `spacing` pixels, but
139 with `padding_pixels`. Spacing is only used to space things within
140 the borders (all the tabs and the client window from each other).
141 Consequently, custom styles may need to be updated to reflect this,
142 by increasing the padding, possibly also altering/removing colour
143 (to set it to background colour).
145 * The use of drawing engine attributes has also changed, and strict
146 ordering of them in the styles is no longer necessary. Additionally,
147 much more attributes are supported, including the name of every
150 * Xinerama support is gone. In addition to being problematic as such,
151 it had bit-rotted, and I will not waste time fixing it.
153 * `ioncore.set` no longer supports the `default_ws_params` parameter
154 for configuring the default layout. It is replaced by
155 `ioncore.deflayout("default", { ... })`, which allows configuring
156 other layouts as well, known by `mod_query.query_workspace` (F9).
157 Some default layouts are configured in `cfg_layout.lua`.
159 * It is now possible to automatically create new workspaces for
160 windows with the `new_group` winprop.
166 There's nothing major in this release, primarily just some minor fixes
167 and tuning to the previous release, that it was time to release.
173 Mostly this release still fixes issues in the big 3ds-20061015 release,
174 but in addition there are some improvements in the query department:
176 * Query activation key now cycles completions (So e.g. the
177 in the context menu activated with META+M, this same key
178 can be used to cycle through the alternatives.) This does
179 not work for queries activated by submap bindings.
181 * Likewise, it is no longer necessary to specify the key to
182 use for cycling for `mod_menu.grabmenu`.
184 * Control+R can now be used for history completion in queries.
185 (Currently matching is done for full string up to 'point', but
186 this may be changed to substring match.)
188 * Note that the parametrisation of WEdln.complete has changed,
189 and the second cycle parameter must be 'next' now instead of
196 Fixes some (expected, but minor) issues in the previous release.
202 * WIonWS and WFloatWS and the corresponding modules are gone, and
203 your custom configuration files will be broken with regard to these.
204 However, a partial backwards compatibility hack exists for layout
207 The F9 and META-F9 bindings now by default create workspaces with
208 a tiled layout of two frames. To create an "empty" workspace,
209 corresponding to the old WFloatWS, use the context menu (META-M)
210 and choose "new-empty-workspace". It is also possible to change
213 * Note that if you restart from an old version to this new version of Ion,
214 transients will stop working as expected for already existing windows.
215 They will work for newly-created windows, however.
217 * There are a few new sets of binding (including one for `WClientWin`!),
218 and some old bindings may not work exactly as expected anymore. In
219 particular, those for switching to full-screen mode.
221 **It is probably best to start from scratch with your custom
224 * `WFrame.set_tabbar` is gone. If you absolutely want to get rid off
225 the tabs, you must change the frame's "mode" with `WFrame.set_mode`.
226 The mode "tiled-alt" has been intended for this, and the corresponding
227 "framed-tiled-alt" style defaults to `bar = "none"`.
229 * The rather popular `detach.lua` script from the scripts repository
230 is obsoleted now, as Ion includes detach functionality in itself.
231 To detach a window, use META-K D in the default bindings. To tile
232 an existing frame from a workspace that doesn't have a tiling yet,
239 Some notable changes in this release include
241 * Lua 5.1 is now required.
243 * Framed transients on by default now. New binding contexts
244 "WFrame.toplevel" and "WMPlex.toplevel" were added to allow
245 for separate sets of bindings for nested transient frames and
246 top-level frames. Some of the bindings in the default binding
247 maps that are likely to be unwanted on transient frames were
248 moved to these contexts. Old custom bindings will continue to
249 work unless they modify the defaults by unbinding some of the
252 * Pressing Mod1+K K in the default bindings now switches to any
253 region with the "activity" flag set (indicated by the a box
254 at a corner of the screen), if there's one, before cycling to
255 previously active region. The same effect can be achieved in
256 your custom bindings with
258 ioncore.activity_goto() or ioncore.goto_previous()
264 This release mostly features minor bugfixes and other improvements. The most
265 visible non-bugfix changes are:
267 * Faster "fontset" filling kludge: only `-misc-fixed-*` fonts are tried. Ion
268 should now load faster in UTF-8 environments, and usually with no less
269 fonts in the fontset than before. (UTF-8 string drawing still does not
270 fully utilise these fonts under XFree86, but it does under XOrg.)
272 * Experimental auto-show-completions support, which is also on by default
273 now. In this mode the Tab key can be used to cycle forward through the
274 completions, and Shift+Tab backwards. Modify the settings seen in the
275 new `mod_query.lua` to get normal Tab-completion, or change the completion
278 * The release scripts do not run automatically autoconf anymore so maybe
279 a few more people would look into the README first.
285 The most visible changes in this release are:
287 * Mod1+space now toggles the scratchpad by default and Mod1+D the dock.
289 * The `ion-(ssh|man|view|edit)` wrapper scripts were removed and instead
290 the programs used can be configured in Ion's configuration files.
292 * `ioncore.exec(_on)` also support the `:cmd` notation for "run cmd in
293 xterm" familiar from the run query. The `::cmd` notation can be used
294 to ask for enter to be pressed even when the program quit succesfully.
296 * Those with custom configuration files should note that many exported toggle
297 functions were changed and renamed, and now accept a string parameter
298 incidating whether to toggle, set or unset the property.
300 - `WClientwin.set_fullsreen` (replaces `WClientWin.toggle_fullscreen`)
301 - `WRegion.set_tagged` (replaces `WRegion.tag/untag/toggle_tag`)
302 - `WFrame.set_tabbar` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_tabbar`)
303 - `WFrame.set_shaded` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_shade`)
304 - `WFloatFrame.set_sticky` (replaces `WFloatFrame.toggle_sticky`)
305 - `WMPlex.l2_set_hidden` (replaces `WMPlex.l2_hide/show`)
306 - `mod_sp.set_shown(_on)` (replaces `mod_sp.toggle(_on)`)
307 - `mod_dock.set_floating_shown_on` (replaces `mod_dock.toggle_floating_on`)
308 - `WRegion.set_activity` (replaces `WRegion.clear_activity` and
309 `WRegion.notify_activity`)
311 For example, `WRegion.set_tagged(_, 'toggle')` should be used in place of
312 `WRegion.toggle_tagged(_)` now.
314 Obviously there are some other changes and fixes too. See the changelog
315 for details as usual.
321 This is mostly a bug fix release, but also features improved
322 `mod_query.query_exec` (F3 key) completion support. Script writers should be
323 aware that As a side effect of one of these bug fixes, many hooks are now
324 called in "protected mode" and can not call any functions that modify the
325 internal state of Ion, except ioncore.defer.
331 The most important changes in this release are:
333 * So-called "placeholders". With the help of these the positions of
334 full-screen windows are remembered in their original frames, and don't
335 just get inserted after currently active window when returning from
336 full-screen mode. Under a session manager placeholders are also used
337 to remember the original order of windows.
339 * Improved `mod_statusbar` and `ion-statusd` communication, and colouring
340 of important/critical meters.
342 * A number of small fixes.
348 This monthly snapshot adds a few new and improved features.
350 * 'Grabbed menus' that have a single cycling key and activate selected
351 entry when all modifiers have been released. See
353 <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/scripts/wcirculate.lua>
357 * Potentially blocking status meters are now in a separate ion-statusd
358 program. Please write your additional status meters that do not monitor
359 the state of Ion itself for ion-statusd (and contribute them in the
360 Ion3 scripts repository at <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/>).
361 For help on writing such status meters, see e.g. source for
362 `statusd_load` in `ext_statusbar/ion-statusd`.
364 * Floating splits are now supported on plain tiled workspaces as well as
365 on pane workspaces. To create such a split, use the workspace context
366 menu (Mod1+M by default) or write your own bindings.
368 * Line editor now supports history search; Control+Up/Down only scrolls
369 through history entries with matching initial part.
371 * Arbitrary winprop matching criteria is supported. Lua scripts have
372 access to X properties.
374 Of course there are some other minor fixes and improvements as well.
380 This release finally includes a usable (yet still incomplete) version
381 of the `mod_panews` workspace module (that has also bored the name 'autows'
382 and 'rubberws' previously). The final outcome is not exactly what I
383 initially planned, as those plans turned out not to be that workable.
384 Instead, what `mod_panews` does is add to the basic tiled ionws approach
385 overlappable splits and automatically filled panes that are initially
386 empty. Each window is classified and assigned to the pane matching that
387 classification. (The default classifications are T(erminal), V(iewer)
388 and M(iscellaneous).)
390 For a better feel for it, try it out yourself and please give feedback.
391 The overlapping panes may be a bit confusing (this is one place where
392 true translucency might actually be useful and not just eyecandy) at
393 first, but you'll get used to them if you use the feature, and e.g.
394 the Gimp works quite splendidly with the toolboxes in the 'M' pane and
395 image windows in the 'V' pane -- although the simple initial size-based
396 classification heuristics don't always get it right and overriding
397 winprops (setting: `panews_classification`) should eventually added.
399 In addition to the new module, this release adds support for translations
400 of program messages and the manual page, regardless of whether such is
401 of any use in a program like Ion or not. (Currently Finnish and Czech
402 translations are available.) Of course there are some bug fixes and
403 other minor additions as well, and the `./configure` script is also back,
404 the abandonment of libtool being final now.
410 The first thing you'll notice when you start up this release of Ion is
411 that isn't reading your old configuration that. The next thing you
412 should notice is a neat layout-adapting statusbar at the bottom of the
413 screen. That's right, Ion now includes an `ext_statusbar` Lua script that
414 is enabled by default and displays date/time/load/mail count in a
417 So why is it not reading your configuration and save files? Firstly,
418 all of the `.lua` files were renamed to be indicative of their purpose.
419 Secondly, there have been so many changes that your old files would be
422 The `.lua` files are now named as follows:
424 cfg_*.lua Configuration file that the user may wish to edit
425 look_*.lua Drawing engine style file
426 saved_*.lua Save file
427 mod_*.lua Module stub loader
428 ext_*.lua A bigger Lua extension without a C counterpart
429 so that it is not a module
431 The configuration file for `mod_foobar` or `ext_foobar`, if it has one, is,
432 of course, `cfg_foobar.lua`. In the topic of file names, also note that
433 the default installation paths and binary names have changed to include
434 the component '3' to reflect the situation with many binary packages
437 You perhaps noticed above that modules have stub loaders now, so the
438 user has no need to use the `ioncore.load_module` routine. All extensions
439 and additional configuration files can now be loaded with 'dopath'
440 (used to be 'include'). Also, the `menulib`, `querylib`, and `ioncorelib`
441 Lua libraries are gone and instead their contents can be found in the same
442 `mod_whatever` namespace with the corresponding module (the "stub" loader
443 for these modules is a bit more than just a stub...). Some may also
444 want to know that for `mod_*` and `ext_*` only the compiled .lc files are
445 now installed, and not the source `.lua` files, thus removing redundant
446 files and making the installation slightly smaller.
448 There are few other changes to the contents of the configuration files
449 as well, so you're probably best off simply rewriting your modified
450 configuration files based on the new defaults. There quite likely won't
451 be any more _big_ changes to the configuration files before the release
452 of final Ion3, wherever that will be. (Most likely we won't see 3rc:s
453 yet this year.) However, some functions and variables are still likely
454 to be renamed or changed.
456 In addition to being renamed, the layout savefile of this Ion release
457 is incompatible with older releases. This is due to the changes made
458 to the `WIonWS` (and `WAutoWS`) split tree code to make it more modularly
459 extensible with the new kinds of nodes that `WAutoWS` requires.
461 The `mod_autows` module has infact been through many changes since the
462 last release, and I think I have the final form of it finally figured
463 out. However, it is still far from finished and unlikely to be ready
470 The major new features of this snapshot release are:
472 * `WMPlex` support for a sticky status display area to which `WIonWS`s
473 adjust properly. Modified to the dock module to support this method.
474 See the new `dock.lua` to set up the dock in the new embedded or old
475 floating manner (the API for the latter has also changed).
476 * Primitive session management support.
478 There are also some bug fixes and many minor improvements; see the ChangeLog
479 for details. Work on `mod_autows` has also started, but it isn't ready for
483 ### Note on ./configure:
485 ./configure does not exist for the moment as the source autoconf script
486 is not up-to-date. Ion no longer uses libtool/libltdl due to problems
487 with inter-module dependencies, and I have not asked Tom Payne to fix
488 the script yet, as this change may not be final (although that is most
489 likely the case; those without Linux-compatible libdl and a flexible
490 binary format such as ELF will just have to link statically against the
494 ### Notes on session management:
496 Ion loads `mod_sm` automatically when the SESSION_MANAGER environment
497 variable that should be set by the session manager is set, so there's
498 no need load it in `ion.lua`.
500 When session management is in use, all entries in the 'Session' menu
501 (previously 'Exit' menu) actually invoke the session manager to do the
502 task. 'Save' asks the SM save the whole session and 'Exit' (ioncore.shutdown)
503 asks it to shut down the session instead of just causing the WM to quite.
504 To do the latter, use ioncore.resign.
506 Unfortunately, all session managers I have tried (from Debian/unstable),
507 are broken/incomplete in one way or another:
510 xsm: doesn't support any requests from applications. This makes Ion's
511 session menu complete unfunctional. The only way to restart/exit/save
512 state is through xsm's window.
515 gnome-session: This seems the most complete of the all the session managers
516 and works fine until it is requested to shut down the session, when it dumps
517 core and session state is lost if was not explicitly saved previously.
519 A `~/.gnome2/session` file to use with Ion follows:
525 0,RestartCommand=gnome-smproxy --sm-client-id default0
528 1,RestartCommand=/usr/local/ion-3/bin/ion -smclientid default1
531 ksmserver: Only supports a global shutdown request, so that Ion can not be
532 restarted or session state saved in the middle of a session.
538 This is the first development snapshot release of what is to be Ion3.
539 The most visible changes to Ion2 so far are:
541 * Default installation directory is `/usr/local/ion-3` while user
542 configuration files go in `~/.ion3`
544 * The `mod_sp` module was added. It creates an extra toggleable
545 "scratchpad" frame on each screen. Toggle is for now bound by default
546 to Mod1+section, which should be very conveniently located on most
547 Nordic keyboards (left of "1"), but you may have to change it. The
548 scratchpad should be nice for xconsole or similar monitors, xmessage
549 and other popups and just as temporary holding space for windows.
551 * All modules except the drawing engine are now called `mod_something`.
553 * Man-page complection supports a cache of known man-pages for faster
554 completion. See the README for instructions on setting up a cronjob
555 or manually generating the index if you want to use the feature.
556 Also `query_man_path` is no longer used. Instead we try the
557 `ION_MC_MANPATH` and `MANPATH` environment variables and the
560 * Exported functions are now separated into tables (namespaces)
561 instead of cluttering the globals table. Some frequently used
562 configuration functions are imported into the globals table, though.
563 Some functions have also been removed or renamed for simpler and
564 more consistent function set.
566 * New binding configuration mechanism. Dozens of `*_bindings` functions
567 were replaced with a single `[ioncorelib.]defbindings` function that
568 accepts a context parameter. Callbacks are specified as strings
569 (although passing functions still works) to make it easier for
570 external configuration programs to understand the configuration
571 files and perhaps remove some confusion among users who do not
572 care to read a tiny bit of Lua documentation and understand the
573 concept of anonymous functions.
575 * It is now also possible to retrieve a list of bindings with
576 `ioncorelib.getbindings`, for example, for self-documentation.
578 * Single move/resize mode bindings instead of separate for both
579 ionframe and floatframe.
581 There are also quite a few internal changes; see the ChangeLog for
582 details. No documentation tarball is available at the moment as the
583 documentation is out-of-date except for the function reference. If
584 you need the reference, just checkout the documentation from the
585 Subversion repository with
587 svn co http://tao.uab.es/ion/svn/ion-doc/trunk ion-doc-3ds
589 and build the documentation.
595 This release is finally what can be called "Ion 2 release candidate #1".
596 No more new features will be added to "Ion 2" after this release, and the
597 configuration interface has already been frozen for a while. I will wait a
598 couple of weeks for bug reports, and if nothing serious is found, the new
599 stable Ion should finally be released then.
601 The most notable changes since the previous release are:
603 * The dock module is included
604 * An optional autoconf script was added
605 * A few minor bugs were fixed
606 * Some incomplete features were polished, especially focus control on
608 * Changes in X keyboard map are supported now (so e.g. switching to
609 dvorak after Ion has started should update the bindings to match the
610 locations of symbols in the dvorak layout).
613 About the version numbering scheme:
615 Due to a demand of a version numbering scheme more indicative of the status
616 of the project, I was thinking of various different new version numbering
617 schemes for this release: ion-2rc1 (then 2r1, 3d1, etc.), ion-2-20040114-rc1,
618 ion-2.20040114rc1, ion-20040114-2rc1, etc.). It would've been nice if
619 simple lexicographical sorting could be used to order the packages, but
620 in the end I decided to stick with a scheme that is consistent with the
621 'ion-devel' package names:
623 project-branch_and_status-release_date
625 Therefore this release is 'ion-2rc-20040114', and the "stable" one will be
632 This is a big clean-up release. The most noticeable changes are that
633 '-devel' has been removed from path names, user configuration files go
634 in `~/.ion2/` and the main configuration file is 'ion.lua'. (The other
635 `ioncore-*.lua` files have also been renamed.) There have been no notable
636 changes in the configuration files themselves, so your old files will
637 work if you move them to the correct directory and rename the changed
638 files. (`mv ~/.ion-devel ~/.ion2; cd ~/.ion2; mv ioncore.lua ion.lua;`
641 This release also finally contains a working PWM binary. (The ioncore+
642 scripts scheme was replaced with separate binaries statically linked
643 to ioncore.a.) Floating workspaces now support edge snapping and
644 sticky windows, but some PWM features are probably still missing.
646 Some bugs were also fixed and users are now force-fed the manual page
647 the first time Ion is started. Transients can be toggled between
648 top/bottom of the main window with Mod1+K T. The SSH query uses
649 `~/.ssh/known_hosts` for completion instead of a manually defined list.
651 There may be a few additions (e.g. the dock) and bug fixes, of course,
652 before the stable release, but this release should pretty much be what
653 the new "stable" Ion should look like. Please upgrade to it to help
654 weed out the bugs. Note that you need to upgrade Lua to the 5.0.1
662 It's finally time for a new release on Ion's development branch. Most
663 likely this will also be the last "big" release before finally, after
664 almost two years, releasing a new "stable" version of Ion. A few bug
665 fix and code clean-up releases should appear in between, though.
667 The most important additions, changes and non-changes in this release
671 * A little less broken extended character set and string encoding
673 * Extended WM hints fullscreen request support
674 * Hopefully a little clarified configuration file layout
676 * And most important of all:
678 > Configuration files written for the previous release should
679 > still work this time!
681 (However, Ion will complain of old drawing engine styles.)
683 The menu module provides both drop-down menus (in the stock configuration
684 pressing Button3 on a tab should show a context menu) and query-like
685 "in-mplex" menus (F12: main menu at screen level; Mod1+M: the same context
686 menu as above at frame level).
688 What was done enhance support for strings (mostly window titles) in
689 languages that need more than 8-bit character sets is:
691 * Remove UTF8 restriction and support almost arbitrary multibyte
692 encodings instead. (Statefull encodings will not work and combining
693 characters can cause clutter. Both are a sign of bad encoding, IMHO.)
695 * The XCreateFontSet routine that is used to load fonts in the kind
696 of structure the X utf8 and multibyte routines want apparently wants
697 to be able to load glyphs for all character sets specified in the
698 locale and therefore often fails if only single font is specified.
699 Therefore a kludge was added that tries loading more fonts while
700 keeping the fonts' size the same. (The ",*" kludge could load huge
701 fonts). Unfortunately this has a noticeable effect in startup time :(.
703 * There is no longer a system.mk option to enable utf8 (now multibyte)
704 support, but must still specifically be enabled with the -i18n
705 command line switch, mostly thanks to troublesome utf-8 locales.
707 Because Xlib's UTF-8 string drawing code is broken and very unlikely to
708 be fixed, decent text output in an UTF-8 locale is still unlikely and
709 dependent on the fonts loaded in the system. The Xmb routines that are now
710 used always use an iso10646-1 font even if other fonts are loaded and the
711 unicode font does not contain a particular glyph to be drawn. The use of
712 the Xutf8 routines in an utf8 locale can be enabled with the
713 `CF_DE_USE_XUTF8` compile-time option. The advantage of this is that
714 these routines seem to choose the font to draw particular character in
715 most cases more sanely. The downside is that there are other more serious
716 problems with unknown characters.
718 All in all, even if I'd like to support a universal move to UTF-8, thanks
719 to Xlib brokenness I can't really recommend using UTF-8 locales with Ion
720 and the default drawing engine if there's a decent alternative encoding.
721 Most if not all other stateless encodings shouldn't have the problems
722 UTF-8 has. An alternative drawing engine that didn't use the Xlib i18n
723 string drawing routines might solve the troubles with utf-8 support.
727 If you have saved a custom system.mk, you'll need to set LUAC
728 point to the Lua compiler there as some of the share/ files
735 It's been a while since the previous release as I wanted to freeze the
736 Lua configuration/scripting interface for this release and therefore
737 finish work on a few things. Well, on my part the interface is frozen,
738 but I will still accept constructive complaints for a short time and
739 after that the implemented parts of the scripting interface will be
740 frozen. But in all likelihood, if no one has anything else to say, but
741 "it's ok", "it sucks", the interface will no longer change, only possibly
744 What's new for this release then?
746 * Drawing engine module support.
747 * OO-style exported functions. The old `class_fn` functions are now
748 `WClass.fn` (an ugly wrapper is provided in `compat.lua`).
749 * No more screen-specific configuration or savefiles.
750 * Session name (can be specified on command line) instead of display
751 name based savefiles. Also affects query history and not just workspace
753 * Bug fixes, most small and one bigger (almost complete rewrite of
754 the split resizing algorithm).
755 * Some documentation improvements.
757 Converting configuration files.
759 Old `.lua` colour schemes and workspace save files can be automatically
760 converted to a format suitable to be loaded by this latest release.
761 Other files will have to be ported manually. To convert colour schemes,
762 use the script `utils/lookconv.lua`. The usage is
764 lookconv.lua look-old.lua > look-new.lua
766 To convert workspaces savefiles, use the script `utils/saveconv.sh`.
769 saveconf.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-DISPLAY.*.lua \
770 > ~/.ion-devel/SESSIONNAME/workspaces.lua
772 `DISPLAY` here is the actual display part of `$DISPLAY`, probably just `:0`.
773 '*' stands for all screens (if you have only one screen you could do with
774 perhaps just `workspaces-:0.0.lua`). SESSIONNAME is the name of the session
775 where you want to use the converted savefiles. Default session name for
776 `DISPLAY` is `default-session-DISPLAY` with the colon in `DISPLAY` converted
777 to a dash. For most people this is `default-session--0`. In the simplest
778 case the whole command line is therefore
780 saveconv.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-:0.0.lua \
781 > ~/.ion-devel/default-session--0/workspaces.lua
783 The scripts may or may not work and are only provided as a potential
784 convenience that will not be maintained and will be removed eventually.
790 Quite a few bug fixes and one most likely unnoticeable improvement:
794 * Fixed pointer warping on screen change.
795 * A bug in grab handler calling code could crash Ion when leaving
796 keyboard resize mode manually.
797 * Resize display was showing incorrect values for keyboard resize.
801 * Client window last height request bookkeeping code had been lost
802 when configure request policy was changed. This caused transient
803 sizes to be calculated incorrectly.
804 * Return from full screen mode to floatws had been broken.
805 * As the number of dynamic functions has been getting bigger, the
806 functions are now sorted on first use and then binary-searched
807 instead of naive linear searching.
808 * Screen lookup had been broken for windows that are not properly
815 Just some bug fixes and minor behavioural changes and improvements in
822 This release fixes some small problems with the previous release and
823 adds a workaround kludge for the XFree86 textprop bug (it's been fixed
824 but no release with the fix is available) that could cause Opera to
825 crash Ion when UTF8 support was enabled. I also added the winprop
826 needed for galeon's find dialog to default `kludges.lua` and there's
827 some extra documentation and defaults for some systems in system.mk.
833 Most changes in this release centre around making Ion more tolerant
834 to broken configuration files; for details see the ChangeLog. There
835 are also changes in binding configuration as I already mentioned in
836 an earlier poting. Namely `common-frame-bindings.lua` is gone and the
837 bindings previously set there (into variables that the `*ws.lua`
838 files later referenced) were moved to `ioncore-bindings.lua` and are
839 set using the new functions `mplex_bindings` and `genframe_bindings`
840 are were added. Old modified configuration files should still work,
841 however, but if you use `make_active_leaf_fn`, you will need to
842 include `compat.lua` as the `global_bindings` that used this were
843 replaced by bindings in `mplex_bindings` and the function
844 `make_current_clientwin_fn`.
846 There are also some (minor) bug fixes and a few other improvements
847 worth a mention. In particular all regions are now given names of
848 the form `WFoobar<n>` by default and `DEFAULT_MOD.."F9"` was bound to
849 create a new workspace without asking for a name. This binding and
850 `QueryLib.query_workspace` use the workspace type defined in the
851 variable `default_ws_type` instead of being hardcoded to `WIonWS`.
853 All objects passed to Lua now have a unique userdata (a `WWatch`
854 cached in a weak table) so they can be used e.g. as indices to tables.
860 This release unifies some parts of `WScreen` and `WGenFrame`, which makes
861 screen-level queries possible. (Later the queries for small frames might
862 be changed to be shown at screen level.) The statusbar restriction from
863 ion-devel-20030531 was also removed by this some change and a few
864 non-fatal bugs have been fixed.
870 A bug was discovered:
874 * An off-by-one error in `extl_l1_finalize` caused references to some
875 Lua tables (including large completions) never to be released.
877 It could be that this bug was causing some other errors in Lua as well.
878 Sometimes QueryLib bindings failed because some function generators
879 returned nil although they shouldn't. Adding dummy lines (!) in those
880 functions fixed the problem and for some reason this patch also seemed
881 to remove those problems.
884 One more note: as `ioncorelib.lua` and `querylib.lua` are now installed
885 in `$SHAREDIR`, you must remove the old files in `$ETCDIR` if installing
886 over a previous release or else there will be errors. You should also
887 not use any possible old copies you have in `~/.ion-devel/`. (One of the
888 reasons for moving these to `$SHAREDIR` is to stop users from making
889 copies of them as they are not configuration files.)
895 As the subject line says, Ion-devel-20030531 was just released. The short
898 * The license was changed from the Clarified Artistic License to the
899 GNU Library/Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
900 * Screen, viewport and root window renames and other changes (see below).
901 * Some installation directory changes; the ion-* helper programs are now
902 installed either in `$SHAREDIR` or `$EXTRABINDIR` and QueryLib searches
903 for them on the script path (`~/.ion-devel/`, `$ETCDIR`, `$SHAREDIR`,
904 `$EXTRABINDIR`) instead of assuming them being on `$PATH`.
905 * Client windows are now in a separate namespace.
906 * Resize/maximize/shade changes: Shading should work on `WIonFrame`s too
907 and shade mode is automatic when the client area gets too small when
908 resizing. Maximize toggle restores frame to previous size if shaded
909 instead of maximizing. The move/resize mode bindings were changed again
910 to be more consistent and predictable: Left/Right/Up/Down and F/B/P/N
911 grow the frame in the specific direction, Shift+keys shrink and in
912 case of floating frames, `DEFAULT_MOD+keys` move
913 * Returning from full screen mode should work on `WFloatWS`s too.
914 * Lots of minor fixes, export additions and clean-up.
916 As usual, see the (long!) list of new ChangeLog entries at the end of
917 this message for details.
920 I've finally personally switched from the old "stable" 20020207 to using
921 the latest development release at home too and I must say that it is
922 finally starting to look good. There are still things to be written, but
923 unless you need "proven" stability, I see no reason to sticking to that
924 old release anymore. Unless, of course, if you find a problem that I have
925 not encountered or simply have no need for the new features and don't want
926 to port your configuration files.
929 On screens, viewports, root windows and problems with the new
932 The objects previously called "screens" are now called "root windows"
933 and what were called "viewports" are called "screens" to better reflect
934 what the user sees. (When Xinerama is not used there's no difference
935 between a root window and a screen, but when Xinerama is used a root
936 window may be split over multiple screens.)
938 This release also creates so-called virtual root windows for each
939 Xinerama screen when there are more than one. This is to better separate
940 the windows on different screens and thus emulate normal multihead, the
941 main difference being that windows can be moved between screens.
942 Especially the virtual roots are there to keep the windows that are on
943 a floatws on the right screen.
945 Virtual root windows will, however, break a few apps:
947 * Mozilla -remote won't work because of its crappy method for looking
948 up existing windows that can't handle multiple levels of WM windows.
949 Nested workspaces have the same problem. There is, however, a simple
950 solution to this problem: gnome-moz-remote. It seems to use a saner
951 method for looking up an existing Gecko browser and also works with
952 at least Phoenix/MozillaFirebird and Galeon.
954 These two are problems only if you use floatws:s (other problems with
955 which virtual root windows are intended to solve):
957 * The background-setting apps I am aware of will require a following
958 'xrefresh' for the changes to be updated to the (transparent) virtual
959 roots. Background setting apps that support the `_NET_VIRTUAL_ROOTS`
960 property (which, I think, was meant for root window-sized WS
961 backgrounds) could be used to set a separate background for each
962 Xinerama screen, though. I am not aware of any such app.
963 * Some apps' resize and move features will behave erratically on those
964 Xinerama screens not at (0, 0) on the root window. This is again
965 because the apps are assuming there's at most one WM window between
966 them and the root and are requesting windows' positions incorrectly.
967 The ICCCM is quite vague on this and I think _all_ apps that I have
968 tried are doing it wrong but the way e.g. XMMS does it certainly is
969 not an interpretation of the ICCCM. The apps that now behave correctly
970 request position for the outermost WM window. Nested workspaces have
973 There is one more temporary problem:
975 * Status bar modules (and the dock module's statusbar mode) will be
976 *temporarily* broken when virtual roots are _not_ used. This will be
977 fixed later when parts of screen and frame code are unified (it should
978 then be possible to run Ion without any workspace modules and have
979 queries attached to screens). In the meanwhile, if you don't care about
980 the above-mentioned problems and want a statusbar (which probably needs
981 to be ported to this release), you can defined `CF_ALWAYS_VIRTUAL_ROOT`
988 There are quite a few small fixes and minor enhancements invisible to
989 the user in this release. The splitting functions were renamed to be
990 more consistent and there are a couple of enhancements in the Lua code
991 query that should make it much more usable. First, tab-completion can
992 now descend into tables and complete subexpressions. Secondly, the local
993 variable `_` in addition to 'arg[1]' is set to point to the the frame in
994 which the query is executing.
996 I have also written some new documentation that is now available from
1003 The most notable change in this release is that the `target_id` system
1004 was removed and instead client window status is also saved over
1005 restarts in the saves/workspaces-* files. (It shouldn't be too hard
1006 to hook a session management module over this.) Thanks to this
1007 modification, floatframes can also save their status now. Note
1008 that if you restart from older version of Ion to this one, client
1009 window layout will be messed up.
1011 There are also a few bug fixes and code to save and load line editor
1018 There are lots of minor improvements in this release, see the
1019 new ChangeLog entries for details.
1025 Some minor feature enhancements and a few fixes in this new release:
1027 The file system scanning completions are now put in the background
1028 by receiving the data from external programs through pipes and select()
1029 for data in the main event loop. This way long taking completions don't
1030 block Ion from processing other events and NFS problems shouldn't hang
1033 Basic window stacking management support code was added. Transients
1034 on floatws:s should now be stacked above their parents. If you don't
1035 want to change your modified binding configurations at this point and
1036 need the functions `floatframe_raise/lower`, include `compat.lua`.
1042 This release again fixes some minor problems and enhances a few
1043 features. Most of the enhancements are related to UTF8 support and
1044 the floatws module. If UTF8 support is enabled, Ion now tries to
1045 load the "fixed" font at startup after setting up locales. If locales
1046 aren't properly set up, this probably fails and Ion will reset locale
1047 back to "POSIX" as this might make fonts loadable although support for
1048 non-ASCII characters will be crippled. It might now be safe for
1049 package maintainers to enable UTF8 support by default
1051 As apps seem to have switched to using `_NET_WM_NAME` for UTF8 titles
1052 and filling `WM_NAME` with crap, this property is also preferred over
1053 `WM_NAME` if set. Support for some other "extended" WM hints might be
1054 added in the future but I have no intentions of moking Ion NetWM-
1055 compliant. I might have thought of attempting to do so a few years
1056 ago when I last read the specification but it seems that since then
1057 they've filled it with lots of pointless bloat that may even be in
1058 opposition to Ion's goals. Take multi-parent transients, for example.
1060 Full error log is also displayed with xmessage on startup whether
1061 it is possible to continue or not.
1067 There was a bug in QueryLib written yesterday, therefore this release.
1073 I started converting the query code to Lua and discovered some rather
1074 silly bugs in the Lua interface so here's a new release with the new
1075 and improved query code included. The names of queries have changed
1076 (they're all in the table QueryLib defined in `querylib.lua` -- only
1077 `query_query` and a few temporary handlers are implemented in query.so)
1078 so your modified configuration files will be broken again :(.
1084 Be prepared to completely rewrite your configuration files once
1085 again: a new version of Ion-devel has been released that uses Lua
1086 <http://www.lua.org/> for all configuration. Version 5.0 of the
1087 language/library is required. Although scripting possibilities
1088 are now much better than before, there is one rather big drawback:
1089 Lua is not nearly as error-tolerant as Ion's old configuration
1090 parser so a syntax error in a file will cause the file not to be
1091 executed and may even cause Ion not to be able to start. More
1092 comments and documentation on scripting will follow at a later time.
1094 Libtool and libltdl are also now used to implement module support.
1095 Hopefully this will make compiling Ion easier on a wider range of
1096 platforms. (On the other hand, this could also induce new problems.)
1098 Finally, the preferred linking address for Ion's home page is now
1099 <http://www.iki.fi/tuomov/ion/>. The pages are still located at the
1100 old address, but this redirected address should be more permanent.
1106 Just some minor fixes, binary rename and better embedded workspace
1107 support in this release. I'm still contemplating whether to convert
1108 Ion to C++ and haven't written many things that I intended to as
1109 that decision will affect how those are implemented.
1111 To create an embedded workspaces in a frame, at the moment you have
1112 to modify the appropriate workspace save file (when Ion is not running!)
1113 by adding lines such as
1115 region "WFloatWS", "testiupotus" {
1118 inside the frame definition after the other options (flags, `target_id`;
1119 those options will be ignored if after any region definitions).
1121 One more thing to note: debugging infos are no longer automatically
1122 stripped from the ioncore binary or modules by 'make install' so that
1123 I don't have to explain how to get proper backtraces every time a bug
1124 is found. If you you are confident that you can send me proper backtraces
1125 when you find a bug (or maybe can fix it yourself), you can make the
1126 binary and the modules a _lot_ smaller by running 'strip' on them.
1132 The list of new ChangeLog entries is long this time, but I'm finally
1133 starting to get to what I started working on almost two years ago. Yes,
1134 there is *experimental* support for PWM-like "floating frame" workspaces.
1135 A lot of the functionality is still missing -- no need to complain of
1136 such at the time -- but the floatws.so module and basic functionality
1137 is there. Most notably perhaps a menu module is not yet implemented.
1138 (Porting the PWM menu code should a nice little task for whomever
1139 interested... *wink*.) To create some PWM workspaces, load the floatws.so
1140 module (should be loaded by default) and in `query_workspace` (F9)
1141 prefix workspace name with 'WFloatWS:' (or load the module before
1144 This release is also finally fully modularised: In addition to the
1145 ion core binary that can not function alone, there are the modules
1146 ionws.so, floatws.so and query.so. It is also possible statically
1147 compile the modules in the core binary if the system doesn't support
1150 There's also *experimental* UTF8 support that must be specifically
1151 enabled from system.mk. You must have XFree86 (4.x?) and C99 wide
1152 char support available (either libc directly or maybe libutf8+libiconv).
1153 Thanks to bugs (?) in some of the XFree86 Xutf8 functions, your locales
1154 must be properly set up or else X will stop drawing strings at non-ascii
1155 characters instead of ignoring them. See my earlier rants on the mailing
1156 list for reasons on not using the more standard Xmb functions.
1157 To actually see any special characters, you must load the necessary fonts
1158 by specifying a comma-separated list of fonts to the font and `tab_font`
1159 draw.conf options. Multiple font loading does not work when Xft support
1160 is enabled at the time being.
1162 There has been a lot of changes in the config files, again, and I can
1163 promise there's still more to come. See the ChangeLog for details.
1164 If you want to use your old workspaces configurations, move them to
1165 `~/.ion-devel/saves` and replace the strings "WFrame" and "WWorkspace"
1166 with "WIonFrame" and "WIonWS", respectively.
1172 I've made the bugfix release as promised. Get it from the usual place.
1178 There's a new major development release available from Ion web page.
1179 Not many changes are visible to the end user, though, but a lot was
1180 rewritten to be more flexible and simpler; see the ChangeLog for a
1181 full account. The older development release is also still available
1182 because this release can not be considered as stable after major
1183 changes to the code. The most visible changes are
1185 * Changes in binding configuration
1186 * A (mostly) working full screen mode toggle (see below)
1187 * The ability to switch workspaces while dragging tabs (experimental)
1188 * The ability to re-read draw.conf without restarting Ion
1192 Some notes on full screen mode toggle:
1194 * Ion doesn't detect programs trying to leave full screen mode--it
1195 should be possible to devise some method using window properties,
1197 * At least Opera unmaps the window also before changing the size to
1198 enter full screen mode, so Ion doesn't remember the last frame.
1199 * Mozilla sometimes has trouble entering full screen mode but when it
1200 succeeds, Ion remembers the last frame. However, if
1201 `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` is used to leave the full screen mode
1202 started from Mozilla, Mozilla doesn't know that the mode has been
1205 Clearly there should be some method of communication between Ion and the
1206 programs for full screen toggles to fully work. At the moment I suggest
1207 using `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` instead of the programs' native toggles
1208 unless the program has some special full screen mode and you really want