5 It seems people are a bit slow, or only scaring them with a final
6 release makes them report issues. So, still no stable release but
7 a candidate, with many minor fixes and improvements wrt. important
8 omissions. The most important changes are better behaviour of the
9 unsplit operation, better handling of main window being closed
10 before a transient, and use of the workspace's working directory
11 for run query file name completion.
17 Another attempt at last "rc" release.
23 This release features a few minor fixes. If no major problems are
24 discovered, this is likely to be the last "rc" release before the
25 first and hopefully final "stable" release.
31 This fourth "rc" release fixes some minor bugs and omissions in
38 This third "rc" release again simply fixes some minor problems in
45 This is the second "rc" release, and contains primarily bug fixes
46 and other minor improvements.
52 This is the first "rc" or "(stable) release candidate" release of
53 Ion3. This means that there will not be any further major changes
54 to it. Bugs will be fixed, and as an exception to the general
55 feature freeze, some hooks may still be added, if deemed useful.
56 Translations may also be included. After no new bugs (that can not
57 be deemed features) have been found in this or following "rc"
58 releases, the stable Ion3 will be released.
60 Most of the changes in this release to the previous one already
61 are bug fixes, in addition to some general clean-up. Other notable
64 * Winprop matching improvements: it is possible to match against
65 `is_dockapp` and `is_transient` (booleans), and there's a hack
66 to support `class` and `instance` for dockapps too.
68 * The default configuration puts dockapps in the statusbar's
71 * The autoconf kludge has been removed, as I will have nothing
72 to do with it, and nobody else seems to support or maintain
75 * Tab numbers are displayed when releasing modifiers in the
78 Distributors should pay heed to the name policy notice in the
85 This may be the last "ds" release if Ion3; if all goes well, the next
86 release is likely to be an "rc". Some minor improvements will still
87 be done, and minor requests may be accepted, so be quick.
89 The most notable changes in this release from the previous one are:
91 * Transients and queries in too small frames are "unsqueezed" out
92 of them, unless disabled with `ioncore.set{ unsqueeze = false }`.
94 * Some changes in default `cfg_ion.lua`: instead of loading
95 various other files, just `cfg_default.lua` is loaded instead.
97 * `mod_tiling.untile` (available in the context menu) may be used
98 to decompose tilings into floating frames. (This is the approximate
99 opposite of `mod_tiling.mkbottom` and the "new tiling" context menu
102 * Improved context menus.
104 * Slightly improved defaults style, using the drawing engine's
105 added possibility of partial borders.
107 * Various fixes and other improvements, in particular in relation
114 * There's been changes in padding/spacing usage in styles. Frames
115 now surround stuff inside borders not with `spacing` pixels, but
116 with `padding_pixels`. Spacing is only used to space things within
117 the borders (all the tabs and the client window from each other).
118 Consequently, custom styles may need to be updated to reflect this,
119 by increasing the padding, possibly also altering/removing colour
120 (to set it to background colour).
122 * The use of drawing engine attributes has also changed, and strict
123 ordering of them in the styles is no longer necessary. Additionally,
124 much more attributes are supported, including the name of every
127 * Xinerama support is gone. In addition to being problematic as such,
128 it had bit-rotted, and I will not waste time fixing it.
130 * `ioncore.set` no longer supports the `default_ws_params` parameter
131 for configuring the default layout. It is replaced by
132 `ioncore.deflayout("default", { ... })`, which allows configuring
133 other layouts as well, known by `mod_query.query_workspace` (F9).
134 Some default layouts are configured in `cfg_layout.lua`.
136 * It is now possible to automatically create new workspaces for
137 windows with the `new_group` winprop.
143 There's nothing major in this release, primarily just some minor fixes
144 and tuning to the previous release, that it was time to release.
150 Mostly this release still fixes issues in the big 3ds-20061015 release,
151 but in addition there are some improvements in the query department:
153 * Query activation key now cycles completions (So e.g. the
154 in the context menu activated with META+M, this same key
155 can be used to cycle through the alternatives.) This does
156 not work for queries activated by submap bindings.
158 * Likewise, it is no longer necessary to specify the key to
159 use for cycling for `mod_menu.grabmenu`.
161 * Control+R can now be used for history completion in queries.
162 (Currently matching is done for full string up to 'point', but
163 this may be changed to substring match.)
165 * Note that the parametrisation of WEdln.complete has changed,
166 and the second cycle parameter must be 'next' now instead of
173 Fixes some (expected, but minor) issues in the previous release.
179 * WIonWS and WFloatWS and the corresponding modules are gone, and
180 your custom configuration files will be broken with regard to these.
181 However, a partial backwards compatibility hack exists for layout
184 The F9 and META-F9 bindings now by default create workspaces with
185 a tiled layout of two frames. To create an "empty" workspace,
186 corresponding to the old WFloatWS, use the context menu (META-M)
187 and choose "new-empty-workspace". It is also possible to change
190 * Note that if you restart from an old version to this new version of Ion,
191 transients will stop working as expected for already existing windows.
192 They will work for newly-created windows, however.
194 * There are a few new sets of binding (including one for `WClientWin`!),
195 and some old bindings may not work exactly as expected anymore. In
196 particular, those for switching to full-screen mode.
198 **It is probably best to start from scratch with your custom
201 * `WFrame.set_tabbar` is gone. If you absolutely want to get rid off
202 the tabs, you must change the frame's "mode" with `WFrame.set_mode`.
203 The mode "tiled-alt" has been intended for this, and the corresponding
204 "framed-tiled-alt" style defaults to `bar = "none"`.
206 * The rather popular `detach.lua` script from the scripts repository
207 is obsoleted now, as Ion includes detach functionality in itself.
208 To detach a window, use META-K D in the default bindings. To tile
209 an existing frame from a workspace that doesn't have a tiling yet,
216 Some notable changes in this release include
218 * Lua 5.1 is now required.
220 * Framed transients on by default now. New binding contexts
221 "WFrame.toplevel" and "WMPlex.toplevel" were added to allow
222 for separate sets of bindings for nested transient frames and
223 top-level frames. Some of the bindings in the default binding
224 maps that are likely to be unwanted on transient frames were
225 moved to these contexts. Old custom bindings will continue to
226 work unless they modify the defaults by unbinding some of the
229 * Pressing Mod1+K K in the default bindings now switches to any
230 region with the "activity" flag set (indicated by the a box
231 at a corner of the screen), if there's one, before cycling to
232 previously active region. The same effect can be achieved in
233 your custom bindings with
235 ioncore.activity_goto() or ioncore.goto_previous()
241 This release mostly features minor bugfixes and other improvements. The most
242 visible non-bugfix changes are:
244 * Faster "fontset" filling kludge: only `-misc-fixed-*` fonts are tried. Ion
245 should now load faster in UTF-8 environments, and usually with no less
246 fonts in the fontset than before. (UTF-8 string drawing still does not
247 fully utilise these fonts under XFree86, but it does under XOrg.)
249 * Experimental auto-show-completions support, which is also on by default
250 now. In this mode the Tab key can be used to cycle forward through the
251 completions, and Shift+Tab backwards. Modify the settings seen in the
252 new `mod_query.lua` to get normal Tab-completion, or change the completion
255 * The release scripts do not run automatically autoconf anymore so maybe
256 a few more people would look into the README first.
262 The most visible changes in this release are:
264 * Mod1+space now toggles the scratchpad by default and Mod1+D the dock.
266 * The `ion-(ssh|man|view|edit)` wrapper scripts were removed and instead
267 the programs used can be configured in Ion's configuration files.
269 * `ioncore.exec(_on)` also support the `:cmd` notation for "run cmd in
270 xterm" familiar from the run query. The `::cmd` notation can be used
271 to ask for enter to be pressed even when the program quit succesfully.
273 * Those with custom configuration files should note that many exported toggle
274 functions were changed and renamed, and now accept a string parameter
275 incidating whether to toggle, set or unset the property.
277 - `WClientwin.set_fullsreen` (replaces `WClientWin.toggle_fullscreen`)
278 - `WRegion.set_tagged` (replaces `WRegion.tag/untag/toggle_tag`)
279 - `WFrame.set_tabbar` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_tabbar`)
280 - `WFrame.set_shaded` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_shade`)
281 - `WFloatFrame.set_sticky` (replaces `WFloatFrame.toggle_sticky`)
282 - `WMPlex.l2_set_hidden` (replaces `WMPlex.l2_hide/show`)
283 - `mod_sp.set_shown(_on)` (replaces `mod_sp.toggle(_on)`)
284 - `mod_dock.set_floating_shown_on` (replaces `mod_dock.toggle_floating_on`)
285 - `WRegion.set_activity` (replaces `WRegion.clear_activity` and
286 `WRegion.notify_activity`)
288 For example, `WRegion.set_tagged(_, 'toggle')` should be used in place of
289 `WRegion.toggle_tagged(_)` now.
291 Obviously there are some other changes and fixes too. See the changelog
292 for details as usual.
298 This is mostly a bug fix release, but also features improved
299 `mod_query.query_exec` (F3 key) completion support. Script writers should be
300 aware that As a side effect of one of these bug fixes, many hooks are now
301 called in "protected mode" and can not call any functions that modify the
302 internal state of Ion, except ioncore.defer.
308 The most important changes in this release are:
310 * So-called "placeholders". With the help of these the positions of
311 full-screen windows are remembered in their original frames, and don't
312 just get inserted after currently active window when returning from
313 full-screen mode. Under a session manager placeholders are also used
314 to remember the original order of windows.
316 * Improved `mod_statusbar` and `ion-statusd` communication, and colouring
317 of important/critical meters.
319 * A number of small fixes.
325 This monthly snapshot adds a few new and improved features.
327 * 'Grabbed menus' that have a single cycling key and activate selected
328 entry when all modifiers have been released. See
330 <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/scripts/wcirculate.lua>
334 * Potentially blocking status meters are now in a separate ion-statusd
335 program. Please write your additional status meters that do not monitor
336 the state of Ion itself for ion-statusd (and contribute them in the
337 Ion3 scripts repository at <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/>).
338 For help on writing such status meters, see e.g. source for
339 `statusd_load` in `ext_statusbar/ion-statusd`.
341 * Floating splits are now supported on plain tiled workspaces as well as
342 on pane workspaces. To create such a split, use the workspace context
343 menu (Mod1+M by default) or write your own bindings.
345 * Line editor now supports history search; Control+Up/Down only scrolls
346 through history entries with matching initial part.
348 * Arbitrary winprop matching criteria is supported. Lua scripts have
349 access to X properties.
351 Of course there are some other minor fixes and improvements as well.
357 This release finally includes a usable (yet still incomplete) version
358 of the `mod_panews` workspace module (that has also bored the name 'autows'
359 and 'rubberws' previously). The final outcome is not exactly what I
360 initially planned, as those plans turned out not to be that workable.
361 Instead, what `mod_panews` does is add to the basic tiled ionws approach
362 overlappable splits and automatically filled panes that are initially
363 empty. Each window is classified and assigned to the pane matching that
364 classification. (The default classifications are T(erminal), V(iewer)
365 and M(iscellaneous).)
367 For a better feel for it, try it out yourself and please give feedback.
368 The overlapping panes may be a bit confusing (this is one place where
369 true translucency might actually be useful and not just eyecandy) at
370 first, but you'll get used to them if you use the feature, and e.g.
371 the Gimp works quite splendidly with the toolboxes in the 'M' pane and
372 image windows in the 'V' pane -- although the simple initial size-based
373 classification heuristics don't always get it right and overriding
374 winprops (setting: `panews_classification`) should eventually added.
376 In addition to the new module, this release adds support for translations
377 of program messages and the manual page, regardless of whether such is
378 of any use in a program like Ion or not. (Currently Finnish and Czech
379 translations are available.) Of course there are some bug fixes and
380 other minor additions as well, and the `./configure` script is also back,
381 the abandonment of libtool being final now.
387 The first thing you'll notice when you start up this release of Ion is
388 that isn't reading your old configuration that. The next thing you
389 should notice is a neat layout-adapting statusbar at the bottom of the
390 screen. That's right, Ion now includes an `ext_statusbar` Lua script that
391 is enabled by default and displays date/time/load/mail count in a
394 So why is it not reading your configuration and save files? Firstly,
395 all of the `.lua` files were renamed to be indicative of their purpose.
396 Secondly, there have been so many changes that your old files would be
399 The `.lua` files are now named as follows:
401 cfg_*.lua Configuration file that the user may wish to edit
402 look_*.lua Drawing engine style file
403 saved_*.lua Save file
404 mod_*.lua Module stub loader
405 ext_*.lua A bigger Lua extension without a C counterpart
406 so that it is not a module
408 The configuration file for `mod_foobar` or `ext_foobar`, if it has one, is,
409 of course, `cfg_foobar.lua`. In the topic of file names, also note that
410 the default installation paths and binary names have changed to include
411 the component '3' to reflect the situation with many binary packages
414 You perhaps noticed above that modules have stub loaders now, so the
415 user has no need to use the `ioncore.load_module` routine. All extensions
416 and additional configuration files can now be loaded with 'dopath'
417 (used to be 'include'). Also, the `menulib`, `querylib`, and `ioncorelib`
418 Lua libraries are gone and instead their contents can be found in the same
419 `mod_whatever` namespace with the corresponding module (the "stub" loader
420 for these modules is a bit more than just a stub...). Some may also
421 want to know that for `mod_*` and `ext_*` only the compiled .lc files are
422 now installed, and not the source `.lua` files, thus removing redundant
423 files and making the installation slightly smaller.
425 There are few other changes to the contents of the configuration files
426 as well, so you're probably best off simply rewriting your modified
427 configuration files based on the new defaults. There quite likely won't
428 be any more _big_ changes to the configuration files before the release
429 of final Ion3, wherever that will be. (Most likely we won't see 3rc:s
430 yet this year.) However, some functions and variables are still likely
431 to be renamed or changed.
433 In addition to being renamed, the layout savefile of this Ion release
434 is incompatible with older releases. This is due to the changes made
435 to the `WIonWS` (and `WAutoWS`) split tree code to make it more modularly
436 extensible with the new kinds of nodes that `WAutoWS` requires.
438 The `mod_autows` module has infact been through many changes since the
439 last release, and I think I have the final form of it finally figured
440 out. However, it is still far from finished and unlikely to be ready
447 The major new features of this snapshot release are:
449 * `WMPlex` support for a sticky status display area to which `WIonWS`s
450 adjust properly. Modified to the dock module to support this method.
451 See the new `dock.lua` to set up the dock in the new embedded or old
452 floating manner (the API for the latter has also changed).
453 * Primitive session management support.
455 There are also some bug fixes and many minor improvements; see the ChangeLog
456 for details. Work on `mod_autows` has also started, but it isn't ready for
460 ### Note on ./configure:
462 ./configure does not exist for the moment as the source autoconf script
463 is not up-to-date. Ion no longer uses libtool/libltdl due to problems
464 with inter-module dependencies, and I have not asked Tom Payne to fix
465 the script yet, as this change may not be final (although that is most
466 likely the case; those without Linux-compatible libdl and a flexible
467 binary format such as ELF will just have to link statically against the
471 ### Notes on session management:
473 Ion loads `mod_sm` automatically when the SESSION_MANAGER environment
474 variable that should be set by the session manager is set, so there's
475 no need load it in `ion.lua`.
477 When session management is in use, all entries in the 'Session' menu
478 (previously 'Exit' menu) actually invoke the session manager to do the
479 task. 'Save' asks the SM save the whole session and 'Exit' (ioncore.shutdown)
480 asks it to shut down the session instead of just causing the WM to quite.
481 To do the latter, use ioncore.resign.
483 Unfortunately, all session managers I have tried (from Debian/unstable),
484 are broken/incomplete in one way or another:
487 xsm: doesn't support any requests from applications. This makes Ion's
488 session menu complete unfunctional. The only way to restart/exit/save
489 state is through xsm's window.
492 gnome-session: This seems the most complete of the all the session managers
493 and works fine until it is requested to shut down the session, when it dumps
494 core and session state is lost if was not explicitly saved previously.
496 A `~/.gnome2/session` file to use with Ion follows:
502 0,RestartCommand=gnome-smproxy --sm-client-id default0
505 1,RestartCommand=/usr/local/ion-3/bin/ion -smclientid default1
508 ksmserver: Only supports a global shutdown request, so that Ion can not be
509 restarted or session state saved in the middle of a session.
515 This is the first development snapshot release of what is to be Ion3.
516 The most visible changes to Ion2 so far are:
518 * Default installation directory is `/usr/local/ion-3` while user
519 configuration files go in `~/.ion3`
521 * The `mod_sp` module was added. It creates an extra toggleable
522 "scratchpad" frame on each screen. Toggle is for now bound by default
523 to Mod1+section, which should be very conveniently located on most
524 Nordic keyboards (left of "1"), but you may have to change it. The
525 scratchpad should be nice for xconsole or similar monitors, xmessage
526 and other popups and just as temporary holding space for windows.
528 * All modules except the drawing engine are now called `mod_something`.
530 * Man-page complection supports a cache of known man-pages for faster
531 completion. See the README for instructions on setting up a cronjob
532 or manually generating the index if you want to use the feature.
533 Also `query_man_path` is no longer used. Instead we try the
534 `ION_MC_MANPATH` and `MANPATH` environment variables and the
537 * Exported functions are now separated into tables (namespaces)
538 instead of cluttering the globals table. Some frequently used
539 configuration functions are imported into the globals table, though.
540 Some functions have also been removed or renamed for simpler and
541 more consistent function set.
543 * New binding configuration mechanism. Dozens of `*_bindings` functions
544 were replaced with a single `[ioncorelib.]defbindings` function that
545 accepts a context parameter. Callbacks are specified as strings
546 (although passing functions still works) to make it easier for
547 external configuration programs to understand the configuration
548 files and perhaps remove some confusion among users who do not
549 care to read a tiny bit of Lua documentation and understand the
550 concept of anonymous functions.
552 * It is now also possible to retrieve a list of bindings with
553 `ioncorelib.getbindings`, for example, for self-documentation.
555 * Single move/resize mode bindings instead of separate for both
556 ionframe and floatframe.
558 There are also quite a few internal changes; see the ChangeLog for
559 details. No documentation tarball is available at the moment as the
560 documentation is out-of-date except for the function reference. If
561 you need the reference, just checkout the documentation from the
562 Subversion repository with
564 svn co http://tao.uab.es/ion/svn/ion-doc/trunk ion-doc-3ds
566 and build the documentation.
572 This release is finally what can be called "Ion 2 release candidate #1".
573 No more new features will be added to "Ion 2" after this release, and the
574 configuration interface has already been frozen for a while. I will wait a
575 couple of weeks for bug reports, and if nothing serious is found, the new
576 stable Ion should finally be released then.
578 The most notable changes since the previous release are:
580 * The dock module is included
581 * An optional autoconf script was added
582 * A few minor bugs were fixed
583 * Some incomplete features were polished, especially focus control on
585 * Changes in X keyboard map are supported now (so e.g. switching to
586 dvorak after Ion has started should update the bindings to match the
587 locations of symbols in the dvorak layout).
590 About the version numbering scheme:
592 Due to a demand of a version numbering scheme more indicative of the status
593 of the project, I was thinking of various different new version numbering
594 schemes for this release: ion-2rc1 (then 2r1, 3d1, etc.), ion-2-20040114-rc1,
595 ion-2.20040114rc1, ion-20040114-2rc1, etc.). It would've been nice if
596 simple lexicographical sorting could be used to order the packages, but
597 in the end I decided to stick with a scheme that is consistent with the
598 'ion-devel' package names:
600 project-branch_and_status-release_date
602 Therefore this release is 'ion-2rc-20040114', and the "stable" one will be
609 This is a big clean-up release. The most noticeable changes are that
610 '-devel' has been removed from path names, user configuration files go
611 in `~/.ion2/` and the main configuration file is 'ion.lua'. (The other
612 `ioncore-*.lua` files have also been renamed.) There have been no notable
613 changes in the configuration files themselves, so your old files will
614 work if you move them to the correct directory and rename the changed
615 files. (`mv ~/.ion-devel ~/.ion2; cd ~/.ion2; mv ioncore.lua ion.lua;`
618 This release also finally contains a working PWM binary. (The ioncore+
619 scripts scheme was replaced with separate binaries statically linked
620 to ioncore.a.) Floating workspaces now support edge snapping and
621 sticky windows, but some PWM features are probably still missing.
623 Some bugs were also fixed and users are now force-fed the manual page
624 the first time Ion is started. Transients can be toggled between
625 top/bottom of the main window with Mod1+K T. The SSH query uses
626 `~/.ssh/known_hosts` for completion instead of a manually defined list.
628 There may be a few additions (e.g. the dock) and bug fixes, of course,
629 before the stable release, but this release should pretty much be what
630 the new "stable" Ion should look like. Please upgrade to it to help
631 weed out the bugs. Note that you need to upgrade Lua to the 5.0.1
639 It's finally time for a new release on Ion's development branch. Most
640 likely this will also be the last "big" release before finally, after
641 almost two years, releasing a new "stable" version of Ion. A few bug
642 fix and code clean-up releases should appear in between, though.
644 The most important additions, changes and non-changes in this release
648 * A little less broken extended character set and string encoding
650 * Extended WM hints fullscreen request support
651 * Hopefully a little clarified configuration file layout
653 * And most important of all:
655 > Configuration files written for the previous release should
656 > still work this time!
658 (However, Ion will complain of old drawing engine styles.)
660 The menu module provides both drop-down menus (in the stock configuration
661 pressing Button3 on a tab should show a context menu) and query-like
662 "in-mplex" menus (F12: main menu at screen level; Mod1+M: the same context
663 menu as above at frame level).
665 What was done enhance support for strings (mostly window titles) in
666 languages that need more than 8-bit character sets is:
668 * Remove UTF8 restriction and support almost arbitrary multibyte
669 encodings instead. (Statefull encodings will not work and combining
670 characters can cause clutter. Both are a sign of bad encoding, IMHO.)
672 * The XCreateFontSet routine that is used to load fonts in the kind
673 of structure the X utf8 and multibyte routines want apparently wants
674 to be able to load glyphs for all character sets specified in the
675 locale and therefore often fails if only single font is specified.
676 Therefore a kludge was added that tries loading more fonts while
677 keeping the fonts' size the same. (The ",*" kludge could load huge
678 fonts). Unfortunately this has a noticeable effect in startup time :(.
680 * There is no longer a system.mk option to enable utf8 (now multibyte)
681 support, but must still specifically be enabled with the -i18n
682 command line switch, mostly thanks to troublesome utf-8 locales.
684 Because Xlib's UTF-8 string drawing code is broken and very unlikely to
685 be fixed, decent text output in an UTF-8 locale is still unlikely and
686 dependent on the fonts loaded in the system. The Xmb routines that are now
687 used always use an iso10646-1 font even if other fonts are loaded and the
688 unicode font does not contain a particular glyph to be drawn. The use of
689 the Xutf8 routines in an utf8 locale can be enabled with the
690 `CF_DE_USE_XUTF8` compile-time option. The advantage of this is that
691 these routines seem to choose the font to draw particular character in
692 most cases more sanely. The downside is that there are other more serious
693 problems with unknown characters.
695 All in all, even if I'd like to support a universal move to UTF-8, thanks
696 to Xlib brokenness I can't really recommend using UTF-8 locales with Ion
697 and the default drawing engine if there's a decent alternative encoding.
698 Most if not all other stateless encodings shouldn't have the problems
699 UTF-8 has. An alternative drawing engine that didn't use the Xlib i18n
700 string drawing routines might solve the troubles with utf-8 support.
704 If you have saved a custom system.mk, you'll need to set LUAC
705 point to the Lua compiler there as some of the share/ files
712 It's been a while since the previous release as I wanted to freeze the
713 Lua configuration/scripting interface for this release and therefore
714 finish work on a few things. Well, on my part the interface is frozen,
715 but I will still accept constructive complaints for a short time and
716 after that the implemented parts of the scripting interface will be
717 frozen. But in all likelihood, if no one has anything else to say, but
718 "it's ok", "it sucks", the interface will no longer change, only possibly
721 What's new for this release then?
723 * Drawing engine module support.
724 * OO-style exported functions. The old `class_fn` functions are now
725 `WClass.fn` (an ugly wrapper is provided in `compat.lua`).
726 * No more screen-specific configuration or savefiles.
727 * Session name (can be specified on command line) instead of display
728 name based savefiles. Also affects query history and not just workspace
730 * Bug fixes, most small and one bigger (almost complete rewrite of
731 the split resizing algorithm).
732 * Some documentation improvements.
734 Converting configuration files.
736 Old `.lua` colour schemes and workspace save files can be automatically
737 converted to a format suitable to be loaded by this latest release.
738 Other files will have to be ported manually. To convert colour schemes,
739 use the script `utils/lookconv.lua`. The usage is
741 lookconv.lua look-old.lua > look-new.lua
743 To convert workspaces savefiles, use the script `utils/saveconv.sh`.
746 saveconf.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-DISPLAY.*.lua \
747 > ~/.ion-devel/SESSIONNAME/workspaces.lua
749 `DISPLAY` here is the actual display part of `$DISPLAY`, probably just `:0`.
750 '*' stands for all screens (if you have only one screen you could do with
751 perhaps just `workspaces-:0.0.lua`). SESSIONNAME is the name of the session
752 where you want to use the converted savefiles. Default session name for
753 `DISPLAY` is `default-session-DISPLAY` with the colon in `DISPLAY` converted
754 to a dash. For most people this is `default-session--0`. In the simplest
755 case the whole command line is therefore
757 saveconv.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-:0.0.lua \
758 > ~/.ion-devel/default-session--0/workspaces.lua
760 The scripts may or may not work and are only provided as a potential
761 convenience that will not be maintained and will be removed eventually.
767 Quite a few bug fixes and one most likely unnoticeable improvement:
771 * Fixed pointer warping on screen change.
772 * A bug in grab handler calling code could crash Ion when leaving
773 keyboard resize mode manually.
774 * Resize display was showing incorrect values for keyboard resize.
778 * Client window last height request bookkeeping code had been lost
779 when configure request policy was changed. This caused transient
780 sizes to be calculated incorrectly.
781 * Return from full screen mode to floatws had been broken.
782 * As the number of dynamic functions has been getting bigger, the
783 functions are now sorted on first use and then binary-searched
784 instead of naive linear searching.
785 * Screen lookup had been broken for windows that are not properly
792 Just some bug fixes and minor behavioural changes and improvements in
799 This release fixes some small problems with the previous release and
800 adds a workaround kludge for the XFree86 textprop bug (it's been fixed
801 but no release with the fix is available) that could cause Opera to
802 crash Ion when UTF8 support was enabled. I also added the winprop
803 needed for galeon's find dialog to default `kludges.lua` and there's
804 some extra documentation and defaults for some systems in system.mk.
810 Most changes in this release centre around making Ion more tolerant
811 to broken configuration files; for details see the ChangeLog. There
812 are also changes in binding configuration as I already mentioned in
813 an earlier poting. Namely `common-frame-bindings.lua` is gone and the
814 bindings previously set there (into variables that the `*ws.lua`
815 files later referenced) were moved to `ioncore-bindings.lua` and are
816 set using the new functions `mplex_bindings` and `genframe_bindings`
817 are were added. Old modified configuration files should still work,
818 however, but if you use `make_active_leaf_fn`, you will need to
819 include `compat.lua` as the `global_bindings` that used this were
820 replaced by bindings in `mplex_bindings` and the function
821 `make_current_clientwin_fn`.
823 There are also some (minor) bug fixes and a few other improvements
824 worth a mention. In particular all regions are now given names of
825 the form `WFoobar<n>` by default and `DEFAULT_MOD.."F9"` was bound to
826 create a new workspace without asking for a name. This binding and
827 `QueryLib.query_workspace` use the workspace type defined in the
828 variable `default_ws_type` instead of being hardcoded to `WIonWS`.
830 All objects passed to Lua now have a unique userdata (a `WWatch`
831 cached in a weak table) so they can be used e.g. as indices to tables.
837 This release unifies some parts of `WScreen` and `WGenFrame`, which makes
838 screen-level queries possible. (Later the queries for small frames might
839 be changed to be shown at screen level.) The statusbar restriction from
840 ion-devel-20030531 was also removed by this some change and a few
841 non-fatal bugs have been fixed.
847 A bug was discovered:
851 * An off-by-one error in `extl_l1_finalize` caused references to some
852 Lua tables (including large completions) never to be released.
854 It could be that this bug was causing some other errors in Lua as well.
855 Sometimes QueryLib bindings failed because some function generators
856 returned nil although they shouldn't. Adding dummy lines (!) in those
857 functions fixed the problem and for some reason this patch also seemed
858 to remove those problems.
861 One more note: as `ioncorelib.lua` and `querylib.lua` are now installed
862 in `$SHAREDIR`, you must remove the old files in `$ETCDIR` if installing
863 over a previous release or else there will be errors. You should also
864 not use any possible old copies you have in `~/.ion-devel/`. (One of the
865 reasons for moving these to `$SHAREDIR` is to stop users from making
866 copies of them as they are not configuration files.)
872 As the subject line says, Ion-devel-20030531 was just released. The short
875 * The license was changed from the Clarified Artistic License to the
876 GNU Library/Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
877 * Screen, viewport and root window renames and other changes (see below).
878 * Some installation directory changes; the ion-* helper programs are now
879 installed either in `$SHAREDIR` or `$EXTRABINDIR` and QueryLib searches
880 for them on the script path (`~/.ion-devel/`, `$ETCDIR`, `$SHAREDIR`,
881 `$EXTRABINDIR`) instead of assuming them being on `$PATH`.
882 * Client windows are now in a separate namespace.
883 * Resize/maximize/shade changes: Shading should work on `WIonFrame`s too
884 and shade mode is automatic when the client area gets too small when
885 resizing. Maximize toggle restores frame to previous size if shaded
886 instead of maximizing. The move/resize mode bindings were changed again
887 to be more consistent and predictable: Left/Right/Up/Down and F/B/P/N
888 grow the frame in the specific direction, Shift+keys shrink and in
889 case of floating frames, `DEFAULT_MOD+keys` move
890 * Returning from full screen mode should work on `WFloatWS`s too.
891 * Lots of minor fixes, export additions and clean-up.
893 As usual, see the (long!) list of new ChangeLog entries at the end of
894 this message for details.
897 I've finally personally switched from the old "stable" 20020207 to using
898 the latest development release at home too and I must say that it is
899 finally starting to look good. There are still things to be written, but
900 unless you need "proven" stability, I see no reason to sticking to that
901 old release anymore. Unless, of course, if you find a problem that I have
902 not encountered or simply have no need for the new features and don't want
903 to port your configuration files.
906 On screens, viewports, root windows and problems with the new
909 The objects previously called "screens" are now called "root windows"
910 and what were called "viewports" are called "screens" to better reflect
911 what the user sees. (When Xinerama is not used there's no difference
912 between a root window and a screen, but when Xinerama is used a root
913 window may be split over multiple screens.)
915 This release also creates so-called virtual root windows for each
916 Xinerama screen when there are more than one. This is to better separate
917 the windows on different screens and thus emulate normal multihead, the
918 main difference being that windows can be moved between screens.
919 Especially the virtual roots are there to keep the windows that are on
920 a floatws on the right screen.
922 Virtual root windows will, however, break a few apps:
924 * Mozilla -remote won't work because of its crappy method for looking
925 up existing windows that can't handle multiple levels of WM windows.
926 Nested workspaces have the same problem. There is, however, a simple
927 solution to this problem: gnome-moz-remote. It seems to use a saner
928 method for looking up an existing Gecko browser and also works with
929 at least Phoenix/MozillaFirebird and Galeon.
931 These two are problems only if you use floatws:s (other problems with
932 which virtual root windows are intended to solve):
934 * The background-setting apps I am aware of will require a following
935 'xrefresh' for the changes to be updated to the (transparent) virtual
936 roots. Background setting apps that support the `_NET_VIRTUAL_ROOTS`
937 property (which, I think, was meant for root window-sized WS
938 backgrounds) could be used to set a separate background for each
939 Xinerama screen, though. I am not aware of any such app.
940 * Some apps' resize and move features will behave erratically on those
941 Xinerama screens not at (0, 0) on the root window. This is again
942 because the apps are assuming there's at most one WM window between
943 them and the root and are requesting windows' positions incorrectly.
944 The ICCCM is quite vague on this and I think _all_ apps that I have
945 tried are doing it wrong but the way e.g. XMMS does it certainly is
946 not an interpretation of the ICCCM. The apps that now behave correctly
947 request position for the outermost WM window. Nested workspaces have
950 There is one more temporary problem:
952 * Status bar modules (and the dock module's statusbar mode) will be
953 *temporarily* broken when virtual roots are _not_ used. This will be
954 fixed later when parts of screen and frame code are unified (it should
955 then be possible to run Ion without any workspace modules and have
956 queries attached to screens). In the meanwhile, if you don't care about
957 the above-mentioned problems and want a statusbar (which probably needs
958 to be ported to this release), you can defined `CF_ALWAYS_VIRTUAL_ROOT`
965 There are quite a few small fixes and minor enhancements invisible to
966 the user in this release. The splitting functions were renamed to be
967 more consistent and there are a couple of enhancements in the Lua code
968 query that should make it much more usable. First, tab-completion can
969 now descend into tables and complete subexpressions. Secondly, the local
970 variable `_` in addition to 'arg[1]' is set to point to the the frame in
971 which the query is executing.
973 I have also written some new documentation that is now available from
980 The most notable change in this release is that the `target_id` system
981 was removed and instead client window status is also saved over
982 restarts in the saves/workspaces-* files. (It shouldn't be too hard
983 to hook a session management module over this.) Thanks to this
984 modification, floatframes can also save their status now. Note
985 that if you restart from older version of Ion to this one, client
986 window layout will be messed up.
988 There are also a few bug fixes and code to save and load line editor
995 There are lots of minor improvements in this release, see the
996 new ChangeLog entries for details.
1002 Some minor feature enhancements and a few fixes in this new release:
1004 The file system scanning completions are now put in the background
1005 by receiving the data from external programs through pipes and select()
1006 for data in the main event loop. This way long taking completions don't
1007 block Ion from processing other events and NFS problems shouldn't hang
1010 Basic window stacking management support code was added. Transients
1011 on floatws:s should now be stacked above their parents. If you don't
1012 want to change your modified binding configurations at this point and
1013 need the functions `floatframe_raise/lower`, include `compat.lua`.
1019 This release again fixes some minor problems and enhances a few
1020 features. Most of the enhancements are related to UTF8 support and
1021 the floatws module. If UTF8 support is enabled, Ion now tries to
1022 load the "fixed" font at startup after setting up locales. If locales
1023 aren't properly set up, this probably fails and Ion will reset locale
1024 back to "POSIX" as this might make fonts loadable although support for
1025 non-ASCII characters will be crippled. It might now be safe for
1026 package maintainers to enable UTF8 support by default
1028 As apps seem to have switched to using `_NET_WM_NAME` for UTF8 titles
1029 and filling `WM_NAME` with crap, this property is also preferred over
1030 `WM_NAME` if set. Support for some other "extended" WM hints might be
1031 added in the future but I have no intentions of moking Ion NetWM-
1032 compliant. I might have thought of attempting to do so a few years
1033 ago when I last read the specification but it seems that since then
1034 they've filled it with lots of pointless bloat that may even be in
1035 opposition to Ion's goals. Take multi-parent transients, for example.
1037 Full error log is also displayed with xmessage on startup whether
1038 it is possible to continue or not.
1044 There was a bug in QueryLib written yesterday, therefore this release.
1050 I started converting the query code to Lua and discovered some rather
1051 silly bugs in the Lua interface so here's a new release with the new
1052 and improved query code included. The names of queries have changed
1053 (they're all in the table QueryLib defined in `querylib.lua` -- only
1054 `query_query` and a few temporary handlers are implemented in query.so)
1055 so your modified configuration files will be broken again :(.
1061 Be prepared to completely rewrite your configuration files once
1062 again: a new version of Ion-devel has been released that uses Lua
1063 <http://www.lua.org/> for all configuration. Version 5.0 of the
1064 language/library is required. Although scripting possibilities
1065 are now much better than before, there is one rather big drawback:
1066 Lua is not nearly as error-tolerant as Ion's old configuration
1067 parser so a syntax error in a file will cause the file not to be
1068 executed and may even cause Ion not to be able to start. More
1069 comments and documentation on scripting will follow at a later time.
1071 Libtool and libltdl are also now used to implement module support.
1072 Hopefully this will make compiling Ion easier on a wider range of
1073 platforms. (On the other hand, this could also induce new problems.)
1075 Finally, the preferred linking address for Ion's home page is now
1076 <http://www.iki.fi/tuomov/ion/>. The pages are still located at the
1077 old address, but this redirected address should be more permanent.
1083 Just some minor fixes, binary rename and better embedded workspace
1084 support in this release. I'm still contemplating whether to convert
1085 Ion to C++ and haven't written many things that I intended to as
1086 that decision will affect how those are implemented.
1088 To create an embedded workspaces in a frame, at the moment you have
1089 to modify the appropriate workspace save file (when Ion is not running!)
1090 by adding lines such as
1092 region "WFloatWS", "testiupotus" {
1095 inside the frame definition after the other options (flags, `target_id`;
1096 those options will be ignored if after any region definitions).
1098 One more thing to note: debugging infos are no longer automatically
1099 stripped from the ioncore binary or modules by 'make install' so that
1100 I don't have to explain how to get proper backtraces every time a bug
1101 is found. If you you are confident that you can send me proper backtraces
1102 when you find a bug (or maybe can fix it yourself), you can make the
1103 binary and the modules a _lot_ smaller by running 'strip' on them.
1109 The list of new ChangeLog entries is long this time, but I'm finally
1110 starting to get to what I started working on almost two years ago. Yes,
1111 there is *experimental* support for PWM-like "floating frame" workspaces.
1112 A lot of the functionality is still missing -- no need to complain of
1113 such at the time -- but the floatws.so module and basic functionality
1114 is there. Most notably perhaps a menu module is not yet implemented.
1115 (Porting the PWM menu code should a nice little task for whomever
1116 interested... *wink*.) To create some PWM workspaces, load the floatws.so
1117 module (should be loaded by default) and in `query_workspace` (F9)
1118 prefix workspace name with 'WFloatWS:' (or load the module before
1121 This release is also finally fully modularised: In addition to the
1122 ion core binary that can not function alone, there are the modules
1123 ionws.so, floatws.so and query.so. It is also possible statically
1124 compile the modules in the core binary if the system doesn't support
1127 There's also *experimental* UTF8 support that must be specifically
1128 enabled from system.mk. You must have XFree86 (4.x?) and C99 wide
1129 char support available (either libc directly or maybe libutf8+libiconv).
1130 Thanks to bugs (?) in some of the XFree86 Xutf8 functions, your locales
1131 must be properly set up or else X will stop drawing strings at non-ascii
1132 characters instead of ignoring them. See my earlier rants on the mailing
1133 list for reasons on not using the more standard Xmb functions.
1134 To actually see any special characters, you must load the necessary fonts
1135 by specifying a comma-separated list of fonts to the font and `tab_font`
1136 draw.conf options. Multiple font loading does not work when Xft support
1137 is enabled at the time being.
1139 There has been a lot of changes in the config files, again, and I can
1140 promise there's still more to come. See the ChangeLog for details.
1141 If you want to use your old workspaces configurations, move them to
1142 `~/.ion-devel/saves` and replace the strings "WFrame" and "WWorkspace"
1143 with "WIonFrame" and "WIonWS", respectively.
1149 I've made the bugfix release as promised. Get it from the usual place.
1155 There's a new major development release available from Ion web page.
1156 Not many changes are visible to the end user, though, but a lot was
1157 rewritten to be more flexible and simpler; see the ChangeLog for a
1158 full account. The older development release is also still available
1159 because this release can not be considered as stable after major
1160 changes to the code. The most visible changes are
1162 * Changes in binding configuration
1163 * A (mostly) working full screen mode toggle (see below)
1164 * The ability to switch workspaces while dragging tabs (experimental)
1165 * The ability to re-read draw.conf without restarting Ion
1169 Some notes on full screen mode toggle:
1171 * Ion doesn't detect programs trying to leave full screen mode--it
1172 should be possible to devise some method using window properties,
1174 * At least Opera unmaps the window also before changing the size to
1175 enter full screen mode, so Ion doesn't remember the last frame.
1176 * Mozilla sometimes has trouble entering full screen mode but when it
1177 succeeds, Ion remembers the last frame. However, if
1178 `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` is used to leave the full screen mode
1179 started from Mozilla, Mozilla doesn't know that the mode has been
1182 Clearly there should be some method of communication between Ion and the
1183 programs for full screen toggles to fully work. At the moment I suggest
1184 using `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` instead of the programs' native toggles
1185 unless the program has some special full screen mode and you really want