5 This third "rc" release again simply fixes some minor problems in
12 This is the second "rc" release, and contains primarily bug fixes
13 and other minor improvements.
19 This is the first "rc" or "(stable) release candidate" release of
20 Ion3. This means that there will not be any further major changes
21 to it. Bugs will be fixed, and as an exception to the general
22 feature freeze, some hooks may still be added, if deemed useful.
23 Translations may also be included. After no new bugs (that can not
24 be deemed features) have been found in this or following "rc"
25 releases, the stable Ion3 will be released.
27 Most of the changes in this release to the previous one already
28 are bug fixes, in addition to some general clean-up. Other notable
31 * Winprop matching improvements: it is possible to match against
32 `is_dockapp` and `is_transient` (booleans), and there's a hack
33 to support `class` and `instance` for dockapps too.
35 * The default configuration puts dockapps in the statusbar's
38 * The autoconf kludge has been removed, as I will have nothing
39 to do with it, and nobody else seems to support or maintain
42 * Tab numbers are displayed when releasing modifiers in the
45 Distributors should pay heed to the name policy notice in the
52 This may be the last "ds" release if Ion3; if all goes well, the next
53 release is likely to be an "rc". Some minor improvements will still
54 be done, and minor requests may be accepted, so be quick.
56 The most notable changes in this release from the previous one are:
58 * Transients and queries in too small frames are "unsqueezed" out
59 of them, unless disabled with `ioncore.set{ unsqueeze = false }`.
61 * Some changes in default `cfg_ion.lua`: instead of loading
62 various other files, just `cfg_default.lua` is loaded instead.
64 * `mod_tiling.untile` (available in the context menu) may be used
65 to decompose tilings into floating frames. (This is the approximate
66 opposite of `mod_tiling.mkbottom` and the "new tiling" context menu
69 * Improved context menus.
71 * Slightly improved defaults style, using the drawing engine's
72 added possibility of partial borders.
74 * Various fixes and other improvements, in particular in relation
81 * There's been changes in padding/spacing usage in styles. Frames
82 now surround stuff inside borders not with `spacing` pixels, but
83 with `padding_pixels`. Spacing is only used to space things within
84 the borders (all the tabs and the client window from each other).
85 Consequently, custom styles may need to be updated to reflect this,
86 by increasing the padding, possibly also altering/removing colour
87 (to set it to background colour).
89 * The use of drawing engine attributes has also changed, and strict
90 ordering of them in the styles is no longer necessary. Additionally,
91 much more attributes are supported, including the name of every
94 * Xinerama support is gone. In addition to being problematic as such,
95 it had bit-rotted, and I will not waste time fixing it.
97 * `ioncore.set` no longer supports the `default_ws_params` parameter
98 for configuring the default layout. It is replaced by
99 `ioncore.deflayout("default", { ... })`, which allows configuring
100 other layouts as well, known by `mod_query.query_workspace` (F9).
101 Some default layouts are configured in `cfg_layout.lua`.
103 * It is now possible to automatically create new workspaces for
104 windows with the `new_group` winprop.
110 There's nothing major in this release, primarily just some minor fixes
111 and tuning to the previous release, that it was time to release.
117 Mostly this release still fixes issues in the big 3ds-20061015 release,
118 but in addition there are some improvements in the query department:
120 * Query activation key now cycles completions (So e.g. the
121 in the context menu activated with META+M, this same key
122 can be used to cycle through the alternatives.) This does
123 not work for queries activated by submap bindings.
125 * Likewise, it is no longer necessary to specify the key to
126 use for cycling for `mod_menu.grabmenu`.
128 * Control+R can now be used for history completion in queries.
129 (Currently matching is done for full string up to 'point', but
130 this may be changed to substring match.)
132 * Note that the parametrisation of WEdln.complete has changed,
133 and the second cycle parameter must be 'next' now instead of
140 Fixes some (expected, but minor) issues in the previous release.
146 * WIonWS and WFloatWS and the corresponding modules are gone, and
147 your custom configuration files will be broken with regard to these.
148 However, a partial backwards compatibility hack exists for layout
151 The F9 and META-F9 bindings now by default create workspaces with
152 a tiled layout of two frames. To create an "empty" workspace,
153 corresponding to the old WFloatWS, use the context menu (META-M)
154 and choose "new-empty-workspace". It is also possible to change
157 * Note that if you restart from an old version to this new version of Ion,
158 transients will stop working as expected for already existing windows.
159 They will work for newly-created windows, however.
161 * There are a few new sets of binding (including one for `WClientWin`!),
162 and some old bindings may not work exactly as expected anymore. In
163 particular, those for switching to full-screen mode.
165 **It is probably best to start from scratch with your custom
168 * `WFrame.set_tabbar` is gone. If you absolutely want to get rid off
169 the tabs, you must change the frame's "mode" with `WFrame.set_mode`.
170 The mode "tiled-alt" has been intended for this, and the corresponding
171 "framed-tiled-alt" style defaults to `bar = "none"`.
173 * The rather popular `detach.lua` script from the scripts repository
174 is obsoleted now, as Ion includes detach functionality in itself.
175 To detach a window, use META-K D in the default bindings. To tile
176 an existing frame from a workspace that doesn't have a tiling yet,
183 Some notable changes in this release include
185 * Lua 5.1 is now required.
187 * Framed transients on by default now. New binding contexts
188 "WFrame.toplevel" and "WMPlex.toplevel" were added to allow
189 for separate sets of bindings for nested transient frames and
190 top-level frames. Some of the bindings in the default binding
191 maps that are likely to be unwanted on transient frames were
192 moved to these contexts. Old custom bindings will continue to
193 work unless they modify the defaults by unbinding some of the
196 * Pressing Mod1+K K in the default bindings now switches to any
197 region with the "activity" flag set (indicated by the a box
198 at a corner of the screen), if there's one, before cycling to
199 previously active region. The same effect can be achieved in
200 your custom bindings with
202 ioncore.activity_goto() or ioncore.goto_previous()
208 This release mostly features minor bugfixes and other improvements. The most
209 visible non-bugfix changes are:
211 * Faster "fontset" filling kludge: only `-misc-fixed-*` fonts are tried. Ion
212 should now load faster in UTF-8 environments, and usually with no less
213 fonts in the fontset than before. (UTF-8 string drawing still does not
214 fully utilise these fonts under XFree86, but it does under XOrg.)
216 * Experimental auto-show-completions support, which is also on by default
217 now. In this mode the Tab key can be used to cycle forward through the
218 completions, and Shift+Tab backwards. Modify the settings seen in the
219 new `mod_query.lua` to get normal Tab-completion, or change the completion
222 * The release scripts do not run automatically autoconf anymore so maybe
223 a few more people would look into the README first.
229 The most visible changes in this release are:
231 * Mod1+space now toggles the scratchpad by default and Mod1+D the dock.
233 * The `ion-(ssh|man|view|edit)` wrapper scripts were removed and instead
234 the programs used can be configured in Ion's configuration files.
236 * `ioncore.exec(_on)` also support the `:cmd` notation for "run cmd in
237 xterm" familiar from the run query. The `::cmd` notation can be used
238 to ask for enter to be pressed even when the program quit succesfully.
240 * Those with custom configuration files should note that many exported toggle
241 functions were changed and renamed, and now accept a string parameter
242 incidating whether to toggle, set or unset the property.
244 - `WClientwin.set_fullsreen` (replaces `WClientWin.toggle_fullscreen`)
245 - `WRegion.set_tagged` (replaces `WRegion.tag/untag/toggle_tag`)
246 - `WFrame.set_tabbar` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_tabbar`)
247 - `WFrame.set_shaded` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_shade`)
248 - `WFloatFrame.set_sticky` (replaces `WFloatFrame.toggle_sticky`)
249 - `WMPlex.l2_set_hidden` (replaces `WMPlex.l2_hide/show`)
250 - `mod_sp.set_shown(_on)` (replaces `mod_sp.toggle(_on)`)
251 - `mod_dock.set_floating_shown_on` (replaces `mod_dock.toggle_floating_on`)
252 - `WRegion.set_activity` (replaces `WRegion.clear_activity` and
253 `WRegion.notify_activity`)
255 For example, `WRegion.set_tagged(_, 'toggle')` should be used in place of
256 `WRegion.toggle_tagged(_)` now.
258 Obviously there are some other changes and fixes too. See the changelog
259 for details as usual.
265 This is mostly a bug fix release, but also features improved
266 `mod_query.query_exec` (F3 key) completion support. Script writers should be
267 aware that As a side effect of one of these bug fixes, many hooks are now
268 called in "protected mode" and can not call any functions that modify the
269 internal state of Ion, except ioncore.defer.
275 The most important changes in this release are:
277 * So-called "placeholders". With the help of these the positions of
278 full-screen windows are remembered in their original frames, and don't
279 just get inserted after currently active window when returning from
280 full-screen mode. Under a session manager placeholders are also used
281 to remember the original order of windows.
283 * Improved `mod_statusbar` and `ion-statusd` communication, and colouring
284 of important/critical meters.
286 * A number of small fixes.
292 This monthly snapshot adds a few new and improved features.
294 * 'Grabbed menus' that have a single cycling key and activate selected
295 entry when all modifiers have been released. See
297 <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/scripts/wcirculate.lua>
301 * Potentially blocking status meters are now in a separate ion-statusd
302 program. Please write your additional status meters that do not monitor
303 the state of Ion itself for ion-statusd (and contribute them in the
304 Ion3 scripts repository at <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/>).
305 For help on writing such status meters, see e.g. source for
306 `statusd_load` in `ext_statusbar/ion-statusd`.
308 * Floating splits are now supported on plain tiled workspaces as well as
309 on pane workspaces. To create such a split, use the workspace context
310 menu (Mod1+M by default) or write your own bindings.
312 * Line editor now supports history search; Control+Up/Down only scrolls
313 through history entries with matching initial part.
315 * Arbitrary winprop matching criteria is supported. Lua scripts have
316 access to X properties.
318 Of course there are some other minor fixes and improvements as well.
324 This release finally includes a usable (yet still incomplete) version
325 of the `mod_panews` workspace module (that has also bored the name 'autows'
326 and 'rubberws' previously). The final outcome is not exactly what I
327 initially planned, as those plans turned out not to be that workable.
328 Instead, what `mod_panews` does is add to the basic tiled ionws approach
329 overlappable splits and automatically filled panes that are initially
330 empty. Each window is classified and assigned to the pane matching that
331 classification. (The default classifications are T(erminal), V(iewer)
332 and M(iscellaneous).)
334 For a better feel for it, try it out yourself and please give feedback.
335 The overlapping panes may be a bit confusing (this is one place where
336 true translucency might actually be useful and not just eyecandy) at
337 first, but you'll get used to them if you use the feature, and e.g.
338 the Gimp works quite splendidly with the toolboxes in the 'M' pane and
339 image windows in the 'V' pane -- although the simple initial size-based
340 classification heuristics don't always get it right and overriding
341 winprops (setting: `panews_classification`) should eventually added.
343 In addition to the new module, this release adds support for translations
344 of program messages and the manual page, regardless of whether such is
345 of any use in a program like Ion or not. (Currently Finnish and Czech
346 translations are available.) Of course there are some bug fixes and
347 other minor additions as well, and the `./configure` script is also back,
348 the abandonment of libtool being final now.
354 The first thing you'll notice when you start up this release of Ion is
355 that isn't reading your old configuration that. The next thing you
356 should notice is a neat layout-adapting statusbar at the bottom of the
357 screen. That's right, Ion now includes an `ext_statusbar` Lua script that
358 is enabled by default and displays date/time/load/mail count in a
361 So why is it not reading your configuration and save files? Firstly,
362 all of the `.lua` files were renamed to be indicative of their purpose.
363 Secondly, there have been so many changes that your old files would be
366 The `.lua` files are now named as follows:
368 cfg_*.lua Configuration file that the user may wish to edit
369 look_*.lua Drawing engine style file
370 saved_*.lua Save file
371 mod_*.lua Module stub loader
372 ext_*.lua A bigger Lua extension without a C counterpart
373 so that it is not a module
375 The configuration file for `mod_foobar` or `ext_foobar`, if it has one, is,
376 of course, `cfg_foobar.lua`. In the topic of file names, also note that
377 the default installation paths and binary names have changed to include
378 the component '3' to reflect the situation with many binary packages
381 You perhaps noticed above that modules have stub loaders now, so the
382 user has no need to use the `ioncore.load_module` routine. All extensions
383 and additional configuration files can now be loaded with 'dopath'
384 (used to be 'include'). Also, the `menulib`, `querylib`, and `ioncorelib`
385 Lua libraries are gone and instead their contents can be found in the same
386 `mod_whatever` namespace with the corresponding module (the "stub" loader
387 for these modules is a bit more than just a stub...). Some may also
388 want to know that for `mod_*` and `ext_*` only the compiled .lc files are
389 now installed, and not the source `.lua` files, thus removing redundant
390 files and making the installation slightly smaller.
392 There are few other changes to the contents of the configuration files
393 as well, so you're probably best off simply rewriting your modified
394 configuration files based on the new defaults. There quite likely won't
395 be any more _big_ changes to the configuration files before the release
396 of final Ion3, wherever that will be. (Most likely we won't see 3rc:s
397 yet this year.) However, some functions and variables are still likely
398 to be renamed or changed.
400 In addition to being renamed, the layout savefile of this Ion release
401 is incompatible with older releases. This is due to the changes made
402 to the `WIonWS` (and `WAutoWS`) split tree code to make it more modularly
403 extensible with the new kinds of nodes that `WAutoWS` requires.
405 The `mod_autows` module has infact been through many changes since the
406 last release, and I think I have the final form of it finally figured
407 out. However, it is still far from finished and unlikely to be ready
414 The major new features of this snapshot release are:
416 * `WMPlex` support for a sticky status display area to which `WIonWS`s
417 adjust properly. Modified to the dock module to support this method.
418 See the new `dock.lua` to set up the dock in the new embedded or old
419 floating manner (the API for the latter has also changed).
420 * Primitive session management support.
422 There are also some bug fixes and many minor improvements; see the ChangeLog
423 for details. Work on `mod_autows` has also started, but it isn't ready for
427 ### Note on ./configure:
429 ./configure does not exist for the moment as the source autoconf script
430 is not up-to-date. Ion no longer uses libtool/libltdl due to problems
431 with inter-module dependencies, and I have not asked Tom Payne to fix
432 the script yet, as this change may not be final (although that is most
433 likely the case; those without Linux-compatible libdl and a flexible
434 binary format such as ELF will just have to link statically against the
438 ### Notes on session management:
440 Ion loads `mod_sm` automatically when the SESSION_MANAGER environment
441 variable that should be set by the session manager is set, so there's
442 no need load it in `ion.lua`.
444 When session management is in use, all entries in the 'Session' menu
445 (previously 'Exit' menu) actually invoke the session manager to do the
446 task. 'Save' asks the SM save the whole session and 'Exit' (ioncore.shutdown)
447 asks it to shut down the session instead of just causing the WM to quite.
448 To do the latter, use ioncore.resign.
450 Unfortunately, all session managers I have tried (from Debian/unstable),
451 are broken/incomplete in one way or another:
454 xsm: doesn't support any requests from applications. This makes Ion's
455 session menu complete unfunctional. The only way to restart/exit/save
456 state is through xsm's window.
459 gnome-session: This seems the most complete of the all the session managers
460 and works fine until it is requested to shut down the session, when it dumps
461 core and session state is lost if was not explicitly saved previously.
463 A `~/.gnome2/session` file to use with Ion follows:
469 0,RestartCommand=gnome-smproxy --sm-client-id default0
472 1,RestartCommand=/usr/local/ion-3/bin/ion -smclientid default1
475 ksmserver: Only supports a global shutdown request, so that Ion can not be
476 restarted or session state saved in the middle of a session.
482 This is the first development snapshot release of what is to be Ion3.
483 The most visible changes to Ion2 so far are:
485 * Default installation directory is `/usr/local/ion-3` while user
486 configuration files go in `~/.ion3`
488 * The `mod_sp` module was added. It creates an extra toggleable
489 "scratchpad" frame on each screen. Toggle is for now bound by default
490 to Mod1+section, which should be very conveniently located on most
491 Nordic keyboards (left of "1"), but you may have to change it. The
492 scratchpad should be nice for xconsole or similar monitors, xmessage
493 and other popups and just as temporary holding space for windows.
495 * All modules except the drawing engine are now called `mod_something`.
497 * Man-page complection supports a cache of known man-pages for faster
498 completion. See the README for instructions on setting up a cronjob
499 or manually generating the index if you want to use the feature.
500 Also `query_man_path` is no longer used. Instead we try the
501 `ION_MC_MANPATH` and `MANPATH` environment variables and the
504 * Exported functions are now separated into tables (namespaces)
505 instead of cluttering the globals table. Some frequently used
506 configuration functions are imported into the globals table, though.
507 Some functions have also been removed or renamed for simpler and
508 more consistent function set.
510 * New binding configuration mechanism. Dozens of `*_bindings` functions
511 were replaced with a single `[ioncorelib.]defbindings` function that
512 accepts a context parameter. Callbacks are specified as strings
513 (although passing functions still works) to make it easier for
514 external configuration programs to understand the configuration
515 files and perhaps remove some confusion among users who do not
516 care to read a tiny bit of Lua documentation and understand the
517 concept of anonymous functions.
519 * It is now also possible to retrieve a list of bindings with
520 `ioncorelib.getbindings`, for example, for self-documentation.
522 * Single move/resize mode bindings instead of separate for both
523 ionframe and floatframe.
525 There are also quite a few internal changes; see the ChangeLog for
526 details. No documentation tarball is available at the moment as the
527 documentation is out-of-date except for the function reference. If
528 you need the reference, just checkout the documentation from the
529 Subversion repository with
531 svn co http://tao.uab.es/ion/svn/ion-doc/trunk ion-doc-3ds
533 and build the documentation.
539 This release is finally what can be called "Ion 2 release candidate #1".
540 No more new features will be added to "Ion 2" after this release, and the
541 configuration interface has already been frozen for a while. I will wait a
542 couple of weeks for bug reports, and if nothing serious is found, the new
543 stable Ion should finally be released then.
545 The most notable changes since the previous release are:
547 * The dock module is included
548 * An optional autoconf script was added
549 * A few minor bugs were fixed
550 * Some incomplete features were polished, especially focus control on
552 * Changes in X keyboard map are supported now (so e.g. switching to
553 dvorak after Ion has started should update the bindings to match the
554 locations of symbols in the dvorak layout).
557 About the version numbering scheme:
559 Due to a demand of a version numbering scheme more indicative of the status
560 of the project, I was thinking of various different new version numbering
561 schemes for this release: ion-2rc1 (then 2r1, 3d1, etc.), ion-2-20040114-rc1,
562 ion-2.20040114rc1, ion-20040114-2rc1, etc.). It would've been nice if
563 simple lexicographical sorting could be used to order the packages, but
564 in the end I decided to stick with a scheme that is consistent with the
565 'ion-devel' package names:
567 project-branch_and_status-release_date
569 Therefore this release is 'ion-2rc-20040114', and the "stable" one will be
576 This is a big clean-up release. The most noticeable changes are that
577 '-devel' has been removed from path names, user configuration files go
578 in `~/.ion2/` and the main configuration file is 'ion.lua'. (The other
579 `ioncore-*.lua` files have also been renamed.) There have been no notable
580 changes in the configuration files themselves, so your old files will
581 work if you move them to the correct directory and rename the changed
582 files. (`mv ~/.ion-devel ~/.ion2; cd ~/.ion2; mv ioncore.lua ion.lua;`
585 This release also finally contains a working PWM binary. (The ioncore+
586 scripts scheme was replaced with separate binaries statically linked
587 to ioncore.a.) Floating workspaces now support edge snapping and
588 sticky windows, but some PWM features are probably still missing.
590 Some bugs were also fixed and users are now force-fed the manual page
591 the first time Ion is started. Transients can be toggled between
592 top/bottom of the main window with Mod1+K T. The SSH query uses
593 `~/.ssh/known_hosts` for completion instead of a manually defined list.
595 There may be a few additions (e.g. the dock) and bug fixes, of course,
596 before the stable release, but this release should pretty much be what
597 the new "stable" Ion should look like. Please upgrade to it to help
598 weed out the bugs. Note that you need to upgrade Lua to the 5.0.1
606 It's finally time for a new release on Ion's development branch. Most
607 likely this will also be the last "big" release before finally, after
608 almost two years, releasing a new "stable" version of Ion. A few bug
609 fix and code clean-up releases should appear in between, though.
611 The most important additions, changes and non-changes in this release
615 * A little less broken extended character set and string encoding
617 * Extended WM hints fullscreen request support
618 * Hopefully a little clarified configuration file layout
620 * And most important of all:
622 > Configuration files written for the previous release should
623 > still work this time!
625 (However, Ion will complain of old drawing engine styles.)
627 The menu module provides both drop-down menus (in the stock configuration
628 pressing Button3 on a tab should show a context menu) and query-like
629 "in-mplex" menus (F12: main menu at screen level; Mod1+M: the same context
630 menu as above at frame level).
632 What was done enhance support for strings (mostly window titles) in
633 languages that need more than 8-bit character sets is:
635 * Remove UTF8 restriction and support almost arbitrary multibyte
636 encodings instead. (Statefull encodings will not work and combining
637 characters can cause clutter. Both are a sign of bad encoding, IMHO.)
639 * The XCreateFontSet routine that is used to load fonts in the kind
640 of structure the X utf8 and multibyte routines want apparently wants
641 to be able to load glyphs for all character sets specified in the
642 locale and therefore often fails if only single font is specified.
643 Therefore a kludge was added that tries loading more fonts while
644 keeping the fonts' size the same. (The ",*" kludge could load huge
645 fonts). Unfortunately this has a noticeable effect in startup time :(.
647 * There is no longer a system.mk option to enable utf8 (now multibyte)
648 support, but must still specifically be enabled with the -i18n
649 command line switch, mostly thanks to troublesome utf-8 locales.
651 Because Xlib's UTF-8 string drawing code is broken and very unlikely to
652 be fixed, decent text output in an UTF-8 locale is still unlikely and
653 dependent on the fonts loaded in the system. The Xmb routines that are now
654 used always use an iso10646-1 font even if other fonts are loaded and the
655 unicode font does not contain a particular glyph to be drawn. The use of
656 the Xutf8 routines in an utf8 locale can be enabled with the
657 `CF_DE_USE_XUTF8` compile-time option. The advantage of this is that
658 these routines seem to choose the font to draw particular character in
659 most cases more sanely. The downside is that there are other more serious
660 problems with unknown characters.
662 All in all, even if I'd like to support a universal move to UTF-8, thanks
663 to Xlib brokenness I can't really recommend using UTF-8 locales with Ion
664 and the default drawing engine if there's a decent alternative encoding.
665 Most if not all other stateless encodings shouldn't have the problems
666 UTF-8 has. An alternative drawing engine that didn't use the Xlib i18n
667 string drawing routines might solve the troubles with utf-8 support.
671 If you have saved a custom system.mk, you'll need to set LUAC
672 point to the Lua compiler there as some of the share/ files
679 It's been a while since the previous release as I wanted to freeze the
680 Lua configuration/scripting interface for this release and therefore
681 finish work on a few things. Well, on my part the interface is frozen,
682 but I will still accept constructive complaints for a short time and
683 after that the implemented parts of the scripting interface will be
684 frozen. But in all likelihood, if no one has anything else to say, but
685 "it's ok", "it sucks", the interface will no longer change, only possibly
688 What's new for this release then?
690 * Drawing engine module support.
691 * OO-style exported functions. The old `class_fn` functions are now
692 `WClass.fn` (an ugly wrapper is provided in `compat.lua`).
693 * No more screen-specific configuration or savefiles.
694 * Session name (can be specified on command line) instead of display
695 name based savefiles. Also affects query history and not just workspace
697 * Bug fixes, most small and one bigger (almost complete rewrite of
698 the split resizing algorithm).
699 * Some documentation improvements.
701 Converting configuration files.
703 Old `.lua` colour schemes and workspace save files can be automatically
704 converted to a format suitable to be loaded by this latest release.
705 Other files will have to be ported manually. To convert colour schemes,
706 use the script `utils/lookconv.lua`. The usage is
708 lookconv.lua look-old.lua > look-new.lua
710 To convert workspaces savefiles, use the script `utils/saveconv.sh`.
713 saveconf.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-DISPLAY.*.lua \
714 > ~/.ion-devel/SESSIONNAME/workspaces.lua
716 `DISPLAY` here is the actual display part of `$DISPLAY`, probably just `:0`.
717 '*' stands for all screens (if you have only one screen you could do with
718 perhaps just `workspaces-:0.0.lua`). SESSIONNAME is the name of the session
719 where you want to use the converted savefiles. Default session name for
720 `DISPLAY` is `default-session-DISPLAY` with the colon in `DISPLAY` converted
721 to a dash. For most people this is `default-session--0`. In the simplest
722 case the whole command line is therefore
724 saveconv.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-:0.0.lua \
725 > ~/.ion-devel/default-session--0/workspaces.lua
727 The scripts may or may not work and are only provided as a potential
728 convenience that will not be maintained and will be removed eventually.
734 Quite a few bug fixes and one most likely unnoticeable improvement:
738 * Fixed pointer warping on screen change.
739 * A bug in grab handler calling code could crash Ion when leaving
740 keyboard resize mode manually.
741 * Resize display was showing incorrect values for keyboard resize.
745 * Client window last height request bookkeeping code had been lost
746 when configure request policy was changed. This caused transient
747 sizes to be calculated incorrectly.
748 * Return from full screen mode to floatws had been broken.
749 * As the number of dynamic functions has been getting bigger, the
750 functions are now sorted on first use and then binary-searched
751 instead of naive linear searching.
752 * Screen lookup had been broken for windows that are not properly
759 Just some bug fixes and minor behavioural changes and improvements in
766 This release fixes some small problems with the previous release and
767 adds a workaround kludge for the XFree86 textprop bug (it's been fixed
768 but no release with the fix is available) that could cause Opera to
769 crash Ion when UTF8 support was enabled. I also added the winprop
770 needed for galeon's find dialog to default `kludges.lua` and there's
771 some extra documentation and defaults for some systems in system.mk.
777 Most changes in this release centre around making Ion more tolerant
778 to broken configuration files; for details see the ChangeLog. There
779 are also changes in binding configuration as I already mentioned in
780 an earlier poting. Namely `common-frame-bindings.lua` is gone and the
781 bindings previously set there (into variables that the `*ws.lua`
782 files later referenced) were moved to `ioncore-bindings.lua` and are
783 set using the new functions `mplex_bindings` and `genframe_bindings`
784 are were added. Old modified configuration files should still work,
785 however, but if you use `make_active_leaf_fn`, you will need to
786 include `compat.lua` as the `global_bindings` that used this were
787 replaced by bindings in `mplex_bindings` and the function
788 `make_current_clientwin_fn`.
790 There are also some (minor) bug fixes and a few other improvements
791 worth a mention. In particular all regions are now given names of
792 the form `WFoobar<n>` by default and `DEFAULT_MOD.."F9"` was bound to
793 create a new workspace without asking for a name. This binding and
794 `QueryLib.query_workspace` use the workspace type defined in the
795 variable `default_ws_type` instead of being hardcoded to `WIonWS`.
797 All objects passed to Lua now have a unique userdata (a `WWatch`
798 cached in a weak table) so they can be used e.g. as indices to tables.
804 This release unifies some parts of `WScreen` and `WGenFrame`, which makes
805 screen-level queries possible. (Later the queries for small frames might
806 be changed to be shown at screen level.) The statusbar restriction from
807 ion-devel-20030531 was also removed by this some change and a few
808 non-fatal bugs have been fixed.
814 A bug was discovered:
818 * An off-by-one error in `extl_l1_finalize` caused references to some
819 Lua tables (including large completions) never to be released.
821 It could be that this bug was causing some other errors in Lua as well.
822 Sometimes QueryLib bindings failed because some function generators
823 returned nil although they shouldn't. Adding dummy lines (!) in those
824 functions fixed the problem and for some reason this patch also seemed
825 to remove those problems.
828 One more note: as `ioncorelib.lua` and `querylib.lua` are now installed
829 in `$SHAREDIR`, you must remove the old files in `$ETCDIR` if installing
830 over a previous release or else there will be errors. You should also
831 not use any possible old copies you have in `~/.ion-devel/`. (One of the
832 reasons for moving these to `$SHAREDIR` is to stop users from making
833 copies of them as they are not configuration files.)
839 As the subject line says, Ion-devel-20030531 was just released. The short
842 * The license was changed from the Clarified Artistic License to the
843 GNU Library/Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
844 * Screen, viewport and root window renames and other changes (see below).
845 * Some installation directory changes; the ion-* helper programs are now
846 installed either in `$SHAREDIR` or `$EXTRABINDIR` and QueryLib searches
847 for them on the script path (`~/.ion-devel/`, `$ETCDIR`, `$SHAREDIR`,
848 `$EXTRABINDIR`) instead of assuming them being on `$PATH`.
849 * Client windows are now in a separate namespace.
850 * Resize/maximize/shade changes: Shading should work on `WIonFrame`s too
851 and shade mode is automatic when the client area gets too small when
852 resizing. Maximize toggle restores frame to previous size if shaded
853 instead of maximizing. The move/resize mode bindings were changed again
854 to be more consistent and predictable: Left/Right/Up/Down and F/B/P/N
855 grow the frame in the specific direction, Shift+keys shrink and in
856 case of floating frames, `DEFAULT_MOD+keys` move
857 * Returning from full screen mode should work on `WFloatWS`s too.
858 * Lots of minor fixes, export additions and clean-up.
860 As usual, see the (long!) list of new ChangeLog entries at the end of
861 this message for details.
864 I've finally personally switched from the old "stable" 20020207 to using
865 the latest development release at home too and I must say that it is
866 finally starting to look good. There are still things to be written, but
867 unless you need "proven" stability, I see no reason to sticking to that
868 old release anymore. Unless, of course, if you find a problem that I have
869 not encountered or simply have no need for the new features and don't want
870 to port your configuration files.
873 On screens, viewports, root windows and problems with the new
876 The objects previously called "screens" are now called "root windows"
877 and what were called "viewports" are called "screens" to better reflect
878 what the user sees. (When Xinerama is not used there's no difference
879 between a root window and a screen, but when Xinerama is used a root
880 window may be split over multiple screens.)
882 This release also creates so-called virtual root windows for each
883 Xinerama screen when there are more than one. This is to better separate
884 the windows on different screens and thus emulate normal multihead, the
885 main difference being that windows can be moved between screens.
886 Especially the virtual roots are there to keep the windows that are on
887 a floatws on the right screen.
889 Virtual root windows will, however, break a few apps:
891 * Mozilla -remote won't work because of its crappy method for looking
892 up existing windows that can't handle multiple levels of WM windows.
893 Nested workspaces have the same problem. There is, however, a simple
894 solution to this problem: gnome-moz-remote. It seems to use a saner
895 method for looking up an existing Gecko browser and also works with
896 at least Phoenix/MozillaFirebird and Galeon.
898 These two are problems only if you use floatws:s (other problems with
899 which virtual root windows are intended to solve):
901 * The background-setting apps I am aware of will require a following
902 'xrefresh' for the changes to be updated to the (transparent) virtual
903 roots. Background setting apps that support the `_NET_VIRTUAL_ROOTS`
904 property (which, I think, was meant for root window-sized WS
905 backgrounds) could be used to set a separate background for each
906 Xinerama screen, though. I am not aware of any such app.
907 * Some apps' resize and move features will behave erratically on those
908 Xinerama screens not at (0, 0) on the root window. This is again
909 because the apps are assuming there's at most one WM window between
910 them and the root and are requesting windows' positions incorrectly.
911 The ICCCM is quite vague on this and I think _all_ apps that I have
912 tried are doing it wrong but the way e.g. XMMS does it certainly is
913 not an interpretation of the ICCCM. The apps that now behave correctly
914 request position for the outermost WM window. Nested workspaces have
917 There is one more temporary problem:
919 * Status bar modules (and the dock module's statusbar mode) will be
920 *temporarily* broken when virtual roots are _not_ used. This will be
921 fixed later when parts of screen and frame code are unified (it should
922 then be possible to run Ion without any workspace modules and have
923 queries attached to screens). In the meanwhile, if you don't care about
924 the above-mentioned problems and want a statusbar (which probably needs
925 to be ported to this release), you can defined `CF_ALWAYS_VIRTUAL_ROOT`
932 There are quite a few small fixes and minor enhancements invisible to
933 the user in this release. The splitting functions were renamed to be
934 more consistent and there are a couple of enhancements in the Lua code
935 query that should make it much more usable. First, tab-completion can
936 now descend into tables and complete subexpressions. Secondly, the local
937 variable `_` in addition to 'arg[1]' is set to point to the the frame in
938 which the query is executing.
940 I have also written some new documentation that is now available from
947 The most notable change in this release is that the `target_id` system
948 was removed and instead client window status is also saved over
949 restarts in the saves/workspaces-* files. (It shouldn't be too hard
950 to hook a session management module over this.) Thanks to this
951 modification, floatframes can also save their status now. Note
952 that if you restart from older version of Ion to this one, client
953 window layout will be messed up.
955 There are also a few bug fixes and code to save and load line editor
962 There are lots of minor improvements in this release, see the
963 new ChangeLog entries for details.
969 Some minor feature enhancements and a few fixes in this new release:
971 The file system scanning completions are now put in the background
972 by receiving the data from external programs through pipes and select()
973 for data in the main event loop. This way long taking completions don't
974 block Ion from processing other events and NFS problems shouldn't hang
977 Basic window stacking management support code was added. Transients
978 on floatws:s should now be stacked above their parents. If you don't
979 want to change your modified binding configurations at this point and
980 need the functions `floatframe_raise/lower`, include `compat.lua`.
986 This release again fixes some minor problems and enhances a few
987 features. Most of the enhancements are related to UTF8 support and
988 the floatws module. If UTF8 support is enabled, Ion now tries to
989 load the "fixed" font at startup after setting up locales. If locales
990 aren't properly set up, this probably fails and Ion will reset locale
991 back to "POSIX" as this might make fonts loadable although support for
992 non-ASCII characters will be crippled. It might now be safe for
993 package maintainers to enable UTF8 support by default
995 As apps seem to have switched to using `_NET_WM_NAME` for UTF8 titles
996 and filling `WM_NAME` with crap, this property is also preferred over
997 `WM_NAME` if set. Support for some other "extended" WM hints might be
998 added in the future but I have no intentions of moking Ion NetWM-
999 compliant. I might have thought of attempting to do so a few years
1000 ago when I last read the specification but it seems that since then
1001 they've filled it with lots of pointless bloat that may even be in
1002 opposition to Ion's goals. Take multi-parent transients, for example.
1004 Full error log is also displayed with xmessage on startup whether
1005 it is possible to continue or not.
1011 There was a bug in QueryLib written yesterday, therefore this release.
1017 I started converting the query code to Lua and discovered some rather
1018 silly bugs in the Lua interface so here's a new release with the new
1019 and improved query code included. The names of queries have changed
1020 (they're all in the table QueryLib defined in `querylib.lua` -- only
1021 `query_query` and a few temporary handlers are implemented in query.so)
1022 so your modified configuration files will be broken again :(.
1028 Be prepared to completely rewrite your configuration files once
1029 again: a new version of Ion-devel has been released that uses Lua
1030 <http://www.lua.org/> for all configuration. Version 5.0 of the
1031 language/library is required. Although scripting possibilities
1032 are now much better than before, there is one rather big drawback:
1033 Lua is not nearly as error-tolerant as Ion's old configuration
1034 parser so a syntax error in a file will cause the file not to be
1035 executed and may even cause Ion not to be able to start. More
1036 comments and documentation on scripting will follow at a later time.
1038 Libtool and libltdl are also now used to implement module support.
1039 Hopefully this will make compiling Ion easier on a wider range of
1040 platforms. (On the other hand, this could also induce new problems.)
1042 Finally, the preferred linking address for Ion's home page is now
1043 <http://www.iki.fi/tuomov/ion/>. The pages are still located at the
1044 old address, but this redirected address should be more permanent.
1050 Just some minor fixes, binary rename and better embedded workspace
1051 support in this release. I'm still contemplating whether to convert
1052 Ion to C++ and haven't written many things that I intended to as
1053 that decision will affect how those are implemented.
1055 To create an embedded workspaces in a frame, at the moment you have
1056 to modify the appropriate workspace save file (when Ion is not running!)
1057 by adding lines such as
1059 region "WFloatWS", "testiupotus" {
1062 inside the frame definition after the other options (flags, `target_id`;
1063 those options will be ignored if after any region definitions).
1065 One more thing to note: debugging infos are no longer automatically
1066 stripped from the ioncore binary or modules by 'make install' so that
1067 I don't have to explain how to get proper backtraces every time a bug
1068 is found. If you you are confident that you can send me proper backtraces
1069 when you find a bug (or maybe can fix it yourself), you can make the
1070 binary and the modules a _lot_ smaller by running 'strip' on them.
1076 The list of new ChangeLog entries is long this time, but I'm finally
1077 starting to get to what I started working on almost two years ago. Yes,
1078 there is *experimental* support for PWM-like "floating frame" workspaces.
1079 A lot of the functionality is still missing -- no need to complain of
1080 such at the time -- but the floatws.so module and basic functionality
1081 is there. Most notably perhaps a menu module is not yet implemented.
1082 (Porting the PWM menu code should a nice little task for whomever
1083 interested... *wink*.) To create some PWM workspaces, load the floatws.so
1084 module (should be loaded by default) and in `query_workspace` (F9)
1085 prefix workspace name with 'WFloatWS:' (or load the module before
1088 This release is also finally fully modularised: In addition to the
1089 ion core binary that can not function alone, there are the modules
1090 ionws.so, floatws.so and query.so. It is also possible statically
1091 compile the modules in the core binary if the system doesn't support
1094 There's also *experimental* UTF8 support that must be specifically
1095 enabled from system.mk. You must have XFree86 (4.x?) and C99 wide
1096 char support available (either libc directly or maybe libutf8+libiconv).
1097 Thanks to bugs (?) in some of the XFree86 Xutf8 functions, your locales
1098 must be properly set up or else X will stop drawing strings at non-ascii
1099 characters instead of ignoring them. See my earlier rants on the mailing
1100 list for reasons on not using the more standard Xmb functions.
1101 To actually see any special characters, you must load the necessary fonts
1102 by specifying a comma-separated list of fonts to the font and `tab_font`
1103 draw.conf options. Multiple font loading does not work when Xft support
1104 is enabled at the time being.
1106 There has been a lot of changes in the config files, again, and I can
1107 promise there's still more to come. See the ChangeLog for details.
1108 If you want to use your old workspaces configurations, move them to
1109 `~/.ion-devel/saves` and replace the strings "WFrame" and "WWorkspace"
1110 with "WIonFrame" and "WIonWS", respectively.
1116 I've made the bugfix release as promised. Get it from the usual place.
1122 There's a new major development release available from Ion web page.
1123 Not many changes are visible to the end user, though, but a lot was
1124 rewritten to be more flexible and simpler; see the ChangeLog for a
1125 full account. The older development release is also still available
1126 because this release can not be considered as stable after major
1127 changes to the code. The most visible changes are
1129 * Changes in binding configuration
1130 * A (mostly) working full screen mode toggle (see below)
1131 * The ability to switch workspaces while dragging tabs (experimental)
1132 * The ability to re-read draw.conf without restarting Ion
1136 Some notes on full screen mode toggle:
1138 * Ion doesn't detect programs trying to leave full screen mode--it
1139 should be possible to devise some method using window properties,
1141 * At least Opera unmaps the window also before changing the size to
1142 enter full screen mode, so Ion doesn't remember the last frame.
1143 * Mozilla sometimes has trouble entering full screen mode but when it
1144 succeeds, Ion remembers the last frame. However, if
1145 `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` is used to leave the full screen mode
1146 started from Mozilla, Mozilla doesn't know that the mode has been
1149 Clearly there should be some method of communication between Ion and the
1150 programs for full screen toggles to fully work. At the moment I suggest
1151 using `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` instead of the programs' native toggles
1152 unless the program has some special full screen mode and you really want