5 This is the first "rc" or "(stable) release candidate" release of
6 Ion3. This means that there will not be any further major changes
7 to it. Bugs will be fixed, and as an exception to the general
8 feature freeze, some hooks may still be added, if deemed useful.
9 Translations may also be included. After no new bugs (that can not
10 be deemed features) have been found in this or following "rc"
11 releases, the stable Ion3 will be released.
13 Most of the changes in this release to the previous one already
14 are bug fixes, in addition to some general clean-up. Other notable
17 * Winprop matching improvements: it is possible to match against
18 `is_dockapp` and `is_transient` (booleans), and there's a hack
19 to support `class` and `instance` for dockapps too.
21 * The default configuration puts dockapps in the statusbar's
24 * The autoconf kludge has been removed, as I will have nothing
25 to do with it, and nobody else seems to support or maintain
28 * Tab numbers are displayed when releasing modifiers in the
31 Distributors should pay heed to the name policy notice in the
38 This may be the last "ds" release if Ion3; if all goes well, the next
39 release is likely to be an "rc". Some minor improvements will still
40 be done, and minor requests may be accepted, so be quick.
42 The most notable changes in this release from the previous one are:
44 * Transients and queries in too small frames are "unsqueezed" out
45 of them, unless disabled with `ioncore.set{ unsqueeze = false }`.
47 * Some changes in default `cfg_ion.lua`: instead of loading
48 various other files, just `cfg_default.lua` is loaded instead.
50 * `mod_tiling.untile` (available in the context menu) may be used
51 to decompose tilings into floating frames. (This is the approximate
52 opposite of `mod_tiling.mkbottom` and the "new tiling" context menu
55 * Improved context menus.
57 * Slightly improved defaults style, using the drawing engine's
58 added possibility of partial borders.
60 * Various fixes and other improvements, in particular in relation
67 * There's been changes in padding/spacing usage in styles. Frames
68 now surround stuff inside borders not with `spacing` pixels, but
69 with `padding_pixels`. Spacing is only used to space things within
70 the borders (all the tabs and the client window from each other).
71 Consequently, custom styles may need to be updated to reflect this,
72 by increasing the padding, possibly also altering/removing colour
73 (to set it to background colour).
75 * The use of drawing engine attributes has also changed, and strict
76 ordering of them in the styles is no longer necessary. Additionally,
77 much more attributes are supported, including the name of every
80 * Xinerama support is gone. In addition to being problematic as such,
81 it had bit-rotted, and I will not waste time fixing it.
83 * `ioncore.set` no longer supports the `default_ws_params` parameter
84 for configuring the default layout. It is replaced by
85 `ioncore.deflayout("default", { ... })`, which allows configuring
86 other layouts as well, known by `mod_query.query_workspace` (F9).
87 Some default layouts are configured in `cfg_layout.lua`.
89 * It is now possible to automatically create new workspaces for
90 windows with the `new_group` winprop.
96 There's nothing major in this release, primarily just some minor fixes
97 and tuning to the previous release, that it was time to release.
103 Mostly this release still fixes issues in the big 3ds-20061015 release,
104 but in addition there are some improvements in the query department:
106 * Query activation key now cycles completions (So e.g. the
107 in the context menu activated with META+M, this same key
108 can be used to cycle through the alternatives.) This does
109 not work for queries activated by submap bindings.
111 * Likewise, it is no longer necessary to specify the key to
112 use for cycling for `mod_menu.grabmenu`.
114 * Control+R can now be used for history completion in queries.
115 (Currently matching is done for full string up to 'point', but
116 this may be changed to substring match.)
118 * Note that the parametrisation of WEdln.complete has changed,
119 and the second cycle parameter must be 'next' now instead of
126 Fixes some (expected, but minor) issues in the previous release.
132 * WIonWS and WFloatWS and the corresponding modules are gone, and
133 your custom configuration files will be broken with regard to these.
134 However, a partial backwards compatibility hack exists for layout
137 The F9 and META-F9 bindings now by default create workspaces with
138 a tiled layout of two frames. To create an "empty" workspace,
139 corresponding to the old WFloatWS, use the context menu (META-M)
140 and choose "new-empty-workspace". It is also possible to change
143 * Note that if you restart from an old version to this new version of Ion,
144 transients will stop working as expected for already existing windows.
145 They will work for newly-created windows, however.
147 * There are a few new sets of binding (including one for `WClientWin`!),
148 and some old bindings may not work exactly as expected anymore. In
149 particular, those for switching to full-screen mode.
151 **It is probably best to start from scratch with your custom
154 * `WFrame.set_tabbar` is gone. If you absolutely want to get rid off
155 the tabs, you must change the frame's "mode" with `WFrame.set_mode`.
156 The mode "tiled-alt" has been intended for this, and the corresponding
157 "framed-tiled-alt" style defaults to `bar = "none"`.
159 * The rather popular `detach.lua` script from the scripts repository
160 is obsoleted now, as Ion includes detach functionality in itself.
161 To detach a window, use META-K D in the default bindings. To tile
162 an existing frame from a workspace that doesn't have a tiling yet,
169 Some notable changes in this release include
171 * Lua 5.1 is now required.
173 * Framed transients on by default now. New binding contexts
174 "WFrame.toplevel" and "WMPlex.toplevel" were added to allow
175 for separate sets of bindings for nested transient frames and
176 top-level frames. Some of the bindings in the default binding
177 maps that are likely to be unwanted on transient frames were
178 moved to these contexts. Old custom bindings will continue to
179 work unless they modify the defaults by unbinding some of the
182 * Pressing Mod1+K K in the default bindings now switches to any
183 region with the "activity" flag set (indicated by the a box
184 at a corner of the screen), if there's one, before cycling to
185 previously active region. The same effect can be achieved in
186 your custom bindings with
188 ioncore.activity_goto() or ioncore.goto_previous()
194 This release mostly features minor bugfixes and other improvements. The most
195 visible non-bugfix changes are:
197 * Faster "fontset" filling kludge: only `-misc-fixed-*` fonts are tried. Ion
198 should now load faster in UTF-8 environments, and usually with no less
199 fonts in the fontset than before. (UTF-8 string drawing still does not
200 fully utilise these fonts under XFree86, but it does under XOrg.)
202 * Experimental auto-show-completions support, which is also on by default
203 now. In this mode the Tab key can be used to cycle forward through the
204 completions, and Shift+Tab backwards. Modify the settings seen in the
205 new `mod_query.lua` to get normal Tab-completion, or change the completion
208 * The release scripts do not run automatically autoconf anymore so maybe
209 a few more people would look into the README first.
215 The most visible changes in this release are:
217 * Mod1+space now toggles the scratchpad by default and Mod1+D the dock.
219 * The `ion-(ssh|man|view|edit)` wrapper scripts were removed and instead
220 the programs used can be configured in Ion's configuration files.
222 * `ioncore.exec(_on)` also support the `:cmd` notation for "run cmd in
223 xterm" familiar from the run query. The `::cmd` notation can be used
224 to ask for enter to be pressed even when the program quit succesfully.
226 * Those with custom configuration files should note that many exported toggle
227 functions were changed and renamed, and now accept a string parameter
228 incidating whether to toggle, set or unset the property.
230 - `WClientwin.set_fullsreen` (replaces `WClientWin.toggle_fullscreen`)
231 - `WRegion.set_tagged` (replaces `WRegion.tag/untag/toggle_tag`)
232 - `WFrame.set_tabbar` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_tabbar`)
233 - `WFrame.set_shaded` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_shade`)
234 - `WFloatFrame.set_sticky` (replaces `WFloatFrame.toggle_sticky`)
235 - `WMPlex.l2_set_hidden` (replaces `WMPlex.l2_hide/show`)
236 - `mod_sp.set_shown(_on)` (replaces `mod_sp.toggle(_on)`)
237 - `mod_dock.set_floating_shown_on` (replaces `mod_dock.toggle_floating_on`)
238 - `WRegion.set_activity` (replaces `WRegion.clear_activity` and
239 `WRegion.notify_activity`)
241 For example, `WRegion.set_tagged(_, 'toggle')` should be used in place of
242 `WRegion.toggle_tagged(_)` now.
244 Obviously there are some other changes and fixes too. See the changelog
245 for details as usual.
251 This is mostly a bug fix release, but also features improved
252 `mod_query.query_exec` (F3 key) completion support. Script writers should be
253 aware that As a side effect of one of these bug fixes, many hooks are now
254 called in "protected mode" and can not call any functions that modify the
255 internal state of Ion, except ioncore.defer.
261 The most important changes in this release are:
263 * So-called "placeholders". With the help of these the positions of
264 full-screen windows are remembered in their original frames, and don't
265 just get inserted after currently active window when returning from
266 full-screen mode. Under a session manager placeholders are also used
267 to remember the original order of windows.
269 * Improved `mod_statusbar` and `ion-statusd` communication, and colouring
270 of important/critical meters.
272 * A number of small fixes.
278 This monthly snapshot adds a few new and improved features.
280 * 'Grabbed menus' that have a single cycling key and activate selected
281 entry when all modifiers have been released. See
283 <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/scripts/wcirculate.lua>
287 * Potentially blocking status meters are now in a separate ion-statusd
288 program. Please write your additional status meters that do not monitor
289 the state of Ion itself for ion-statusd (and contribute them in the
290 Ion3 scripts repository at <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/>).
291 For help on writing such status meters, see e.g. source for
292 `statusd_load` in `ext_statusbar/ion-statusd`.
294 * Floating splits are now supported on plain tiled workspaces as well as
295 on pane workspaces. To create such a split, use the workspace context
296 menu (Mod1+M by default) or write your own bindings.
298 * Line editor now supports history search; Control+Up/Down only scrolls
299 through history entries with matching initial part.
301 * Arbitrary winprop matching criteria is supported. Lua scripts have
302 access to X properties.
304 Of course there are some other minor fixes and improvements as well.
310 This release finally includes a usable (yet still incomplete) version
311 of the `mod_panews` workspace module (that has also bored the name 'autows'
312 and 'rubberws' previously). The final outcome is not exactly what I
313 initially planned, as those plans turned out not to be that workable.
314 Instead, what `mod_panews` does is add to the basic tiled ionws approach
315 overlappable splits and automatically filled panes that are initially
316 empty. Each window is classified and assigned to the pane matching that
317 classification. (The default classifications are T(erminal), V(iewer)
318 and M(iscellaneous).)
320 For a better feel for it, try it out yourself and please give feedback.
321 The overlapping panes may be a bit confusing (this is one place where
322 true translucency might actually be useful and not just eyecandy) at
323 first, but you'll get used to them if you use the feature, and e.g.
324 the Gimp works quite splendidly with the toolboxes in the 'M' pane and
325 image windows in the 'V' pane -- although the simple initial size-based
326 classification heuristics don't always get it right and overriding
327 winprops (setting: `panews_classification`) should eventually added.
329 In addition to the new module, this release adds support for translations
330 of program messages and the manual page, regardless of whether such is
331 of any use in a program like Ion or not. (Currently Finnish and Czech
332 translations are available.) Of course there are some bug fixes and
333 other minor additions as well, and the `./configure` script is also back,
334 the abandonment of libtool being final now.
340 The first thing you'll notice when you start up this release of Ion is
341 that isn't reading your old configuration that. The next thing you
342 should notice is a neat layout-adapting statusbar at the bottom of the
343 screen. That's right, Ion now includes an `ext_statusbar` Lua script that
344 is enabled by default and displays date/time/load/mail count in a
347 So why is it not reading your configuration and save files? Firstly,
348 all of the `.lua` files were renamed to be indicative of their purpose.
349 Secondly, there have been so many changes that your old files would be
352 The `.lua` files are now named as follows:
354 cfg_*.lua Configuration file that the user may wish to edit
355 look_*.lua Drawing engine style file
356 saved_*.lua Save file
357 mod_*.lua Module stub loader
358 ext_*.lua A bigger Lua extension without a C counterpart
359 so that it is not a module
361 The configuration file for `mod_foobar` or `ext_foobar`, if it has one, is,
362 of course, `cfg_foobar.lua`. In the topic of file names, also note that
363 the default installation paths and binary names have changed to include
364 the component '3' to reflect the situation with many binary packages
367 You perhaps noticed above that modules have stub loaders now, so the
368 user has no need to use the `ioncore.load_module` routine. All extensions
369 and additional configuration files can now be loaded with 'dopath'
370 (used to be 'include'). Also, the `menulib`, `querylib`, and `ioncorelib`
371 Lua libraries are gone and instead their contents can be found in the same
372 `mod_whatever` namespace with the corresponding module (the "stub" loader
373 for these modules is a bit more than just a stub...). Some may also
374 want to know that for `mod_*` and `ext_*` only the compiled .lc files are
375 now installed, and not the source `.lua` files, thus removing redundant
376 files and making the installation slightly smaller.
378 There are few other changes to the contents of the configuration files
379 as well, so you're probably best off simply rewriting your modified
380 configuration files based on the new defaults. There quite likely won't
381 be any more _big_ changes to the configuration files before the release
382 of final Ion3, wherever that will be. (Most likely we won't see 3rc:s
383 yet this year.) However, some functions and variables are still likely
384 to be renamed or changed.
386 In addition to being renamed, the layout savefile of this Ion release
387 is incompatible with older releases. This is due to the changes made
388 to the `WIonWS` (and `WAutoWS`) split tree code to make it more modularly
389 extensible with the new kinds of nodes that `WAutoWS` requires.
391 The `mod_autows` module has infact been through many changes since the
392 last release, and I think I have the final form of it finally figured
393 out. However, it is still far from finished and unlikely to be ready
400 The major new features of this snapshot release are:
402 * `WMPlex` support for a sticky status display area to which `WIonWS`s
403 adjust properly. Modified to the dock module to support this method.
404 See the new `dock.lua` to set up the dock in the new embedded or old
405 floating manner (the API for the latter has also changed).
406 * Primitive session management support.
408 There are also some bug fixes and many minor improvements; see the ChangeLog
409 for details. Work on `mod_autows` has also started, but it isn't ready for
413 ### Note on ./configure:
415 ./configure does not exist for the moment as the source autoconf script
416 is not up-to-date. Ion no longer uses libtool/libltdl due to problems
417 with inter-module dependencies, and I have not asked Tom Payne to fix
418 the script yet, as this change may not be final (although that is most
419 likely the case; those without Linux-compatible libdl and a flexible
420 binary format such as ELF will just have to link statically against the
424 ### Notes on session management:
426 Ion loads `mod_sm` automatically when the SESSION_MANAGER environment
427 variable that should be set by the session manager is set, so there's
428 no need load it in `ion.lua`.
430 When session management is in use, all entries in the 'Session' menu
431 (previously 'Exit' menu) actually invoke the session manager to do the
432 task. 'Save' asks the SM save the whole session and 'Exit' (ioncore.shutdown)
433 asks it to shut down the session instead of just causing the WM to quite.
434 To do the latter, use ioncore.resign.
436 Unfortunately, all session managers I have tried (from Debian/unstable),
437 are broken/incomplete in one way or another:
440 xsm: doesn't support any requests from applications. This makes Ion's
441 session menu complete unfunctional. The only way to restart/exit/save
442 state is through xsm's window.
445 gnome-session: This seems the most complete of the all the session managers
446 and works fine until it is requested to shut down the session, when it dumps
447 core and session state is lost if was not explicitly saved previously.
449 A `~/.gnome2/session` file to use with Ion follows:
455 0,RestartCommand=gnome-smproxy --sm-client-id default0
458 1,RestartCommand=/usr/local/ion-3/bin/ion -smclientid default1
461 ksmserver: Only supports a global shutdown request, so that Ion can not be
462 restarted or session state saved in the middle of a session.
468 This is the first development snapshot release of what is to be Ion3.
469 The most visible changes to Ion2 so far are:
471 * Default installation directory is `/usr/local/ion-3` while user
472 configuration files go in `~/.ion3`
474 * The `mod_sp` module was added. It creates an extra toggleable
475 "scratchpad" frame on each screen. Toggle is for now bound by default
476 to Mod1+section, which should be very conveniently located on most
477 Nordic keyboards (left of "1"), but you may have to change it. The
478 scratchpad should be nice for xconsole or similar monitors, xmessage
479 and other popups and just as temporary holding space for windows.
481 * All modules except the drawing engine are now called `mod_something`.
483 * Man-page complection supports a cache of known man-pages for faster
484 completion. See the README for instructions on setting up a cronjob
485 or manually generating the index if you want to use the feature.
486 Also `query_man_path` is no longer used. Instead we try the
487 `ION_MC_MANPATH` and `MANPATH` environment variables and the
490 * Exported functions are now separated into tables (namespaces)
491 instead of cluttering the globals table. Some frequently used
492 configuration functions are imported into the globals table, though.
493 Some functions have also been removed or renamed for simpler and
494 more consistent function set.
496 * New binding configuration mechanism. Dozens of `*_bindings` functions
497 were replaced with a single `[ioncorelib.]defbindings` function that
498 accepts a context parameter. Callbacks are specified as strings
499 (although passing functions still works) to make it easier for
500 external configuration programs to understand the configuration
501 files and perhaps remove some confusion among users who do not
502 care to read a tiny bit of Lua documentation and understand the
503 concept of anonymous functions.
505 * It is now also possible to retrieve a list of bindings with
506 `ioncorelib.getbindings`, for example, for self-documentation.
508 * Single move/resize mode bindings instead of separate for both
509 ionframe and floatframe.
511 There are also quite a few internal changes; see the ChangeLog for
512 details. No documentation tarball is available at the moment as the
513 documentation is out-of-date except for the function reference. If
514 you need the reference, just checkout the documentation from the
515 Subversion repository with
517 svn co http://tao.uab.es/ion/svn/ion-doc/trunk ion-doc-3ds
519 and build the documentation.
525 This release is finally what can be called "Ion 2 release candidate #1".
526 No more new features will be added to "Ion 2" after this release, and the
527 configuration interface has already been frozen for a while. I will wait a
528 couple of weeks for bug reports, and if nothing serious is found, the new
529 stable Ion should finally be released then.
531 The most notable changes since the previous release are:
533 * The dock module is included
534 * An optional autoconf script was added
535 * A few minor bugs were fixed
536 * Some incomplete features were polished, especially focus control on
538 * Changes in X keyboard map are supported now (so e.g. switching to
539 dvorak after Ion has started should update the bindings to match the
540 locations of symbols in the dvorak layout).
543 About the version numbering scheme:
545 Due to a demand of a version numbering scheme more indicative of the status
546 of the project, I was thinking of various different new version numbering
547 schemes for this release: ion-2rc1 (then 2r1, 3d1, etc.), ion-2-20040114-rc1,
548 ion-2.20040114rc1, ion-20040114-2rc1, etc.). It would've been nice if
549 simple lexicographical sorting could be used to order the packages, but
550 in the end I decided to stick with a scheme that is consistent with the
551 'ion-devel' package names:
553 project-branch_and_status-release_date
555 Therefore this release is 'ion-2rc-20040114', and the "stable" one will be
562 This is a big clean-up release. The most noticeable changes are that
563 '-devel' has been removed from path names, user configuration files go
564 in `~/.ion2/` and the main configuration file is 'ion.lua'. (The other
565 `ioncore-*.lua` files have also been renamed.) There have been no notable
566 changes in the configuration files themselves, so your old files will
567 work if you move them to the correct directory and rename the changed
568 files. (`mv ~/.ion-devel ~/.ion2; cd ~/.ion2; mv ioncore.lua ion.lua;`
571 This release also finally contains a working PWM binary. (The ioncore+
572 scripts scheme was replaced with separate binaries statically linked
573 to ioncore.a.) Floating workspaces now support edge snapping and
574 sticky windows, but some PWM features are probably still missing.
576 Some bugs were also fixed and users are now force-fed the manual page
577 the first time Ion is started. Transients can be toggled between
578 top/bottom of the main window with Mod1+K T. The SSH query uses
579 `~/.ssh/known_hosts` for completion instead of a manually defined list.
581 There may be a few additions (e.g. the dock) and bug fixes, of course,
582 before the stable release, but this release should pretty much be what
583 the new "stable" Ion should look like. Please upgrade to it to help
584 weed out the bugs. Note that you need to upgrade Lua to the 5.0.1
592 It's finally time for a new release on Ion's development branch. Most
593 likely this will also be the last "big" release before finally, after
594 almost two years, releasing a new "stable" version of Ion. A few bug
595 fix and code clean-up releases should appear in between, though.
597 The most important additions, changes and non-changes in this release
601 * A little less broken extended character set and string encoding
603 * Extended WM hints fullscreen request support
604 * Hopefully a little clarified configuration file layout
606 * And most important of all:
608 > Configuration files written for the previous release should
609 > still work this time!
611 (However, Ion will complain of old drawing engine styles.)
613 The menu module provides both drop-down menus (in the stock configuration
614 pressing Button3 on a tab should show a context menu) and query-like
615 "in-mplex" menus (F12: main menu at screen level; Mod1+M: the same context
616 menu as above at frame level).
618 What was done enhance support for strings (mostly window titles) in
619 languages that need more than 8-bit character sets is:
621 * Remove UTF8 restriction and support almost arbitrary multibyte
622 encodings instead. (Statefull encodings will not work and combining
623 characters can cause clutter. Both are a sign of bad encoding, IMHO.)
625 * The XCreateFontSet routine that is used to load fonts in the kind
626 of structure the X utf8 and multibyte routines want apparently wants
627 to be able to load glyphs for all character sets specified in the
628 locale and therefore often fails if only single font is specified.
629 Therefore a kludge was added that tries loading more fonts while
630 keeping the fonts' size the same. (The ",*" kludge could load huge
631 fonts). Unfortunately this has a noticeable effect in startup time :(.
633 * There is no longer a system.mk option to enable utf8 (now multibyte)
634 support, but must still specifically be enabled with the -i18n
635 command line switch, mostly thanks to troublesome utf-8 locales.
637 Because Xlib's UTF-8 string drawing code is broken and very unlikely to
638 be fixed, decent text output in an UTF-8 locale is still unlikely and
639 dependent on the fonts loaded in the system. The Xmb routines that are now
640 used always use an iso10646-1 font even if other fonts are loaded and the
641 unicode font does not contain a particular glyph to be drawn. The use of
642 the Xutf8 routines in an utf8 locale can be enabled with the
643 `CF_DE_USE_XUTF8` compile-time option. The advantage of this is that
644 these routines seem to choose the font to draw particular character in
645 most cases more sanely. The downside is that there are other more serious
646 problems with unknown characters.
648 All in all, even if I'd like to support a universal move to UTF-8, thanks
649 to Xlib brokenness I can't really recommend using UTF-8 locales with Ion
650 and the default drawing engine if there's a decent alternative encoding.
651 Most if not all other stateless encodings shouldn't have the problems
652 UTF-8 has. An alternative drawing engine that didn't use the Xlib i18n
653 string drawing routines might solve the troubles with utf-8 support.
657 If you have saved a custom system.mk, you'll need to set LUAC
658 point to the Lua compiler there as some of the share/ files
665 It's been a while since the previous release as I wanted to freeze the
666 Lua configuration/scripting interface for this release and therefore
667 finish work on a few things. Well, on my part the interface is frozen,
668 but I will still accept constructive complaints for a short time and
669 after that the implemented parts of the scripting interface will be
670 frozen. But in all likelihood, if no one has anything else to say, but
671 "it's ok", "it sucks", the interface will no longer change, only possibly
674 What's new for this release then?
676 * Drawing engine module support.
677 * OO-style exported functions. The old `class_fn` functions are now
678 `WClass.fn` (an ugly wrapper is provided in `compat.lua`).
679 * No more screen-specific configuration or savefiles.
680 * Session name (can be specified on command line) instead of display
681 name based savefiles. Also affects query history and not just workspace
683 * Bug fixes, most small and one bigger (almost complete rewrite of
684 the split resizing algorithm).
685 * Some documentation improvements.
687 Converting configuration files.
689 Old `.lua` colour schemes and workspace save files can be automatically
690 converted to a format suitable to be loaded by this latest release.
691 Other files will have to be ported manually. To convert colour schemes,
692 use the script `utils/lookconv.lua`. The usage is
694 lookconv.lua look-old.lua > look-new.lua
696 To convert workspaces savefiles, use the script `utils/saveconv.sh`.
699 saveconf.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-DISPLAY.*.lua \
700 > ~/.ion-devel/SESSIONNAME/workspaces.lua
702 `DISPLAY` here is the actual display part of `$DISPLAY`, probably just `:0`.
703 '*' stands for all screens (if you have only one screen you could do with
704 perhaps just `workspaces-:0.0.lua`). SESSIONNAME is the name of the session
705 where you want to use the converted savefiles. Default session name for
706 `DISPLAY` is `default-session-DISPLAY` with the colon in `DISPLAY` converted
707 to a dash. For most people this is `default-session--0`. In the simplest
708 case the whole command line is therefore
710 saveconv.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-:0.0.lua \
711 > ~/.ion-devel/default-session--0/workspaces.lua
713 The scripts may or may not work and are only provided as a potential
714 convenience that will not be maintained and will be removed eventually.
720 Quite a few bug fixes and one most likely unnoticeable improvement:
724 * Fixed pointer warping on screen change.
725 * A bug in grab handler calling code could crash Ion when leaving
726 keyboard resize mode manually.
727 * Resize display was showing incorrect values for keyboard resize.
731 * Client window last height request bookkeeping code had been lost
732 when configure request policy was changed. This caused transient
733 sizes to be calculated incorrectly.
734 * Return from full screen mode to floatws had been broken.
735 * As the number of dynamic functions has been getting bigger, the
736 functions are now sorted on first use and then binary-searched
737 instead of naive linear searching.
738 * Screen lookup had been broken for windows that are not properly
745 Just some bug fixes and minor behavioural changes and improvements in
752 This release fixes some small problems with the previous release and
753 adds a workaround kludge for the XFree86 textprop bug (it's been fixed
754 but no release with the fix is available) that could cause Opera to
755 crash Ion when UTF8 support was enabled. I also added the winprop
756 needed for galeon's find dialog to default `kludges.lua` and there's
757 some extra documentation and defaults for some systems in system.mk.
763 Most changes in this release centre around making Ion more tolerant
764 to broken configuration files; for details see the ChangeLog. There
765 are also changes in binding configuration as I already mentioned in
766 an earlier poting. Namely `common-frame-bindings.lua` is gone and the
767 bindings previously set there (into variables that the `*ws.lua`
768 files later referenced) were moved to `ioncore-bindings.lua` and are
769 set using the new functions `mplex_bindings` and `genframe_bindings`
770 are were added. Old modified configuration files should still work,
771 however, but if you use `make_active_leaf_fn`, you will need to
772 include `compat.lua` as the `global_bindings` that used this were
773 replaced by bindings in `mplex_bindings` and the function
774 `make_current_clientwin_fn`.
776 There are also some (minor) bug fixes and a few other improvements
777 worth a mention. In particular all regions are now given names of
778 the form `WFoobar<n>` by default and `DEFAULT_MOD.."F9"` was bound to
779 create a new workspace without asking for a name. This binding and
780 `QueryLib.query_workspace` use the workspace type defined in the
781 variable `default_ws_type` instead of being hardcoded to `WIonWS`.
783 All objects passed to Lua now have a unique userdata (a `WWatch`
784 cached in a weak table) so they can be used e.g. as indices to tables.
790 This release unifies some parts of `WScreen` and `WGenFrame`, which makes
791 screen-level queries possible. (Later the queries for small frames might
792 be changed to be shown at screen level.) The statusbar restriction from
793 ion-devel-20030531 was also removed by this some change and a few
794 non-fatal bugs have been fixed.
800 A bug was discovered:
804 * An off-by-one error in `extl_l1_finalize` caused references to some
805 Lua tables (including large completions) never to be released.
807 It could be that this bug was causing some other errors in Lua as well.
808 Sometimes QueryLib bindings failed because some function generators
809 returned nil although they shouldn't. Adding dummy lines (!) in those
810 functions fixed the problem and for some reason this patch also seemed
811 to remove those problems.
814 One more note: as `ioncorelib.lua` and `querylib.lua` are now installed
815 in `$SHAREDIR`, you must remove the old files in `$ETCDIR` if installing
816 over a previous release or else there will be errors. You should also
817 not use any possible old copies you have in `~/.ion-devel/`. (One of the
818 reasons for moving these to `$SHAREDIR` is to stop users from making
819 copies of them as they are not configuration files.)
825 As the subject line says, Ion-devel-20030531 was just released. The short
828 * The license was changed from the Clarified Artistic License to the
829 GNU Library/Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
830 * Screen, viewport and root window renames and other changes (see below).
831 * Some installation directory changes; the ion-* helper programs are now
832 installed either in `$SHAREDIR` or `$EXTRABINDIR` and QueryLib searches
833 for them on the script path (`~/.ion-devel/`, `$ETCDIR`, `$SHAREDIR`,
834 `$EXTRABINDIR`) instead of assuming them being on `$PATH`.
835 * Client windows are now in a separate namespace.
836 * Resize/maximize/shade changes: Shading should work on `WIonFrame`s too
837 and shade mode is automatic when the client area gets too small when
838 resizing. Maximize toggle restores frame to previous size if shaded
839 instead of maximizing. The move/resize mode bindings were changed again
840 to be more consistent and predictable: Left/Right/Up/Down and F/B/P/N
841 grow the frame in the specific direction, Shift+keys shrink and in
842 case of floating frames, `DEFAULT_MOD+keys` move
843 * Returning from full screen mode should work on `WFloatWS`s too.
844 * Lots of minor fixes, export additions and clean-up.
846 As usual, see the (long!) list of new ChangeLog entries at the end of
847 this message for details.
850 I've finally personally switched from the old "stable" 20020207 to using
851 the latest development release at home too and I must say that it is
852 finally starting to look good. There are still things to be written, but
853 unless you need "proven" stability, I see no reason to sticking to that
854 old release anymore. Unless, of course, if you find a problem that I have
855 not encountered or simply have no need for the new features and don't want
856 to port your configuration files.
859 On screens, viewports, root windows and problems with the new
862 The objects previously called "screens" are now called "root windows"
863 and what were called "viewports" are called "screens" to better reflect
864 what the user sees. (When Xinerama is not used there's no difference
865 between a root window and a screen, but when Xinerama is used a root
866 window may be split over multiple screens.)
868 This release also creates so-called virtual root windows for each
869 Xinerama screen when there are more than one. This is to better separate
870 the windows on different screens and thus emulate normal multihead, the
871 main difference being that windows can be moved between screens.
872 Especially the virtual roots are there to keep the windows that are on
873 a floatws on the right screen.
875 Virtual root windows will, however, break a few apps:
877 * Mozilla -remote won't work because of its crappy method for looking
878 up existing windows that can't handle multiple levels of WM windows.
879 Nested workspaces have the same problem. There is, however, a simple
880 solution to this problem: gnome-moz-remote. It seems to use a saner
881 method for looking up an existing Gecko browser and also works with
882 at least Phoenix/MozillaFirebird and Galeon.
884 These two are problems only if you use floatws:s (other problems with
885 which virtual root windows are intended to solve):
887 * The background-setting apps I am aware of will require a following
888 'xrefresh' for the changes to be updated to the (transparent) virtual
889 roots. Background setting apps that support the `_NET_VIRTUAL_ROOTS`
890 property (which, I think, was meant for root window-sized WS
891 backgrounds) could be used to set a separate background for each
892 Xinerama screen, though. I am not aware of any such app.
893 * Some apps' resize and move features will behave erratically on those
894 Xinerama screens not at (0, 0) on the root window. This is again
895 because the apps are assuming there's at most one WM window between
896 them and the root and are requesting windows' positions incorrectly.
897 The ICCCM is quite vague on this and I think _all_ apps that I have
898 tried are doing it wrong but the way e.g. XMMS does it certainly is
899 not an interpretation of the ICCCM. The apps that now behave correctly
900 request position for the outermost WM window. Nested workspaces have
903 There is one more temporary problem:
905 * Status bar modules (and the dock module's statusbar mode) will be
906 *temporarily* broken when virtual roots are _not_ used. This will be
907 fixed later when parts of screen and frame code are unified (it should
908 then be possible to run Ion without any workspace modules and have
909 queries attached to screens). In the meanwhile, if you don't care about
910 the above-mentioned problems and want a statusbar (which probably needs
911 to be ported to this release), you can defined `CF_ALWAYS_VIRTUAL_ROOT`
918 There are quite a few small fixes and minor enhancements invisible to
919 the user in this release. The splitting functions were renamed to be
920 more consistent and there are a couple of enhancements in the Lua code
921 query that should make it much more usable. First, tab-completion can
922 now descend into tables and complete subexpressions. Secondly, the local
923 variable `_` in addition to 'arg[1]' is set to point to the the frame in
924 which the query is executing.
926 I have also written some new documentation that is now available from
933 The most notable change in this release is that the `target_id` system
934 was removed and instead client window status is also saved over
935 restarts in the saves/workspaces-* files. (It shouldn't be too hard
936 to hook a session management module over this.) Thanks to this
937 modification, floatframes can also save their status now. Note
938 that if you restart from older version of Ion to this one, client
939 window layout will be messed up.
941 There are also a few bug fixes and code to save and load line editor
948 There are lots of minor improvements in this release, see the
949 new ChangeLog entries for details.
955 Some minor feature enhancements and a few fixes in this new release:
957 The file system scanning completions are now put in the background
958 by receiving the data from external programs through pipes and select()
959 for data in the main event loop. This way long taking completions don't
960 block Ion from processing other events and NFS problems shouldn't hang
963 Basic window stacking management support code was added. Transients
964 on floatws:s should now be stacked above their parents. If you don't
965 want to change your modified binding configurations at this point and
966 need the functions `floatframe_raise/lower`, include `compat.lua`.
972 This release again fixes some minor problems and enhances a few
973 features. Most of the enhancements are related to UTF8 support and
974 the floatws module. If UTF8 support is enabled, Ion now tries to
975 load the "fixed" font at startup after setting up locales. If locales
976 aren't properly set up, this probably fails and Ion will reset locale
977 back to "POSIX" as this might make fonts loadable although support for
978 non-ASCII characters will be crippled. It might now be safe for
979 package maintainers to enable UTF8 support by default
981 As apps seem to have switched to using `_NET_WM_NAME` for UTF8 titles
982 and filling `WM_NAME` with crap, this property is also preferred over
983 `WM_NAME` if set. Support for some other "extended" WM hints might be
984 added in the future but I have no intentions of moking Ion NetWM-
985 compliant. I might have thought of attempting to do so a few years
986 ago when I last read the specification but it seems that since then
987 they've filled it with lots of pointless bloat that may even be in
988 opposition to Ion's goals. Take multi-parent transients, for example.
990 Full error log is also displayed with xmessage on startup whether
991 it is possible to continue or not.
997 There was a bug in QueryLib written yesterday, therefore this release.
1003 I started converting the query code to Lua and discovered some rather
1004 silly bugs in the Lua interface so here's a new release with the new
1005 and improved query code included. The names of queries have changed
1006 (they're all in the table QueryLib defined in `querylib.lua` -- only
1007 `query_query` and a few temporary handlers are implemented in query.so)
1008 so your modified configuration files will be broken again :(.
1014 Be prepared to completely rewrite your configuration files once
1015 again: a new version of Ion-devel has been released that uses Lua
1016 <http://www.lua.org/> for all configuration. Version 5.0 of the
1017 language/library is required. Although scripting possibilities
1018 are now much better than before, there is one rather big drawback:
1019 Lua is not nearly as error-tolerant as Ion's old configuration
1020 parser so a syntax error in a file will cause the file not to be
1021 executed and may even cause Ion not to be able to start. More
1022 comments and documentation on scripting will follow at a later time.
1024 Libtool and libltdl are also now used to implement module support.
1025 Hopefully this will make compiling Ion easier on a wider range of
1026 platforms. (On the other hand, this could also induce new problems.)
1028 Finally, the preferred linking address for Ion's home page is now
1029 <http://www.iki.fi/tuomov/ion/>. The pages are still located at the
1030 old address, but this redirected address should be more permanent.
1036 Just some minor fixes, binary rename and better embedded workspace
1037 support in this release. I'm still contemplating whether to convert
1038 Ion to C++ and haven't written many things that I intended to as
1039 that decision will affect how those are implemented.
1041 To create an embedded workspaces in a frame, at the moment you have
1042 to modify the appropriate workspace save file (when Ion is not running!)
1043 by adding lines such as
1045 region "WFloatWS", "testiupotus" {
1048 inside the frame definition after the other options (flags, `target_id`;
1049 those options will be ignored if after any region definitions).
1051 One more thing to note: debugging infos are no longer automatically
1052 stripped from the ioncore binary or modules by 'make install' so that
1053 I don't have to explain how to get proper backtraces every time a bug
1054 is found. If you you are confident that you can send me proper backtraces
1055 when you find a bug (or maybe can fix it yourself), you can make the
1056 binary and the modules a _lot_ smaller by running 'strip' on them.
1062 The list of new ChangeLog entries is long this time, but I'm finally
1063 starting to get to what I started working on almost two years ago. Yes,
1064 there is *experimental* support for PWM-like "floating frame" workspaces.
1065 A lot of the functionality is still missing -- no need to complain of
1066 such at the time -- but the floatws.so module and basic functionality
1067 is there. Most notably perhaps a menu module is not yet implemented.
1068 (Porting the PWM menu code should a nice little task for whomever
1069 interested... *wink*.) To create some PWM workspaces, load the floatws.so
1070 module (should be loaded by default) and in `query_workspace` (F9)
1071 prefix workspace name with 'WFloatWS:' (or load the module before
1074 This release is also finally fully modularised: In addition to the
1075 ion core binary that can not function alone, there are the modules
1076 ionws.so, floatws.so and query.so. It is also possible statically
1077 compile the modules in the core binary if the system doesn't support
1080 There's also *experimental* UTF8 support that must be specifically
1081 enabled from system.mk. You must have XFree86 (4.x?) and C99 wide
1082 char support available (either libc directly or maybe libutf8+libiconv).
1083 Thanks to bugs (?) in some of the XFree86 Xutf8 functions, your locales
1084 must be properly set up or else X will stop drawing strings at non-ascii
1085 characters instead of ignoring them. See my earlier rants on the mailing
1086 list for reasons on not using the more standard Xmb functions.
1087 To actually see any special characters, you must load the necessary fonts
1088 by specifying a comma-separated list of fonts to the font and `tab_font`
1089 draw.conf options. Multiple font loading does not work when Xft support
1090 is enabled at the time being.
1092 There has been a lot of changes in the config files, again, and I can
1093 promise there's still more to come. See the ChangeLog for details.
1094 If you want to use your old workspaces configurations, move them to
1095 `~/.ion-devel/saves` and replace the strings "WFrame" and "WWorkspace"
1096 with "WIonFrame" and "WIonWS", respectively.
1102 I've made the bugfix release as promised. Get it from the usual place.
1108 There's a new major development release available from Ion web page.
1109 Not many changes are visible to the end user, though, but a lot was
1110 rewritten to be more flexible and simpler; see the ChangeLog for a
1111 full account. The older development release is also still available
1112 because this release can not be considered as stable after major
1113 changes to the code. The most visible changes are
1115 * Changes in binding configuration
1116 * A (mostly) working full screen mode toggle (see below)
1117 * The ability to switch workspaces while dragging tabs (experimental)
1118 * The ability to re-read draw.conf without restarting Ion
1122 Some notes on full screen mode toggle:
1124 * Ion doesn't detect programs trying to leave full screen mode--it
1125 should be possible to devise some method using window properties,
1127 * At least Opera unmaps the window also before changing the size to
1128 enter full screen mode, so Ion doesn't remember the last frame.
1129 * Mozilla sometimes has trouble entering full screen mode but when it
1130 succeeds, Ion remembers the last frame. However, if
1131 `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` is used to leave the full screen mode
1132 started from Mozilla, Mozilla doesn't know that the mode has been
1135 Clearly there should be some method of communication between Ion and the
1136 programs for full screen toggles to fully work. At the moment I suggest
1137 using `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` instead of the programs' native toggles
1138 unless the program has some special full screen mode and you really want