5 This release again fixes some issues found with the previous one.
11 This is yet another maintenance release fixing a few issues.
17 This is a maintenance release that fixes a few issues in the
30 This release features a few minor fixes to behavioural regressions
31 in the previous release, as well as some build configuration file
32 self-documentation improvements.
38 There are a few minor fixes in this RC, plus a major one related to
39 layout restore under a session manager.
45 This RC features various minor fixes, and some clarifications and
46 simplifications to the license, which people seem to have had trouble
53 It seems people are a bit slow, or only scaring them with a final
54 release makes them report issues. So, still no stable release but
55 a candidate, with many minor fixes and improvements wrt. important
56 omissions. The most important changes are better behaviour of the
57 unsplit operation, better handling of main window being closed
58 before a transient, and use of the workspace's working directory
59 for run query file name completion.
65 Another attempt at last "rc" release.
71 This release features a few minor fixes. If no major problems are
72 discovered, this is likely to be the last "rc" release before the
73 first and hopefully final "stable" release.
79 This fourth "rc" release fixes some minor bugs and omissions in
86 This third "rc" release again simply fixes some minor problems in
93 This is the second "rc" release, and contains primarily bug fixes
94 and other minor improvements.
100 This is the first "rc" or "(stable) release candidate" release of
101 Ion3. This means that there will not be any further major changes
102 to it. Bugs will be fixed, and as an exception to the general
103 feature freeze, some hooks may still be added, if deemed useful.
104 Translations may also be included. After no new bugs (that can not
105 be deemed features) have been found in this or following "rc"
106 releases, the stable Ion3 will be released.
108 Most of the changes in this release to the previous one already
109 are bug fixes, in addition to some general clean-up. Other notable
112 * Winprop matching improvements: it is possible to match against
113 `is_dockapp` and `is_transient` (booleans), and there's a hack
114 to support `class` and `instance` for dockapps too.
116 * The default configuration puts dockapps in the statusbar's
119 * The autoconf kludge has been removed, as I will have nothing
120 to do with it, and nobody else seems to support or maintain
123 * Tab numbers are displayed when releasing modifiers in the
126 Distributors should pay heed to the name policy notice in the
133 This may be the last "ds" release if Ion3; if all goes well, the next
134 release is likely to be an "rc". Some minor improvements will still
135 be done, and minor requests may be accepted, so be quick.
137 The most notable changes in this release from the previous one are:
139 * Transients and queries in too small frames are "unsqueezed" out
140 of them, unless disabled with `ioncore.set{ unsqueeze = false }`.
142 * Some changes in default `cfg_ion.lua`: instead of loading
143 various other files, just `cfg_default.lua` is loaded instead.
145 * `mod_tiling.untile` (available in the context menu) may be used
146 to decompose tilings into floating frames. (This is the approximate
147 opposite of `mod_tiling.mkbottom` and the "new tiling" context menu
150 * Improved context menus.
152 * Slightly improved defaults style, using the drawing engine's
153 added possibility of partial borders.
155 * Various fixes and other improvements, in particular in relation
162 * There's been changes in padding/spacing usage in styles. Frames
163 now surround stuff inside borders not with `spacing` pixels, but
164 with `padding_pixels`. Spacing is only used to space things within
165 the borders (all the tabs and the client window from each other).
166 Consequently, custom styles may need to be updated to reflect this,
167 by increasing the padding, possibly also altering/removing colour
168 (to set it to background colour).
170 * The use of drawing engine attributes has also changed, and strict
171 ordering of them in the styles is no longer necessary. Additionally,
172 much more attributes are supported, including the name of every
175 * Xinerama support is gone. In addition to being problematic as such,
176 it had bit-rotted, and I will not waste time fixing it.
178 * `ioncore.set` no longer supports the `default_ws_params` parameter
179 for configuring the default layout. It is replaced by
180 `ioncore.deflayout("default", { ... })`, which allows configuring
181 other layouts as well, known by `mod_query.query_workspace` (F9).
182 Some default layouts are configured in `cfg_layout.lua`.
184 * It is now possible to automatically create new workspaces for
185 windows with the `new_group` winprop.
191 There's nothing major in this release, primarily just some minor fixes
192 and tuning to the previous release, that it was time to release.
198 Mostly this release still fixes issues in the big 3ds-20061015 release,
199 but in addition there are some improvements in the query department:
201 * Query activation key now cycles completions (So e.g. the
202 in the context menu activated with META+M, this same key
203 can be used to cycle through the alternatives.) This does
204 not work for queries activated by submap bindings.
206 * Likewise, it is no longer necessary to specify the key to
207 use for cycling for `mod_menu.grabmenu`.
209 * Control+R can now be used for history completion in queries.
210 (Currently matching is done for full string up to 'point', but
211 this may be changed to substring match.)
213 * Note that the parametrisation of WEdln.complete has changed,
214 and the second cycle parameter must be 'next' now instead of
221 Fixes some (expected, but minor) issues in the previous release.
227 * WIonWS and WFloatWS and the corresponding modules are gone, and
228 your custom configuration files will be broken with regard to these.
229 However, a partial backwards compatibility hack exists for layout
232 The F9 and META-F9 bindings now by default create workspaces with
233 a tiled layout of two frames. To create an "empty" workspace,
234 corresponding to the old WFloatWS, use the context menu (META-M)
235 and choose "new-empty-workspace". It is also possible to change
238 * Note that if you restart from an old version to this new version of Ion,
239 transients will stop working as expected for already existing windows.
240 They will work for newly-created windows, however.
242 * There are a few new sets of binding (including one for `WClientWin`!),
243 and some old bindings may not work exactly as expected anymore. In
244 particular, those for switching to full-screen mode.
246 **It is probably best to start from scratch with your custom
249 * `WFrame.set_tabbar` is gone. If you absolutely want to get rid off
250 the tabs, you must change the frame's "mode" with `WFrame.set_mode`.
251 The mode "tiled-alt" has been intended for this, and the corresponding
252 "framed-tiled-alt" style defaults to `bar = "none"`.
254 * The rather popular `detach.lua` script from the scripts repository
255 is obsoleted now, as Ion includes detach functionality in itself.
256 To detach a window, use META-K D in the default bindings. To tile
257 an existing frame from a workspace that doesn't have a tiling yet,
264 Some notable changes in this release include
266 * Lua 5.1 is now required.
268 * Framed transients on by default now. New binding contexts
269 "WFrame.toplevel" and "WMPlex.toplevel" were added to allow
270 for separate sets of bindings for nested transient frames and
271 top-level frames. Some of the bindings in the default binding
272 maps that are likely to be unwanted on transient frames were
273 moved to these contexts. Old custom bindings will continue to
274 work unless they modify the defaults by unbinding some of the
277 * Pressing Mod1+K K in the default bindings now switches to any
278 region with the "activity" flag set (indicated by the a box
279 at a corner of the screen), if there's one, before cycling to
280 previously active region. The same effect can be achieved in
281 your custom bindings with
283 ioncore.activity_goto() or ioncore.goto_previous()
289 This release mostly features minor bugfixes and other improvements. The most
290 visible non-bugfix changes are:
292 * Faster "fontset" filling kludge: only `-misc-fixed-*` fonts are tried. Ion
293 should now load faster in UTF-8 environments, and usually with no less
294 fonts in the fontset than before. (UTF-8 string drawing still does not
295 fully utilise these fonts under XFree86, but it does under XOrg.)
297 * Experimental auto-show-completions support, which is also on by default
298 now. In this mode the Tab key can be used to cycle forward through the
299 completions, and Shift+Tab backwards. Modify the settings seen in the
300 new `mod_query.lua` to get normal Tab-completion, or change the completion
303 * The release scripts do not run automatically autoconf anymore so maybe
304 a few more people would look into the README first.
310 The most visible changes in this release are:
312 * Mod1+space now toggles the scratchpad by default and Mod1+D the dock.
314 * The `ion-(ssh|man|view|edit)` wrapper scripts were removed and instead
315 the programs used can be configured in Ion's configuration files.
317 * `ioncore.exec(_on)` also support the `:cmd` notation for "run cmd in
318 xterm" familiar from the run query. The `::cmd` notation can be used
319 to ask for enter to be pressed even when the program quit succesfully.
321 * Those with custom configuration files should note that many exported toggle
322 functions were changed and renamed, and now accept a string parameter
323 incidating whether to toggle, set or unset the property.
325 - `WClientwin.set_fullsreen` (replaces `WClientWin.toggle_fullscreen`)
326 - `WRegion.set_tagged` (replaces `WRegion.tag/untag/toggle_tag`)
327 - `WFrame.set_tabbar` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_tabbar`)
328 - `WFrame.set_shaded` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_shade`)
329 - `WFloatFrame.set_sticky` (replaces `WFloatFrame.toggle_sticky`)
330 - `WMPlex.l2_set_hidden` (replaces `WMPlex.l2_hide/show`)
331 - `mod_sp.set_shown(_on)` (replaces `mod_sp.toggle(_on)`)
332 - `mod_dock.set_floating_shown_on` (replaces `mod_dock.toggle_floating_on`)
333 - `WRegion.set_activity` (replaces `WRegion.clear_activity` and
334 `WRegion.notify_activity`)
336 For example, `WRegion.set_tagged(_, 'toggle')` should be used in place of
337 `WRegion.toggle_tagged(_)` now.
339 Obviously there are some other changes and fixes too. See the changelog
340 for details as usual.
346 This is mostly a bug fix release, but also features improved
347 `mod_query.query_exec` (F3 key) completion support. Script writers should be
348 aware that As a side effect of one of these bug fixes, many hooks are now
349 called in "protected mode" and can not call any functions that modify the
350 internal state of Ion, except ioncore.defer.
356 The most important changes in this release are:
358 * So-called "placeholders". With the help of these the positions of
359 full-screen windows are remembered in their original frames, and don't
360 just get inserted after currently active window when returning from
361 full-screen mode. Under a session manager placeholders are also used
362 to remember the original order of windows.
364 * Improved `mod_statusbar` and `ion-statusd` communication, and colouring
365 of important/critical meters.
367 * A number of small fixes.
373 This monthly snapshot adds a few new and improved features.
375 * 'Grabbed menus' that have a single cycling key and activate selected
376 entry when all modifiers have been released. See
378 <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/scripts/wcirculate.lua>
382 * Potentially blocking status meters are now in a separate ion-statusd
383 program. Please write your additional status meters that do not monitor
384 the state of Ion itself for ion-statusd (and contribute them in the
385 Ion3 scripts repository at <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/>).
386 For help on writing such status meters, see e.g. source for
387 `statusd_load` in `ext_statusbar/ion-statusd`.
389 * Floating splits are now supported on plain tiled workspaces as well as
390 on pane workspaces. To create such a split, use the workspace context
391 menu (Mod1+M by default) or write your own bindings.
393 * Line editor now supports history search; Control+Up/Down only scrolls
394 through history entries with matching initial part.
396 * Arbitrary winprop matching criteria is supported. Lua scripts have
397 access to X properties.
399 Of course there are some other minor fixes and improvements as well.
405 This release finally includes a usable (yet still incomplete) version
406 of the `mod_panews` workspace module (that has also bored the name 'autows'
407 and 'rubberws' previously). The final outcome is not exactly what I
408 initially planned, as those plans turned out not to be that workable.
409 Instead, what `mod_panews` does is add to the basic tiled ionws approach
410 overlappable splits and automatically filled panes that are initially
411 empty. Each window is classified and assigned to the pane matching that
412 classification. (The default classifications are T(erminal), V(iewer)
413 and M(iscellaneous).)
415 For a better feel for it, try it out yourself and please give feedback.
416 The overlapping panes may be a bit confusing (this is one place where
417 true translucency might actually be useful and not just eyecandy) at
418 first, but you'll get used to them if you use the feature, and e.g.
419 the Gimp works quite splendidly with the toolboxes in the 'M' pane and
420 image windows in the 'V' pane -- although the simple initial size-based
421 classification heuristics don't always get it right and overriding
422 winprops (setting: `panews_classification`) should eventually added.
424 In addition to the new module, this release adds support for translations
425 of program messages and the manual page, regardless of whether such is
426 of any use in a program like Ion or not. (Currently Finnish and Czech
427 translations are available.) Of course there are some bug fixes and
428 other minor additions as well, and the `./configure` script is also back,
429 the abandonment of libtool being final now.
435 The first thing you'll notice when you start up this release of Ion is
436 that isn't reading your old configuration that. The next thing you
437 should notice is a neat layout-adapting statusbar at the bottom of the
438 screen. That's right, Ion now includes an `ext_statusbar` Lua script that
439 is enabled by default and displays date/time/load/mail count in a
442 So why is it not reading your configuration and save files? Firstly,
443 all of the `.lua` files were renamed to be indicative of their purpose.
444 Secondly, there have been so many changes that your old files would be
447 The `.lua` files are now named as follows:
449 cfg_*.lua Configuration file that the user may wish to edit
450 look_*.lua Drawing engine style file
451 saved_*.lua Save file
452 mod_*.lua Module stub loader
453 ext_*.lua A bigger Lua extension without a C counterpart
454 so that it is not a module
456 The configuration file for `mod_foobar` or `ext_foobar`, if it has one, is,
457 of course, `cfg_foobar.lua`. In the topic of file names, also note that
458 the default installation paths and binary names have changed to include
459 the component '3' to reflect the situation with many binary packages
462 You perhaps noticed above that modules have stub loaders now, so the
463 user has no need to use the `ioncore.load_module` routine. All extensions
464 and additional configuration files can now be loaded with 'dopath'
465 (used to be 'include'). Also, the `menulib`, `querylib`, and `ioncorelib`
466 Lua libraries are gone and instead their contents can be found in the same
467 `mod_whatever` namespace with the corresponding module (the "stub" loader
468 for these modules is a bit more than just a stub...). Some may also
469 want to know that for `mod_*` and `ext_*` only the compiled .lc files are
470 now installed, and not the source `.lua` files, thus removing redundant
471 files and making the installation slightly smaller.
473 There are few other changes to the contents of the configuration files
474 as well, so you're probably best off simply rewriting your modified
475 configuration files based on the new defaults. There quite likely won't
476 be any more _big_ changes to the configuration files before the release
477 of final Ion3, wherever that will be. (Most likely we won't see 3rc:s
478 yet this year.) However, some functions and variables are still likely
479 to be renamed or changed.
481 In addition to being renamed, the layout savefile of this Ion release
482 is incompatible with older releases. This is due to the changes made
483 to the `WIonWS` (and `WAutoWS`) split tree code to make it more modularly
484 extensible with the new kinds of nodes that `WAutoWS` requires.
486 The `mod_autows` module has infact been through many changes since the
487 last release, and I think I have the final form of it finally figured
488 out. However, it is still far from finished and unlikely to be ready
495 The major new features of this snapshot release are:
497 * `WMPlex` support for a sticky status display area to which `WIonWS`s
498 adjust properly. Modified to the dock module to support this method.
499 See the new `dock.lua` to set up the dock in the new embedded or old
500 floating manner (the API for the latter has also changed).
501 * Primitive session management support.
503 There are also some bug fixes and many minor improvements; see the ChangeLog
504 for details. Work on `mod_autows` has also started, but it isn't ready for
508 ### Note on ./configure:
510 ./configure does not exist for the moment as the source autoconf script
511 is not up-to-date. Ion no longer uses libtool/libltdl due to problems
512 with inter-module dependencies, and I have not asked Tom Payne to fix
513 the script yet, as this change may not be final (although that is most
514 likely the case; those without Linux-compatible libdl and a flexible
515 binary format such as ELF will just have to link statically against the
519 ### Notes on session management:
521 Ion loads `mod_sm` automatically when the SESSION_MANAGER environment
522 variable that should be set by the session manager is set, so there's
523 no need load it in `ion.lua`.
525 When session management is in use, all entries in the 'Session' menu
526 (previously 'Exit' menu) actually invoke the session manager to do the
527 task. 'Save' asks the SM save the whole session and 'Exit' (ioncore.shutdown)
528 asks it to shut down the session instead of just causing the WM to quite.
529 To do the latter, use ioncore.resign.
531 Unfortunately, all session managers I have tried (from Debian/unstable),
532 are broken/incomplete in one way or another:
535 xsm: doesn't support any requests from applications. This makes Ion's
536 session menu complete unfunctional. The only way to restart/exit/save
537 state is through xsm's window.
540 gnome-session: This seems the most complete of the all the session managers
541 and works fine until it is requested to shut down the session, when it dumps
542 core and session state is lost if was not explicitly saved previously.
544 A `~/.gnome2/session` file to use with Ion follows:
550 0,RestartCommand=gnome-smproxy --sm-client-id default0
553 1,RestartCommand=/usr/local/ion-3/bin/ion -smclientid default1
556 ksmserver: Only supports a global shutdown request, so that Ion can not be
557 restarted or session state saved in the middle of a session.
563 This is the first development snapshot release of what is to be Ion3.
564 The most visible changes to Ion2 so far are:
566 * Default installation directory is `/usr/local/ion-3` while user
567 configuration files go in `~/.ion3`
569 * The `mod_sp` module was added. It creates an extra toggleable
570 "scratchpad" frame on each screen. Toggle is for now bound by default
571 to Mod1+section, which should be very conveniently located on most
572 Nordic keyboards (left of "1"), but you may have to change it. The
573 scratchpad should be nice for xconsole or similar monitors, xmessage
574 and other popups and just as temporary holding space for windows.
576 * All modules except the drawing engine are now called `mod_something`.
578 * Man-page complection supports a cache of known man-pages for faster
579 completion. See the README for instructions on setting up a cronjob
580 or manually generating the index if you want to use the feature.
581 Also `query_man_path` is no longer used. Instead we try the
582 `ION_MC_MANPATH` and `MANPATH` environment variables and the
585 * Exported functions are now separated into tables (namespaces)
586 instead of cluttering the globals table. Some frequently used
587 configuration functions are imported into the globals table, though.
588 Some functions have also been removed or renamed for simpler and
589 more consistent function set.
591 * New binding configuration mechanism. Dozens of `*_bindings` functions
592 were replaced with a single `[ioncorelib.]defbindings` function that
593 accepts a context parameter. Callbacks are specified as strings
594 (although passing functions still works) to make it easier for
595 external configuration programs to understand the configuration
596 files and perhaps remove some confusion among users who do not
597 care to read a tiny bit of Lua documentation and understand the
598 concept of anonymous functions.
600 * It is now also possible to retrieve a list of bindings with
601 `ioncorelib.getbindings`, for example, for self-documentation.
603 * Single move/resize mode bindings instead of separate for both
604 ionframe and floatframe.
606 There are also quite a few internal changes; see the ChangeLog for
607 details. No documentation tarball is available at the moment as the
608 documentation is out-of-date except for the function reference. If
609 you need the reference, just checkout the documentation from the
610 Subversion repository with
612 svn co http://tao.uab.es/ion/svn/ion-doc/trunk ion-doc-3ds
614 and build the documentation.
620 This release is finally what can be called "Ion 2 release candidate #1".
621 No more new features will be added to "Ion 2" after this release, and the
622 configuration interface has already been frozen for a while. I will wait a
623 couple of weeks for bug reports, and if nothing serious is found, the new
624 stable Ion should finally be released then.
626 The most notable changes since the previous release are:
628 * The dock module is included
629 * An optional autoconf script was added
630 * A few minor bugs were fixed
631 * Some incomplete features were polished, especially focus control on
633 * Changes in X keyboard map are supported now (so e.g. switching to
634 dvorak after Ion has started should update the bindings to match the
635 locations of symbols in the dvorak layout).
638 About the version numbering scheme:
640 Due to a demand of a version numbering scheme more indicative of the status
641 of the project, I was thinking of various different new version numbering
642 schemes for this release: ion-2rc1 (then 2r1, 3d1, etc.), ion-2-20040114-rc1,
643 ion-2.20040114rc1, ion-20040114-2rc1, etc.). It would've been nice if
644 simple lexicographical sorting could be used to order the packages, but
645 in the end I decided to stick with a scheme that is consistent with the
646 'ion-devel' package names:
648 project-branch_and_status-release_date
650 Therefore this release is 'ion-2rc-20040114', and the "stable" one will be
657 This is a big clean-up release. The most noticeable changes are that
658 '-devel' has been removed from path names, user configuration files go
659 in `~/.ion2/` and the main configuration file is 'ion.lua'. (The other
660 `ioncore-*.lua` files have also been renamed.) There have been no notable
661 changes in the configuration files themselves, so your old files will
662 work if you move them to the correct directory and rename the changed
663 files. (`mv ~/.ion-devel ~/.ion2; cd ~/.ion2; mv ioncore.lua ion.lua;`
666 This release also finally contains a working PWM binary. (The ioncore+
667 scripts scheme was replaced with separate binaries statically linked
668 to ioncore.a.) Floating workspaces now support edge snapping and
669 sticky windows, but some PWM features are probably still missing.
671 Some bugs were also fixed and users are now force-fed the manual page
672 the first time Ion is started. Transients can be toggled between
673 top/bottom of the main window with Mod1+K T. The SSH query uses
674 `~/.ssh/known_hosts` for completion instead of a manually defined list.
676 There may be a few additions (e.g. the dock) and bug fixes, of course,
677 before the stable release, but this release should pretty much be what
678 the new "stable" Ion should look like. Please upgrade to it to help
679 weed out the bugs. Note that you need to upgrade Lua to the 5.0.1
687 It's finally time for a new release on Ion's development branch. Most
688 likely this will also be the last "big" release before finally, after
689 almost two years, releasing a new "stable" version of Ion. A few bug
690 fix and code clean-up releases should appear in between, though.
692 The most important additions, changes and non-changes in this release
696 * A little less broken extended character set and string encoding
698 * Extended WM hints fullscreen request support
699 * Hopefully a little clarified configuration file layout
701 * And most important of all:
703 > Configuration files written for the previous release should
704 > still work this time!
706 (However, Ion will complain of old drawing engine styles.)
708 The menu module provides both drop-down menus (in the stock configuration
709 pressing Button3 on a tab should show a context menu) and query-like
710 "in-mplex" menus (F12: main menu at screen level; Mod1+M: the same context
711 menu as above at frame level).
713 What was done enhance support for strings (mostly window titles) in
714 languages that need more than 8-bit character sets is:
716 * Remove UTF8 restriction and support almost arbitrary multibyte
717 encodings instead. (Statefull encodings will not work and combining
718 characters can cause clutter. Both are a sign of bad encoding, IMHO.)
720 * The XCreateFontSet routine that is used to load fonts in the kind
721 of structure the X utf8 and multibyte routines want apparently wants
722 to be able to load glyphs for all character sets specified in the
723 locale and therefore often fails if only single font is specified.
724 Therefore a kludge was added that tries loading more fonts while
725 keeping the fonts' size the same. (The ",*" kludge could load huge
726 fonts). Unfortunately this has a noticeable effect in startup time :(.
728 * There is no longer a system.mk option to enable utf8 (now multibyte)
729 support, but must still specifically be enabled with the -i18n
730 command line switch, mostly thanks to troublesome utf-8 locales.
732 Because Xlib's UTF-8 string drawing code is broken and very unlikely to
733 be fixed, decent text output in an UTF-8 locale is still unlikely and
734 dependent on the fonts loaded in the system. The Xmb routines that are now
735 used always use an iso10646-1 font even if other fonts are loaded and the
736 unicode font does not contain a particular glyph to be drawn. The use of
737 the Xutf8 routines in an utf8 locale can be enabled with the
738 `CF_DE_USE_XUTF8` compile-time option. The advantage of this is that
739 these routines seem to choose the font to draw particular character in
740 most cases more sanely. The downside is that there are other more serious
741 problems with unknown characters.
743 All in all, even if I'd like to support a universal move to UTF-8, thanks
744 to Xlib brokenness I can't really recommend using UTF-8 locales with Ion
745 and the default drawing engine if there's a decent alternative encoding.
746 Most if not all other stateless encodings shouldn't have the problems
747 UTF-8 has. An alternative drawing engine that didn't use the Xlib i18n
748 string drawing routines might solve the troubles with utf-8 support.
752 If you have saved a custom system.mk, you'll need to set LUAC
753 point to the Lua compiler there as some of the share/ files
760 It's been a while since the previous release as I wanted to freeze the
761 Lua configuration/scripting interface for this release and therefore
762 finish work on a few things. Well, on my part the interface is frozen,
763 but I will still accept constructive complaints for a short time and
764 after that the implemented parts of the scripting interface will be
765 frozen. But in all likelihood, if no one has anything else to say, but
766 "it's ok", "it sucks", the interface will no longer change, only possibly
769 What's new for this release then?
771 * Drawing engine module support.
772 * OO-style exported functions. The old `class_fn` functions are now
773 `WClass.fn` (an ugly wrapper is provided in `compat.lua`).
774 * No more screen-specific configuration or savefiles.
775 * Session name (can be specified on command line) instead of display
776 name based savefiles. Also affects query history and not just workspace
778 * Bug fixes, most small and one bigger (almost complete rewrite of
779 the split resizing algorithm).
780 * Some documentation improvements.
782 Converting configuration files.
784 Old `.lua` colour schemes and workspace save files can be automatically
785 converted to a format suitable to be loaded by this latest release.
786 Other files will have to be ported manually. To convert colour schemes,
787 use the script `utils/lookconv.lua`. The usage is
789 lookconv.lua look-old.lua > look-new.lua
791 To convert workspaces savefiles, use the script `utils/saveconv.sh`.
794 saveconf.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-DISPLAY.*.lua \
795 > ~/.ion-devel/SESSIONNAME/workspaces.lua
797 `DISPLAY` here is the actual display part of `$DISPLAY`, probably just `:0`.
798 '*' stands for all screens (if you have only one screen you could do with
799 perhaps just `workspaces-:0.0.lua`). SESSIONNAME is the name of the session
800 where you want to use the converted savefiles. Default session name for
801 `DISPLAY` is `default-session-DISPLAY` with the colon in `DISPLAY` converted
802 to a dash. For most people this is `default-session--0`. In the simplest
803 case the whole command line is therefore
805 saveconv.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-:0.0.lua \
806 > ~/.ion-devel/default-session--0/workspaces.lua
808 The scripts may or may not work and are only provided as a potential
809 convenience that will not be maintained and will be removed eventually.
815 Quite a few bug fixes and one most likely unnoticeable improvement:
819 * Fixed pointer warping on screen change.
820 * A bug in grab handler calling code could crash Ion when leaving
821 keyboard resize mode manually.
822 * Resize display was showing incorrect values for keyboard resize.
826 * Client window last height request bookkeeping code had been lost
827 when configure request policy was changed. This caused transient
828 sizes to be calculated incorrectly.
829 * Return from full screen mode to floatws had been broken.
830 * As the number of dynamic functions has been getting bigger, the
831 functions are now sorted on first use and then binary-searched
832 instead of naive linear searching.
833 * Screen lookup had been broken for windows that are not properly
840 Just some bug fixes and minor behavioural changes and improvements in
847 This release fixes some small problems with the previous release and
848 adds a workaround kludge for the XFree86 textprop bug (it's been fixed
849 but no release with the fix is available) that could cause Opera to
850 crash Ion when UTF8 support was enabled. I also added the winprop
851 needed for galeon's find dialog to default `kludges.lua` and there's
852 some extra documentation and defaults for some systems in system.mk.
858 Most changes in this release centre around making Ion more tolerant
859 to broken configuration files; for details see the ChangeLog. There
860 are also changes in binding configuration as I already mentioned in
861 an earlier poting. Namely `common-frame-bindings.lua` is gone and the
862 bindings previously set there (into variables that the `*ws.lua`
863 files later referenced) were moved to `ioncore-bindings.lua` and are
864 set using the new functions `mplex_bindings` and `genframe_bindings`
865 are were added. Old modified configuration files should still work,
866 however, but if you use `make_active_leaf_fn`, you will need to
867 include `compat.lua` as the `global_bindings` that used this were
868 replaced by bindings in `mplex_bindings` and the function
869 `make_current_clientwin_fn`.
871 There are also some (minor) bug fixes and a few other improvements
872 worth a mention. In particular all regions are now given names of
873 the form `WFoobar<n>` by default and `DEFAULT_MOD.."F9"` was bound to
874 create a new workspace without asking for a name. This binding and
875 `QueryLib.query_workspace` use the workspace type defined in the
876 variable `default_ws_type` instead of being hardcoded to `WIonWS`.
878 All objects passed to Lua now have a unique userdata (a `WWatch`
879 cached in a weak table) so they can be used e.g. as indices to tables.
885 This release unifies some parts of `WScreen` and `WGenFrame`, which makes
886 screen-level queries possible. (Later the queries for small frames might
887 be changed to be shown at screen level.) The statusbar restriction from
888 ion-devel-20030531 was also removed by this some change and a few
889 non-fatal bugs have been fixed.
895 A bug was discovered:
899 * An off-by-one error in `extl_l1_finalize` caused references to some
900 Lua tables (including large completions) never to be released.
902 It could be that this bug was causing some other errors in Lua as well.
903 Sometimes QueryLib bindings failed because some function generators
904 returned nil although they shouldn't. Adding dummy lines (!) in those
905 functions fixed the problem and for some reason this patch also seemed
906 to remove those problems.
909 One more note: as `ioncorelib.lua` and `querylib.lua` are now installed
910 in `$SHAREDIR`, you must remove the old files in `$ETCDIR` if installing
911 over a previous release or else there will be errors. You should also
912 not use any possible old copies you have in `~/.ion-devel/`. (One of the
913 reasons for moving these to `$SHAREDIR` is to stop users from making
914 copies of them as they are not configuration files.)
920 As the subject line says, Ion-devel-20030531 was just released. The short
923 * The license was changed from the Clarified Artistic License to the
924 GNU Library/Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
925 * Screen, viewport and root window renames and other changes (see below).
926 * Some installation directory changes; the ion-* helper programs are now
927 installed either in `$SHAREDIR` or `$EXTRABINDIR` and QueryLib searches
928 for them on the script path (`~/.ion-devel/`, `$ETCDIR`, `$SHAREDIR`,
929 `$EXTRABINDIR`) instead of assuming them being on `$PATH`.
930 * Client windows are now in a separate namespace.
931 * Resize/maximize/shade changes: Shading should work on `WIonFrame`s too
932 and shade mode is automatic when the client area gets too small when
933 resizing. Maximize toggle restores frame to previous size if shaded
934 instead of maximizing. The move/resize mode bindings were changed again
935 to be more consistent and predictable: Left/Right/Up/Down and F/B/P/N
936 grow the frame in the specific direction, Shift+keys shrink and in
937 case of floating frames, `DEFAULT_MOD+keys` move
938 * Returning from full screen mode should work on `WFloatWS`s too.
939 * Lots of minor fixes, export additions and clean-up.
941 As usual, see the (long!) list of new ChangeLog entries at the end of
942 this message for details.
945 I've finally personally switched from the old "stable" 20020207 to using
946 the latest development release at home too and I must say that it is
947 finally starting to look good. There are still things to be written, but
948 unless you need "proven" stability, I see no reason to sticking to that
949 old release anymore. Unless, of course, if you find a problem that I have
950 not encountered or simply have no need for the new features and don't want
951 to port your configuration files.
954 On screens, viewports, root windows and problems with the new
957 The objects previously called "screens" are now called "root windows"
958 and what were called "viewports" are called "screens" to better reflect
959 what the user sees. (When Xinerama is not used there's no difference
960 between a root window and a screen, but when Xinerama is used a root
961 window may be split over multiple screens.)
963 This release also creates so-called virtual root windows for each
964 Xinerama screen when there are more than one. This is to better separate
965 the windows on different screens and thus emulate normal multihead, the
966 main difference being that windows can be moved between screens.
967 Especially the virtual roots are there to keep the windows that are on
968 a floatws on the right screen.
970 Virtual root windows will, however, break a few apps:
972 * Mozilla -remote won't work because of its crappy method for looking
973 up existing windows that can't handle multiple levels of WM windows.
974 Nested workspaces have the same problem. There is, however, a simple
975 solution to this problem: gnome-moz-remote. It seems to use a saner
976 method for looking up an existing Gecko browser and also works with
977 at least Phoenix/MozillaFirebird and Galeon.
979 These two are problems only if you use floatws:s (other problems with
980 which virtual root windows are intended to solve):
982 * The background-setting apps I am aware of will require a following
983 'xrefresh' for the changes to be updated to the (transparent) virtual
984 roots. Background setting apps that support the `_NET_VIRTUAL_ROOTS`
985 property (which, I think, was meant for root window-sized WS
986 backgrounds) could be used to set a separate background for each
987 Xinerama screen, though. I am not aware of any such app.
988 * Some apps' resize and move features will behave erratically on those
989 Xinerama screens not at (0, 0) on the root window. This is again
990 because the apps are assuming there's at most one WM window between
991 them and the root and are requesting windows' positions incorrectly.
992 The ICCCM is quite vague on this and I think _all_ apps that I have
993 tried are doing it wrong but the way e.g. XMMS does it certainly is
994 not an interpretation of the ICCCM. The apps that now behave correctly
995 request position for the outermost WM window. Nested workspaces have
998 There is one more temporary problem:
1000 * Status bar modules (and the dock module's statusbar mode) will be
1001 *temporarily* broken when virtual roots are _not_ used. This will be
1002 fixed later when parts of screen and frame code are unified (it should
1003 then be possible to run Ion without any workspace modules and have
1004 queries attached to screens). In the meanwhile, if you don't care about
1005 the above-mentioned problems and want a statusbar (which probably needs
1006 to be ported to this release), you can defined `CF_ALWAYS_VIRTUAL_ROOT`
1013 There are quite a few small fixes and minor enhancements invisible to
1014 the user in this release. The splitting functions were renamed to be
1015 more consistent and there are a couple of enhancements in the Lua code
1016 query that should make it much more usable. First, tab-completion can
1017 now descend into tables and complete subexpressions. Secondly, the local
1018 variable `_` in addition to 'arg[1]' is set to point to the the frame in
1019 which the query is executing.
1021 I have also written some new documentation that is now available from
1028 The most notable change in this release is that the `target_id` system
1029 was removed and instead client window status is also saved over
1030 restarts in the saves/workspaces-* files. (It shouldn't be too hard
1031 to hook a session management module over this.) Thanks to this
1032 modification, floatframes can also save their status now. Note
1033 that if you restart from older version of Ion to this one, client
1034 window layout will be messed up.
1036 There are also a few bug fixes and code to save and load line editor
1043 There are lots of minor improvements in this release, see the
1044 new ChangeLog entries for details.
1050 Some minor feature enhancements and a few fixes in this new release:
1052 The file system scanning completions are now put in the background
1053 by receiving the data from external programs through pipes and select()
1054 for data in the main event loop. This way long taking completions don't
1055 block Ion from processing other events and NFS problems shouldn't hang
1058 Basic window stacking management support code was added. Transients
1059 on floatws:s should now be stacked above their parents. If you don't
1060 want to change your modified binding configurations at this point and
1061 need the functions `floatframe_raise/lower`, include `compat.lua`.
1067 This release again fixes some minor problems and enhances a few
1068 features. Most of the enhancements are related to UTF8 support and
1069 the floatws module. If UTF8 support is enabled, Ion now tries to
1070 load the "fixed" font at startup after setting up locales. If locales
1071 aren't properly set up, this probably fails and Ion will reset locale
1072 back to "POSIX" as this might make fonts loadable although support for
1073 non-ASCII characters will be crippled. It might now be safe for
1074 package maintainers to enable UTF8 support by default
1076 As apps seem to have switched to using `_NET_WM_NAME` for UTF8 titles
1077 and filling `WM_NAME` with crap, this property is also preferred over
1078 `WM_NAME` if set. Support for some other "extended" WM hints might be
1079 added in the future but I have no intentions of moking Ion NetWM-
1080 compliant. I might have thought of attempting to do so a few years
1081 ago when I last read the specification but it seems that since then
1082 they've filled it with lots of pointless bloat that may even be in
1083 opposition to Ion's goals. Take multi-parent transients, for example.
1085 Full error log is also displayed with xmessage on startup whether
1086 it is possible to continue or not.
1092 There was a bug in QueryLib written yesterday, therefore this release.
1098 I started converting the query code to Lua and discovered some rather
1099 silly bugs in the Lua interface so here's a new release with the new
1100 and improved query code included. The names of queries have changed
1101 (they're all in the table QueryLib defined in `querylib.lua` -- only
1102 `query_query` and a few temporary handlers are implemented in query.so)
1103 so your modified configuration files will be broken again :(.
1109 Be prepared to completely rewrite your configuration files once
1110 again: a new version of Ion-devel has been released that uses Lua
1111 <http://www.lua.org/> for all configuration. Version 5.0 of the
1112 language/library is required. Although scripting possibilities
1113 are now much better than before, there is one rather big drawback:
1114 Lua is not nearly as error-tolerant as Ion's old configuration
1115 parser so a syntax error in a file will cause the file not to be
1116 executed and may even cause Ion not to be able to start. More
1117 comments and documentation on scripting will follow at a later time.
1119 Libtool and libltdl are also now used to implement module support.
1120 Hopefully this will make compiling Ion easier on a wider range of
1121 platforms. (On the other hand, this could also induce new problems.)
1123 Finally, the preferred linking address for Ion's home page is now
1124 <http://www.iki.fi/tuomov/ion/>. The pages are still located at the
1125 old address, but this redirected address should be more permanent.
1131 Just some minor fixes, binary rename and better embedded workspace
1132 support in this release. I'm still contemplating whether to convert
1133 Ion to C++ and haven't written many things that I intended to as
1134 that decision will affect how those are implemented.
1136 To create an embedded workspaces in a frame, at the moment you have
1137 to modify the appropriate workspace save file (when Ion is not running!)
1138 by adding lines such as
1140 region "WFloatWS", "testiupotus" {
1143 inside the frame definition after the other options (flags, `target_id`;
1144 those options will be ignored if after any region definitions).
1146 One more thing to note: debugging infos are no longer automatically
1147 stripped from the ioncore binary or modules by 'make install' so that
1148 I don't have to explain how to get proper backtraces every time a bug
1149 is found. If you you are confident that you can send me proper backtraces
1150 when you find a bug (or maybe can fix it yourself), you can make the
1151 binary and the modules a _lot_ smaller by running 'strip' on them.
1157 The list of new ChangeLog entries is long this time, but I'm finally
1158 starting to get to what I started working on almost two years ago. Yes,
1159 there is *experimental* support for PWM-like "floating frame" workspaces.
1160 A lot of the functionality is still missing -- no need to complain of
1161 such at the time -- but the floatws.so module and basic functionality
1162 is there. Most notably perhaps a menu module is not yet implemented.
1163 (Porting the PWM menu code should a nice little task for whomever
1164 interested... *wink*.) To create some PWM workspaces, load the floatws.so
1165 module (should be loaded by default) and in `query_workspace` (F9)
1166 prefix workspace name with 'WFloatWS:' (or load the module before
1169 This release is also finally fully modularised: In addition to the
1170 ion core binary that can not function alone, there are the modules
1171 ionws.so, floatws.so and query.so. It is also possible statically
1172 compile the modules in the core binary if the system doesn't support
1175 There's also *experimental* UTF8 support that must be specifically
1176 enabled from system.mk. You must have XFree86 (4.x?) and C99 wide
1177 char support available (either libc directly or maybe libutf8+libiconv).
1178 Thanks to bugs (?) in some of the XFree86 Xutf8 functions, your locales
1179 must be properly set up or else X will stop drawing strings at non-ascii
1180 characters instead of ignoring them. See my earlier rants on the mailing
1181 list for reasons on not using the more standard Xmb functions.
1182 To actually see any special characters, you must load the necessary fonts
1183 by specifying a comma-separated list of fonts to the font and `tab_font`
1184 draw.conf options. Multiple font loading does not work when Xft support
1185 is enabled at the time being.
1187 There has been a lot of changes in the config files, again, and I can
1188 promise there's still more to come. See the ChangeLog for details.
1189 If you want to use your old workspaces configurations, move them to
1190 `~/.ion-devel/saves` and replace the strings "WFrame" and "WWorkspace"
1191 with "WIonFrame" and "WIonWS", respectively.
1197 I've made the bugfix release as promised. Get it from the usual place.
1203 There's a new major development release available from Ion web page.
1204 Not many changes are visible to the end user, though, but a lot was
1205 rewritten to be more flexible and simpler; see the ChangeLog for a
1206 full account. The older development release is also still available
1207 because this release can not be considered as stable after major
1208 changes to the code. The most visible changes are
1210 * Changes in binding configuration
1211 * A (mostly) working full screen mode toggle (see below)
1212 * The ability to switch workspaces while dragging tabs (experimental)
1213 * The ability to re-read draw.conf without restarting Ion
1217 Some notes on full screen mode toggle:
1219 * Ion doesn't detect programs trying to leave full screen mode--it
1220 should be possible to devise some method using window properties,
1222 * At least Opera unmaps the window also before changing the size to
1223 enter full screen mode, so Ion doesn't remember the last frame.
1224 * Mozilla sometimes has trouble entering full screen mode but when it
1225 succeeds, Ion remembers the last frame. However, if
1226 `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` is used to leave the full screen mode
1227 started from Mozilla, Mozilla doesn't know that the mode has been
1230 Clearly there should be some method of communication between Ion and the
1231 programs for full screen toggles to fully work. At the moment I suggest
1232 using `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` instead of the programs' native toggles
1233 unless the program has some special full screen mode and you really want