5 This fourth "rc" release fixes some minor bugs and omissions in
12 This third "rc" release again simply fixes some minor problems in
19 This is the second "rc" release, and contains primarily bug fixes
20 and other minor improvements.
26 This is the first "rc" or "(stable) release candidate" release of
27 Ion3. This means that there will not be any further major changes
28 to it. Bugs will be fixed, and as an exception to the general
29 feature freeze, some hooks may still be added, if deemed useful.
30 Translations may also be included. After no new bugs (that can not
31 be deemed features) have been found in this or following "rc"
32 releases, the stable Ion3 will be released.
34 Most of the changes in this release to the previous one already
35 are bug fixes, in addition to some general clean-up. Other notable
38 * Winprop matching improvements: it is possible to match against
39 `is_dockapp` and `is_transient` (booleans), and there's a hack
40 to support `class` and `instance` for dockapps too.
42 * The default configuration puts dockapps in the statusbar's
45 * The autoconf kludge has been removed, as I will have nothing
46 to do with it, and nobody else seems to support or maintain
49 * Tab numbers are displayed when releasing modifiers in the
52 Distributors should pay heed to the name policy notice in the
59 This may be the last "ds" release if Ion3; if all goes well, the next
60 release is likely to be an "rc". Some minor improvements will still
61 be done, and minor requests may be accepted, so be quick.
63 The most notable changes in this release from the previous one are:
65 * Transients and queries in too small frames are "unsqueezed" out
66 of them, unless disabled with `ioncore.set{ unsqueeze = false }`.
68 * Some changes in default `cfg_ion.lua`: instead of loading
69 various other files, just `cfg_default.lua` is loaded instead.
71 * `mod_tiling.untile` (available in the context menu) may be used
72 to decompose tilings into floating frames. (This is the approximate
73 opposite of `mod_tiling.mkbottom` and the "new tiling" context menu
76 * Improved context menus.
78 * Slightly improved defaults style, using the drawing engine's
79 added possibility of partial borders.
81 * Various fixes and other improvements, in particular in relation
88 * There's been changes in padding/spacing usage in styles. Frames
89 now surround stuff inside borders not with `spacing` pixels, but
90 with `padding_pixels`. Spacing is only used to space things within
91 the borders (all the tabs and the client window from each other).
92 Consequently, custom styles may need to be updated to reflect this,
93 by increasing the padding, possibly also altering/removing colour
94 (to set it to background colour).
96 * The use of drawing engine attributes has also changed, and strict
97 ordering of them in the styles is no longer necessary. Additionally,
98 much more attributes are supported, including the name of every
101 * Xinerama support is gone. In addition to being problematic as such,
102 it had bit-rotted, and I will not waste time fixing it.
104 * `ioncore.set` no longer supports the `default_ws_params` parameter
105 for configuring the default layout. It is replaced by
106 `ioncore.deflayout("default", { ... })`, which allows configuring
107 other layouts as well, known by `mod_query.query_workspace` (F9).
108 Some default layouts are configured in `cfg_layout.lua`.
110 * It is now possible to automatically create new workspaces for
111 windows with the `new_group` winprop.
117 There's nothing major in this release, primarily just some minor fixes
118 and tuning to the previous release, that it was time to release.
124 Mostly this release still fixes issues in the big 3ds-20061015 release,
125 but in addition there are some improvements in the query department:
127 * Query activation key now cycles completions (So e.g. the
128 in the context menu activated with META+M, this same key
129 can be used to cycle through the alternatives.) This does
130 not work for queries activated by submap bindings.
132 * Likewise, it is no longer necessary to specify the key to
133 use for cycling for `mod_menu.grabmenu`.
135 * Control+R can now be used for history completion in queries.
136 (Currently matching is done for full string up to 'point', but
137 this may be changed to substring match.)
139 * Note that the parametrisation of WEdln.complete has changed,
140 and the second cycle parameter must be 'next' now instead of
147 Fixes some (expected, but minor) issues in the previous release.
153 * WIonWS and WFloatWS and the corresponding modules are gone, and
154 your custom configuration files will be broken with regard to these.
155 However, a partial backwards compatibility hack exists for layout
158 The F9 and META-F9 bindings now by default create workspaces with
159 a tiled layout of two frames. To create an "empty" workspace,
160 corresponding to the old WFloatWS, use the context menu (META-M)
161 and choose "new-empty-workspace". It is also possible to change
164 * Note that if you restart from an old version to this new version of Ion,
165 transients will stop working as expected for already existing windows.
166 They will work for newly-created windows, however.
168 * There are a few new sets of binding (including one for `WClientWin`!),
169 and some old bindings may not work exactly as expected anymore. In
170 particular, those for switching to full-screen mode.
172 **It is probably best to start from scratch with your custom
175 * `WFrame.set_tabbar` is gone. If you absolutely want to get rid off
176 the tabs, you must change the frame's "mode" with `WFrame.set_mode`.
177 The mode "tiled-alt" has been intended for this, and the corresponding
178 "framed-tiled-alt" style defaults to `bar = "none"`.
180 * The rather popular `detach.lua` script from the scripts repository
181 is obsoleted now, as Ion includes detach functionality in itself.
182 To detach a window, use META-K D in the default bindings. To tile
183 an existing frame from a workspace that doesn't have a tiling yet,
190 Some notable changes in this release include
192 * Lua 5.1 is now required.
194 * Framed transients on by default now. New binding contexts
195 "WFrame.toplevel" and "WMPlex.toplevel" were added to allow
196 for separate sets of bindings for nested transient frames and
197 top-level frames. Some of the bindings in the default binding
198 maps that are likely to be unwanted on transient frames were
199 moved to these contexts. Old custom bindings will continue to
200 work unless they modify the defaults by unbinding some of the
203 * Pressing Mod1+K K in the default bindings now switches to any
204 region with the "activity" flag set (indicated by the a box
205 at a corner of the screen), if there's one, before cycling to
206 previously active region. The same effect can be achieved in
207 your custom bindings with
209 ioncore.activity_goto() or ioncore.goto_previous()
215 This release mostly features minor bugfixes and other improvements. The most
216 visible non-bugfix changes are:
218 * Faster "fontset" filling kludge: only `-misc-fixed-*` fonts are tried. Ion
219 should now load faster in UTF-8 environments, and usually with no less
220 fonts in the fontset than before. (UTF-8 string drawing still does not
221 fully utilise these fonts under XFree86, but it does under XOrg.)
223 * Experimental auto-show-completions support, which is also on by default
224 now. In this mode the Tab key can be used to cycle forward through the
225 completions, and Shift+Tab backwards. Modify the settings seen in the
226 new `mod_query.lua` to get normal Tab-completion, or change the completion
229 * The release scripts do not run automatically autoconf anymore so maybe
230 a few more people would look into the README first.
236 The most visible changes in this release are:
238 * Mod1+space now toggles the scratchpad by default and Mod1+D the dock.
240 * The `ion-(ssh|man|view|edit)` wrapper scripts were removed and instead
241 the programs used can be configured in Ion's configuration files.
243 * `ioncore.exec(_on)` also support the `:cmd` notation for "run cmd in
244 xterm" familiar from the run query. The `::cmd` notation can be used
245 to ask for enter to be pressed even when the program quit succesfully.
247 * Those with custom configuration files should note that many exported toggle
248 functions were changed and renamed, and now accept a string parameter
249 incidating whether to toggle, set or unset the property.
251 - `WClientwin.set_fullsreen` (replaces `WClientWin.toggle_fullscreen`)
252 - `WRegion.set_tagged` (replaces `WRegion.tag/untag/toggle_tag`)
253 - `WFrame.set_tabbar` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_tabbar`)
254 - `WFrame.set_shaded` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_shade`)
255 - `WFloatFrame.set_sticky` (replaces `WFloatFrame.toggle_sticky`)
256 - `WMPlex.l2_set_hidden` (replaces `WMPlex.l2_hide/show`)
257 - `mod_sp.set_shown(_on)` (replaces `mod_sp.toggle(_on)`)
258 - `mod_dock.set_floating_shown_on` (replaces `mod_dock.toggle_floating_on`)
259 - `WRegion.set_activity` (replaces `WRegion.clear_activity` and
260 `WRegion.notify_activity`)
262 For example, `WRegion.set_tagged(_, 'toggle')` should be used in place of
263 `WRegion.toggle_tagged(_)` now.
265 Obviously there are some other changes and fixes too. See the changelog
266 for details as usual.
272 This is mostly a bug fix release, but also features improved
273 `mod_query.query_exec` (F3 key) completion support. Script writers should be
274 aware that As a side effect of one of these bug fixes, many hooks are now
275 called in "protected mode" and can not call any functions that modify the
276 internal state of Ion, except ioncore.defer.
282 The most important changes in this release are:
284 * So-called "placeholders". With the help of these the positions of
285 full-screen windows are remembered in their original frames, and don't
286 just get inserted after currently active window when returning from
287 full-screen mode. Under a session manager placeholders are also used
288 to remember the original order of windows.
290 * Improved `mod_statusbar` and `ion-statusd` communication, and colouring
291 of important/critical meters.
293 * A number of small fixes.
299 This monthly snapshot adds a few new and improved features.
301 * 'Grabbed menus' that have a single cycling key and activate selected
302 entry when all modifiers have been released. See
304 <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/scripts/wcirculate.lua>
308 * Potentially blocking status meters are now in a separate ion-statusd
309 program. Please write your additional status meters that do not monitor
310 the state of Ion itself for ion-statusd (and contribute them in the
311 Ion3 scripts repository at <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/>).
312 For help on writing such status meters, see e.g. source for
313 `statusd_load` in `ext_statusbar/ion-statusd`.
315 * Floating splits are now supported on plain tiled workspaces as well as
316 on pane workspaces. To create such a split, use the workspace context
317 menu (Mod1+M by default) or write your own bindings.
319 * Line editor now supports history search; Control+Up/Down only scrolls
320 through history entries with matching initial part.
322 * Arbitrary winprop matching criteria is supported. Lua scripts have
323 access to X properties.
325 Of course there are some other minor fixes and improvements as well.
331 This release finally includes a usable (yet still incomplete) version
332 of the `mod_panews` workspace module (that has also bored the name 'autows'
333 and 'rubberws' previously). The final outcome is not exactly what I
334 initially planned, as those plans turned out not to be that workable.
335 Instead, what `mod_panews` does is add to the basic tiled ionws approach
336 overlappable splits and automatically filled panes that are initially
337 empty. Each window is classified and assigned to the pane matching that
338 classification. (The default classifications are T(erminal), V(iewer)
339 and M(iscellaneous).)
341 For a better feel for it, try it out yourself and please give feedback.
342 The overlapping panes may be a bit confusing (this is one place where
343 true translucency might actually be useful and not just eyecandy) at
344 first, but you'll get used to them if you use the feature, and e.g.
345 the Gimp works quite splendidly with the toolboxes in the 'M' pane and
346 image windows in the 'V' pane -- although the simple initial size-based
347 classification heuristics don't always get it right and overriding
348 winprops (setting: `panews_classification`) should eventually added.
350 In addition to the new module, this release adds support for translations
351 of program messages and the manual page, regardless of whether such is
352 of any use in a program like Ion or not. (Currently Finnish and Czech
353 translations are available.) Of course there are some bug fixes and
354 other minor additions as well, and the `./configure` script is also back,
355 the abandonment of libtool being final now.
361 The first thing you'll notice when you start up this release of Ion is
362 that isn't reading your old configuration that. The next thing you
363 should notice is a neat layout-adapting statusbar at the bottom of the
364 screen. That's right, Ion now includes an `ext_statusbar` Lua script that
365 is enabled by default and displays date/time/load/mail count in a
368 So why is it not reading your configuration and save files? Firstly,
369 all of the `.lua` files were renamed to be indicative of their purpose.
370 Secondly, there have been so many changes that your old files would be
373 The `.lua` files are now named as follows:
375 cfg_*.lua Configuration file that the user may wish to edit
376 look_*.lua Drawing engine style file
377 saved_*.lua Save file
378 mod_*.lua Module stub loader
379 ext_*.lua A bigger Lua extension without a C counterpart
380 so that it is not a module
382 The configuration file for `mod_foobar` or `ext_foobar`, if it has one, is,
383 of course, `cfg_foobar.lua`. In the topic of file names, also note that
384 the default installation paths and binary names have changed to include
385 the component '3' to reflect the situation with many binary packages
388 You perhaps noticed above that modules have stub loaders now, so the
389 user has no need to use the `ioncore.load_module` routine. All extensions
390 and additional configuration files can now be loaded with 'dopath'
391 (used to be 'include'). Also, the `menulib`, `querylib`, and `ioncorelib`
392 Lua libraries are gone and instead their contents can be found in the same
393 `mod_whatever` namespace with the corresponding module (the "stub" loader
394 for these modules is a bit more than just a stub...). Some may also
395 want to know that for `mod_*` and `ext_*` only the compiled .lc files are
396 now installed, and not the source `.lua` files, thus removing redundant
397 files and making the installation slightly smaller.
399 There are few other changes to the contents of the configuration files
400 as well, so you're probably best off simply rewriting your modified
401 configuration files based on the new defaults. There quite likely won't
402 be any more _big_ changes to the configuration files before the release
403 of final Ion3, wherever that will be. (Most likely we won't see 3rc:s
404 yet this year.) However, some functions and variables are still likely
405 to be renamed or changed.
407 In addition to being renamed, the layout savefile of this Ion release
408 is incompatible with older releases. This is due to the changes made
409 to the `WIonWS` (and `WAutoWS`) split tree code to make it more modularly
410 extensible with the new kinds of nodes that `WAutoWS` requires.
412 The `mod_autows` module has infact been through many changes since the
413 last release, and I think I have the final form of it finally figured
414 out. However, it is still far from finished and unlikely to be ready
421 The major new features of this snapshot release are:
423 * `WMPlex` support for a sticky status display area to which `WIonWS`s
424 adjust properly. Modified to the dock module to support this method.
425 See the new `dock.lua` to set up the dock in the new embedded or old
426 floating manner (the API for the latter has also changed).
427 * Primitive session management support.
429 There are also some bug fixes and many minor improvements; see the ChangeLog
430 for details. Work on `mod_autows` has also started, but it isn't ready for
434 ### Note on ./configure:
436 ./configure does not exist for the moment as the source autoconf script
437 is not up-to-date. Ion no longer uses libtool/libltdl due to problems
438 with inter-module dependencies, and I have not asked Tom Payne to fix
439 the script yet, as this change may not be final (although that is most
440 likely the case; those without Linux-compatible libdl and a flexible
441 binary format such as ELF will just have to link statically against the
445 ### Notes on session management:
447 Ion loads `mod_sm` automatically when the SESSION_MANAGER environment
448 variable that should be set by the session manager is set, so there's
449 no need load it in `ion.lua`.
451 When session management is in use, all entries in the 'Session' menu
452 (previously 'Exit' menu) actually invoke the session manager to do the
453 task. 'Save' asks the SM save the whole session and 'Exit' (ioncore.shutdown)
454 asks it to shut down the session instead of just causing the WM to quite.
455 To do the latter, use ioncore.resign.
457 Unfortunately, all session managers I have tried (from Debian/unstable),
458 are broken/incomplete in one way or another:
461 xsm: doesn't support any requests from applications. This makes Ion's
462 session menu complete unfunctional. The only way to restart/exit/save
463 state is through xsm's window.
466 gnome-session: This seems the most complete of the all the session managers
467 and works fine until it is requested to shut down the session, when it dumps
468 core and session state is lost if was not explicitly saved previously.
470 A `~/.gnome2/session` file to use with Ion follows:
476 0,RestartCommand=gnome-smproxy --sm-client-id default0
479 1,RestartCommand=/usr/local/ion-3/bin/ion -smclientid default1
482 ksmserver: Only supports a global shutdown request, so that Ion can not be
483 restarted or session state saved in the middle of a session.
489 This is the first development snapshot release of what is to be Ion3.
490 The most visible changes to Ion2 so far are:
492 * Default installation directory is `/usr/local/ion-3` while user
493 configuration files go in `~/.ion3`
495 * The `mod_sp` module was added. It creates an extra toggleable
496 "scratchpad" frame on each screen. Toggle is for now bound by default
497 to Mod1+section, which should be very conveniently located on most
498 Nordic keyboards (left of "1"), but you may have to change it. The
499 scratchpad should be nice for xconsole or similar monitors, xmessage
500 and other popups and just as temporary holding space for windows.
502 * All modules except the drawing engine are now called `mod_something`.
504 * Man-page complection supports a cache of known man-pages for faster
505 completion. See the README for instructions on setting up a cronjob
506 or manually generating the index if you want to use the feature.
507 Also `query_man_path` is no longer used. Instead we try the
508 `ION_MC_MANPATH` and `MANPATH` environment variables and the
511 * Exported functions are now separated into tables (namespaces)
512 instead of cluttering the globals table. Some frequently used
513 configuration functions are imported into the globals table, though.
514 Some functions have also been removed or renamed for simpler and
515 more consistent function set.
517 * New binding configuration mechanism. Dozens of `*_bindings` functions
518 were replaced with a single `[ioncorelib.]defbindings` function that
519 accepts a context parameter. Callbacks are specified as strings
520 (although passing functions still works) to make it easier for
521 external configuration programs to understand the configuration
522 files and perhaps remove some confusion among users who do not
523 care to read a tiny bit of Lua documentation and understand the
524 concept of anonymous functions.
526 * It is now also possible to retrieve a list of bindings with
527 `ioncorelib.getbindings`, for example, for self-documentation.
529 * Single move/resize mode bindings instead of separate for both
530 ionframe and floatframe.
532 There are also quite a few internal changes; see the ChangeLog for
533 details. No documentation tarball is available at the moment as the
534 documentation is out-of-date except for the function reference. If
535 you need the reference, just checkout the documentation from the
536 Subversion repository with
538 svn co http://tao.uab.es/ion/svn/ion-doc/trunk ion-doc-3ds
540 and build the documentation.
546 This release is finally what can be called "Ion 2 release candidate #1".
547 No more new features will be added to "Ion 2" after this release, and the
548 configuration interface has already been frozen for a while. I will wait a
549 couple of weeks for bug reports, and if nothing serious is found, the new
550 stable Ion should finally be released then.
552 The most notable changes since the previous release are:
554 * The dock module is included
555 * An optional autoconf script was added
556 * A few minor bugs were fixed
557 * Some incomplete features were polished, especially focus control on
559 * Changes in X keyboard map are supported now (so e.g. switching to
560 dvorak after Ion has started should update the bindings to match the
561 locations of symbols in the dvorak layout).
564 About the version numbering scheme:
566 Due to a demand of a version numbering scheme more indicative of the status
567 of the project, I was thinking of various different new version numbering
568 schemes for this release: ion-2rc1 (then 2r1, 3d1, etc.), ion-2-20040114-rc1,
569 ion-2.20040114rc1, ion-20040114-2rc1, etc.). It would've been nice if
570 simple lexicographical sorting could be used to order the packages, but
571 in the end I decided to stick with a scheme that is consistent with the
572 'ion-devel' package names:
574 project-branch_and_status-release_date
576 Therefore this release is 'ion-2rc-20040114', and the "stable" one will be
583 This is a big clean-up release. The most noticeable changes are that
584 '-devel' has been removed from path names, user configuration files go
585 in `~/.ion2/` and the main configuration file is 'ion.lua'. (The other
586 `ioncore-*.lua` files have also been renamed.) There have been no notable
587 changes in the configuration files themselves, so your old files will
588 work if you move them to the correct directory and rename the changed
589 files. (`mv ~/.ion-devel ~/.ion2; cd ~/.ion2; mv ioncore.lua ion.lua;`
592 This release also finally contains a working PWM binary. (The ioncore+
593 scripts scheme was replaced with separate binaries statically linked
594 to ioncore.a.) Floating workspaces now support edge snapping and
595 sticky windows, but some PWM features are probably still missing.
597 Some bugs were also fixed and users are now force-fed the manual page
598 the first time Ion is started. Transients can be toggled between
599 top/bottom of the main window with Mod1+K T. The SSH query uses
600 `~/.ssh/known_hosts` for completion instead of a manually defined list.
602 There may be a few additions (e.g. the dock) and bug fixes, of course,
603 before the stable release, but this release should pretty much be what
604 the new "stable" Ion should look like. Please upgrade to it to help
605 weed out the bugs. Note that you need to upgrade Lua to the 5.0.1
613 It's finally time for a new release on Ion's development branch. Most
614 likely this will also be the last "big" release before finally, after
615 almost two years, releasing a new "stable" version of Ion. A few bug
616 fix and code clean-up releases should appear in between, though.
618 The most important additions, changes and non-changes in this release
622 * A little less broken extended character set and string encoding
624 * Extended WM hints fullscreen request support
625 * Hopefully a little clarified configuration file layout
627 * And most important of all:
629 > Configuration files written for the previous release should
630 > still work this time!
632 (However, Ion will complain of old drawing engine styles.)
634 The menu module provides both drop-down menus (in the stock configuration
635 pressing Button3 on a tab should show a context menu) and query-like
636 "in-mplex" menus (F12: main menu at screen level; Mod1+M: the same context
637 menu as above at frame level).
639 What was done enhance support for strings (mostly window titles) in
640 languages that need more than 8-bit character sets is:
642 * Remove UTF8 restriction and support almost arbitrary multibyte
643 encodings instead. (Statefull encodings will not work and combining
644 characters can cause clutter. Both are a sign of bad encoding, IMHO.)
646 * The XCreateFontSet routine that is used to load fonts in the kind
647 of structure the X utf8 and multibyte routines want apparently wants
648 to be able to load glyphs for all character sets specified in the
649 locale and therefore often fails if only single font is specified.
650 Therefore a kludge was added that tries loading more fonts while
651 keeping the fonts' size the same. (The ",*" kludge could load huge
652 fonts). Unfortunately this has a noticeable effect in startup time :(.
654 * There is no longer a system.mk option to enable utf8 (now multibyte)
655 support, but must still specifically be enabled with the -i18n
656 command line switch, mostly thanks to troublesome utf-8 locales.
658 Because Xlib's UTF-8 string drawing code is broken and very unlikely to
659 be fixed, decent text output in an UTF-8 locale is still unlikely and
660 dependent on the fonts loaded in the system. The Xmb routines that are now
661 used always use an iso10646-1 font even if other fonts are loaded and the
662 unicode font does not contain a particular glyph to be drawn. The use of
663 the Xutf8 routines in an utf8 locale can be enabled with the
664 `CF_DE_USE_XUTF8` compile-time option. The advantage of this is that
665 these routines seem to choose the font to draw particular character in
666 most cases more sanely. The downside is that there are other more serious
667 problems with unknown characters.
669 All in all, even if I'd like to support a universal move to UTF-8, thanks
670 to Xlib brokenness I can't really recommend using UTF-8 locales with Ion
671 and the default drawing engine if there's a decent alternative encoding.
672 Most if not all other stateless encodings shouldn't have the problems
673 UTF-8 has. An alternative drawing engine that didn't use the Xlib i18n
674 string drawing routines might solve the troubles with utf-8 support.
678 If you have saved a custom system.mk, you'll need to set LUAC
679 point to the Lua compiler there as some of the share/ files
686 It's been a while since the previous release as I wanted to freeze the
687 Lua configuration/scripting interface for this release and therefore
688 finish work on a few things. Well, on my part the interface is frozen,
689 but I will still accept constructive complaints for a short time and
690 after that the implemented parts of the scripting interface will be
691 frozen. But in all likelihood, if no one has anything else to say, but
692 "it's ok", "it sucks", the interface will no longer change, only possibly
695 What's new for this release then?
697 * Drawing engine module support.
698 * OO-style exported functions. The old `class_fn` functions are now
699 `WClass.fn` (an ugly wrapper is provided in `compat.lua`).
700 * No more screen-specific configuration or savefiles.
701 * Session name (can be specified on command line) instead of display
702 name based savefiles. Also affects query history and not just workspace
704 * Bug fixes, most small and one bigger (almost complete rewrite of
705 the split resizing algorithm).
706 * Some documentation improvements.
708 Converting configuration files.
710 Old `.lua` colour schemes and workspace save files can be automatically
711 converted to a format suitable to be loaded by this latest release.
712 Other files will have to be ported manually. To convert colour schemes,
713 use the script `utils/lookconv.lua`. The usage is
715 lookconv.lua look-old.lua > look-new.lua
717 To convert workspaces savefiles, use the script `utils/saveconv.sh`.
720 saveconf.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-DISPLAY.*.lua \
721 > ~/.ion-devel/SESSIONNAME/workspaces.lua
723 `DISPLAY` here is the actual display part of `$DISPLAY`, probably just `:0`.
724 '*' stands for all screens (if you have only one screen you could do with
725 perhaps just `workspaces-:0.0.lua`). SESSIONNAME is the name of the session
726 where you want to use the converted savefiles. Default session name for
727 `DISPLAY` is `default-session-DISPLAY` with the colon in `DISPLAY` converted
728 to a dash. For most people this is `default-session--0`. In the simplest
729 case the whole command line is therefore
731 saveconv.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-:0.0.lua \
732 > ~/.ion-devel/default-session--0/workspaces.lua
734 The scripts may or may not work and are only provided as a potential
735 convenience that will not be maintained and will be removed eventually.
741 Quite a few bug fixes and one most likely unnoticeable improvement:
745 * Fixed pointer warping on screen change.
746 * A bug in grab handler calling code could crash Ion when leaving
747 keyboard resize mode manually.
748 * Resize display was showing incorrect values for keyboard resize.
752 * Client window last height request bookkeeping code had been lost
753 when configure request policy was changed. This caused transient
754 sizes to be calculated incorrectly.
755 * Return from full screen mode to floatws had been broken.
756 * As the number of dynamic functions has been getting bigger, the
757 functions are now sorted on first use and then binary-searched
758 instead of naive linear searching.
759 * Screen lookup had been broken for windows that are not properly
766 Just some bug fixes and minor behavioural changes and improvements in
773 This release fixes some small problems with the previous release and
774 adds a workaround kludge for the XFree86 textprop bug (it's been fixed
775 but no release with the fix is available) that could cause Opera to
776 crash Ion when UTF8 support was enabled. I also added the winprop
777 needed for galeon's find dialog to default `kludges.lua` and there's
778 some extra documentation and defaults for some systems in system.mk.
784 Most changes in this release centre around making Ion more tolerant
785 to broken configuration files; for details see the ChangeLog. There
786 are also changes in binding configuration as I already mentioned in
787 an earlier poting. Namely `common-frame-bindings.lua` is gone and the
788 bindings previously set there (into variables that the `*ws.lua`
789 files later referenced) were moved to `ioncore-bindings.lua` and are
790 set using the new functions `mplex_bindings` and `genframe_bindings`
791 are were added. Old modified configuration files should still work,
792 however, but if you use `make_active_leaf_fn`, you will need to
793 include `compat.lua` as the `global_bindings` that used this were
794 replaced by bindings in `mplex_bindings` and the function
795 `make_current_clientwin_fn`.
797 There are also some (minor) bug fixes and a few other improvements
798 worth a mention. In particular all regions are now given names of
799 the form `WFoobar<n>` by default and `DEFAULT_MOD.."F9"` was bound to
800 create a new workspace without asking for a name. This binding and
801 `QueryLib.query_workspace` use the workspace type defined in the
802 variable `default_ws_type` instead of being hardcoded to `WIonWS`.
804 All objects passed to Lua now have a unique userdata (a `WWatch`
805 cached in a weak table) so they can be used e.g. as indices to tables.
811 This release unifies some parts of `WScreen` and `WGenFrame`, which makes
812 screen-level queries possible. (Later the queries for small frames might
813 be changed to be shown at screen level.) The statusbar restriction from
814 ion-devel-20030531 was also removed by this some change and a few
815 non-fatal bugs have been fixed.
821 A bug was discovered:
825 * An off-by-one error in `extl_l1_finalize` caused references to some
826 Lua tables (including large completions) never to be released.
828 It could be that this bug was causing some other errors in Lua as well.
829 Sometimes QueryLib bindings failed because some function generators
830 returned nil although they shouldn't. Adding dummy lines (!) in those
831 functions fixed the problem and for some reason this patch also seemed
832 to remove those problems.
835 One more note: as `ioncorelib.lua` and `querylib.lua` are now installed
836 in `$SHAREDIR`, you must remove the old files in `$ETCDIR` if installing
837 over a previous release or else there will be errors. You should also
838 not use any possible old copies you have in `~/.ion-devel/`. (One of the
839 reasons for moving these to `$SHAREDIR` is to stop users from making
840 copies of them as they are not configuration files.)
846 As the subject line says, Ion-devel-20030531 was just released. The short
849 * The license was changed from the Clarified Artistic License to the
850 GNU Library/Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
851 * Screen, viewport and root window renames and other changes (see below).
852 * Some installation directory changes; the ion-* helper programs are now
853 installed either in `$SHAREDIR` or `$EXTRABINDIR` and QueryLib searches
854 for them on the script path (`~/.ion-devel/`, `$ETCDIR`, `$SHAREDIR`,
855 `$EXTRABINDIR`) instead of assuming them being on `$PATH`.
856 * Client windows are now in a separate namespace.
857 * Resize/maximize/shade changes: Shading should work on `WIonFrame`s too
858 and shade mode is automatic when the client area gets too small when
859 resizing. Maximize toggle restores frame to previous size if shaded
860 instead of maximizing. The move/resize mode bindings were changed again
861 to be more consistent and predictable: Left/Right/Up/Down and F/B/P/N
862 grow the frame in the specific direction, Shift+keys shrink and in
863 case of floating frames, `DEFAULT_MOD+keys` move
864 * Returning from full screen mode should work on `WFloatWS`s too.
865 * Lots of minor fixes, export additions and clean-up.
867 As usual, see the (long!) list of new ChangeLog entries at the end of
868 this message for details.
871 I've finally personally switched from the old "stable" 20020207 to using
872 the latest development release at home too and I must say that it is
873 finally starting to look good. There are still things to be written, but
874 unless you need "proven" stability, I see no reason to sticking to that
875 old release anymore. Unless, of course, if you find a problem that I have
876 not encountered or simply have no need for the new features and don't want
877 to port your configuration files.
880 On screens, viewports, root windows and problems with the new
883 The objects previously called "screens" are now called "root windows"
884 and what were called "viewports" are called "screens" to better reflect
885 what the user sees. (When Xinerama is not used there's no difference
886 between a root window and a screen, but when Xinerama is used a root
887 window may be split over multiple screens.)
889 This release also creates so-called virtual root windows for each
890 Xinerama screen when there are more than one. This is to better separate
891 the windows on different screens and thus emulate normal multihead, the
892 main difference being that windows can be moved between screens.
893 Especially the virtual roots are there to keep the windows that are on
894 a floatws on the right screen.
896 Virtual root windows will, however, break a few apps:
898 * Mozilla -remote won't work because of its crappy method for looking
899 up existing windows that can't handle multiple levels of WM windows.
900 Nested workspaces have the same problem. There is, however, a simple
901 solution to this problem: gnome-moz-remote. It seems to use a saner
902 method for looking up an existing Gecko browser and also works with
903 at least Phoenix/MozillaFirebird and Galeon.
905 These two are problems only if you use floatws:s (other problems with
906 which virtual root windows are intended to solve):
908 * The background-setting apps I am aware of will require a following
909 'xrefresh' for the changes to be updated to the (transparent) virtual
910 roots. Background setting apps that support the `_NET_VIRTUAL_ROOTS`
911 property (which, I think, was meant for root window-sized WS
912 backgrounds) could be used to set a separate background for each
913 Xinerama screen, though. I am not aware of any such app.
914 * Some apps' resize and move features will behave erratically on those
915 Xinerama screens not at (0, 0) on the root window. This is again
916 because the apps are assuming there's at most one WM window between
917 them and the root and are requesting windows' positions incorrectly.
918 The ICCCM is quite vague on this and I think _all_ apps that I have
919 tried are doing it wrong but the way e.g. XMMS does it certainly is
920 not an interpretation of the ICCCM. The apps that now behave correctly
921 request position for the outermost WM window. Nested workspaces have
924 There is one more temporary problem:
926 * Status bar modules (and the dock module's statusbar mode) will be
927 *temporarily* broken when virtual roots are _not_ used. This will be
928 fixed later when parts of screen and frame code are unified (it should
929 then be possible to run Ion without any workspace modules and have
930 queries attached to screens). In the meanwhile, if you don't care about
931 the above-mentioned problems and want a statusbar (which probably needs
932 to be ported to this release), you can defined `CF_ALWAYS_VIRTUAL_ROOT`
939 There are quite a few small fixes and minor enhancements invisible to
940 the user in this release. The splitting functions were renamed to be
941 more consistent and there are a couple of enhancements in the Lua code
942 query that should make it much more usable. First, tab-completion can
943 now descend into tables and complete subexpressions. Secondly, the local
944 variable `_` in addition to 'arg[1]' is set to point to the the frame in
945 which the query is executing.
947 I have also written some new documentation that is now available from
954 The most notable change in this release is that the `target_id` system
955 was removed and instead client window status is also saved over
956 restarts in the saves/workspaces-* files. (It shouldn't be too hard
957 to hook a session management module over this.) Thanks to this
958 modification, floatframes can also save their status now. Note
959 that if you restart from older version of Ion to this one, client
960 window layout will be messed up.
962 There are also a few bug fixes and code to save and load line editor
969 There are lots of minor improvements in this release, see the
970 new ChangeLog entries for details.
976 Some minor feature enhancements and a few fixes in this new release:
978 The file system scanning completions are now put in the background
979 by receiving the data from external programs through pipes and select()
980 for data in the main event loop. This way long taking completions don't
981 block Ion from processing other events and NFS problems shouldn't hang
984 Basic window stacking management support code was added. Transients
985 on floatws:s should now be stacked above their parents. If you don't
986 want to change your modified binding configurations at this point and
987 need the functions `floatframe_raise/lower`, include `compat.lua`.
993 This release again fixes some minor problems and enhances a few
994 features. Most of the enhancements are related to UTF8 support and
995 the floatws module. If UTF8 support is enabled, Ion now tries to
996 load the "fixed" font at startup after setting up locales. If locales
997 aren't properly set up, this probably fails and Ion will reset locale
998 back to "POSIX" as this might make fonts loadable although support for
999 non-ASCII characters will be crippled. It might now be safe for
1000 package maintainers to enable UTF8 support by default
1002 As apps seem to have switched to using `_NET_WM_NAME` for UTF8 titles
1003 and filling `WM_NAME` with crap, this property is also preferred over
1004 `WM_NAME` if set. Support for some other "extended" WM hints might be
1005 added in the future but I have no intentions of moking Ion NetWM-
1006 compliant. I might have thought of attempting to do so a few years
1007 ago when I last read the specification but it seems that since then
1008 they've filled it with lots of pointless bloat that may even be in
1009 opposition to Ion's goals. Take multi-parent transients, for example.
1011 Full error log is also displayed with xmessage on startup whether
1012 it is possible to continue or not.
1018 There was a bug in QueryLib written yesterday, therefore this release.
1024 I started converting the query code to Lua and discovered some rather
1025 silly bugs in the Lua interface so here's a new release with the new
1026 and improved query code included. The names of queries have changed
1027 (they're all in the table QueryLib defined in `querylib.lua` -- only
1028 `query_query` and a few temporary handlers are implemented in query.so)
1029 so your modified configuration files will be broken again :(.
1035 Be prepared to completely rewrite your configuration files once
1036 again: a new version of Ion-devel has been released that uses Lua
1037 <http://www.lua.org/> for all configuration. Version 5.0 of the
1038 language/library is required. Although scripting possibilities
1039 are now much better than before, there is one rather big drawback:
1040 Lua is not nearly as error-tolerant as Ion's old configuration
1041 parser so a syntax error in a file will cause the file not to be
1042 executed and may even cause Ion not to be able to start. More
1043 comments and documentation on scripting will follow at a later time.
1045 Libtool and libltdl are also now used to implement module support.
1046 Hopefully this will make compiling Ion easier on a wider range of
1047 platforms. (On the other hand, this could also induce new problems.)
1049 Finally, the preferred linking address for Ion's home page is now
1050 <http://www.iki.fi/tuomov/ion/>. The pages are still located at the
1051 old address, but this redirected address should be more permanent.
1057 Just some minor fixes, binary rename and better embedded workspace
1058 support in this release. I'm still contemplating whether to convert
1059 Ion to C++ and haven't written many things that I intended to as
1060 that decision will affect how those are implemented.
1062 To create an embedded workspaces in a frame, at the moment you have
1063 to modify the appropriate workspace save file (when Ion is not running!)
1064 by adding lines such as
1066 region "WFloatWS", "testiupotus" {
1069 inside the frame definition after the other options (flags, `target_id`;
1070 those options will be ignored if after any region definitions).
1072 One more thing to note: debugging infos are no longer automatically
1073 stripped from the ioncore binary or modules by 'make install' so that
1074 I don't have to explain how to get proper backtraces every time a bug
1075 is found. If you you are confident that you can send me proper backtraces
1076 when you find a bug (or maybe can fix it yourself), you can make the
1077 binary and the modules a _lot_ smaller by running 'strip' on them.
1083 The list of new ChangeLog entries is long this time, but I'm finally
1084 starting to get to what I started working on almost two years ago. Yes,
1085 there is *experimental* support for PWM-like "floating frame" workspaces.
1086 A lot of the functionality is still missing -- no need to complain of
1087 such at the time -- but the floatws.so module and basic functionality
1088 is there. Most notably perhaps a menu module is not yet implemented.
1089 (Porting the PWM menu code should a nice little task for whomever
1090 interested... *wink*.) To create some PWM workspaces, load the floatws.so
1091 module (should be loaded by default) and in `query_workspace` (F9)
1092 prefix workspace name with 'WFloatWS:' (or load the module before
1095 This release is also finally fully modularised: In addition to the
1096 ion core binary that can not function alone, there are the modules
1097 ionws.so, floatws.so and query.so. It is also possible statically
1098 compile the modules in the core binary if the system doesn't support
1101 There's also *experimental* UTF8 support that must be specifically
1102 enabled from system.mk. You must have XFree86 (4.x?) and C99 wide
1103 char support available (either libc directly or maybe libutf8+libiconv).
1104 Thanks to bugs (?) in some of the XFree86 Xutf8 functions, your locales
1105 must be properly set up or else X will stop drawing strings at non-ascii
1106 characters instead of ignoring them. See my earlier rants on the mailing
1107 list for reasons on not using the more standard Xmb functions.
1108 To actually see any special characters, you must load the necessary fonts
1109 by specifying a comma-separated list of fonts to the font and `tab_font`
1110 draw.conf options. Multiple font loading does not work when Xft support
1111 is enabled at the time being.
1113 There has been a lot of changes in the config files, again, and I can
1114 promise there's still more to come. See the ChangeLog for details.
1115 If you want to use your old workspaces configurations, move them to
1116 `~/.ion-devel/saves` and replace the strings "WFrame" and "WWorkspace"
1117 with "WIonFrame" and "WIonWS", respectively.
1123 I've made the bugfix release as promised. Get it from the usual place.
1129 There's a new major development release available from Ion web page.
1130 Not many changes are visible to the end user, though, but a lot was
1131 rewritten to be more flexible and simpler; see the ChangeLog for a
1132 full account. The older development release is also still available
1133 because this release can not be considered as stable after major
1134 changes to the code. The most visible changes are
1136 * Changes in binding configuration
1137 * A (mostly) working full screen mode toggle (see below)
1138 * The ability to switch workspaces while dragging tabs (experimental)
1139 * The ability to re-read draw.conf without restarting Ion
1143 Some notes on full screen mode toggle:
1145 * Ion doesn't detect programs trying to leave full screen mode--it
1146 should be possible to devise some method using window properties,
1148 * At least Opera unmaps the window also before changing the size to
1149 enter full screen mode, so Ion doesn't remember the last frame.
1150 * Mozilla sometimes has trouble entering full screen mode but when it
1151 succeeds, Ion remembers the last frame. However, if
1152 `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` is used to leave the full screen mode
1153 started from Mozilla, Mozilla doesn't know that the mode has been
1156 Clearly there should be some method of communication between Ion and the
1157 programs for full screen toggles to fully work. At the moment I suggest
1158 using `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` instead of the programs' native toggles
1159 unless the program has some special full screen mode and you really want