5 This may be the last "ds" release if Ion3; if all goes well, the next
6 release is likely to be an "rc". Some minor improvements will still
7 be done, and minor requests may be accepted, so be quick.
9 The most notable changes in this release from the previous one are:
11 * Transients and queries in too small frames are "unsqueezed" out
12 of them, unless disabled with `ioncore.set{ unsqueeze = false }`.
14 * Some changes in default `cfg_ion.lua`: instead of loading
15 various other files, just `cfg_default.lua` is loaded instead.
17 * `mod_tiling.untile` (available in the context menu) may be used
18 to decompose tilings into floating frames. (This is the approximate
19 opposite of `mod_tiling.mkbottom` and the "new tiling" context menu
22 * Improved context menus.
24 * Slightly improved defaults style, using the drawing engine's
25 added possibility of partial borders.
27 * Various fixes and other improvements, in particular in relation
34 * There's been changes in padding/spacing usage in styles. Frames
35 now surround stuff inside borders not with `spacing` pixels, but
36 with `padding_pixels`. Spacing is only used to space things within
37 the borders (all the tabs and the client window from each other).
38 Consequently, custom styles may need to be updated to reflect this,
39 by increasing the padding, possibly also altering/removing colour
40 (to set it to background colour).
42 * The use of drawing engine attributes has also changed, and strict
43 ordering of them in the styles is no longer necessary. Additionally,
44 much more attributes are supported, including the name of every
47 * Xinerama support is gone. In addition to being problematic as such,
48 it had bit-rotted, and I will not waste time fixing it.
50 * `ioncore.set` no longer supports the `default_ws_params` parameter
51 for configuring the default layout. It is replaced by
52 `ioncore.deflayout("default", { ... })`, which allows configuring
53 other layouts as well, known by `mod_query.query_workspace` (F9).
54 Some default layouts are configured in `cfg_layout.lua`.
56 * It is now possible to automatically create new workspaces for
57 windows with the `new_group` winprop.
63 There's nothing major in this release, primarily just some minor fixes
64 and tuning to the previous release, that it was time to release.
70 Mostly this release still fixes issues in the big 3ds-20061015 release,
71 but in addition there are some improvements in the query department:
73 * Query activation key now cycles completions (So e.g. the
74 in the context menu activated with META+M, this same key
75 can be used to cycle through the alternatives.) This does
76 not work for queries activated by submap bindings.
78 * Likewise, it is no longer necessary to specify the key to
79 use for cycling for `mod_menu.grabmenu`.
81 * Control+R can now be used for history completion in queries.
82 (Currently matching is done for full string up to 'point', but
83 this may be changed to substring match.)
85 * Note that the parametrisation of WEdln.complete has changed,
86 and the second cycle parameter must be 'next' now instead of
93 Fixes some (expected, but minor) issues in the previous release.
99 * WIonWS and WFloatWS and the corresponding modules are gone, and
100 your custom configuration files will be broken with regard to these.
101 However, a partial backwards compatibility hack exists for layout
104 The F9 and META-F9 bindings now by default create workspaces with
105 a tiled layout of two frames. To create an "empty" workspace,
106 corresponding to the old WFloatWS, use the context menu (META-M)
107 and choose "new-empty-workspace". It is also possible to change
110 * Note that if you restart from an old version to this new version of Ion,
111 transients will stop working as expected for already existing windows.
112 They will work for newly-created windows, however.
114 * There are a few new sets of binding (including one for `WClientWin`!),
115 and some old bindings may not work exactly as expected anymore. In
116 particular, those for switching to full-screen mode.
118 **It is probably best to start from scratch with your custom
121 * `WFrame.set_tabbar` is gone. If you absolutely want to get rid off
122 the tabs, you must change the frame's "mode" with `WFrame.set_mode`.
123 The mode "tiled-alt" has been intended for this, and the corresponding
124 "framed-tiled-alt" style defaults to `bar = "none"`.
126 * The rather popular `detach.lua` script from the scripts repository
127 is obsoleted now, as Ion includes detach functionality in itself.
128 To detach a window, use META-K D in the default bindings. To tile
129 an existing frame from a workspace that doesn't have a tiling yet,
136 Some notable changes in this release include
138 * Lua 5.1 is now required.
140 * Framed transients on by default now. New binding contexts
141 "WFrame.toplevel" and "WMPlex.toplevel" were added to allow
142 for separate sets of bindings for nested transient frames and
143 top-level frames. Some of the bindings in the default binding
144 maps that are likely to be unwanted on transient frames were
145 moved to these contexts. Old custom bindings will continue to
146 work unless they modify the defaults by unbinding some of the
149 * Pressing Mod1+K K in the default bindings now switches to any
150 region with the "activity" flag set (indicated by the a box
151 at a corner of the screen), if there's one, before cycling to
152 previously active region. The same effect can be achieved in
153 your custom bindings with
155 ioncore.activity_goto() or ioncore.goto_previous()
161 This release mostly features minor bugfixes and other improvements. The most
162 visible non-bugfix changes are:
164 * Faster "fontset" filling kludge: only `-misc-fixed-*` fonts are tried. Ion
165 should now load faster in UTF-8 environments, and usually with no less
166 fonts in the fontset than before. (UTF-8 string drawing still does not
167 fully utilise these fonts under XFree86, but it does under XOrg.)
169 * Experimental auto-show-completions support, which is also on by default
170 now. In this mode the Tab key can be used to cycle forward through the
171 completions, and Shift+Tab backwards. Modify the settings seen in the
172 new `mod_query.lua` to get normal Tab-completion, or change the completion
175 * The release scripts do not run automatically autoconf anymore so maybe
176 a few more people would look into the README first.
182 The most visible changes in this release are:
184 * Mod1+space now toggles the scratchpad by default and Mod1+D the dock.
186 * The `ion-(ssh|man|view|edit)` wrapper scripts were removed and instead
187 the programs used can be configured in Ion's configuration files.
189 * `ioncore.exec(_on)` also support the `:cmd` notation for "run cmd in
190 xterm" familiar from the run query. The `::cmd` notation can be used
191 to ask for enter to be pressed even when the program quit succesfully.
193 * Those with custom configuration files should note that many exported toggle
194 functions were changed and renamed, and now accept a string parameter
195 incidating whether to toggle, set or unset the property.
197 - `WClientwin.set_fullsreen` (replaces `WClientWin.toggle_fullscreen`)
198 - `WRegion.set_tagged` (replaces `WRegion.tag/untag/toggle_tag`)
199 - `WFrame.set_tabbar` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_tabbar`)
200 - `WFrame.set_shaded` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_shade`)
201 - `WFloatFrame.set_sticky` (replaces `WFloatFrame.toggle_sticky`)
202 - `WMPlex.l2_set_hidden` (replaces `WMPlex.l2_hide/show`)
203 - `mod_sp.set_shown(_on)` (replaces `mod_sp.toggle(_on)`)
204 - `mod_dock.set_floating_shown_on` (replaces `mod_dock.toggle_floating_on`)
205 - `WRegion.set_activity` (replaces `WRegion.clear_activity` and
206 `WRegion.notify_activity`)
208 For example, `WRegion.set_tagged(_, 'toggle')` should be used in place of
209 `WRegion.toggle_tagged(_)` now.
211 Obviously there are some other changes and fixes too. See the changelog
212 for details as usual.
218 This is mostly a bug fix release, but also features improved
219 `mod_query.query_exec` (F3 key) completion support. Script writers should be
220 aware that As a side effect of one of these bug fixes, many hooks are now
221 called in "protected mode" and can not call any functions that modify the
222 internal state of Ion, except ioncore.defer.
228 The most important changes in this release are:
230 * So-called "placeholders". With the help of these the positions of
231 full-screen windows are remembered in their original frames, and don't
232 just get inserted after currently active window when returning from
233 full-screen mode. Under a session manager placeholders are also used
234 to remember the original order of windows.
236 * Improved `mod_statusbar` and `ion-statusd` communication, and colouring
237 of important/critical meters.
239 * A number of small fixes.
245 This monthly snapshot adds a few new and improved features.
247 * 'Grabbed menus' that have a single cycling key and activate selected
248 entry when all modifiers have been released. See
250 <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/scripts/wcirculate.lua>
254 * Potentially blocking status meters are now in a separate ion-statusd
255 program. Please write your additional status meters that do not monitor
256 the state of Ion itself for ion-statusd (and contribute them in the
257 Ion3 scripts repository at <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/>).
258 For help on writing such status meters, see e.g. source for
259 `statusd_load` in `ext_statusbar/ion-statusd`.
261 * Floating splits are now supported on plain tiled workspaces as well as
262 on pane workspaces. To create such a split, use the workspace context
263 menu (Mod1+M by default) or write your own bindings.
265 * Line editor now supports history search; Control+Up/Down only scrolls
266 through history entries with matching initial part.
268 * Arbitrary winprop matching criteria is supported. Lua scripts have
269 access to X properties.
271 Of course there are some other minor fixes and improvements as well.
277 This release finally includes a usable (yet still incomplete) version
278 of the `mod_panews` workspace module (that has also bored the name 'autows'
279 and 'rubberws' previously). The final outcome is not exactly what I
280 initially planned, as those plans turned out not to be that workable.
281 Instead, what `mod_panews` does is add to the basic tiled ionws approach
282 overlappable splits and automatically filled panes that are initially
283 empty. Each window is classified and assigned to the pane matching that
284 classification. (The default classifications are T(erminal), V(iewer)
285 and M(iscellaneous).)
287 For a better feel for it, try it out yourself and please give feedback.
288 The overlapping panes may be a bit confusing (this is one place where
289 true translucency might actually be useful and not just eyecandy) at
290 first, but you'll get used to them if you use the feature, and e.g.
291 the Gimp works quite splendidly with the toolboxes in the 'M' pane and
292 image windows in the 'V' pane -- although the simple initial size-based
293 classification heuristics don't always get it right and overriding
294 winprops (setting: `panews_classification`) should eventually added.
296 In addition to the new module, this release adds support for translations
297 of program messages and the manual page, regardless of whether such is
298 of any use in a program like Ion or not. (Currently Finnish and Czech
299 translations are available.) Of course there are some bug fixes and
300 other minor additions as well, and the `./configure` script is also back,
301 the abandonment of libtool being final now.
307 The first thing you'll notice when you start up this release of Ion is
308 that isn't reading your old configuration that. The next thing you
309 should notice is a neat layout-adapting statusbar at the bottom of the
310 screen. That's right, Ion now includes an `ext_statusbar` Lua script that
311 is enabled by default and displays date/time/load/mail count in a
314 So why is it not reading your configuration and save files? Firstly,
315 all of the `.lua` files were renamed to be indicative of their purpose.
316 Secondly, there have been so many changes that your old files would be
319 The `.lua` files are now named as follows:
321 cfg_*.lua Configuration file that the user may wish to edit
322 look_*.lua Drawing engine style file
323 saved_*.lua Save file
324 mod_*.lua Module stub loader
325 ext_*.lua A bigger Lua extension without a C counterpart
326 so that it is not a module
328 The configuration file for `mod_foobar` or `ext_foobar`, if it has one, is,
329 of course, `cfg_foobar.lua`. In the topic of file names, also note that
330 the default installation paths and binary names have changed to include
331 the component '3' to reflect the situation with many binary packages
334 You perhaps noticed above that modules have stub loaders now, so the
335 user has no need to use the `ioncore.load_module` routine. All extensions
336 and additional configuration files can now be loaded with 'dopath'
337 (used to be 'include'). Also, the `menulib`, `querylib`, and `ioncorelib`
338 Lua libraries are gone and instead their contents can be found in the same
339 `mod_whatever` namespace with the corresponding module (the "stub" loader
340 for these modules is a bit more than just a stub...). Some may also
341 want to know that for `mod_*` and `ext_*` only the compiled .lc files are
342 now installed, and not the source `.lua` files, thus removing redundant
343 files and making the installation slightly smaller.
345 There are few other changes to the contents of the configuration files
346 as well, so you're probably best off simply rewriting your modified
347 configuration files based on the new defaults. There quite likely won't
348 be any more _big_ changes to the configuration files before the release
349 of final Ion3, wherever that will be. (Most likely we won't see 3rc:s
350 yet this year.) However, some functions and variables are still likely
351 to be renamed or changed.
353 In addition to being renamed, the layout savefile of this Ion release
354 is incompatible with older releases. This is due to the changes made
355 to the `WIonWS` (and `WAutoWS`) split tree code to make it more modularly
356 extensible with the new kinds of nodes that `WAutoWS` requires.
358 The `mod_autows` module has infact been through many changes since the
359 last release, and I think I have the final form of it finally figured
360 out. However, it is still far from finished and unlikely to be ready
367 The major new features of this snapshot release are:
369 * `WMPlex` support for a sticky status display area to which `WIonWS`s
370 adjust properly. Modified to the dock module to support this method.
371 See the new `dock.lua` to set up the dock in the new embedded or old
372 floating manner (the API for the latter has also changed).
373 * Primitive session management support.
375 There are also some bug fixes and many minor improvements; see the ChangeLog
376 for details. Work on `mod_autows` has also started, but it isn't ready for
380 ### Note on ./configure:
382 ./configure does not exist for the moment as the source autoconf script
383 is not up-to-date. Ion no longer uses libtool/libltdl due to problems
384 with inter-module dependencies, and I have not asked Tom Payne to fix
385 the script yet, as this change may not be final (although that is most
386 likely the case; those without Linux-compatible libdl and a flexible
387 binary format such as ELF will just have to link statically against the
391 ### Notes on session management:
393 Ion loads `mod_sm` automatically when the SESSION_MANAGER environment
394 variable that should be set by the session manager is set, so there's
395 no need load it in `ion.lua`.
397 When session management is in use, all entries in the 'Session' menu
398 (previously 'Exit' menu) actually invoke the session manager to do the
399 task. 'Save' asks the SM save the whole session and 'Exit' (ioncore.shutdown)
400 asks it to shut down the session instead of just causing the WM to quite.
401 To do the latter, use ioncore.resign.
403 Unfortunately, all session managers I have tried (from Debian/unstable),
404 are broken/incomplete in one way or another:
407 xsm: doesn't support any requests from applications. This makes Ion's
408 session menu complete unfunctional. The only way to restart/exit/save
409 state is through xsm's window.
412 gnome-session: This seems the most complete of the all the session managers
413 and works fine until it is requested to shut down the session, when it dumps
414 core and session state is lost if was not explicitly saved previously.
416 A `~/.gnome2/session` file to use with Ion follows:
422 0,RestartCommand=gnome-smproxy --sm-client-id default0
425 1,RestartCommand=/usr/local/ion-3/bin/ion -smclientid default1
428 ksmserver: Only supports a global shutdown request, so that Ion can not be
429 restarted or session state saved in the middle of a session.
435 This is the first development snapshot release of what is to be Ion3.
436 The most visible changes to Ion2 so far are:
438 * Default installation directory is `/usr/local/ion-3` while user
439 configuration files go in `~/.ion3`
441 * The `mod_sp` module was added. It creates an extra toggleable
442 "scratchpad" frame on each screen. Toggle is for now bound by default
443 to Mod1+section, which should be very conveniently located on most
444 Nordic keyboards (left of "1"), but you may have to change it. The
445 scratchpad should be nice for xconsole or similar monitors, xmessage
446 and other popups and just as temporary holding space for windows.
448 * All modules except the drawing engine are now called `mod_something`.
450 * Man-page complection supports a cache of known man-pages for faster
451 completion. See the README for instructions on setting up a cronjob
452 or manually generating the index if you want to use the feature.
453 Also `query_man_path` is no longer used. Instead we try the
454 `ION_MC_MANPATH` and `MANPATH` environment variables and the
457 * Exported functions are now separated into tables (namespaces)
458 instead of cluttering the globals table. Some frequently used
459 configuration functions are imported into the globals table, though.
460 Some functions have also been removed or renamed for simpler and
461 more consistent function set.
463 * New binding configuration mechanism. Dozens of `*_bindings` functions
464 were replaced with a single `[ioncorelib.]defbindings` function that
465 accepts a context parameter. Callbacks are specified as strings
466 (although passing functions still works) to make it easier for
467 external configuration programs to understand the configuration
468 files and perhaps remove some confusion among users who do not
469 care to read a tiny bit of Lua documentation and understand the
470 concept of anonymous functions.
472 * It is now also possible to retrieve a list of bindings with
473 `ioncorelib.getbindings`, for example, for self-documentation.
475 * Single move/resize mode bindings instead of separate for both
476 ionframe and floatframe.
478 There are also quite a few internal changes; see the ChangeLog for
479 details. No documentation tarball is available at the moment as the
480 documentation is out-of-date except for the function reference. If
481 you need the reference, just checkout the documentation from the
482 Subversion repository with
484 svn co http://tao.uab.es/ion/svn/ion-doc/trunk ion-doc-3ds
486 and build the documentation.
492 This release is finally what can be called "Ion 2 release candidate #1".
493 No more new features will be added to "Ion 2" after this release, and the
494 configuration interface has already been frozen for a while. I will wait a
495 couple of weeks for bug reports, and if nothing serious is found, the new
496 stable Ion should finally be released then.
498 The most notable changes since the previous release are:
500 * The dock module is included
501 * An optional autoconf script was added
502 * A few minor bugs were fixed
503 * Some incomplete features were polished, especially focus control on
505 * Changes in X keyboard map are supported now (so e.g. switching to
506 dvorak after Ion has started should update the bindings to match the
507 locations of symbols in the dvorak layout).
510 About the version numbering scheme:
512 Due to a demand of a version numbering scheme more indicative of the status
513 of the project, I was thinking of various different new version numbering
514 schemes for this release: ion-2rc1 (then 2r1, 3d1, etc.), ion-2-20040114-rc1,
515 ion-2.20040114rc1, ion-20040114-2rc1, etc.). It would've been nice if
516 simple lexicographical sorting could be used to order the packages, but
517 in the end I decided to stick with a scheme that is consistent with the
518 'ion-devel' package names:
520 project-branch_and_status-release_date
522 Therefore this release is 'ion-2rc-20040114', and the "stable" one will be
529 This is a big clean-up release. The most noticeable changes are that
530 '-devel' has been removed from path names, user configuration files go
531 in `~/.ion2/` and the main configuration file is 'ion.lua'. (The other
532 `ioncore-*.lua` files have also been renamed.) There have been no notable
533 changes in the configuration files themselves, so your old files will
534 work if you move them to the correct directory and rename the changed
535 files. (`mv ~/.ion-devel ~/.ion2; cd ~/.ion2; mv ioncore.lua ion.lua;`
538 This release also finally contains a working PWM binary. (The ioncore+
539 scripts scheme was replaced with separate binaries statically linked
540 to ioncore.a.) Floating workspaces now support edge snapping and
541 sticky windows, but some PWM features are probably still missing.
543 Some bugs were also fixed and users are now force-fed the manual page
544 the first time Ion is started. Transients can be toggled between
545 top/bottom of the main window with Mod1+K T. The SSH query uses
546 `~/.ssh/known_hosts` for completion instead of a manually defined list.
548 There may be a few additions (e.g. the dock) and bug fixes, of course,
549 before the stable release, but this release should pretty much be what
550 the new "stable" Ion should look like. Please upgrade to it to help
551 weed out the bugs. Note that you need to upgrade Lua to the 5.0.1
559 It's finally time for a new release on Ion's development branch. Most
560 likely this will also be the last "big" release before finally, after
561 almost two years, releasing a new "stable" version of Ion. A few bug
562 fix and code clean-up releases should appear in between, though.
564 The most important additions, changes and non-changes in this release
568 * A little less broken extended character set and string encoding
570 * Extended WM hints fullscreen request support
571 * Hopefully a little clarified configuration file layout
573 * And most important of all:
575 > Configuration files written for the previous release should
576 > still work this time!
578 (However, Ion will complain of old drawing engine styles.)
580 The menu module provides both drop-down menus (in the stock configuration
581 pressing Button3 on a tab should show a context menu) and query-like
582 "in-mplex" menus (F12: main menu at screen level; Mod1+M: the same context
583 menu as above at frame level).
585 What was done enhance support for strings (mostly window titles) in
586 languages that need more than 8-bit character sets is:
588 * Remove UTF8 restriction and support almost arbitrary multibyte
589 encodings instead. (Statefull encodings will not work and combining
590 characters can cause clutter. Both are a sign of bad encoding, IMHO.)
592 * The XCreateFontSet routine that is used to load fonts in the kind
593 of structure the X utf8 and multibyte routines want apparently wants
594 to be able to load glyphs for all character sets specified in the
595 locale and therefore often fails if only single font is specified.
596 Therefore a kludge was added that tries loading more fonts while
597 keeping the fonts' size the same. (The ",*" kludge could load huge
598 fonts). Unfortunately this has a noticeable effect in startup time :(.
600 * There is no longer a system.mk option to enable utf8 (now multibyte)
601 support, but must still specifically be enabled with the -i18n
602 command line switch, mostly thanks to troublesome utf-8 locales.
604 Because Xlib's UTF-8 string drawing code is broken and very unlikely to
605 be fixed, decent text output in an UTF-8 locale is still unlikely and
606 dependent on the fonts loaded in the system. The Xmb routines that are now
607 used always use an iso10646-1 font even if other fonts are loaded and the
608 unicode font does not contain a particular glyph to be drawn. The use of
609 the Xutf8 routines in an utf8 locale can be enabled with the
610 `CF_DE_USE_XUTF8` compile-time option. The advantage of this is that
611 these routines seem to choose the font to draw particular character in
612 most cases more sanely. The downside is that there are other more serious
613 problems with unknown characters.
615 All in all, even if I'd like to support a universal move to UTF-8, thanks
616 to Xlib brokenness I can't really recommend using UTF-8 locales with Ion
617 and the default drawing engine if there's a decent alternative encoding.
618 Most if not all other stateless encodings shouldn't have the problems
619 UTF-8 has. An alternative drawing engine that didn't use the Xlib i18n
620 string drawing routines might solve the troubles with utf-8 support.
624 If you have saved a custom system.mk, you'll need to set LUAC
625 point to the Lua compiler there as some of the share/ files
632 It's been a while since the previous release as I wanted to freeze the
633 Lua configuration/scripting interface for this release and therefore
634 finish work on a few things. Well, on my part the interface is frozen,
635 but I will still accept constructive complaints for a short time and
636 after that the implemented parts of the scripting interface will be
637 frozen. But in all likelihood, if no one has anything else to say, but
638 "it's ok", "it sucks", the interface will no longer change, only possibly
641 What's new for this release then?
643 * Drawing engine module support.
644 * OO-style exported functions. The old `class_fn` functions are now
645 `WClass.fn` (an ugly wrapper is provided in `compat.lua`).
646 * No more screen-specific configuration or savefiles.
647 * Session name (can be specified on command line) instead of display
648 name based savefiles. Also affects query history and not just workspace
650 * Bug fixes, most small and one bigger (almost complete rewrite of
651 the split resizing algorithm).
652 * Some documentation improvements.
654 Converting configuration files.
656 Old `.lua` colour schemes and workspace save files can be automatically
657 converted to a format suitable to be loaded by this latest release.
658 Other files will have to be ported manually. To convert colour schemes,
659 use the script `utils/lookconv.lua`. The usage is
661 lookconv.lua look-old.lua > look-new.lua
663 To convert workspaces savefiles, use the script `utils/saveconv.sh`.
666 saveconf.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-DISPLAY.*.lua \
667 > ~/.ion-devel/SESSIONNAME/workspaces.lua
669 `DISPLAY` here is the actual display part of `$DISPLAY`, probably just `:0`.
670 '*' stands for all screens (if you have only one screen you could do with
671 perhaps just `workspaces-:0.0.lua`). SESSIONNAME is the name of the session
672 where you want to use the converted savefiles. Default session name for
673 `DISPLAY` is `default-session-DISPLAY` with the colon in `DISPLAY` converted
674 to a dash. For most people this is `default-session--0`. In the simplest
675 case the whole command line is therefore
677 saveconv.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-:0.0.lua \
678 > ~/.ion-devel/default-session--0/workspaces.lua
680 The scripts may or may not work and are only provided as a potential
681 convenience that will not be maintained and will be removed eventually.
687 Quite a few bug fixes and one most likely unnoticeable improvement:
691 * Fixed pointer warping on screen change.
692 * A bug in grab handler calling code could crash Ion when leaving
693 keyboard resize mode manually.
694 * Resize display was showing incorrect values for keyboard resize.
698 * Client window last height request bookkeeping code had been lost
699 when configure request policy was changed. This caused transient
700 sizes to be calculated incorrectly.
701 * Return from full screen mode to floatws had been broken.
702 * As the number of dynamic functions has been getting bigger, the
703 functions are now sorted on first use and then binary-searched
704 instead of naive linear searching.
705 * Screen lookup had been broken for windows that are not properly
712 Just some bug fixes and minor behavioural changes and improvements in
719 This release fixes some small problems with the previous release and
720 adds a workaround kludge for the XFree86 textprop bug (it's been fixed
721 but no release with the fix is available) that could cause Opera to
722 crash Ion when UTF8 support was enabled. I also added the winprop
723 needed for galeon's find dialog to default `kludges.lua` and there's
724 some extra documentation and defaults for some systems in system.mk.
730 Most changes in this release centre around making Ion more tolerant
731 to broken configuration files; for details see the ChangeLog. There
732 are also changes in binding configuration as I already mentioned in
733 an earlier poting. Namely `common-frame-bindings.lua` is gone and the
734 bindings previously set there (into variables that the `*ws.lua`
735 files later referenced) were moved to `ioncore-bindings.lua` and are
736 set using the new functions `mplex_bindings` and `genframe_bindings`
737 are were added. Old modified configuration files should still work,
738 however, but if you use `make_active_leaf_fn`, you will need to
739 include `compat.lua` as the `global_bindings` that used this were
740 replaced by bindings in `mplex_bindings` and the function
741 `make_current_clientwin_fn`.
743 There are also some (minor) bug fixes and a few other improvements
744 worth a mention. In particular all regions are now given names of
745 the form `WFoobar<n>` by default and `DEFAULT_MOD.."F9"` was bound to
746 create a new workspace without asking for a name. This binding and
747 `QueryLib.query_workspace` use the workspace type defined in the
748 variable `default_ws_type` instead of being hardcoded to `WIonWS`.
750 All objects passed to Lua now have a unique userdata (a `WWatch`
751 cached in a weak table) so they can be used e.g. as indices to tables.
757 This release unifies some parts of `WScreen` and `WGenFrame`, which makes
758 screen-level queries possible. (Later the queries for small frames might
759 be changed to be shown at screen level.) The statusbar restriction from
760 ion-devel-20030531 was also removed by this some change and a few
761 non-fatal bugs have been fixed.
767 A bug was discovered:
771 * An off-by-one error in `extl_l1_finalize` caused references to some
772 Lua tables (including large completions) never to be released.
774 It could be that this bug was causing some other errors in Lua as well.
775 Sometimes QueryLib bindings failed because some function generators
776 returned nil although they shouldn't. Adding dummy lines (!) in those
777 functions fixed the problem and for some reason this patch also seemed
778 to remove those problems.
781 One more note: as `ioncorelib.lua` and `querylib.lua` are now installed
782 in `$SHAREDIR`, you must remove the old files in `$ETCDIR` if installing
783 over a previous release or else there will be errors. You should also
784 not use any possible old copies you have in `~/.ion-devel/`. (One of the
785 reasons for moving these to `$SHAREDIR` is to stop users from making
786 copies of them as they are not configuration files.)
792 As the subject line says, Ion-devel-20030531 was just released. The short
795 * The license was changed from the Clarified Artistic License to the
796 GNU Library/Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
797 * Screen, viewport and root window renames and other changes (see below).
798 * Some installation directory changes; the ion-* helper programs are now
799 installed either in `$SHAREDIR` or `$EXTRABINDIR` and QueryLib searches
800 for them on the script path (`~/.ion-devel/`, `$ETCDIR`, `$SHAREDIR`,
801 `$EXTRABINDIR`) instead of assuming them being on `$PATH`.
802 * Client windows are now in a separate namespace.
803 * Resize/maximize/shade changes: Shading should work on `WIonFrame`s too
804 and shade mode is automatic when the client area gets too small when
805 resizing. Maximize toggle restores frame to previous size if shaded
806 instead of maximizing. The move/resize mode bindings were changed again
807 to be more consistent and predictable: Left/Right/Up/Down and F/B/P/N
808 grow the frame in the specific direction, Shift+keys shrink and in
809 case of floating frames, `DEFAULT_MOD+keys` move
810 * Returning from full screen mode should work on `WFloatWS`s too.
811 * Lots of minor fixes, export additions and clean-up.
813 As usual, see the (long!) list of new ChangeLog entries at the end of
814 this message for details.
817 I've finally personally switched from the old "stable" 20020207 to using
818 the latest development release at home too and I must say that it is
819 finally starting to look good. There are still things to be written, but
820 unless you need "proven" stability, I see no reason to sticking to that
821 old release anymore. Unless, of course, if you find a problem that I have
822 not encountered or simply have no need for the new features and don't want
823 to port your configuration files.
826 On screens, viewports, root windows and problems with the new
829 The objects previously called "screens" are now called "root windows"
830 and what were called "viewports" are called "screens" to better reflect
831 what the user sees. (When Xinerama is not used there's no difference
832 between a root window and a screen, but when Xinerama is used a root
833 window may be split over multiple screens.)
835 This release also creates so-called virtual root windows for each
836 Xinerama screen when there are more than one. This is to better separate
837 the windows on different screens and thus emulate normal multihead, the
838 main difference being that windows can be moved between screens.
839 Especially the virtual roots are there to keep the windows that are on
840 a floatws on the right screen.
842 Virtual root windows will, however, break a few apps:
844 * Mozilla -remote won't work because of its crappy method for looking
845 up existing windows that can't handle multiple levels of WM windows.
846 Nested workspaces have the same problem. There is, however, a simple
847 solution to this problem: gnome-moz-remote. It seems to use a saner
848 method for looking up an existing Gecko browser and also works with
849 at least Phoenix/MozillaFirebird and Galeon.
851 These two are problems only if you use floatws:s (other problems with
852 which virtual root windows are intended to solve):
854 * The background-setting apps I am aware of will require a following
855 'xrefresh' for the changes to be updated to the (transparent) virtual
856 roots. Background setting apps that support the `_NET_VIRTUAL_ROOTS`
857 property (which, I think, was meant for root window-sized WS
858 backgrounds) could be used to set a separate background for each
859 Xinerama screen, though. I am not aware of any such app.
860 * Some apps' resize and move features will behave erratically on those
861 Xinerama screens not at (0, 0) on the root window. This is again
862 because the apps are assuming there's at most one WM window between
863 them and the root and are requesting windows' positions incorrectly.
864 The ICCCM is quite vague on this and I think _all_ apps that I have
865 tried are doing it wrong but the way e.g. XMMS does it certainly is
866 not an interpretation of the ICCCM. The apps that now behave correctly
867 request position for the outermost WM window. Nested workspaces have
870 There is one more temporary problem:
872 * Status bar modules (and the dock module's statusbar mode) will be
873 *temporarily* broken when virtual roots are _not_ used. This will be
874 fixed later when parts of screen and frame code are unified (it should
875 then be possible to run Ion without any workspace modules and have
876 queries attached to screens). In the meanwhile, if you don't care about
877 the above-mentioned problems and want a statusbar (which probably needs
878 to be ported to this release), you can defined `CF_ALWAYS_VIRTUAL_ROOT`
885 There are quite a few small fixes and minor enhancements invisible to
886 the user in this release. The splitting functions were renamed to be
887 more consistent and there are a couple of enhancements in the Lua code
888 query that should make it much more usable. First, tab-completion can
889 now descend into tables and complete subexpressions. Secondly, the local
890 variable `_` in addition to 'arg[1]' is set to point to the the frame in
891 which the query is executing.
893 I have also written some new documentation that is now available from
900 The most notable change in this release is that the `target_id` system
901 was removed and instead client window status is also saved over
902 restarts in the saves/workspaces-* files. (It shouldn't be too hard
903 to hook a session management module over this.) Thanks to this
904 modification, floatframes can also save their status now. Note
905 that if you restart from older version of Ion to this one, client
906 window layout will be messed up.
908 There are also a few bug fixes and code to save and load line editor
915 There are lots of minor improvements in this release, see the
916 new ChangeLog entries for details.
922 Some minor feature enhancements and a few fixes in this new release:
924 The file system scanning completions are now put in the background
925 by receiving the data from external programs through pipes and select()
926 for data in the main event loop. This way long taking completions don't
927 block Ion from processing other events and NFS problems shouldn't hang
930 Basic window stacking management support code was added. Transients
931 on floatws:s should now be stacked above their parents. If you don't
932 want to change your modified binding configurations at this point and
933 need the functions `floatframe_raise/lower`, include `compat.lua`.
939 This release again fixes some minor problems and enhances a few
940 features. Most of the enhancements are related to UTF8 support and
941 the floatws module. If UTF8 support is enabled, Ion now tries to
942 load the "fixed" font at startup after setting up locales. If locales
943 aren't properly set up, this probably fails and Ion will reset locale
944 back to "POSIX" as this might make fonts loadable although support for
945 non-ASCII characters will be crippled. It might now be safe for
946 package maintainers to enable UTF8 support by default
948 As apps seem to have switched to using `_NET_WM_NAME` for UTF8 titles
949 and filling `WM_NAME` with crap, this property is also preferred over
950 `WM_NAME` if set. Support for some other "extended" WM hints might be
951 added in the future but I have no intentions of moking Ion NetWM-
952 compliant. I might have thought of attempting to do so a few years
953 ago when I last read the specification but it seems that since then
954 they've filled it with lots of pointless bloat that may even be in
955 opposition to Ion's goals. Take multi-parent transients, for example.
957 Full error log is also displayed with xmessage on startup whether
958 it is possible to continue or not.
964 There was a bug in QueryLib written yesterday, therefore this release.
970 I started converting the query code to Lua and discovered some rather
971 silly bugs in the Lua interface so here's a new release with the new
972 and improved query code included. The names of queries have changed
973 (they're all in the table QueryLib defined in `querylib.lua` -- only
974 `query_query` and a few temporary handlers are implemented in query.so)
975 so your modified configuration files will be broken again :(.
981 Be prepared to completely rewrite your configuration files once
982 again: a new version of Ion-devel has been released that uses Lua
983 <http://www.lua.org/> for all configuration. Version 5.0 of the
984 language/library is required. Although scripting possibilities
985 are now much better than before, there is one rather big drawback:
986 Lua is not nearly as error-tolerant as Ion's old configuration
987 parser so a syntax error in a file will cause the file not to be
988 executed and may even cause Ion not to be able to start. More
989 comments and documentation on scripting will follow at a later time.
991 Libtool and libltdl are also now used to implement module support.
992 Hopefully this will make compiling Ion easier on a wider range of
993 platforms. (On the other hand, this could also induce new problems.)
995 Finally, the preferred linking address for Ion's home page is now
996 <http://www.iki.fi/tuomov/ion/>. The pages are still located at the
997 old address, but this redirected address should be more permanent.
1003 Just some minor fixes, binary rename and better embedded workspace
1004 support in this release. I'm still contemplating whether to convert
1005 Ion to C++ and haven't written many things that I intended to as
1006 that decision will affect how those are implemented.
1008 To create an embedded workspaces in a frame, at the moment you have
1009 to modify the appropriate workspace save file (when Ion is not running!)
1010 by adding lines such as
1012 region "WFloatWS", "testiupotus" {
1015 inside the frame definition after the other options (flags, `target_id`;
1016 those options will be ignored if after any region definitions).
1018 One more thing to note: debugging infos are no longer automatically
1019 stripped from the ioncore binary or modules by 'make install' so that
1020 I don't have to explain how to get proper backtraces every time a bug
1021 is found. If you you are confident that you can send me proper backtraces
1022 when you find a bug (or maybe can fix it yourself), you can make the
1023 binary and the modules a _lot_ smaller by running 'strip' on them.
1029 The list of new ChangeLog entries is long this time, but I'm finally
1030 starting to get to what I started working on almost two years ago. Yes,
1031 there is *experimental* support for PWM-like "floating frame" workspaces.
1032 A lot of the functionality is still missing -- no need to complain of
1033 such at the time -- but the floatws.so module and basic functionality
1034 is there. Most notably perhaps a menu module is not yet implemented.
1035 (Porting the PWM menu code should a nice little task for whomever
1036 interested... *wink*.) To create some PWM workspaces, load the floatws.so
1037 module (should be loaded by default) and in `query_workspace` (F9)
1038 prefix workspace name with 'WFloatWS:' (or load the module before
1041 This release is also finally fully modularised: In addition to the
1042 ion core binary that can not function alone, there are the modules
1043 ionws.so, floatws.so and query.so. It is also possible statically
1044 compile the modules in the core binary if the system doesn't support
1047 There's also *experimental* UTF8 support that must be specifically
1048 enabled from system.mk. You must have XFree86 (4.x?) and C99 wide
1049 char support available (either libc directly or maybe libutf8+libiconv).
1050 Thanks to bugs (?) in some of the XFree86 Xutf8 functions, your locales
1051 must be properly set up or else X will stop drawing strings at non-ascii
1052 characters instead of ignoring them. See my earlier rants on the mailing
1053 list for reasons on not using the more standard Xmb functions.
1054 To actually see any special characters, you must load the necessary fonts
1055 by specifying a comma-separated list of fonts to the font and `tab_font`
1056 draw.conf options. Multiple font loading does not work when Xft support
1057 is enabled at the time being.
1059 There has been a lot of changes in the config files, again, and I can
1060 promise there's still more to come. See the ChangeLog for details.
1061 If you want to use your old workspaces configurations, move them to
1062 `~/.ion-devel/saves` and replace the strings "WFrame" and "WWorkspace"
1063 with "WIonFrame" and "WIonWS", respectively.
1069 I've made the bugfix release as promised. Get it from the usual place.
1075 There's a new major development release available from Ion web page.
1076 Not many changes are visible to the end user, though, but a lot was
1077 rewritten to be more flexible and simpler; see the ChangeLog for a
1078 full account. The older development release is also still available
1079 because this release can not be considered as stable after major
1080 changes to the code. The most visible changes are
1082 * Changes in binding configuration
1083 * A (mostly) working full screen mode toggle (see below)
1084 * The ability to switch workspaces while dragging tabs (experimental)
1085 * The ability to re-read draw.conf without restarting Ion
1089 Some notes on full screen mode toggle:
1091 * Ion doesn't detect programs trying to leave full screen mode--it
1092 should be possible to devise some method using window properties,
1094 * At least Opera unmaps the window also before changing the size to
1095 enter full screen mode, so Ion doesn't remember the last frame.
1096 * Mozilla sometimes has trouble entering full screen mode but when it
1097 succeeds, Ion remembers the last frame. However, if
1098 `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` is used to leave the full screen mode
1099 started from Mozilla, Mozilla doesn't know that the mode has been
1102 Clearly there should be some method of communication between Ion and the
1103 programs for full screen toggles to fully work. At the moment I suggest
1104 using `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` instead of the programs' native toggles
1105 unless the program has some special full screen mode and you really want