5 This is yet another maintenance release.
11 Some minor fixes again, including a few that should've already
12 been in the previous release.
18 This release again fixes some issues found with the previous one.
24 This is yet another maintenance release fixing a few issues.
30 This is a maintenance release that fixes a few issues in the
43 This release features a few minor fixes to behavioural regressions
44 in the previous release, as well as some build configuration file
45 self-documentation improvements.
51 There are a few minor fixes in this RC, plus a major one related to
52 layout restore under a session manager.
58 This RC features various minor fixes, and some clarifications and
59 simplifications to the license, which people seem to have had trouble
66 It seems people are a bit slow, or only scaring them with a final
67 release makes them report issues. So, still no stable release but
68 a candidate, with many minor fixes and improvements wrt. important
69 omissions. The most important changes are better behaviour of the
70 unsplit operation, better handling of main window being closed
71 before a transient, and use of the workspace's working directory
72 for run query file name completion.
78 Another attempt at last "rc" release.
84 This release features a few minor fixes. If no major problems are
85 discovered, this is likely to be the last "rc" release before the
86 first and hopefully final "stable" release.
92 This fourth "rc" release fixes some minor bugs and omissions in
99 This third "rc" release again simply fixes some minor problems in
100 the previous release.
106 This is the second "rc" release, and contains primarily bug fixes
107 and other minor improvements.
113 This is the first "rc" or "(stable) release candidate" release of
114 Ion3. This means that there will not be any further major changes
115 to it. Bugs will be fixed, and as an exception to the general
116 feature freeze, some hooks may still be added, if deemed useful.
117 Translations may also be included. After no new bugs (that can not
118 be deemed features) have been found in this or following "rc"
119 releases, the stable Ion3 will be released.
121 Most of the changes in this release to the previous one already
122 are bug fixes, in addition to some general clean-up. Other notable
125 * Winprop matching improvements: it is possible to match against
126 `is_dockapp` and `is_transient` (booleans), and there's a hack
127 to support `class` and `instance` for dockapps too.
129 * The default configuration puts dockapps in the statusbar's
132 * The autoconf kludge has been removed, as I will have nothing
133 to do with it, and nobody else seems to support or maintain
136 * Tab numbers are displayed when releasing modifiers in the
139 Distributors should pay heed to the name policy notice in the
146 This may be the last "ds" release if Ion3; if all goes well, the next
147 release is likely to be an "rc". Some minor improvements will still
148 be done, and minor requests may be accepted, so be quick.
150 The most notable changes in this release from the previous one are:
152 * Transients and queries in too small frames are "unsqueezed" out
153 of them, unless disabled with `ioncore.set{ unsqueeze = false }`.
155 * Some changes in default `cfg_ion.lua`: instead of loading
156 various other files, just `cfg_default.lua` is loaded instead.
158 * `mod_tiling.untile` (available in the context menu) may be used
159 to decompose tilings into floating frames. (This is the approximate
160 opposite of `mod_tiling.mkbottom` and the "new tiling" context menu
163 * Improved context menus.
165 * Slightly improved defaults style, using the drawing engine's
166 added possibility of partial borders.
168 * Various fixes and other improvements, in particular in relation
175 * There's been changes in padding/spacing usage in styles. Frames
176 now surround stuff inside borders not with `spacing` pixels, but
177 with `padding_pixels`. Spacing is only used to space things within
178 the borders (all the tabs and the client window from each other).
179 Consequently, custom styles may need to be updated to reflect this,
180 by increasing the padding, possibly also altering/removing colour
181 (to set it to background colour).
183 * The use of drawing engine attributes has also changed, and strict
184 ordering of them in the styles is no longer necessary. Additionally,
185 much more attributes are supported, including the name of every
188 * Xinerama support is gone. In addition to being problematic as such,
189 it had bit-rotted, and I will not waste time fixing it.
191 * `ioncore.set` no longer supports the `default_ws_params` parameter
192 for configuring the default layout. It is replaced by
193 `ioncore.deflayout("default", { ... })`, which allows configuring
194 other layouts as well, known by `mod_query.query_workspace` (F9).
195 Some default layouts are configured in `cfg_layout.lua`.
197 * It is now possible to automatically create new workspaces for
198 windows with the `new_group` winprop.
204 There's nothing major in this release, primarily just some minor fixes
205 and tuning to the previous release, that it was time to release.
211 Mostly this release still fixes issues in the big 3ds-20061015 release,
212 but in addition there are some improvements in the query department:
214 * Query activation key now cycles completions (So e.g. the
215 in the context menu activated with META+M, this same key
216 can be used to cycle through the alternatives.) This does
217 not work for queries activated by submap bindings.
219 * Likewise, it is no longer necessary to specify the key to
220 use for cycling for `mod_menu.grabmenu`.
222 * Control+R can now be used for history completion in queries.
223 (Currently matching is done for full string up to 'point', but
224 this may be changed to substring match.)
226 * Note that the parametrisation of WEdln.complete has changed,
227 and the second cycle parameter must be 'next' now instead of
234 Fixes some (expected, but minor) issues in the previous release.
240 * WIonWS and WFloatWS and the corresponding modules are gone, and
241 your custom configuration files will be broken with regard to these.
242 However, a partial backwards compatibility hack exists for layout
245 The F9 and META-F9 bindings now by default create workspaces with
246 a tiled layout of two frames. To create an "empty" workspace,
247 corresponding to the old WFloatWS, use the context menu (META-M)
248 and choose "new-empty-workspace". It is also possible to change
251 * Note that if you restart from an old version to this new version of Ion,
252 transients will stop working as expected for already existing windows.
253 They will work for newly-created windows, however.
255 * There are a few new sets of binding (including one for `WClientWin`!),
256 and some old bindings may not work exactly as expected anymore. In
257 particular, those for switching to full-screen mode.
259 **It is probably best to start from scratch with your custom
262 * `WFrame.set_tabbar` is gone. If you absolutely want to get rid off
263 the tabs, you must change the frame's "mode" with `WFrame.set_mode`.
264 The mode "tiled-alt" has been intended for this, and the corresponding
265 "framed-tiled-alt" style defaults to `bar = "none"`.
267 * The rather popular `detach.lua` script from the scripts repository
268 is obsoleted now, as Ion includes detach functionality in itself.
269 To detach a window, use META-K D in the default bindings. To tile
270 an existing frame from a workspace that doesn't have a tiling yet,
277 Some notable changes in this release include
279 * Lua 5.1 is now required.
281 * Framed transients on by default now. New binding contexts
282 "WFrame.toplevel" and "WMPlex.toplevel" were added to allow
283 for separate sets of bindings for nested transient frames and
284 top-level frames. Some of the bindings in the default binding
285 maps that are likely to be unwanted on transient frames were
286 moved to these contexts. Old custom bindings will continue to
287 work unless they modify the defaults by unbinding some of the
290 * Pressing Mod1+K K in the default bindings now switches to any
291 region with the "activity" flag set (indicated by the a box
292 at a corner of the screen), if there's one, before cycling to
293 previously active region. The same effect can be achieved in
294 your custom bindings with
296 ioncore.activity_goto() or ioncore.goto_previous()
302 This release mostly features minor bugfixes and other improvements. The most
303 visible non-bugfix changes are:
305 * Faster "fontset" filling kludge: only `-misc-fixed-*` fonts are tried. Ion
306 should now load faster in UTF-8 environments, and usually with no less
307 fonts in the fontset than before. (UTF-8 string drawing still does not
308 fully utilise these fonts under XFree86, but it does under XOrg.)
310 * Experimental auto-show-completions support, which is also on by default
311 now. In this mode the Tab key can be used to cycle forward through the
312 completions, and Shift+Tab backwards. Modify the settings seen in the
313 new `mod_query.lua` to get normal Tab-completion, or change the completion
316 * The release scripts do not run automatically autoconf anymore so maybe
317 a few more people would look into the README first.
323 The most visible changes in this release are:
325 * Mod1+space now toggles the scratchpad by default and Mod1+D the dock.
327 * The `ion-(ssh|man|view|edit)` wrapper scripts were removed and instead
328 the programs used can be configured in Ion's configuration files.
330 * `ioncore.exec(_on)` also support the `:cmd` notation for "run cmd in
331 xterm" familiar from the run query. The `::cmd` notation can be used
332 to ask for enter to be pressed even when the program quit succesfully.
334 * Those with custom configuration files should note that many exported toggle
335 functions were changed and renamed, and now accept a string parameter
336 incidating whether to toggle, set or unset the property.
338 - `WClientwin.set_fullsreen` (replaces `WClientWin.toggle_fullscreen`)
339 - `WRegion.set_tagged` (replaces `WRegion.tag/untag/toggle_tag`)
340 - `WFrame.set_tabbar` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_tabbar`)
341 - `WFrame.set_shaded` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_shade`)
342 - `WFloatFrame.set_sticky` (replaces `WFloatFrame.toggle_sticky`)
343 - `WMPlex.l2_set_hidden` (replaces `WMPlex.l2_hide/show`)
344 - `mod_sp.set_shown(_on)` (replaces `mod_sp.toggle(_on)`)
345 - `mod_dock.set_floating_shown_on` (replaces `mod_dock.toggle_floating_on`)
346 - `WRegion.set_activity` (replaces `WRegion.clear_activity` and
347 `WRegion.notify_activity`)
349 For example, `WRegion.set_tagged(_, 'toggle')` should be used in place of
350 `WRegion.toggle_tagged(_)` now.
352 Obviously there are some other changes and fixes too. See the changelog
353 for details as usual.
359 This is mostly a bug fix release, but also features improved
360 `mod_query.query_exec` (F3 key) completion support. Script writers should be
361 aware that As a side effect of one of these bug fixes, many hooks are now
362 called in "protected mode" and can not call any functions that modify the
363 internal state of Ion, except ioncore.defer.
369 The most important changes in this release are:
371 * So-called "placeholders". With the help of these the positions of
372 full-screen windows are remembered in their original frames, and don't
373 just get inserted after currently active window when returning from
374 full-screen mode. Under a session manager placeholders are also used
375 to remember the original order of windows.
377 * Improved `mod_statusbar` and `ion-statusd` communication, and colouring
378 of important/critical meters.
380 * A number of small fixes.
386 This monthly snapshot adds a few new and improved features.
388 * 'Grabbed menus' that have a single cycling key and activate selected
389 entry when all modifiers have been released. See
391 <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/scripts/wcirculate.lua>
395 * Potentially blocking status meters are now in a separate ion-statusd
396 program. Please write your additional status meters that do not monitor
397 the state of Ion itself for ion-statusd (and contribute them in the
398 Ion3 scripts repository at <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/>).
399 For help on writing such status meters, see e.g. source for
400 `statusd_load` in `ext_statusbar/ion-statusd`.
402 * Floating splits are now supported on plain tiled workspaces as well as
403 on pane workspaces. To create such a split, use the workspace context
404 menu (Mod1+M by default) or write your own bindings.
406 * Line editor now supports history search; Control+Up/Down only scrolls
407 through history entries with matching initial part.
409 * Arbitrary winprop matching criteria is supported. Lua scripts have
410 access to X properties.
412 Of course there are some other minor fixes and improvements as well.
418 This release finally includes a usable (yet still incomplete) version
419 of the `mod_panews` workspace module (that has also bored the name 'autows'
420 and 'rubberws' previously). The final outcome is not exactly what I
421 initially planned, as those plans turned out not to be that workable.
422 Instead, what `mod_panews` does is add to the basic tiled ionws approach
423 overlappable splits and automatically filled panes that are initially
424 empty. Each window is classified and assigned to the pane matching that
425 classification. (The default classifications are T(erminal), V(iewer)
426 and M(iscellaneous).)
428 For a better feel for it, try it out yourself and please give feedback.
429 The overlapping panes may be a bit confusing (this is one place where
430 true translucency might actually be useful and not just eyecandy) at
431 first, but you'll get used to them if you use the feature, and e.g.
432 the Gimp works quite splendidly with the toolboxes in the 'M' pane and
433 image windows in the 'V' pane -- although the simple initial size-based
434 classification heuristics don't always get it right and overriding
435 winprops (setting: `panews_classification`) should eventually added.
437 In addition to the new module, this release adds support for translations
438 of program messages and the manual page, regardless of whether such is
439 of any use in a program like Ion or not. (Currently Finnish and Czech
440 translations are available.) Of course there are some bug fixes and
441 other minor additions as well, and the `./configure` script is also back,
442 the abandonment of libtool being final now.
448 The first thing you'll notice when you start up this release of Ion is
449 that isn't reading your old configuration that. The next thing you
450 should notice is a neat layout-adapting statusbar at the bottom of the
451 screen. That's right, Ion now includes an `ext_statusbar` Lua script that
452 is enabled by default and displays date/time/load/mail count in a
455 So why is it not reading your configuration and save files? Firstly,
456 all of the `.lua` files were renamed to be indicative of their purpose.
457 Secondly, there have been so many changes that your old files would be
460 The `.lua` files are now named as follows:
462 cfg_*.lua Configuration file that the user may wish to edit
463 look_*.lua Drawing engine style file
464 saved_*.lua Save file
465 mod_*.lua Module stub loader
466 ext_*.lua A bigger Lua extension without a C counterpart
467 so that it is not a module
469 The configuration file for `mod_foobar` or `ext_foobar`, if it has one, is,
470 of course, `cfg_foobar.lua`. In the topic of file names, also note that
471 the default installation paths and binary names have changed to include
472 the component '3' to reflect the situation with many binary packages
475 You perhaps noticed above that modules have stub loaders now, so the
476 user has no need to use the `ioncore.load_module` routine. All extensions
477 and additional configuration files can now be loaded with 'dopath'
478 (used to be 'include'). Also, the `menulib`, `querylib`, and `ioncorelib`
479 Lua libraries are gone and instead their contents can be found in the same
480 `mod_whatever` namespace with the corresponding module (the "stub" loader
481 for these modules is a bit more than just a stub...). Some may also
482 want to know that for `mod_*` and `ext_*` only the compiled .lc files are
483 now installed, and not the source `.lua` files, thus removing redundant
484 files and making the installation slightly smaller.
486 There are few other changes to the contents of the configuration files
487 as well, so you're probably best off simply rewriting your modified
488 configuration files based on the new defaults. There quite likely won't
489 be any more _big_ changes to the configuration files before the release
490 of final Ion3, wherever that will be. (Most likely we won't see 3rc:s
491 yet this year.) However, some functions and variables are still likely
492 to be renamed or changed.
494 In addition to being renamed, the layout savefile of this Ion release
495 is incompatible with older releases. This is due to the changes made
496 to the `WIonWS` (and `WAutoWS`) split tree code to make it more modularly
497 extensible with the new kinds of nodes that `WAutoWS` requires.
499 The `mod_autows` module has infact been through many changes since the
500 last release, and I think I have the final form of it finally figured
501 out. However, it is still far from finished and unlikely to be ready
508 The major new features of this snapshot release are:
510 * `WMPlex` support for a sticky status display area to which `WIonWS`s
511 adjust properly. Modified to the dock module to support this method.
512 See the new `dock.lua` to set up the dock in the new embedded or old
513 floating manner (the API for the latter has also changed).
514 * Primitive session management support.
516 There are also some bug fixes and many minor improvements; see the ChangeLog
517 for details. Work on `mod_autows` has also started, but it isn't ready for
521 ### Note on ./configure:
523 ./configure does not exist for the moment as the source autoconf script
524 is not up-to-date. Ion no longer uses libtool/libltdl due to problems
525 with inter-module dependencies, and I have not asked Tom Payne to fix
526 the script yet, as this change may not be final (although that is most
527 likely the case; those without Linux-compatible libdl and a flexible
528 binary format such as ELF will just have to link statically against the
532 ### Notes on session management:
534 Ion loads `mod_sm` automatically when the SESSION_MANAGER environment
535 variable that should be set by the session manager is set, so there's
536 no need load it in `ion.lua`.
538 When session management is in use, all entries in the 'Session' menu
539 (previously 'Exit' menu) actually invoke the session manager to do the
540 task. 'Save' asks the SM save the whole session and 'Exit' (ioncore.shutdown)
541 asks it to shut down the session instead of just causing the WM to quite.
542 To do the latter, use ioncore.resign.
544 Unfortunately, all session managers I have tried (from Debian/unstable),
545 are broken/incomplete in one way or another:
548 xsm: doesn't support any requests from applications. This makes Ion's
549 session menu complete unfunctional. The only way to restart/exit/save
550 state is through xsm's window.
553 gnome-session: This seems the most complete of the all the session managers
554 and works fine until it is requested to shut down the session, when it dumps
555 core and session state is lost if was not explicitly saved previously.
557 A `~/.gnome2/session` file to use with Ion follows:
563 0,RestartCommand=gnome-smproxy --sm-client-id default0
566 1,RestartCommand=/usr/local/ion-3/bin/ion -smclientid default1
569 ksmserver: Only supports a global shutdown request, so that Ion can not be
570 restarted or session state saved in the middle of a session.
576 This is the first development snapshot release of what is to be Ion3.
577 The most visible changes to Ion2 so far are:
579 * Default installation directory is `/usr/local/ion-3` while user
580 configuration files go in `~/.ion3`
582 * The `mod_sp` module was added. It creates an extra toggleable
583 "scratchpad" frame on each screen. Toggle is for now bound by default
584 to Mod1+section, which should be very conveniently located on most
585 Nordic keyboards (left of "1"), but you may have to change it. The
586 scratchpad should be nice for xconsole or similar monitors, xmessage
587 and other popups and just as temporary holding space for windows.
589 * All modules except the drawing engine are now called `mod_something`.
591 * Man-page complection supports a cache of known man-pages for faster
592 completion. See the README for instructions on setting up a cronjob
593 or manually generating the index if you want to use the feature.
594 Also `query_man_path` is no longer used. Instead we try the
595 `ION_MC_MANPATH` and `MANPATH` environment variables and the
598 * Exported functions are now separated into tables (namespaces)
599 instead of cluttering the globals table. Some frequently used
600 configuration functions are imported into the globals table, though.
601 Some functions have also been removed or renamed for simpler and
602 more consistent function set.
604 * New binding configuration mechanism. Dozens of `*_bindings` functions
605 were replaced with a single `[ioncorelib.]defbindings` function that
606 accepts a context parameter. Callbacks are specified as strings
607 (although passing functions still works) to make it easier for
608 external configuration programs to understand the configuration
609 files and perhaps remove some confusion among users who do not
610 care to read a tiny bit of Lua documentation and understand the
611 concept of anonymous functions.
613 * It is now also possible to retrieve a list of bindings with
614 `ioncorelib.getbindings`, for example, for self-documentation.
616 * Single move/resize mode bindings instead of separate for both
617 ionframe and floatframe.
619 There are also quite a few internal changes; see the ChangeLog for
620 details. No documentation tarball is available at the moment as the
621 documentation is out-of-date except for the function reference. If
622 you need the reference, just checkout the documentation from the
623 Subversion repository with
625 svn co http://tao.uab.es/ion/svn/ion-doc/trunk ion-doc-3ds
627 and build the documentation.
633 This release is finally what can be called "Ion 2 release candidate #1".
634 No more new features will be added to "Ion 2" after this release, and the
635 configuration interface has already been frozen for a while. I will wait a
636 couple of weeks for bug reports, and if nothing serious is found, the new
637 stable Ion should finally be released then.
639 The most notable changes since the previous release are:
641 * The dock module is included
642 * An optional autoconf script was added
643 * A few minor bugs were fixed
644 * Some incomplete features were polished, especially focus control on
646 * Changes in X keyboard map are supported now (so e.g. switching to
647 dvorak after Ion has started should update the bindings to match the
648 locations of symbols in the dvorak layout).
651 About the version numbering scheme:
653 Due to a demand of a version numbering scheme more indicative of the status
654 of the project, I was thinking of various different new version numbering
655 schemes for this release: ion-2rc1 (then 2r1, 3d1, etc.), ion-2-20040114-rc1,
656 ion-2.20040114rc1, ion-20040114-2rc1, etc.). It would've been nice if
657 simple lexicographical sorting could be used to order the packages, but
658 in the end I decided to stick with a scheme that is consistent with the
659 'ion-devel' package names:
661 project-branch_and_status-release_date
663 Therefore this release is 'ion-2rc-20040114', and the "stable" one will be
670 This is a big clean-up release. The most noticeable changes are that
671 '-devel' has been removed from path names, user configuration files go
672 in `~/.ion2/` and the main configuration file is 'ion.lua'. (The other
673 `ioncore-*.lua` files have also been renamed.) There have been no notable
674 changes in the configuration files themselves, so your old files will
675 work if you move them to the correct directory and rename the changed
676 files. (`mv ~/.ion-devel ~/.ion2; cd ~/.ion2; mv ioncore.lua ion.lua;`
679 This release also finally contains a working PWM binary. (The ioncore+
680 scripts scheme was replaced with separate binaries statically linked
681 to ioncore.a.) Floating workspaces now support edge snapping and
682 sticky windows, but some PWM features are probably still missing.
684 Some bugs were also fixed and users are now force-fed the manual page
685 the first time Ion is started. Transients can be toggled between
686 top/bottom of the main window with Mod1+K T. The SSH query uses
687 `~/.ssh/known_hosts` for completion instead of a manually defined list.
689 There may be a few additions (e.g. the dock) and bug fixes, of course,
690 before the stable release, but this release should pretty much be what
691 the new "stable" Ion should look like. Please upgrade to it to help
692 weed out the bugs. Note that you need to upgrade Lua to the 5.0.1
700 It's finally time for a new release on Ion's development branch. Most
701 likely this will also be the last "big" release before finally, after
702 almost two years, releasing a new "stable" version of Ion. A few bug
703 fix and code clean-up releases should appear in between, though.
705 The most important additions, changes and non-changes in this release
709 * A little less broken extended character set and string encoding
711 * Extended WM hints fullscreen request support
712 * Hopefully a little clarified configuration file layout
714 * And most important of all:
716 > Configuration files written for the previous release should
717 > still work this time!
719 (However, Ion will complain of old drawing engine styles.)
721 The menu module provides both drop-down menus (in the stock configuration
722 pressing Button3 on a tab should show a context menu) and query-like
723 "in-mplex" menus (F12: main menu at screen level; Mod1+M: the same context
724 menu as above at frame level).
726 What was done enhance support for strings (mostly window titles) in
727 languages that need more than 8-bit character sets is:
729 * Remove UTF8 restriction and support almost arbitrary multibyte
730 encodings instead. (Statefull encodings will not work and combining
731 characters can cause clutter. Both are a sign of bad encoding, IMHO.)
733 * The XCreateFontSet routine that is used to load fonts in the kind
734 of structure the X utf8 and multibyte routines want apparently wants
735 to be able to load glyphs for all character sets specified in the
736 locale and therefore often fails if only single font is specified.
737 Therefore a kludge was added that tries loading more fonts while
738 keeping the fonts' size the same. (The ",*" kludge could load huge
739 fonts). Unfortunately this has a noticeable effect in startup time :(.
741 * There is no longer a system.mk option to enable utf8 (now multibyte)
742 support, but must still specifically be enabled with the -i18n
743 command line switch, mostly thanks to troublesome utf-8 locales.
745 Because Xlib's UTF-8 string drawing code is broken and very unlikely to
746 be fixed, decent text output in an UTF-8 locale is still unlikely and
747 dependent on the fonts loaded in the system. The Xmb routines that are now
748 used always use an iso10646-1 font even if other fonts are loaded and the
749 unicode font does not contain a particular glyph to be drawn. The use of
750 the Xutf8 routines in an utf8 locale can be enabled with the
751 `CF_DE_USE_XUTF8` compile-time option. The advantage of this is that
752 these routines seem to choose the font to draw particular character in
753 most cases more sanely. The downside is that there are other more serious
754 problems with unknown characters.
756 All in all, even if I'd like to support a universal move to UTF-8, thanks
757 to Xlib brokenness I can't really recommend using UTF-8 locales with Ion
758 and the default drawing engine if there's a decent alternative encoding.
759 Most if not all other stateless encodings shouldn't have the problems
760 UTF-8 has. An alternative drawing engine that didn't use the Xlib i18n
761 string drawing routines might solve the troubles with utf-8 support.
765 If you have saved a custom system.mk, you'll need to set LUAC
766 point to the Lua compiler there as some of the share/ files
773 It's been a while since the previous release as I wanted to freeze the
774 Lua configuration/scripting interface for this release and therefore
775 finish work on a few things. Well, on my part the interface is frozen,
776 but I will still accept constructive complaints for a short time and
777 after that the implemented parts of the scripting interface will be
778 frozen. But in all likelihood, if no one has anything else to say, but
779 "it's ok", "it sucks", the interface will no longer change, only possibly
782 What's new for this release then?
784 * Drawing engine module support.
785 * OO-style exported functions. The old `class_fn` functions are now
786 `WClass.fn` (an ugly wrapper is provided in `compat.lua`).
787 * No more screen-specific configuration or savefiles.
788 * Session name (can be specified on command line) instead of display
789 name based savefiles. Also affects query history and not just workspace
791 * Bug fixes, most small and one bigger (almost complete rewrite of
792 the split resizing algorithm).
793 * Some documentation improvements.
795 Converting configuration files.
797 Old `.lua` colour schemes and workspace save files can be automatically
798 converted to a format suitable to be loaded by this latest release.
799 Other files will have to be ported manually. To convert colour schemes,
800 use the script `utils/lookconv.lua`. The usage is
802 lookconv.lua look-old.lua > look-new.lua
804 To convert workspaces savefiles, use the script `utils/saveconv.sh`.
807 saveconf.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-DISPLAY.*.lua \
808 > ~/.ion-devel/SESSIONNAME/workspaces.lua
810 `DISPLAY` here is the actual display part of `$DISPLAY`, probably just `:0`.
811 '*' stands for all screens (if you have only one screen you could do with
812 perhaps just `workspaces-:0.0.lua`). SESSIONNAME is the name of the session
813 where you want to use the converted savefiles. Default session name for
814 `DISPLAY` is `default-session-DISPLAY` with the colon in `DISPLAY` converted
815 to a dash. For most people this is `default-session--0`. In the simplest
816 case the whole command line is therefore
818 saveconv.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-:0.0.lua \
819 > ~/.ion-devel/default-session--0/workspaces.lua
821 The scripts may or may not work and are only provided as a potential
822 convenience that will not be maintained and will be removed eventually.
828 Quite a few bug fixes and one most likely unnoticeable improvement:
832 * Fixed pointer warping on screen change.
833 * A bug in grab handler calling code could crash Ion when leaving
834 keyboard resize mode manually.
835 * Resize display was showing incorrect values for keyboard resize.
839 * Client window last height request bookkeeping code had been lost
840 when configure request policy was changed. This caused transient
841 sizes to be calculated incorrectly.
842 * Return from full screen mode to floatws had been broken.
843 * As the number of dynamic functions has been getting bigger, the
844 functions are now sorted on first use and then binary-searched
845 instead of naive linear searching.
846 * Screen lookup had been broken for windows that are not properly
853 Just some bug fixes and minor behavioural changes and improvements in
860 This release fixes some small problems with the previous release and
861 adds a workaround kludge for the XFree86 textprop bug (it's been fixed
862 but no release with the fix is available) that could cause Opera to
863 crash Ion when UTF8 support was enabled. I also added the winprop
864 needed for galeon's find dialog to default `kludges.lua` and there's
865 some extra documentation and defaults for some systems in system.mk.
871 Most changes in this release centre around making Ion more tolerant
872 to broken configuration files; for details see the ChangeLog. There
873 are also changes in binding configuration as I already mentioned in
874 an earlier poting. Namely `common-frame-bindings.lua` is gone and the
875 bindings previously set there (into variables that the `*ws.lua`
876 files later referenced) were moved to `ioncore-bindings.lua` and are
877 set using the new functions `mplex_bindings` and `genframe_bindings`
878 are were added. Old modified configuration files should still work,
879 however, but if you use `make_active_leaf_fn`, you will need to
880 include `compat.lua` as the `global_bindings` that used this were
881 replaced by bindings in `mplex_bindings` and the function
882 `make_current_clientwin_fn`.
884 There are also some (minor) bug fixes and a few other improvements
885 worth a mention. In particular all regions are now given names of
886 the form `WFoobar<n>` by default and `DEFAULT_MOD.."F9"` was bound to
887 create a new workspace without asking for a name. This binding and
888 `QueryLib.query_workspace` use the workspace type defined in the
889 variable `default_ws_type` instead of being hardcoded to `WIonWS`.
891 All objects passed to Lua now have a unique userdata (a `WWatch`
892 cached in a weak table) so they can be used e.g. as indices to tables.
898 This release unifies some parts of `WScreen` and `WGenFrame`, which makes
899 screen-level queries possible. (Later the queries for small frames might
900 be changed to be shown at screen level.) The statusbar restriction from
901 ion-devel-20030531 was also removed by this some change and a few
902 non-fatal bugs have been fixed.
908 A bug was discovered:
912 * An off-by-one error in `extl_l1_finalize` caused references to some
913 Lua tables (including large completions) never to be released.
915 It could be that this bug was causing some other errors in Lua as well.
916 Sometimes QueryLib bindings failed because some function generators
917 returned nil although they shouldn't. Adding dummy lines (!) in those
918 functions fixed the problem and for some reason this patch also seemed
919 to remove those problems.
922 One more note: as `ioncorelib.lua` and `querylib.lua` are now installed
923 in `$SHAREDIR`, you must remove the old files in `$ETCDIR` if installing
924 over a previous release or else there will be errors. You should also
925 not use any possible old copies you have in `~/.ion-devel/`. (One of the
926 reasons for moving these to `$SHAREDIR` is to stop users from making
927 copies of them as they are not configuration files.)
933 As the subject line says, Ion-devel-20030531 was just released. The short
936 * The license was changed from the Clarified Artistic License to the
937 GNU Library/Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
938 * Screen, viewport and root window renames and other changes (see below).
939 * Some installation directory changes; the ion-* helper programs are now
940 installed either in `$SHAREDIR` or `$EXTRABINDIR` and QueryLib searches
941 for them on the script path (`~/.ion-devel/`, `$ETCDIR`, `$SHAREDIR`,
942 `$EXTRABINDIR`) instead of assuming them being on `$PATH`.
943 * Client windows are now in a separate namespace.
944 * Resize/maximize/shade changes: Shading should work on `WIonFrame`s too
945 and shade mode is automatic when the client area gets too small when
946 resizing. Maximize toggle restores frame to previous size if shaded
947 instead of maximizing. The move/resize mode bindings were changed again
948 to be more consistent and predictable: Left/Right/Up/Down and F/B/P/N
949 grow the frame in the specific direction, Shift+keys shrink and in
950 case of floating frames, `DEFAULT_MOD+keys` move
951 * Returning from full screen mode should work on `WFloatWS`s too.
952 * Lots of minor fixes, export additions and clean-up.
954 As usual, see the (long!) list of new ChangeLog entries at the end of
955 this message for details.
958 I've finally personally switched from the old "stable" 20020207 to using
959 the latest development release at home too and I must say that it is
960 finally starting to look good. There are still things to be written, but
961 unless you need "proven" stability, I see no reason to sticking to that
962 old release anymore. Unless, of course, if you find a problem that I have
963 not encountered or simply have no need for the new features and don't want
964 to port your configuration files.
967 On screens, viewports, root windows and problems with the new
970 The objects previously called "screens" are now called "root windows"
971 and what were called "viewports" are called "screens" to better reflect
972 what the user sees. (When Xinerama is not used there's no difference
973 between a root window and a screen, but when Xinerama is used a root
974 window may be split over multiple screens.)
976 This release also creates so-called virtual root windows for each
977 Xinerama screen when there are more than one. This is to better separate
978 the windows on different screens and thus emulate normal multihead, the
979 main difference being that windows can be moved between screens.
980 Especially the virtual roots are there to keep the windows that are on
981 a floatws on the right screen.
983 Virtual root windows will, however, break a few apps:
985 * Mozilla -remote won't work because of its crappy method for looking
986 up existing windows that can't handle multiple levels of WM windows.
987 Nested workspaces have the same problem. There is, however, a simple
988 solution to this problem: gnome-moz-remote. It seems to use a saner
989 method for looking up an existing Gecko browser and also works with
990 at least Phoenix/MozillaFirebird and Galeon.
992 These two are problems only if you use floatws:s (other problems with
993 which virtual root windows are intended to solve):
995 * The background-setting apps I am aware of will require a following
996 'xrefresh' for the changes to be updated to the (transparent) virtual
997 roots. Background setting apps that support the `_NET_VIRTUAL_ROOTS`
998 property (which, I think, was meant for root window-sized WS
999 backgrounds) could be used to set a separate background for each
1000 Xinerama screen, though. I am not aware of any such app.
1001 * Some apps' resize and move features will behave erratically on those
1002 Xinerama screens not at (0, 0) on the root window. This is again
1003 because the apps are assuming there's at most one WM window between
1004 them and the root and are requesting windows' positions incorrectly.
1005 The ICCCM is quite vague on this and I think _all_ apps that I have
1006 tried are doing it wrong but the way e.g. XMMS does it certainly is
1007 not an interpretation of the ICCCM. The apps that now behave correctly
1008 request position for the outermost WM window. Nested workspaces have
1011 There is one more temporary problem:
1013 * Status bar modules (and the dock module's statusbar mode) will be
1014 *temporarily* broken when virtual roots are _not_ used. This will be
1015 fixed later when parts of screen and frame code are unified (it should
1016 then be possible to run Ion without any workspace modules and have
1017 queries attached to screens). In the meanwhile, if you don't care about
1018 the above-mentioned problems and want a statusbar (which probably needs
1019 to be ported to this release), you can defined `CF_ALWAYS_VIRTUAL_ROOT`
1026 There are quite a few small fixes and minor enhancements invisible to
1027 the user in this release. The splitting functions were renamed to be
1028 more consistent and there are a couple of enhancements in the Lua code
1029 query that should make it much more usable. First, tab-completion can
1030 now descend into tables and complete subexpressions. Secondly, the local
1031 variable `_` in addition to 'arg[1]' is set to point to the the frame in
1032 which the query is executing.
1034 I have also written some new documentation that is now available from
1041 The most notable change in this release is that the `target_id` system
1042 was removed and instead client window status is also saved over
1043 restarts in the saves/workspaces-* files. (It shouldn't be too hard
1044 to hook a session management module over this.) Thanks to this
1045 modification, floatframes can also save their status now. Note
1046 that if you restart from older version of Ion to this one, client
1047 window layout will be messed up.
1049 There are also a few bug fixes and code to save and load line editor
1056 There are lots of minor improvements in this release, see the
1057 new ChangeLog entries for details.
1063 Some minor feature enhancements and a few fixes in this new release:
1065 The file system scanning completions are now put in the background
1066 by receiving the data from external programs through pipes and select()
1067 for data in the main event loop. This way long taking completions don't
1068 block Ion from processing other events and NFS problems shouldn't hang
1071 Basic window stacking management support code was added. Transients
1072 on floatws:s should now be stacked above their parents. If you don't
1073 want to change your modified binding configurations at this point and
1074 need the functions `floatframe_raise/lower`, include `compat.lua`.
1080 This release again fixes some minor problems and enhances a few
1081 features. Most of the enhancements are related to UTF8 support and
1082 the floatws module. If UTF8 support is enabled, Ion now tries to
1083 load the "fixed" font at startup after setting up locales. If locales
1084 aren't properly set up, this probably fails and Ion will reset locale
1085 back to "POSIX" as this might make fonts loadable although support for
1086 non-ASCII characters will be crippled. It might now be safe for
1087 package maintainers to enable UTF8 support by default
1089 As apps seem to have switched to using `_NET_WM_NAME` for UTF8 titles
1090 and filling `WM_NAME` with crap, this property is also preferred over
1091 `WM_NAME` if set. Support for some other "extended" WM hints might be
1092 added in the future but I have no intentions of moking Ion NetWM-
1093 compliant. I might have thought of attempting to do so a few years
1094 ago when I last read the specification but it seems that since then
1095 they've filled it with lots of pointless bloat that may even be in
1096 opposition to Ion's goals. Take multi-parent transients, for example.
1098 Full error log is also displayed with xmessage on startup whether
1099 it is possible to continue or not.
1105 There was a bug in QueryLib written yesterday, therefore this release.
1111 I started converting the query code to Lua and discovered some rather
1112 silly bugs in the Lua interface so here's a new release with the new
1113 and improved query code included. The names of queries have changed
1114 (they're all in the table QueryLib defined in `querylib.lua` -- only
1115 `query_query` and a few temporary handlers are implemented in query.so)
1116 so your modified configuration files will be broken again :(.
1122 Be prepared to completely rewrite your configuration files once
1123 again: a new version of Ion-devel has been released that uses Lua
1124 <http://www.lua.org/> for all configuration. Version 5.0 of the
1125 language/library is required. Although scripting possibilities
1126 are now much better than before, there is one rather big drawback:
1127 Lua is not nearly as error-tolerant as Ion's old configuration
1128 parser so a syntax error in a file will cause the file not to be
1129 executed and may even cause Ion not to be able to start. More
1130 comments and documentation on scripting will follow at a later time.
1132 Libtool and libltdl are also now used to implement module support.
1133 Hopefully this will make compiling Ion easier on a wider range of
1134 platforms. (On the other hand, this could also induce new problems.)
1136 Finally, the preferred linking address for Ion's home page is now
1137 <http://www.iki.fi/tuomov/ion/>. The pages are still located at the
1138 old address, but this redirected address should be more permanent.
1144 Just some minor fixes, binary rename and better embedded workspace
1145 support in this release. I'm still contemplating whether to convert
1146 Ion to C++ and haven't written many things that I intended to as
1147 that decision will affect how those are implemented.
1149 To create an embedded workspaces in a frame, at the moment you have
1150 to modify the appropriate workspace save file (when Ion is not running!)
1151 by adding lines such as
1153 region "WFloatWS", "testiupotus" {
1156 inside the frame definition after the other options (flags, `target_id`;
1157 those options will be ignored if after any region definitions).
1159 One more thing to note: debugging infos are no longer automatically
1160 stripped from the ioncore binary or modules by 'make install' so that
1161 I don't have to explain how to get proper backtraces every time a bug
1162 is found. If you you are confident that you can send me proper backtraces
1163 when you find a bug (or maybe can fix it yourself), you can make the
1164 binary and the modules a _lot_ smaller by running 'strip' on them.
1170 The list of new ChangeLog entries is long this time, but I'm finally
1171 starting to get to what I started working on almost two years ago. Yes,
1172 there is *experimental* support for PWM-like "floating frame" workspaces.
1173 A lot of the functionality is still missing -- no need to complain of
1174 such at the time -- but the floatws.so module and basic functionality
1175 is there. Most notably perhaps a menu module is not yet implemented.
1176 (Porting the PWM menu code should a nice little task for whomever
1177 interested... *wink*.) To create some PWM workspaces, load the floatws.so
1178 module (should be loaded by default) and in `query_workspace` (F9)
1179 prefix workspace name with 'WFloatWS:' (or load the module before
1182 This release is also finally fully modularised: In addition to the
1183 ion core binary that can not function alone, there are the modules
1184 ionws.so, floatws.so and query.so. It is also possible statically
1185 compile the modules in the core binary if the system doesn't support
1188 There's also *experimental* UTF8 support that must be specifically
1189 enabled from system.mk. You must have XFree86 (4.x?) and C99 wide
1190 char support available (either libc directly or maybe libutf8+libiconv).
1191 Thanks to bugs (?) in some of the XFree86 Xutf8 functions, your locales
1192 must be properly set up or else X will stop drawing strings at non-ascii
1193 characters instead of ignoring them. See my earlier rants on the mailing
1194 list for reasons on not using the more standard Xmb functions.
1195 To actually see any special characters, you must load the necessary fonts
1196 by specifying a comma-separated list of fonts to the font and `tab_font`
1197 draw.conf options. Multiple font loading does not work when Xft support
1198 is enabled at the time being.
1200 There has been a lot of changes in the config files, again, and I can
1201 promise there's still more to come. See the ChangeLog for details.
1202 If you want to use your old workspaces configurations, move them to
1203 `~/.ion-devel/saves` and replace the strings "WFrame" and "WWorkspace"
1204 with "WIonFrame" and "WIonWS", respectively.
1210 I've made the bugfix release as promised. Get it from the usual place.
1216 There's a new major development release available from Ion web page.
1217 Not many changes are visible to the end user, though, but a lot was
1218 rewritten to be more flexible and simpler; see the ChangeLog for a
1219 full account. The older development release is also still available
1220 because this release can not be considered as stable after major
1221 changes to the code. The most visible changes are
1223 * Changes in binding configuration
1224 * A (mostly) working full screen mode toggle (see below)
1225 * The ability to switch workspaces while dragging tabs (experimental)
1226 * The ability to re-read draw.conf without restarting Ion
1230 Some notes on full screen mode toggle:
1232 * Ion doesn't detect programs trying to leave full screen mode--it
1233 should be possible to devise some method using window properties,
1235 * At least Opera unmaps the window also before changing the size to
1236 enter full screen mode, so Ion doesn't remember the last frame.
1237 * Mozilla sometimes has trouble entering full screen mode but when it
1238 succeeds, Ion remembers the last frame. However, if
1239 `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` is used to leave the full screen mode
1240 started from Mozilla, Mozilla doesn't know that the mode has been
1243 Clearly there should be some method of communication between Ion and the
1244 programs for full screen toggles to fully work. At the moment I suggest
1245 using `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` instead of the programs' native toggles
1246 unless the program has some special full screen mode and you really want