5 This is a maintenance release that fixes a few issues in the
18 This release features a few minor fixes to behavioural regressions
19 in the previous release, as well as some build configuration file
20 self-documentation improvements.
26 There are a few minor fixes in this RC, plus a major one related to
27 layout restore under a session manager.
33 This RC features various minor fixes, and some clarifications and
34 simplifications to the license, which people seem to have had trouble
41 It seems people are a bit slow, or only scaring them with a final
42 release makes them report issues. So, still no stable release but
43 a candidate, with many minor fixes and improvements wrt. important
44 omissions. The most important changes are better behaviour of the
45 unsplit operation, better handling of main window being closed
46 before a transient, and use of the workspace's working directory
47 for run query file name completion.
53 Another attempt at last "rc" release.
59 This release features a few minor fixes. If no major problems are
60 discovered, this is likely to be the last "rc" release before the
61 first and hopefully final "stable" release.
67 This fourth "rc" release fixes some minor bugs and omissions in
74 This third "rc" release again simply fixes some minor problems in
81 This is the second "rc" release, and contains primarily bug fixes
82 and other minor improvements.
88 This is the first "rc" or "(stable) release candidate" release of
89 Ion3. This means that there will not be any further major changes
90 to it. Bugs will be fixed, and as an exception to the general
91 feature freeze, some hooks may still be added, if deemed useful.
92 Translations may also be included. After no new bugs (that can not
93 be deemed features) have been found in this or following "rc"
94 releases, the stable Ion3 will be released.
96 Most of the changes in this release to the previous one already
97 are bug fixes, in addition to some general clean-up. Other notable
100 * Winprop matching improvements: it is possible to match against
101 `is_dockapp` and `is_transient` (booleans), and there's a hack
102 to support `class` and `instance` for dockapps too.
104 * The default configuration puts dockapps in the statusbar's
107 * The autoconf kludge has been removed, as I will have nothing
108 to do with it, and nobody else seems to support or maintain
111 * Tab numbers are displayed when releasing modifiers in the
114 Distributors should pay heed to the name policy notice in the
121 This may be the last "ds" release if Ion3; if all goes well, the next
122 release is likely to be an "rc". Some minor improvements will still
123 be done, and minor requests may be accepted, so be quick.
125 The most notable changes in this release from the previous one are:
127 * Transients and queries in too small frames are "unsqueezed" out
128 of them, unless disabled with `ioncore.set{ unsqueeze = false }`.
130 * Some changes in default `cfg_ion.lua`: instead of loading
131 various other files, just `cfg_default.lua` is loaded instead.
133 * `mod_tiling.untile` (available in the context menu) may be used
134 to decompose tilings into floating frames. (This is the approximate
135 opposite of `mod_tiling.mkbottom` and the "new tiling" context menu
138 * Improved context menus.
140 * Slightly improved defaults style, using the drawing engine's
141 added possibility of partial borders.
143 * Various fixes and other improvements, in particular in relation
150 * There's been changes in padding/spacing usage in styles. Frames
151 now surround stuff inside borders not with `spacing` pixels, but
152 with `padding_pixels`. Spacing is only used to space things within
153 the borders (all the tabs and the client window from each other).
154 Consequently, custom styles may need to be updated to reflect this,
155 by increasing the padding, possibly also altering/removing colour
156 (to set it to background colour).
158 * The use of drawing engine attributes has also changed, and strict
159 ordering of them in the styles is no longer necessary. Additionally,
160 much more attributes are supported, including the name of every
163 * Xinerama support is gone. In addition to being problematic as such,
164 it had bit-rotted, and I will not waste time fixing it.
166 * `ioncore.set` no longer supports the `default_ws_params` parameter
167 for configuring the default layout. It is replaced by
168 `ioncore.deflayout("default", { ... })`, which allows configuring
169 other layouts as well, known by `mod_query.query_workspace` (F9).
170 Some default layouts are configured in `cfg_layout.lua`.
172 * It is now possible to automatically create new workspaces for
173 windows with the `new_group` winprop.
179 There's nothing major in this release, primarily just some minor fixes
180 and tuning to the previous release, that it was time to release.
186 Mostly this release still fixes issues in the big 3ds-20061015 release,
187 but in addition there are some improvements in the query department:
189 * Query activation key now cycles completions (So e.g. the
190 in the context menu activated with META+M, this same key
191 can be used to cycle through the alternatives.) This does
192 not work for queries activated by submap bindings.
194 * Likewise, it is no longer necessary to specify the key to
195 use for cycling for `mod_menu.grabmenu`.
197 * Control+R can now be used for history completion in queries.
198 (Currently matching is done for full string up to 'point', but
199 this may be changed to substring match.)
201 * Note that the parametrisation of WEdln.complete has changed,
202 and the second cycle parameter must be 'next' now instead of
209 Fixes some (expected, but minor) issues in the previous release.
215 * WIonWS and WFloatWS and the corresponding modules are gone, and
216 your custom configuration files will be broken with regard to these.
217 However, a partial backwards compatibility hack exists for layout
220 The F9 and META-F9 bindings now by default create workspaces with
221 a tiled layout of two frames. To create an "empty" workspace,
222 corresponding to the old WFloatWS, use the context menu (META-M)
223 and choose "new-empty-workspace". It is also possible to change
226 * Note that if you restart from an old version to this new version of Ion,
227 transients will stop working as expected for already existing windows.
228 They will work for newly-created windows, however.
230 * There are a few new sets of binding (including one for `WClientWin`!),
231 and some old bindings may not work exactly as expected anymore. In
232 particular, those for switching to full-screen mode.
234 **It is probably best to start from scratch with your custom
237 * `WFrame.set_tabbar` is gone. If you absolutely want to get rid off
238 the tabs, you must change the frame's "mode" with `WFrame.set_mode`.
239 The mode "tiled-alt" has been intended for this, and the corresponding
240 "framed-tiled-alt" style defaults to `bar = "none"`.
242 * The rather popular `detach.lua` script from the scripts repository
243 is obsoleted now, as Ion includes detach functionality in itself.
244 To detach a window, use META-K D in the default bindings. To tile
245 an existing frame from a workspace that doesn't have a tiling yet,
252 Some notable changes in this release include
254 * Lua 5.1 is now required.
256 * Framed transients on by default now. New binding contexts
257 "WFrame.toplevel" and "WMPlex.toplevel" were added to allow
258 for separate sets of bindings for nested transient frames and
259 top-level frames. Some of the bindings in the default binding
260 maps that are likely to be unwanted on transient frames were
261 moved to these contexts. Old custom bindings will continue to
262 work unless they modify the defaults by unbinding some of the
265 * Pressing Mod1+K K in the default bindings now switches to any
266 region with the "activity" flag set (indicated by the a box
267 at a corner of the screen), if there's one, before cycling to
268 previously active region. The same effect can be achieved in
269 your custom bindings with
271 ioncore.activity_goto() or ioncore.goto_previous()
277 This release mostly features minor bugfixes and other improvements. The most
278 visible non-bugfix changes are:
280 * Faster "fontset" filling kludge: only `-misc-fixed-*` fonts are tried. Ion
281 should now load faster in UTF-8 environments, and usually with no less
282 fonts in the fontset than before. (UTF-8 string drawing still does not
283 fully utilise these fonts under XFree86, but it does under XOrg.)
285 * Experimental auto-show-completions support, which is also on by default
286 now. In this mode the Tab key can be used to cycle forward through the
287 completions, and Shift+Tab backwards. Modify the settings seen in the
288 new `mod_query.lua` to get normal Tab-completion, or change the completion
291 * The release scripts do not run automatically autoconf anymore so maybe
292 a few more people would look into the README first.
298 The most visible changes in this release are:
300 * Mod1+space now toggles the scratchpad by default and Mod1+D the dock.
302 * The `ion-(ssh|man|view|edit)` wrapper scripts were removed and instead
303 the programs used can be configured in Ion's configuration files.
305 * `ioncore.exec(_on)` also support the `:cmd` notation for "run cmd in
306 xterm" familiar from the run query. The `::cmd` notation can be used
307 to ask for enter to be pressed even when the program quit succesfully.
309 * Those with custom configuration files should note that many exported toggle
310 functions were changed and renamed, and now accept a string parameter
311 incidating whether to toggle, set or unset the property.
313 - `WClientwin.set_fullsreen` (replaces `WClientWin.toggle_fullscreen`)
314 - `WRegion.set_tagged` (replaces `WRegion.tag/untag/toggle_tag`)
315 - `WFrame.set_tabbar` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_tabbar`)
316 - `WFrame.set_shaded` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_shade`)
317 - `WFloatFrame.set_sticky` (replaces `WFloatFrame.toggle_sticky`)
318 - `WMPlex.l2_set_hidden` (replaces `WMPlex.l2_hide/show`)
319 - `mod_sp.set_shown(_on)` (replaces `mod_sp.toggle(_on)`)
320 - `mod_dock.set_floating_shown_on` (replaces `mod_dock.toggle_floating_on`)
321 - `WRegion.set_activity` (replaces `WRegion.clear_activity` and
322 `WRegion.notify_activity`)
324 For example, `WRegion.set_tagged(_, 'toggle')` should be used in place of
325 `WRegion.toggle_tagged(_)` now.
327 Obviously there are some other changes and fixes too. See the changelog
328 for details as usual.
334 This is mostly a bug fix release, but also features improved
335 `mod_query.query_exec` (F3 key) completion support. Script writers should be
336 aware that As a side effect of one of these bug fixes, many hooks are now
337 called in "protected mode" and can not call any functions that modify the
338 internal state of Ion, except ioncore.defer.
344 The most important changes in this release are:
346 * So-called "placeholders". With the help of these the positions of
347 full-screen windows are remembered in their original frames, and don't
348 just get inserted after currently active window when returning from
349 full-screen mode. Under a session manager placeholders are also used
350 to remember the original order of windows.
352 * Improved `mod_statusbar` and `ion-statusd` communication, and colouring
353 of important/critical meters.
355 * A number of small fixes.
361 This monthly snapshot adds a few new and improved features.
363 * 'Grabbed menus' that have a single cycling key and activate selected
364 entry when all modifiers have been released. See
366 <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/scripts/wcirculate.lua>
370 * Potentially blocking status meters are now in a separate ion-statusd
371 program. Please write your additional status meters that do not monitor
372 the state of Ion itself for ion-statusd (and contribute them in the
373 Ion3 scripts repository at <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/>).
374 For help on writing such status meters, see e.g. source for
375 `statusd_load` in `ext_statusbar/ion-statusd`.
377 * Floating splits are now supported on plain tiled workspaces as well as
378 on pane workspaces. To create such a split, use the workspace context
379 menu (Mod1+M by default) or write your own bindings.
381 * Line editor now supports history search; Control+Up/Down only scrolls
382 through history entries with matching initial part.
384 * Arbitrary winprop matching criteria is supported. Lua scripts have
385 access to X properties.
387 Of course there are some other minor fixes and improvements as well.
393 This release finally includes a usable (yet still incomplete) version
394 of the `mod_panews` workspace module (that has also bored the name 'autows'
395 and 'rubberws' previously). The final outcome is not exactly what I
396 initially planned, as those plans turned out not to be that workable.
397 Instead, what `mod_panews` does is add to the basic tiled ionws approach
398 overlappable splits and automatically filled panes that are initially
399 empty. Each window is classified and assigned to the pane matching that
400 classification. (The default classifications are T(erminal), V(iewer)
401 and M(iscellaneous).)
403 For a better feel for it, try it out yourself and please give feedback.
404 The overlapping panes may be a bit confusing (this is one place where
405 true translucency might actually be useful and not just eyecandy) at
406 first, but you'll get used to them if you use the feature, and e.g.
407 the Gimp works quite splendidly with the toolboxes in the 'M' pane and
408 image windows in the 'V' pane -- although the simple initial size-based
409 classification heuristics don't always get it right and overriding
410 winprops (setting: `panews_classification`) should eventually added.
412 In addition to the new module, this release adds support for translations
413 of program messages and the manual page, regardless of whether such is
414 of any use in a program like Ion or not. (Currently Finnish and Czech
415 translations are available.) Of course there are some bug fixes and
416 other minor additions as well, and the `./configure` script is also back,
417 the abandonment of libtool being final now.
423 The first thing you'll notice when you start up this release of Ion is
424 that isn't reading your old configuration that. The next thing you
425 should notice is a neat layout-adapting statusbar at the bottom of the
426 screen. That's right, Ion now includes an `ext_statusbar` Lua script that
427 is enabled by default and displays date/time/load/mail count in a
430 So why is it not reading your configuration and save files? Firstly,
431 all of the `.lua` files were renamed to be indicative of their purpose.
432 Secondly, there have been so many changes that your old files would be
435 The `.lua` files are now named as follows:
437 cfg_*.lua Configuration file that the user may wish to edit
438 look_*.lua Drawing engine style file
439 saved_*.lua Save file
440 mod_*.lua Module stub loader
441 ext_*.lua A bigger Lua extension without a C counterpart
442 so that it is not a module
444 The configuration file for `mod_foobar` or `ext_foobar`, if it has one, is,
445 of course, `cfg_foobar.lua`. In the topic of file names, also note that
446 the default installation paths and binary names have changed to include
447 the component '3' to reflect the situation with many binary packages
450 You perhaps noticed above that modules have stub loaders now, so the
451 user has no need to use the `ioncore.load_module` routine. All extensions
452 and additional configuration files can now be loaded with 'dopath'
453 (used to be 'include'). Also, the `menulib`, `querylib`, and `ioncorelib`
454 Lua libraries are gone and instead their contents can be found in the same
455 `mod_whatever` namespace with the corresponding module (the "stub" loader
456 for these modules is a bit more than just a stub...). Some may also
457 want to know that for `mod_*` and `ext_*` only the compiled .lc files are
458 now installed, and not the source `.lua` files, thus removing redundant
459 files and making the installation slightly smaller.
461 There are few other changes to the contents of the configuration files
462 as well, so you're probably best off simply rewriting your modified
463 configuration files based on the new defaults. There quite likely won't
464 be any more _big_ changes to the configuration files before the release
465 of final Ion3, wherever that will be. (Most likely we won't see 3rc:s
466 yet this year.) However, some functions and variables are still likely
467 to be renamed or changed.
469 In addition to being renamed, the layout savefile of this Ion release
470 is incompatible with older releases. This is due to the changes made
471 to the `WIonWS` (and `WAutoWS`) split tree code to make it more modularly
472 extensible with the new kinds of nodes that `WAutoWS` requires.
474 The `mod_autows` module has infact been through many changes since the
475 last release, and I think I have the final form of it finally figured
476 out. However, it is still far from finished and unlikely to be ready
483 The major new features of this snapshot release are:
485 * `WMPlex` support for a sticky status display area to which `WIonWS`s
486 adjust properly. Modified to the dock module to support this method.
487 See the new `dock.lua` to set up the dock in the new embedded or old
488 floating manner (the API for the latter has also changed).
489 * Primitive session management support.
491 There are also some bug fixes and many minor improvements; see the ChangeLog
492 for details. Work on `mod_autows` has also started, but it isn't ready for
496 ### Note on ./configure:
498 ./configure does not exist for the moment as the source autoconf script
499 is not up-to-date. Ion no longer uses libtool/libltdl due to problems
500 with inter-module dependencies, and I have not asked Tom Payne to fix
501 the script yet, as this change may not be final (although that is most
502 likely the case; those without Linux-compatible libdl and a flexible
503 binary format such as ELF will just have to link statically against the
507 ### Notes on session management:
509 Ion loads `mod_sm` automatically when the SESSION_MANAGER environment
510 variable that should be set by the session manager is set, so there's
511 no need load it in `ion.lua`.
513 When session management is in use, all entries in the 'Session' menu
514 (previously 'Exit' menu) actually invoke the session manager to do the
515 task. 'Save' asks the SM save the whole session and 'Exit' (ioncore.shutdown)
516 asks it to shut down the session instead of just causing the WM to quite.
517 To do the latter, use ioncore.resign.
519 Unfortunately, all session managers I have tried (from Debian/unstable),
520 are broken/incomplete in one way or another:
523 xsm: doesn't support any requests from applications. This makes Ion's
524 session menu complete unfunctional. The only way to restart/exit/save
525 state is through xsm's window.
528 gnome-session: This seems the most complete of the all the session managers
529 and works fine until it is requested to shut down the session, when it dumps
530 core and session state is lost if was not explicitly saved previously.
532 A `~/.gnome2/session` file to use with Ion follows:
538 0,RestartCommand=gnome-smproxy --sm-client-id default0
541 1,RestartCommand=/usr/local/ion-3/bin/ion -smclientid default1
544 ksmserver: Only supports a global shutdown request, so that Ion can not be
545 restarted or session state saved in the middle of a session.
551 This is the first development snapshot release of what is to be Ion3.
552 The most visible changes to Ion2 so far are:
554 * Default installation directory is `/usr/local/ion-3` while user
555 configuration files go in `~/.ion3`
557 * The `mod_sp` module was added. It creates an extra toggleable
558 "scratchpad" frame on each screen. Toggle is for now bound by default
559 to Mod1+section, which should be very conveniently located on most
560 Nordic keyboards (left of "1"), but you may have to change it. The
561 scratchpad should be nice for xconsole or similar monitors, xmessage
562 and other popups and just as temporary holding space for windows.
564 * All modules except the drawing engine are now called `mod_something`.
566 * Man-page complection supports a cache of known man-pages for faster
567 completion. See the README for instructions on setting up a cronjob
568 or manually generating the index if you want to use the feature.
569 Also `query_man_path` is no longer used. Instead we try the
570 `ION_MC_MANPATH` and `MANPATH` environment variables and the
573 * Exported functions are now separated into tables (namespaces)
574 instead of cluttering the globals table. Some frequently used
575 configuration functions are imported into the globals table, though.
576 Some functions have also been removed or renamed for simpler and
577 more consistent function set.
579 * New binding configuration mechanism. Dozens of `*_bindings` functions
580 were replaced with a single `[ioncorelib.]defbindings` function that
581 accepts a context parameter. Callbacks are specified as strings
582 (although passing functions still works) to make it easier for
583 external configuration programs to understand the configuration
584 files and perhaps remove some confusion among users who do not
585 care to read a tiny bit of Lua documentation and understand the
586 concept of anonymous functions.
588 * It is now also possible to retrieve a list of bindings with
589 `ioncorelib.getbindings`, for example, for self-documentation.
591 * Single move/resize mode bindings instead of separate for both
592 ionframe and floatframe.
594 There are also quite a few internal changes; see the ChangeLog for
595 details. No documentation tarball is available at the moment as the
596 documentation is out-of-date except for the function reference. If
597 you need the reference, just checkout the documentation from the
598 Subversion repository with
600 svn co http://tao.uab.es/ion/svn/ion-doc/trunk ion-doc-3ds
602 and build the documentation.
608 This release is finally what can be called "Ion 2 release candidate #1".
609 No more new features will be added to "Ion 2" after this release, and the
610 configuration interface has already been frozen for a while. I will wait a
611 couple of weeks for bug reports, and if nothing serious is found, the new
612 stable Ion should finally be released then.
614 The most notable changes since the previous release are:
616 * The dock module is included
617 * An optional autoconf script was added
618 * A few minor bugs were fixed
619 * Some incomplete features were polished, especially focus control on
621 * Changes in X keyboard map are supported now (so e.g. switching to
622 dvorak after Ion has started should update the bindings to match the
623 locations of symbols in the dvorak layout).
626 About the version numbering scheme:
628 Due to a demand of a version numbering scheme more indicative of the status
629 of the project, I was thinking of various different new version numbering
630 schemes for this release: ion-2rc1 (then 2r1, 3d1, etc.), ion-2-20040114-rc1,
631 ion-2.20040114rc1, ion-20040114-2rc1, etc.). It would've been nice if
632 simple lexicographical sorting could be used to order the packages, but
633 in the end I decided to stick with a scheme that is consistent with the
634 'ion-devel' package names:
636 project-branch_and_status-release_date
638 Therefore this release is 'ion-2rc-20040114', and the "stable" one will be
645 This is a big clean-up release. The most noticeable changes are that
646 '-devel' has been removed from path names, user configuration files go
647 in `~/.ion2/` and the main configuration file is 'ion.lua'. (The other
648 `ioncore-*.lua` files have also been renamed.) There have been no notable
649 changes in the configuration files themselves, so your old files will
650 work if you move them to the correct directory and rename the changed
651 files. (`mv ~/.ion-devel ~/.ion2; cd ~/.ion2; mv ioncore.lua ion.lua;`
654 This release also finally contains a working PWM binary. (The ioncore+
655 scripts scheme was replaced with separate binaries statically linked
656 to ioncore.a.) Floating workspaces now support edge snapping and
657 sticky windows, but some PWM features are probably still missing.
659 Some bugs were also fixed and users are now force-fed the manual page
660 the first time Ion is started. Transients can be toggled between
661 top/bottom of the main window with Mod1+K T. The SSH query uses
662 `~/.ssh/known_hosts` for completion instead of a manually defined list.
664 There may be a few additions (e.g. the dock) and bug fixes, of course,
665 before the stable release, but this release should pretty much be what
666 the new "stable" Ion should look like. Please upgrade to it to help
667 weed out the bugs. Note that you need to upgrade Lua to the 5.0.1
675 It's finally time for a new release on Ion's development branch. Most
676 likely this will also be the last "big" release before finally, after
677 almost two years, releasing a new "stable" version of Ion. A few bug
678 fix and code clean-up releases should appear in between, though.
680 The most important additions, changes and non-changes in this release
684 * A little less broken extended character set and string encoding
686 * Extended WM hints fullscreen request support
687 * Hopefully a little clarified configuration file layout
689 * And most important of all:
691 > Configuration files written for the previous release should
692 > still work this time!
694 (However, Ion will complain of old drawing engine styles.)
696 The menu module provides both drop-down menus (in the stock configuration
697 pressing Button3 on a tab should show a context menu) and query-like
698 "in-mplex" menus (F12: main menu at screen level; Mod1+M: the same context
699 menu as above at frame level).
701 What was done enhance support for strings (mostly window titles) in
702 languages that need more than 8-bit character sets is:
704 * Remove UTF8 restriction and support almost arbitrary multibyte
705 encodings instead. (Statefull encodings will not work and combining
706 characters can cause clutter. Both are a sign of bad encoding, IMHO.)
708 * The XCreateFontSet routine that is used to load fonts in the kind
709 of structure the X utf8 and multibyte routines want apparently wants
710 to be able to load glyphs for all character sets specified in the
711 locale and therefore often fails if only single font is specified.
712 Therefore a kludge was added that tries loading more fonts while
713 keeping the fonts' size the same. (The ",*" kludge could load huge
714 fonts). Unfortunately this has a noticeable effect in startup time :(.
716 * There is no longer a system.mk option to enable utf8 (now multibyte)
717 support, but must still specifically be enabled with the -i18n
718 command line switch, mostly thanks to troublesome utf-8 locales.
720 Because Xlib's UTF-8 string drawing code is broken and very unlikely to
721 be fixed, decent text output in an UTF-8 locale is still unlikely and
722 dependent on the fonts loaded in the system. The Xmb routines that are now
723 used always use an iso10646-1 font even if other fonts are loaded and the
724 unicode font does not contain a particular glyph to be drawn. The use of
725 the Xutf8 routines in an utf8 locale can be enabled with the
726 `CF_DE_USE_XUTF8` compile-time option. The advantage of this is that
727 these routines seem to choose the font to draw particular character in
728 most cases more sanely. The downside is that there are other more serious
729 problems with unknown characters.
731 All in all, even if I'd like to support a universal move to UTF-8, thanks
732 to Xlib brokenness I can't really recommend using UTF-8 locales with Ion
733 and the default drawing engine if there's a decent alternative encoding.
734 Most if not all other stateless encodings shouldn't have the problems
735 UTF-8 has. An alternative drawing engine that didn't use the Xlib i18n
736 string drawing routines might solve the troubles with utf-8 support.
740 If you have saved a custom system.mk, you'll need to set LUAC
741 point to the Lua compiler there as some of the share/ files
748 It's been a while since the previous release as I wanted to freeze the
749 Lua configuration/scripting interface for this release and therefore
750 finish work on a few things. Well, on my part the interface is frozen,
751 but I will still accept constructive complaints for a short time and
752 after that the implemented parts of the scripting interface will be
753 frozen. But in all likelihood, if no one has anything else to say, but
754 "it's ok", "it sucks", the interface will no longer change, only possibly
757 What's new for this release then?
759 * Drawing engine module support.
760 * OO-style exported functions. The old `class_fn` functions are now
761 `WClass.fn` (an ugly wrapper is provided in `compat.lua`).
762 * No more screen-specific configuration or savefiles.
763 * Session name (can be specified on command line) instead of display
764 name based savefiles. Also affects query history and not just workspace
766 * Bug fixes, most small and one bigger (almost complete rewrite of
767 the split resizing algorithm).
768 * Some documentation improvements.
770 Converting configuration files.
772 Old `.lua` colour schemes and workspace save files can be automatically
773 converted to a format suitable to be loaded by this latest release.
774 Other files will have to be ported manually. To convert colour schemes,
775 use the script `utils/lookconv.lua`. The usage is
777 lookconv.lua look-old.lua > look-new.lua
779 To convert workspaces savefiles, use the script `utils/saveconv.sh`.
782 saveconf.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-DISPLAY.*.lua \
783 > ~/.ion-devel/SESSIONNAME/workspaces.lua
785 `DISPLAY` here is the actual display part of `$DISPLAY`, probably just `:0`.
786 '*' stands for all screens (if you have only one screen you could do with
787 perhaps just `workspaces-:0.0.lua`). SESSIONNAME is the name of the session
788 where you want to use the converted savefiles. Default session name for
789 `DISPLAY` is `default-session-DISPLAY` with the colon in `DISPLAY` converted
790 to a dash. For most people this is `default-session--0`. In the simplest
791 case the whole command line is therefore
793 saveconv.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-:0.0.lua \
794 > ~/.ion-devel/default-session--0/workspaces.lua
796 The scripts may or may not work and are only provided as a potential
797 convenience that will not be maintained and will be removed eventually.
803 Quite a few bug fixes and one most likely unnoticeable improvement:
807 * Fixed pointer warping on screen change.
808 * A bug in grab handler calling code could crash Ion when leaving
809 keyboard resize mode manually.
810 * Resize display was showing incorrect values for keyboard resize.
814 * Client window last height request bookkeeping code had been lost
815 when configure request policy was changed. This caused transient
816 sizes to be calculated incorrectly.
817 * Return from full screen mode to floatws had been broken.
818 * As the number of dynamic functions has been getting bigger, the
819 functions are now sorted on first use and then binary-searched
820 instead of naive linear searching.
821 * Screen lookup had been broken for windows that are not properly
828 Just some bug fixes and minor behavioural changes and improvements in
835 This release fixes some small problems with the previous release and
836 adds a workaround kludge for the XFree86 textprop bug (it's been fixed
837 but no release with the fix is available) that could cause Opera to
838 crash Ion when UTF8 support was enabled. I also added the winprop
839 needed for galeon's find dialog to default `kludges.lua` and there's
840 some extra documentation and defaults for some systems in system.mk.
846 Most changes in this release centre around making Ion more tolerant
847 to broken configuration files; for details see the ChangeLog. There
848 are also changes in binding configuration as I already mentioned in
849 an earlier poting. Namely `common-frame-bindings.lua` is gone and the
850 bindings previously set there (into variables that the `*ws.lua`
851 files later referenced) were moved to `ioncore-bindings.lua` and are
852 set using the new functions `mplex_bindings` and `genframe_bindings`
853 are were added. Old modified configuration files should still work,
854 however, but if you use `make_active_leaf_fn`, you will need to
855 include `compat.lua` as the `global_bindings` that used this were
856 replaced by bindings in `mplex_bindings` and the function
857 `make_current_clientwin_fn`.
859 There are also some (minor) bug fixes and a few other improvements
860 worth a mention. In particular all regions are now given names of
861 the form `WFoobar<n>` by default and `DEFAULT_MOD.."F9"` was bound to
862 create a new workspace without asking for a name. This binding and
863 `QueryLib.query_workspace` use the workspace type defined in the
864 variable `default_ws_type` instead of being hardcoded to `WIonWS`.
866 All objects passed to Lua now have a unique userdata (a `WWatch`
867 cached in a weak table) so they can be used e.g. as indices to tables.
873 This release unifies some parts of `WScreen` and `WGenFrame`, which makes
874 screen-level queries possible. (Later the queries for small frames might
875 be changed to be shown at screen level.) The statusbar restriction from
876 ion-devel-20030531 was also removed by this some change and a few
877 non-fatal bugs have been fixed.
883 A bug was discovered:
887 * An off-by-one error in `extl_l1_finalize` caused references to some
888 Lua tables (including large completions) never to be released.
890 It could be that this bug was causing some other errors in Lua as well.
891 Sometimes QueryLib bindings failed because some function generators
892 returned nil although they shouldn't. Adding dummy lines (!) in those
893 functions fixed the problem and for some reason this patch also seemed
894 to remove those problems.
897 One more note: as `ioncorelib.lua` and `querylib.lua` are now installed
898 in `$SHAREDIR`, you must remove the old files in `$ETCDIR` if installing
899 over a previous release or else there will be errors. You should also
900 not use any possible old copies you have in `~/.ion-devel/`. (One of the
901 reasons for moving these to `$SHAREDIR` is to stop users from making
902 copies of them as they are not configuration files.)
908 As the subject line says, Ion-devel-20030531 was just released. The short
911 * The license was changed from the Clarified Artistic License to the
912 GNU Library/Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
913 * Screen, viewport and root window renames and other changes (see below).
914 * Some installation directory changes; the ion-* helper programs are now
915 installed either in `$SHAREDIR` or `$EXTRABINDIR` and QueryLib searches
916 for them on the script path (`~/.ion-devel/`, `$ETCDIR`, `$SHAREDIR`,
917 `$EXTRABINDIR`) instead of assuming them being on `$PATH`.
918 * Client windows are now in a separate namespace.
919 * Resize/maximize/shade changes: Shading should work on `WIonFrame`s too
920 and shade mode is automatic when the client area gets too small when
921 resizing. Maximize toggle restores frame to previous size if shaded
922 instead of maximizing. The move/resize mode bindings were changed again
923 to be more consistent and predictable: Left/Right/Up/Down and F/B/P/N
924 grow the frame in the specific direction, Shift+keys shrink and in
925 case of floating frames, `DEFAULT_MOD+keys` move
926 * Returning from full screen mode should work on `WFloatWS`s too.
927 * Lots of minor fixes, export additions and clean-up.
929 As usual, see the (long!) list of new ChangeLog entries at the end of
930 this message for details.
933 I've finally personally switched from the old "stable" 20020207 to using
934 the latest development release at home too and I must say that it is
935 finally starting to look good. There are still things to be written, but
936 unless you need "proven" stability, I see no reason to sticking to that
937 old release anymore. Unless, of course, if you find a problem that I have
938 not encountered or simply have no need for the new features and don't want
939 to port your configuration files.
942 On screens, viewports, root windows and problems with the new
945 The objects previously called "screens" are now called "root windows"
946 and what were called "viewports" are called "screens" to better reflect
947 what the user sees. (When Xinerama is not used there's no difference
948 between a root window and a screen, but when Xinerama is used a root
949 window may be split over multiple screens.)
951 This release also creates so-called virtual root windows for each
952 Xinerama screen when there are more than one. This is to better separate
953 the windows on different screens and thus emulate normal multihead, the
954 main difference being that windows can be moved between screens.
955 Especially the virtual roots are there to keep the windows that are on
956 a floatws on the right screen.
958 Virtual root windows will, however, break a few apps:
960 * Mozilla -remote won't work because of its crappy method for looking
961 up existing windows that can't handle multiple levels of WM windows.
962 Nested workspaces have the same problem. There is, however, a simple
963 solution to this problem: gnome-moz-remote. It seems to use a saner
964 method for looking up an existing Gecko browser and also works with
965 at least Phoenix/MozillaFirebird and Galeon.
967 These two are problems only if you use floatws:s (other problems with
968 which virtual root windows are intended to solve):
970 * The background-setting apps I am aware of will require a following
971 'xrefresh' for the changes to be updated to the (transparent) virtual
972 roots. Background setting apps that support the `_NET_VIRTUAL_ROOTS`
973 property (which, I think, was meant for root window-sized WS
974 backgrounds) could be used to set a separate background for each
975 Xinerama screen, though. I am not aware of any such app.
976 * Some apps' resize and move features will behave erratically on those
977 Xinerama screens not at (0, 0) on the root window. This is again
978 because the apps are assuming there's at most one WM window between
979 them and the root and are requesting windows' positions incorrectly.
980 The ICCCM is quite vague on this and I think _all_ apps that I have
981 tried are doing it wrong but the way e.g. XMMS does it certainly is
982 not an interpretation of the ICCCM. The apps that now behave correctly
983 request position for the outermost WM window. Nested workspaces have
986 There is one more temporary problem:
988 * Status bar modules (and the dock module's statusbar mode) will be
989 *temporarily* broken when virtual roots are _not_ used. This will be
990 fixed later when parts of screen and frame code are unified (it should
991 then be possible to run Ion without any workspace modules and have
992 queries attached to screens). In the meanwhile, if you don't care about
993 the above-mentioned problems and want a statusbar (which probably needs
994 to be ported to this release), you can defined `CF_ALWAYS_VIRTUAL_ROOT`
1001 There are quite a few small fixes and minor enhancements invisible to
1002 the user in this release. The splitting functions were renamed to be
1003 more consistent and there are a couple of enhancements in the Lua code
1004 query that should make it much more usable. First, tab-completion can
1005 now descend into tables and complete subexpressions. Secondly, the local
1006 variable `_` in addition to 'arg[1]' is set to point to the the frame in
1007 which the query is executing.
1009 I have also written some new documentation that is now available from
1016 The most notable change in this release is that the `target_id` system
1017 was removed and instead client window status is also saved over
1018 restarts in the saves/workspaces-* files. (It shouldn't be too hard
1019 to hook a session management module over this.) Thanks to this
1020 modification, floatframes can also save their status now. Note
1021 that if you restart from older version of Ion to this one, client
1022 window layout will be messed up.
1024 There are also a few bug fixes and code to save and load line editor
1031 There are lots of minor improvements in this release, see the
1032 new ChangeLog entries for details.
1038 Some minor feature enhancements and a few fixes in this new release:
1040 The file system scanning completions are now put in the background
1041 by receiving the data from external programs through pipes and select()
1042 for data in the main event loop. This way long taking completions don't
1043 block Ion from processing other events and NFS problems shouldn't hang
1046 Basic window stacking management support code was added. Transients
1047 on floatws:s should now be stacked above their parents. If you don't
1048 want to change your modified binding configurations at this point and
1049 need the functions `floatframe_raise/lower`, include `compat.lua`.
1055 This release again fixes some minor problems and enhances a few
1056 features. Most of the enhancements are related to UTF8 support and
1057 the floatws module. If UTF8 support is enabled, Ion now tries to
1058 load the "fixed" font at startup after setting up locales. If locales
1059 aren't properly set up, this probably fails and Ion will reset locale
1060 back to "POSIX" as this might make fonts loadable although support for
1061 non-ASCII characters will be crippled. It might now be safe for
1062 package maintainers to enable UTF8 support by default
1064 As apps seem to have switched to using `_NET_WM_NAME` for UTF8 titles
1065 and filling `WM_NAME` with crap, this property is also preferred over
1066 `WM_NAME` if set. Support for some other "extended" WM hints might be
1067 added in the future but I have no intentions of moking Ion NetWM-
1068 compliant. I might have thought of attempting to do so a few years
1069 ago when I last read the specification but it seems that since then
1070 they've filled it with lots of pointless bloat that may even be in
1071 opposition to Ion's goals. Take multi-parent transients, for example.
1073 Full error log is also displayed with xmessage on startup whether
1074 it is possible to continue or not.
1080 There was a bug in QueryLib written yesterday, therefore this release.
1086 I started converting the query code to Lua and discovered some rather
1087 silly bugs in the Lua interface so here's a new release with the new
1088 and improved query code included. The names of queries have changed
1089 (they're all in the table QueryLib defined in `querylib.lua` -- only
1090 `query_query` and a few temporary handlers are implemented in query.so)
1091 so your modified configuration files will be broken again :(.
1097 Be prepared to completely rewrite your configuration files once
1098 again: a new version of Ion-devel has been released that uses Lua
1099 <http://www.lua.org/> for all configuration. Version 5.0 of the
1100 language/library is required. Although scripting possibilities
1101 are now much better than before, there is one rather big drawback:
1102 Lua is not nearly as error-tolerant as Ion's old configuration
1103 parser so a syntax error in a file will cause the file not to be
1104 executed and may even cause Ion not to be able to start. More
1105 comments and documentation on scripting will follow at a later time.
1107 Libtool and libltdl are also now used to implement module support.
1108 Hopefully this will make compiling Ion easier on a wider range of
1109 platforms. (On the other hand, this could also induce new problems.)
1111 Finally, the preferred linking address for Ion's home page is now
1112 <http://www.iki.fi/tuomov/ion/>. The pages are still located at the
1113 old address, but this redirected address should be more permanent.
1119 Just some minor fixes, binary rename and better embedded workspace
1120 support in this release. I'm still contemplating whether to convert
1121 Ion to C++ and haven't written many things that I intended to as
1122 that decision will affect how those are implemented.
1124 To create an embedded workspaces in a frame, at the moment you have
1125 to modify the appropriate workspace save file (when Ion is not running!)
1126 by adding lines such as
1128 region "WFloatWS", "testiupotus" {
1131 inside the frame definition after the other options (flags, `target_id`;
1132 those options will be ignored if after any region definitions).
1134 One more thing to note: debugging infos are no longer automatically
1135 stripped from the ioncore binary or modules by 'make install' so that
1136 I don't have to explain how to get proper backtraces every time a bug
1137 is found. If you you are confident that you can send me proper backtraces
1138 when you find a bug (or maybe can fix it yourself), you can make the
1139 binary and the modules a _lot_ smaller by running 'strip' on them.
1145 The list of new ChangeLog entries is long this time, but I'm finally
1146 starting to get to what I started working on almost two years ago. Yes,
1147 there is *experimental* support for PWM-like "floating frame" workspaces.
1148 A lot of the functionality is still missing -- no need to complain of
1149 such at the time -- but the floatws.so module and basic functionality
1150 is there. Most notably perhaps a menu module is not yet implemented.
1151 (Porting the PWM menu code should a nice little task for whomever
1152 interested... *wink*.) To create some PWM workspaces, load the floatws.so
1153 module (should be loaded by default) and in `query_workspace` (F9)
1154 prefix workspace name with 'WFloatWS:' (or load the module before
1157 This release is also finally fully modularised: In addition to the
1158 ion core binary that can not function alone, there are the modules
1159 ionws.so, floatws.so and query.so. It is also possible statically
1160 compile the modules in the core binary if the system doesn't support
1163 There's also *experimental* UTF8 support that must be specifically
1164 enabled from system.mk. You must have XFree86 (4.x?) and C99 wide
1165 char support available (either libc directly or maybe libutf8+libiconv).
1166 Thanks to bugs (?) in some of the XFree86 Xutf8 functions, your locales
1167 must be properly set up or else X will stop drawing strings at non-ascii
1168 characters instead of ignoring them. See my earlier rants on the mailing
1169 list for reasons on not using the more standard Xmb functions.
1170 To actually see any special characters, you must load the necessary fonts
1171 by specifying a comma-separated list of fonts to the font and `tab_font`
1172 draw.conf options. Multiple font loading does not work when Xft support
1173 is enabled at the time being.
1175 There has been a lot of changes in the config files, again, and I can
1176 promise there's still more to come. See the ChangeLog for details.
1177 If you want to use your old workspaces configurations, move them to
1178 `~/.ion-devel/saves` and replace the strings "WFrame" and "WWorkspace"
1179 with "WIonFrame" and "WIonWS", respectively.
1185 I've made the bugfix release as promised. Get it from the usual place.
1191 There's a new major development release available from Ion web page.
1192 Not many changes are visible to the end user, though, but a lot was
1193 rewritten to be more flexible and simpler; see the ChangeLog for a
1194 full account. The older development release is also still available
1195 because this release can not be considered as stable after major
1196 changes to the code. The most visible changes are
1198 * Changes in binding configuration
1199 * A (mostly) working full screen mode toggle (see below)
1200 * The ability to switch workspaces while dragging tabs (experimental)
1201 * The ability to re-read draw.conf without restarting Ion
1205 Some notes on full screen mode toggle:
1207 * Ion doesn't detect programs trying to leave full screen mode--it
1208 should be possible to devise some method using window properties,
1210 * At least Opera unmaps the window also before changing the size to
1211 enter full screen mode, so Ion doesn't remember the last frame.
1212 * Mozilla sometimes has trouble entering full screen mode but when it
1213 succeeds, Ion remembers the last frame. However, if
1214 `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` is used to leave the full screen mode
1215 started from Mozilla, Mozilla doesn't know that the mode has been
1218 Clearly there should be some method of communication between Ion and the
1219 programs for full screen toggles to fully work. At the moment I suggest
1220 using `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` instead of the programs' native toggles
1221 unless the program has some special full screen mode and you really want