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-- Next: 5. Scripting - Up: Configuring and extending Ion3 - Previous: 3. Basic configuration - Contents - Index -
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--This chapter first gives in section 4.1 a general outline -of how drawing engines are used, of style specifications and then -in section 4.2 describes how to specify styles -for the default drawing engine. Some additional settings and -user attributes are explained in Sections 4.3. - -
- -
-Ion's drawing routines are abstracted into so-called drawing engine -modules that can, again depending on the system, be dynamically -loaded as needed. The drawing engine modules provide ``brushes'' -that objects can use to draw some high-level primitives such -as borders and text boxes (in addition to simple text and rectangle -drawing) on their windows and configure e.g. the shape and -background of the window. While the drawing engines therefore -do not directly implement looks for each possible object (that -would hardly be maintainable), different brush styles can be -used to give a distinctive look to different objects and engines -could interpret some styles as special cases. Style specifications -are strings of the form - -
-
-element1-element2-...-elementn -- -
-An example of such a style specification is `tab-frame'; -see the table in subsection 4.1.1 for more styles. - -
-When an object asks for a brush of certain style, the selected -drawing engine will attempt to find the closest match to this -specification. The styles/brushes defined by the drawing engines -may have asterisks (`*') as some of the elements indicating -a match to anything. Exact matches are preferred to asterisk -matches and longer matches to shorter. For example, let a brush -for style `foo-bar-baz' be queried, then the following -brushes are in order of preference: - -
-
-foo-bar-baz -foo-*-baz -foo-bar -* -- -
-Some of the drawing primitives allow extra attributes to be -specified, also in the form -
-attr1-attr2-...-attrn --These extra attributes are called substyles -and allow, for example, the state of the object to be indicated -by different colour sets while keeping the interface at an -abstract level and the drawing engine completely ignorant -of the semantics - only the writer of the drawing engine -configuration file has to know them. However the drawing -engine can again interpret known substyles as special cases -and the default engine indeed does so with frame tab -tag and drag states.) - -
- -
- -
-
| Style name | -Description | -
| `frame' | -Style for frames. - Substyle attributes: `active'/`inactive' - (mutually exclusive) and - `quasiactive'/`not_quasiactive'. - A frame is ``quasiactive'' when an active region - has a back-link to it, such as a detached window. | -
| `frame-tiled' | -A more specific style for tiled frames. - Substyle attributes as for `frame'. | -
| `frame-tiled-alt' | -An alternative style for tiled frames. - Often used to disable the tab-bar. | -
| `frame-floating' | -A more specific style for floating - frames. | -
| `frame-transient' | -A more specific style for frames - containing transient windows. | -
- -
-
| Style name | -Description | -
| `tab' | -Style for frames' tabs and menu entries. - Substyle attributes: - `active'/`inactive' and - `selected'/`unselected' | -
| `tab-frame' | -A more specific style for frames' tabs. - Additional substyle attributes include: - `tagged'/`not_tagged', - `dragged'/`not_dragged', - `activity'/`no_activity', - `quasiactive'/`not_quasiactive'. | -
| `tab-frame-tiled', | -- |
| `tab-frame-tiled-alt', | -- |
| `tab-frame-floating', | -- |
| `tab-frame-transient' | -More specific styles for frames in the - different modes. | -
| `tab-menuentry' | -A more specific style for entries in WMenus. - Additional substyle attributes include `submenu' and - occasionally also `activity' is used. | -
| `tab-menuentry-bigmenu' | -An alternate style for entries in WMenus. | -
- -
-
| Style name | -Description | -
| `input' | -A style for WInputs. | -
| `input-edln' | -A more specific style for WEdlns. - Substyle attributes: `selection' for selected text and - `cursor' for the cursor indicating current editing point. | -
| `input-message' | -A more specific style for WMessages. | -
| `input-menu' | -A more specific style for WMenus. | -
| `input-menu-bigmenu' | -An alternate style for WMenus. | -
| `moveres_display' | -The box displaying position/size when - moving or resizing frames. | -
| `stdisp' | -Any status display. | -
| `stdisp-dock' | -The dock. | -
| `stdisp-statusbar' | -The statusbar. Substyles include: - the name of any monitor/meter (such as `date'), and - the supplied hint. Typical hints are: `normal', - `important', and `critical'. | -
- -
-Drawing engine style files are usually named -look_foo.lua where foo is the name of the -style. The file that Ion loads on startup or when -gr.read_config is called, however, is look.lua -and should usually be symlinked to or a copy of of some -look_foo.lua. - -
- -
-The first thing to do in a style file is to choose the drawing -engine, possibly loading the module as well. This is done -with the following chunk of code. - -
-
-if not gr.select_engine("de") then
- return
-end
-
-
--The gr.select_engine function sees if the engine -given as argument is registered (the default drawing engine is -simply called ``de''). If the engine could not be found, it -tries to load a module of the same name. If the engine still -is not registered, gr.select_engine returns `false' -and in this case we also exit the style setup script. -If the engine was found, gr.select_engine sees that -further requests for brushes are forwarded to that engine -and returns `true'. - -
-Before defining new styles it may be a good idea to clear old -styles from memory so if the old configuration defines more -specific styles than the new, the old styles don't override -those specified by the new configuration. That can be done by -calling - -
-
-de.reset() -- -
-After this the new styles can be defined with de.defstyle -as explained in the next subsection. Finally, after the styles have -been defined we must ask objects on the screen to look up new brushes -to reflect the changes in configuration. This is done with - -
-
-gr.refresh() -- -
- -
-Styles for the default drawing engine are defined with the -function de.defstyle. It has two arguments the first being -a style specification as explained in previous sections and the second -a table whose fields describe the style: - -
-
-de.defstyle("some-style", {
- attribute = value,
- ...
-})
-
-
--The supported attributes are described in tables below. The different -border elements and styles referred to there are explained in Figure -4.1. - -
- -
-Elevated: Inlaid: Ridge: Groove: - hhhhhhhhhhhs ............ hhhhhhhhhhhs sssssssssssh - h..........s .sssssssssh. h..........s s..........h - h. .s .s h. h.sssssssh.s s.hhhhhhhs.h - h. .s .s h. h.s h.s s.h s.h - h. .s .s h. h.shhhhhhh.s s.hsssssss.h - h..........s .shhhhhhhhh. h..........s s..........h - hsssssssssss ............ hsssssssssss shhhhhhhhhhh - -h = highlight, s = shadow, . = padding - |
- -
-Each of these fields a string of the form that can be -passed to XAllocNamedColor. Valid strings are e.g. -hexadecimal RGB specifications of the form -#RRGGBB and colour names as specified -in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt (exact path varying). - -
-
| Field | -Description | -
| highlight_colour | -Colour for the ``highlight'' part of a border. | -
| shadow_colour | -Colour for the ``shadow'' part of a border. | -
| foreground_colour | -Colour for the normal drawing operations, e.g. text. | -
| background_colour | -Window background colour (unless transparency is enabled) and - background colour boxes. | -
| padding_colour | -Colour for the ``padding'' part of a border border. Set to - background_colour if unset. | -
- -
-All other fields below except border_style are non-negative integers -indicating a number of pixels. - -
-
| Field | -Description | -
| border_style | -A string indicating the style of border; one of - `elevated'/`inlaid'/`ridge'/`groove' - as seen in the above sketch. | -
| border_sides | -A string indicating which sides of the border - to draw: `all'/`tb'/`lr' for all, - top and bottom, and left and right. To control between - left/right and top/bottom, use the pixel options below. | -
| highlight_pixels | -Width of the highlight part of the border in pixels. | -
| shadow_pixels | -Width of the shadow part of the border in pixels. | -
| padding_pixels | -Width of the padding part of the border in pixels. | -
| spacing | -Space to be left between all kinds of boxes. | -
- -
-
| Field | -Description | -
| font | -Font to be used in text-drawing operations; standard X font - name. | -
| text_align | -How text is to be aligned in text boxes/tabs; one of - the strings `left'/`right'/`center'. | -
- -
-
| Field | -Description | -
| transparent_background | -Should windows' that use this style - background be transparent? true/false. | -
| based_on | -The name of a previously defined style that this - style should be based on. | -
- -
-As discussed in previous sections, styles may have substyles to e.g. -indicate different states of the object being drawn. The ``de'' engine -limits what can be configured in substyles to the set of colours in the -first table above, but also specifically interprets for the main style -`tab-frame' the substyles `*-*-tagged' and `*-*-*-dragged' -by, respectively, drawing a right angle shape at the top right corner -of a tab and by shading the tab with a stipple pattern. Also for -menus the substyles `*-*-submenu' are handled as a special case. - -
-Substyles are defined with the function de.substyle within the -table defining the main style. The parameters to this function are -similar to those of de.defstyle. - -
-
-de.defstyle("some-style", {
- ...
- de.substyle("some-substyle", {
- ...
- }),
- ...
-})
-
-
-- -
-The following shortened segment from look_cleanviolet.lua -should help to clarify the matters discussed in the previous -subsection. - -
-
-de.defstyle("*", {
- -- Gray background
- highlight_colour = "#eeeeee",
- shadow_colour = "#eeeeee",
- background_colour = "#aaaaaa",
- foreground_colour = "#000000",
-
- shadow_pixels = 1,
- highlight_pixels = 1,
- padding_pixels = 1,
- spacing = 0,
- border_style = "elevated",
-
- font = "-*-helvetica-medium-r-normal-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*",
- text_align = "center",
-})
-
-de.defstyle("tab-frame", {
- based_on = "*",
-
- de.substyle("active-selected", {
- -- Violet tab
- highlight_colour = "#aaaacc",
- shadow_colour = "#aaaacc",
- background_colour = "#666699",
- foreground_colour = "#eeeeee",
- }),
-
- -- More substyles would follow ...
-})
-
-
-- -
- -
-The function WFrame.set_grattr may be used to give frames -(and their tabs) arbitrary extra attributes to be passed to the -drawing engine. Hence, by configuring such substyles in the style -configuration files, and turning on the attribute when needed, -scripts may display visual cues related to the frame. There is -also one extra attribute specially interpreted by the default -drawing engine: the `numbered' attribute, which causes -numbers to be displayed on the tabs. - -
- -
-The following style fields are independent of the drawing engine used, -but are related to objects' styles and therefore configured in the drawing -engine configuration file. - -
-
| Field | -Description | -
| bar | -Controls the style of the tab-bar. Possible values - are the strings `none', `inside', `outside' - and `shaped', with the last providing the PWM-style - tab-bars for floating frames. | -
| floatframe_tab_min_w | -Minimum tab width in pixels for - the shaped style, given that this number times number of tabs - doesn't exceed frame width. | -
| floatframe_bar_max_w_q | -Maximum tab-bar width quotient of
- frame width for the shaped styles. A number in the
- interval ![$(0, 1]$](img3.png){kind=small} . |
-
- -
-
| Field | -Description | -
| outline_style | -How borders are drawn: - `none' - no border, - `all' - border around whole dock, - `each' - border around each dockapp. | -
| tile_size | -A table with entries `width' and `height', - indicating the width and height of tiles in pixels. | -
-Hopefully that's enough to get you started in writing new style -configuration files for Ion. When in doubt, study the existing -style configuration files. - -
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