5 This release features a few minor fixes. If no major problems are
6 discovered, this is likely to be the last "rc" release before the
7 first and hopefully final "stable" release.
13 This fourth "rc" release fixes some minor bugs and omissions in
20 This third "rc" release again simply fixes some minor problems in
27 This is the second "rc" release, and contains primarily bug fixes
28 and other minor improvements.
34 This is the first "rc" or "(stable) release candidate" release of
35 Ion3. This means that there will not be any further major changes
36 to it. Bugs will be fixed, and as an exception to the general
37 feature freeze, some hooks may still be added, if deemed useful.
38 Translations may also be included. After no new bugs (that can not
39 be deemed features) have been found in this or following "rc"
40 releases, the stable Ion3 will be released.
42 Most of the changes in this release to the previous one already
43 are bug fixes, in addition to some general clean-up. Other notable
46 * Winprop matching improvements: it is possible to match against
47 `is_dockapp` and `is_transient` (booleans), and there's a hack
48 to support `class` and `instance` for dockapps too.
50 * The default configuration puts dockapps in the statusbar's
53 * The autoconf kludge has been removed, as I will have nothing
54 to do with it, and nobody else seems to support or maintain
57 * Tab numbers are displayed when releasing modifiers in the
60 Distributors should pay heed to the name policy notice in the
67 This may be the last "ds" release if Ion3; if all goes well, the next
68 release is likely to be an "rc". Some minor improvements will still
69 be done, and minor requests may be accepted, so be quick.
71 The most notable changes in this release from the previous one are:
73 * Transients and queries in too small frames are "unsqueezed" out
74 of them, unless disabled with `ioncore.set{ unsqueeze = false }`.
76 * Some changes in default `cfg_ion.lua`: instead of loading
77 various other files, just `cfg_default.lua` is loaded instead.
79 * `mod_tiling.untile` (available in the context menu) may be used
80 to decompose tilings into floating frames. (This is the approximate
81 opposite of `mod_tiling.mkbottom` and the "new tiling" context menu
84 * Improved context menus.
86 * Slightly improved defaults style, using the drawing engine's
87 added possibility of partial borders.
89 * Various fixes and other improvements, in particular in relation
96 * There's been changes in padding/spacing usage in styles. Frames
97 now surround stuff inside borders not with `spacing` pixels, but
98 with `padding_pixels`. Spacing is only used to space things within
99 the borders (all the tabs and the client window from each other).
100 Consequently, custom styles may need to be updated to reflect this,
101 by increasing the padding, possibly also altering/removing colour
102 (to set it to background colour).
104 * The use of drawing engine attributes has also changed, and strict
105 ordering of them in the styles is no longer necessary. Additionally,
106 much more attributes are supported, including the name of every
109 * Xinerama support is gone. In addition to being problematic as such,
110 it had bit-rotted, and I will not waste time fixing it.
112 * `ioncore.set` no longer supports the `default_ws_params` parameter
113 for configuring the default layout. It is replaced by
114 `ioncore.deflayout("default", { ... })`, which allows configuring
115 other layouts as well, known by `mod_query.query_workspace` (F9).
116 Some default layouts are configured in `cfg_layout.lua`.
118 * It is now possible to automatically create new workspaces for
119 windows with the `new_group` winprop.
125 There's nothing major in this release, primarily just some minor fixes
126 and tuning to the previous release, that it was time to release.
132 Mostly this release still fixes issues in the big 3ds-20061015 release,
133 but in addition there are some improvements in the query department:
135 * Query activation key now cycles completions (So e.g. the
136 in the context menu activated with META+M, this same key
137 can be used to cycle through the alternatives.) This does
138 not work for queries activated by submap bindings.
140 * Likewise, it is no longer necessary to specify the key to
141 use for cycling for `mod_menu.grabmenu`.
143 * Control+R can now be used for history completion in queries.
144 (Currently matching is done for full string up to 'point', but
145 this may be changed to substring match.)
147 * Note that the parametrisation of WEdln.complete has changed,
148 and the second cycle parameter must be 'next' now instead of
155 Fixes some (expected, but minor) issues in the previous release.
161 * WIonWS and WFloatWS and the corresponding modules are gone, and
162 your custom configuration files will be broken with regard to these.
163 However, a partial backwards compatibility hack exists for layout
166 The F9 and META-F9 bindings now by default create workspaces with
167 a tiled layout of two frames. To create an "empty" workspace,
168 corresponding to the old WFloatWS, use the context menu (META-M)
169 and choose "new-empty-workspace". It is also possible to change
172 * Note that if you restart from an old version to this new version of Ion,
173 transients will stop working as expected for already existing windows.
174 They will work for newly-created windows, however.
176 * There are a few new sets of binding (including one for `WClientWin`!),
177 and some old bindings may not work exactly as expected anymore. In
178 particular, those for switching to full-screen mode.
180 **It is probably best to start from scratch with your custom
183 * `WFrame.set_tabbar` is gone. If you absolutely want to get rid off
184 the tabs, you must change the frame's "mode" with `WFrame.set_mode`.
185 The mode "tiled-alt" has been intended for this, and the corresponding
186 "framed-tiled-alt" style defaults to `bar = "none"`.
188 * The rather popular `detach.lua` script from the scripts repository
189 is obsoleted now, as Ion includes detach functionality in itself.
190 To detach a window, use META-K D in the default bindings. To tile
191 an existing frame from a workspace that doesn't have a tiling yet,
198 Some notable changes in this release include
200 * Lua 5.1 is now required.
202 * Framed transients on by default now. New binding contexts
203 "WFrame.toplevel" and "WMPlex.toplevel" were added to allow
204 for separate sets of bindings for nested transient frames and
205 top-level frames. Some of the bindings in the default binding
206 maps that are likely to be unwanted on transient frames were
207 moved to these contexts. Old custom bindings will continue to
208 work unless they modify the defaults by unbinding some of the
211 * Pressing Mod1+K K in the default bindings now switches to any
212 region with the "activity" flag set (indicated by the a box
213 at a corner of the screen), if there's one, before cycling to
214 previously active region. The same effect can be achieved in
215 your custom bindings with
217 ioncore.activity_goto() or ioncore.goto_previous()
223 This release mostly features minor bugfixes and other improvements. The most
224 visible non-bugfix changes are:
226 * Faster "fontset" filling kludge: only `-misc-fixed-*` fonts are tried. Ion
227 should now load faster in UTF-8 environments, and usually with no less
228 fonts in the fontset than before. (UTF-8 string drawing still does not
229 fully utilise these fonts under XFree86, but it does under XOrg.)
231 * Experimental auto-show-completions support, which is also on by default
232 now. In this mode the Tab key can be used to cycle forward through the
233 completions, and Shift+Tab backwards. Modify the settings seen in the
234 new `mod_query.lua` to get normal Tab-completion, or change the completion
237 * The release scripts do not run automatically autoconf anymore so maybe
238 a few more people would look into the README first.
244 The most visible changes in this release are:
246 * Mod1+space now toggles the scratchpad by default and Mod1+D the dock.
248 * The `ion-(ssh|man|view|edit)` wrapper scripts were removed and instead
249 the programs used can be configured in Ion's configuration files.
251 * `ioncore.exec(_on)` also support the `:cmd` notation for "run cmd in
252 xterm" familiar from the run query. The `::cmd` notation can be used
253 to ask for enter to be pressed even when the program quit succesfully.
255 * Those with custom configuration files should note that many exported toggle
256 functions were changed and renamed, and now accept a string parameter
257 incidating whether to toggle, set or unset the property.
259 - `WClientwin.set_fullsreen` (replaces `WClientWin.toggle_fullscreen`)
260 - `WRegion.set_tagged` (replaces `WRegion.tag/untag/toggle_tag`)
261 - `WFrame.set_tabbar` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_tabbar`)
262 - `WFrame.set_shaded` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_shade`)
263 - `WFloatFrame.set_sticky` (replaces `WFloatFrame.toggle_sticky`)
264 - `WMPlex.l2_set_hidden` (replaces `WMPlex.l2_hide/show`)
265 - `mod_sp.set_shown(_on)` (replaces `mod_sp.toggle(_on)`)
266 - `mod_dock.set_floating_shown_on` (replaces `mod_dock.toggle_floating_on`)
267 - `WRegion.set_activity` (replaces `WRegion.clear_activity` and
268 `WRegion.notify_activity`)
270 For example, `WRegion.set_tagged(_, 'toggle')` should be used in place of
271 `WRegion.toggle_tagged(_)` now.
273 Obviously there are some other changes and fixes too. See the changelog
274 for details as usual.
280 This is mostly a bug fix release, but also features improved
281 `mod_query.query_exec` (F3 key) completion support. Script writers should be
282 aware that As a side effect of one of these bug fixes, many hooks are now
283 called in "protected mode" and can not call any functions that modify the
284 internal state of Ion, except ioncore.defer.
290 The most important changes in this release are:
292 * So-called "placeholders". With the help of these the positions of
293 full-screen windows are remembered in their original frames, and don't
294 just get inserted after currently active window when returning from
295 full-screen mode. Under a session manager placeholders are also used
296 to remember the original order of windows.
298 * Improved `mod_statusbar` and `ion-statusd` communication, and colouring
299 of important/critical meters.
301 * A number of small fixes.
307 This monthly snapshot adds a few new and improved features.
309 * 'Grabbed menus' that have a single cycling key and activate selected
310 entry when all modifiers have been released. See
312 <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/scripts/wcirculate.lua>
316 * Potentially blocking status meters are now in a separate ion-statusd
317 program. Please write your additional status meters that do not monitor
318 the state of Ion itself for ion-statusd (and contribute them in the
319 Ion3 scripts repository at <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/>).
320 For help on writing such status meters, see e.g. source for
321 `statusd_load` in `ext_statusbar/ion-statusd`.
323 * Floating splits are now supported on plain tiled workspaces as well as
324 on pane workspaces. To create such a split, use the workspace context
325 menu (Mod1+M by default) or write your own bindings.
327 * Line editor now supports history search; Control+Up/Down only scrolls
328 through history entries with matching initial part.
330 * Arbitrary winprop matching criteria is supported. Lua scripts have
331 access to X properties.
333 Of course there are some other minor fixes and improvements as well.
339 This release finally includes a usable (yet still incomplete) version
340 of the `mod_panews` workspace module (that has also bored the name 'autows'
341 and 'rubberws' previously). The final outcome is not exactly what I
342 initially planned, as those plans turned out not to be that workable.
343 Instead, what `mod_panews` does is add to the basic tiled ionws approach
344 overlappable splits and automatically filled panes that are initially
345 empty. Each window is classified and assigned to the pane matching that
346 classification. (The default classifications are T(erminal), V(iewer)
347 and M(iscellaneous).)
349 For a better feel for it, try it out yourself and please give feedback.
350 The overlapping panes may be a bit confusing (this is one place where
351 true translucency might actually be useful and not just eyecandy) at
352 first, but you'll get used to them if you use the feature, and e.g.
353 the Gimp works quite splendidly with the toolboxes in the 'M' pane and
354 image windows in the 'V' pane -- although the simple initial size-based
355 classification heuristics don't always get it right and overriding
356 winprops (setting: `panews_classification`) should eventually added.
358 In addition to the new module, this release adds support for translations
359 of program messages and the manual page, regardless of whether such is
360 of any use in a program like Ion or not. (Currently Finnish and Czech
361 translations are available.) Of course there are some bug fixes and
362 other minor additions as well, and the `./configure` script is also back,
363 the abandonment of libtool being final now.
369 The first thing you'll notice when you start up this release of Ion is
370 that isn't reading your old configuration that. The next thing you
371 should notice is a neat layout-adapting statusbar at the bottom of the
372 screen. That's right, Ion now includes an `ext_statusbar` Lua script that
373 is enabled by default and displays date/time/load/mail count in a
376 So why is it not reading your configuration and save files? Firstly,
377 all of the `.lua` files were renamed to be indicative of their purpose.
378 Secondly, there have been so many changes that your old files would be
381 The `.lua` files are now named as follows:
383 cfg_*.lua Configuration file that the user may wish to edit
384 look_*.lua Drawing engine style file
385 saved_*.lua Save file
386 mod_*.lua Module stub loader
387 ext_*.lua A bigger Lua extension without a C counterpart
388 so that it is not a module
390 The configuration file for `mod_foobar` or `ext_foobar`, if it has one, is,
391 of course, `cfg_foobar.lua`. In the topic of file names, also note that
392 the default installation paths and binary names have changed to include
393 the component '3' to reflect the situation with many binary packages
396 You perhaps noticed above that modules have stub loaders now, so the
397 user has no need to use the `ioncore.load_module` routine. All extensions
398 and additional configuration files can now be loaded with 'dopath'
399 (used to be 'include'). Also, the `menulib`, `querylib`, and `ioncorelib`
400 Lua libraries are gone and instead their contents can be found in the same
401 `mod_whatever` namespace with the corresponding module (the "stub" loader
402 for these modules is a bit more than just a stub...). Some may also
403 want to know that for `mod_*` and `ext_*` only the compiled .lc files are
404 now installed, and not the source `.lua` files, thus removing redundant
405 files and making the installation slightly smaller.
407 There are few other changes to the contents of the configuration files
408 as well, so you're probably best off simply rewriting your modified
409 configuration files based on the new defaults. There quite likely won't
410 be any more _big_ changes to the configuration files before the release
411 of final Ion3, wherever that will be. (Most likely we won't see 3rc:s
412 yet this year.) However, some functions and variables are still likely
413 to be renamed or changed.
415 In addition to being renamed, the layout savefile of this Ion release
416 is incompatible with older releases. This is due to the changes made
417 to the `WIonWS` (and `WAutoWS`) split tree code to make it more modularly
418 extensible with the new kinds of nodes that `WAutoWS` requires.
420 The `mod_autows` module has infact been through many changes since the
421 last release, and I think I have the final form of it finally figured
422 out. However, it is still far from finished and unlikely to be ready
429 The major new features of this snapshot release are:
431 * `WMPlex` support for a sticky status display area to which `WIonWS`s
432 adjust properly. Modified to the dock module to support this method.
433 See the new `dock.lua` to set up the dock in the new embedded or old
434 floating manner (the API for the latter has also changed).
435 * Primitive session management support.
437 There are also some bug fixes and many minor improvements; see the ChangeLog
438 for details. Work on `mod_autows` has also started, but it isn't ready for
442 ### Note on ./configure:
444 ./configure does not exist for the moment as the source autoconf script
445 is not up-to-date. Ion no longer uses libtool/libltdl due to problems
446 with inter-module dependencies, and I have not asked Tom Payne to fix
447 the script yet, as this change may not be final (although that is most
448 likely the case; those without Linux-compatible libdl and a flexible
449 binary format such as ELF will just have to link statically against the
453 ### Notes on session management:
455 Ion loads `mod_sm` automatically when the SESSION_MANAGER environment
456 variable that should be set by the session manager is set, so there's
457 no need load it in `ion.lua`.
459 When session management is in use, all entries in the 'Session' menu
460 (previously 'Exit' menu) actually invoke the session manager to do the
461 task. 'Save' asks the SM save the whole session and 'Exit' (ioncore.shutdown)
462 asks it to shut down the session instead of just causing the WM to quite.
463 To do the latter, use ioncore.resign.
465 Unfortunately, all session managers I have tried (from Debian/unstable),
466 are broken/incomplete in one way or another:
469 xsm: doesn't support any requests from applications. This makes Ion's
470 session menu complete unfunctional. The only way to restart/exit/save
471 state is through xsm's window.
474 gnome-session: This seems the most complete of the all the session managers
475 and works fine until it is requested to shut down the session, when it dumps
476 core and session state is lost if was not explicitly saved previously.
478 A `~/.gnome2/session` file to use with Ion follows:
484 0,RestartCommand=gnome-smproxy --sm-client-id default0
487 1,RestartCommand=/usr/local/ion-3/bin/ion -smclientid default1
490 ksmserver: Only supports a global shutdown request, so that Ion can not be
491 restarted or session state saved in the middle of a session.
497 This is the first development snapshot release of what is to be Ion3.
498 The most visible changes to Ion2 so far are:
500 * Default installation directory is `/usr/local/ion-3` while user
501 configuration files go in `~/.ion3`
503 * The `mod_sp` module was added. It creates an extra toggleable
504 "scratchpad" frame on each screen. Toggle is for now bound by default
505 to Mod1+section, which should be very conveniently located on most
506 Nordic keyboards (left of "1"), but you may have to change it. The
507 scratchpad should be nice for xconsole or similar monitors, xmessage
508 and other popups and just as temporary holding space for windows.
510 * All modules except the drawing engine are now called `mod_something`.
512 * Man-page complection supports a cache of known man-pages for faster
513 completion. See the README for instructions on setting up a cronjob
514 or manually generating the index if you want to use the feature.
515 Also `query_man_path` is no longer used. Instead we try the
516 `ION_MC_MANPATH` and `MANPATH` environment variables and the
519 * Exported functions are now separated into tables (namespaces)
520 instead of cluttering the globals table. Some frequently used
521 configuration functions are imported into the globals table, though.
522 Some functions have also been removed or renamed for simpler and
523 more consistent function set.
525 * New binding configuration mechanism. Dozens of `*_bindings` functions
526 were replaced with a single `[ioncorelib.]defbindings` function that
527 accepts a context parameter. Callbacks are specified as strings
528 (although passing functions still works) to make it easier for
529 external configuration programs to understand the configuration
530 files and perhaps remove some confusion among users who do not
531 care to read a tiny bit of Lua documentation and understand the
532 concept of anonymous functions.
534 * It is now also possible to retrieve a list of bindings with
535 `ioncorelib.getbindings`, for example, for self-documentation.
537 * Single move/resize mode bindings instead of separate for both
538 ionframe and floatframe.
540 There are also quite a few internal changes; see the ChangeLog for
541 details. No documentation tarball is available at the moment as the
542 documentation is out-of-date except for the function reference. If
543 you need the reference, just checkout the documentation from the
544 Subversion repository with
546 svn co http://tao.uab.es/ion/svn/ion-doc/trunk ion-doc-3ds
548 and build the documentation.
554 This release is finally what can be called "Ion 2 release candidate #1".
555 No more new features will be added to "Ion 2" after this release, and the
556 configuration interface has already been frozen for a while. I will wait a
557 couple of weeks for bug reports, and if nothing serious is found, the new
558 stable Ion should finally be released then.
560 The most notable changes since the previous release are:
562 * The dock module is included
563 * An optional autoconf script was added
564 * A few minor bugs were fixed
565 * Some incomplete features were polished, especially focus control on
567 * Changes in X keyboard map are supported now (so e.g. switching to
568 dvorak after Ion has started should update the bindings to match the
569 locations of symbols in the dvorak layout).
572 About the version numbering scheme:
574 Due to a demand of a version numbering scheme more indicative of the status
575 of the project, I was thinking of various different new version numbering
576 schemes for this release: ion-2rc1 (then 2r1, 3d1, etc.), ion-2-20040114-rc1,
577 ion-2.20040114rc1, ion-20040114-2rc1, etc.). It would've been nice if
578 simple lexicographical sorting could be used to order the packages, but
579 in the end I decided to stick with a scheme that is consistent with the
580 'ion-devel' package names:
582 project-branch_and_status-release_date
584 Therefore this release is 'ion-2rc-20040114', and the "stable" one will be
591 This is a big clean-up release. The most noticeable changes are that
592 '-devel' has been removed from path names, user configuration files go
593 in `~/.ion2/` and the main configuration file is 'ion.lua'. (The other
594 `ioncore-*.lua` files have also been renamed.) There have been no notable
595 changes in the configuration files themselves, so your old files will
596 work if you move them to the correct directory and rename the changed
597 files. (`mv ~/.ion-devel ~/.ion2; cd ~/.ion2; mv ioncore.lua ion.lua;`
600 This release also finally contains a working PWM binary. (The ioncore+
601 scripts scheme was replaced with separate binaries statically linked
602 to ioncore.a.) Floating workspaces now support edge snapping and
603 sticky windows, but some PWM features are probably still missing.
605 Some bugs were also fixed and users are now force-fed the manual page
606 the first time Ion is started. Transients can be toggled between
607 top/bottom of the main window with Mod1+K T. The SSH query uses
608 `~/.ssh/known_hosts` for completion instead of a manually defined list.
610 There may be a few additions (e.g. the dock) and bug fixes, of course,
611 before the stable release, but this release should pretty much be what
612 the new "stable" Ion should look like. Please upgrade to it to help
613 weed out the bugs. Note that you need to upgrade Lua to the 5.0.1
621 It's finally time for a new release on Ion's development branch. Most
622 likely this will also be the last "big" release before finally, after
623 almost two years, releasing a new "stable" version of Ion. A few bug
624 fix and code clean-up releases should appear in between, though.
626 The most important additions, changes and non-changes in this release
630 * A little less broken extended character set and string encoding
632 * Extended WM hints fullscreen request support
633 * Hopefully a little clarified configuration file layout
635 * And most important of all:
637 > Configuration files written for the previous release should
638 > still work this time!
640 (However, Ion will complain of old drawing engine styles.)
642 The menu module provides both drop-down menus (in the stock configuration
643 pressing Button3 on a tab should show a context menu) and query-like
644 "in-mplex" menus (F12: main menu at screen level; Mod1+M: the same context
645 menu as above at frame level).
647 What was done enhance support for strings (mostly window titles) in
648 languages that need more than 8-bit character sets is:
650 * Remove UTF8 restriction and support almost arbitrary multibyte
651 encodings instead. (Statefull encodings will not work and combining
652 characters can cause clutter. Both are a sign of bad encoding, IMHO.)
654 * The XCreateFontSet routine that is used to load fonts in the kind
655 of structure the X utf8 and multibyte routines want apparently wants
656 to be able to load glyphs for all character sets specified in the
657 locale and therefore often fails if only single font is specified.
658 Therefore a kludge was added that tries loading more fonts while
659 keeping the fonts' size the same. (The ",*" kludge could load huge
660 fonts). Unfortunately this has a noticeable effect in startup time :(.
662 * There is no longer a system.mk option to enable utf8 (now multibyte)
663 support, but must still specifically be enabled with the -i18n
664 command line switch, mostly thanks to troublesome utf-8 locales.
666 Because Xlib's UTF-8 string drawing code is broken and very unlikely to
667 be fixed, decent text output in an UTF-8 locale is still unlikely and
668 dependent on the fonts loaded in the system. The Xmb routines that are now
669 used always use an iso10646-1 font even if other fonts are loaded and the
670 unicode font does not contain a particular glyph to be drawn. The use of
671 the Xutf8 routines in an utf8 locale can be enabled with the
672 `CF_DE_USE_XUTF8` compile-time option. The advantage of this is that
673 these routines seem to choose the font to draw particular character in
674 most cases more sanely. The downside is that there are other more serious
675 problems with unknown characters.
677 All in all, even if I'd like to support a universal move to UTF-8, thanks
678 to Xlib brokenness I can't really recommend using UTF-8 locales with Ion
679 and the default drawing engine if there's a decent alternative encoding.
680 Most if not all other stateless encodings shouldn't have the problems
681 UTF-8 has. An alternative drawing engine that didn't use the Xlib i18n
682 string drawing routines might solve the troubles with utf-8 support.
686 If you have saved a custom system.mk, you'll need to set LUAC
687 point to the Lua compiler there as some of the share/ files
694 It's been a while since the previous release as I wanted to freeze the
695 Lua configuration/scripting interface for this release and therefore
696 finish work on a few things. Well, on my part the interface is frozen,
697 but I will still accept constructive complaints for a short time and
698 after that the implemented parts of the scripting interface will be
699 frozen. But in all likelihood, if no one has anything else to say, but
700 "it's ok", "it sucks", the interface will no longer change, only possibly
703 What's new for this release then?
705 * Drawing engine module support.
706 * OO-style exported functions. The old `class_fn` functions are now
707 `WClass.fn` (an ugly wrapper is provided in `compat.lua`).
708 * No more screen-specific configuration or savefiles.
709 * Session name (can be specified on command line) instead of display
710 name based savefiles. Also affects query history and not just workspace
712 * Bug fixes, most small and one bigger (almost complete rewrite of
713 the split resizing algorithm).
714 * Some documentation improvements.
716 Converting configuration files.
718 Old `.lua` colour schemes and workspace save files can be automatically
719 converted to a format suitable to be loaded by this latest release.
720 Other files will have to be ported manually. To convert colour schemes,
721 use the script `utils/lookconv.lua`. The usage is
723 lookconv.lua look-old.lua > look-new.lua
725 To convert workspaces savefiles, use the script `utils/saveconv.sh`.
728 saveconf.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-DISPLAY.*.lua \
729 > ~/.ion-devel/SESSIONNAME/workspaces.lua
731 `DISPLAY` here is the actual display part of `$DISPLAY`, probably just `:0`.
732 '*' stands for all screens (if you have only one screen you could do with
733 perhaps just `workspaces-:0.0.lua`). SESSIONNAME is the name of the session
734 where you want to use the converted savefiles. Default session name for
735 `DISPLAY` is `default-session-DISPLAY` with the colon in `DISPLAY` converted
736 to a dash. For most people this is `default-session--0`. In the simplest
737 case the whole command line is therefore
739 saveconv.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-:0.0.lua \
740 > ~/.ion-devel/default-session--0/workspaces.lua
742 The scripts may or may not work and are only provided as a potential
743 convenience that will not be maintained and will be removed eventually.
749 Quite a few bug fixes and one most likely unnoticeable improvement:
753 * Fixed pointer warping on screen change.
754 * A bug in grab handler calling code could crash Ion when leaving
755 keyboard resize mode manually.
756 * Resize display was showing incorrect values for keyboard resize.
760 * Client window last height request bookkeeping code had been lost
761 when configure request policy was changed. This caused transient
762 sizes to be calculated incorrectly.
763 * Return from full screen mode to floatws had been broken.
764 * As the number of dynamic functions has been getting bigger, the
765 functions are now sorted on first use and then binary-searched
766 instead of naive linear searching.
767 * Screen lookup had been broken for windows that are not properly
774 Just some bug fixes and minor behavioural changes and improvements in
781 This release fixes some small problems with the previous release and
782 adds a workaround kludge for the XFree86 textprop bug (it's been fixed
783 but no release with the fix is available) that could cause Opera to
784 crash Ion when UTF8 support was enabled. I also added the winprop
785 needed for galeon's find dialog to default `kludges.lua` and there's
786 some extra documentation and defaults for some systems in system.mk.
792 Most changes in this release centre around making Ion more tolerant
793 to broken configuration files; for details see the ChangeLog. There
794 are also changes in binding configuration as I already mentioned in
795 an earlier poting. Namely `common-frame-bindings.lua` is gone and the
796 bindings previously set there (into variables that the `*ws.lua`
797 files later referenced) were moved to `ioncore-bindings.lua` and are
798 set using the new functions `mplex_bindings` and `genframe_bindings`
799 are were added. Old modified configuration files should still work,
800 however, but if you use `make_active_leaf_fn`, you will need to
801 include `compat.lua` as the `global_bindings` that used this were
802 replaced by bindings in `mplex_bindings` and the function
803 `make_current_clientwin_fn`.
805 There are also some (minor) bug fixes and a few other improvements
806 worth a mention. In particular all regions are now given names of
807 the form `WFoobar<n>` by default and `DEFAULT_MOD.."F9"` was bound to
808 create a new workspace without asking for a name. This binding and
809 `QueryLib.query_workspace` use the workspace type defined in the
810 variable `default_ws_type` instead of being hardcoded to `WIonWS`.
812 All objects passed to Lua now have a unique userdata (a `WWatch`
813 cached in a weak table) so they can be used e.g. as indices to tables.
819 This release unifies some parts of `WScreen` and `WGenFrame`, which makes
820 screen-level queries possible. (Later the queries for small frames might
821 be changed to be shown at screen level.) The statusbar restriction from
822 ion-devel-20030531 was also removed by this some change and a few
823 non-fatal bugs have been fixed.
829 A bug was discovered:
833 * An off-by-one error in `extl_l1_finalize` caused references to some
834 Lua tables (including large completions) never to be released.
836 It could be that this bug was causing some other errors in Lua as well.
837 Sometimes QueryLib bindings failed because some function generators
838 returned nil although they shouldn't. Adding dummy lines (!) in those
839 functions fixed the problem and for some reason this patch also seemed
840 to remove those problems.
843 One more note: as `ioncorelib.lua` and `querylib.lua` are now installed
844 in `$SHAREDIR`, you must remove the old files in `$ETCDIR` if installing
845 over a previous release or else there will be errors. You should also
846 not use any possible old copies you have in `~/.ion-devel/`. (One of the
847 reasons for moving these to `$SHAREDIR` is to stop users from making
848 copies of them as they are not configuration files.)
854 As the subject line says, Ion-devel-20030531 was just released. The short
857 * The license was changed from the Clarified Artistic License to the
858 GNU Library/Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
859 * Screen, viewport and root window renames and other changes (see below).
860 * Some installation directory changes; the ion-* helper programs are now
861 installed either in `$SHAREDIR` or `$EXTRABINDIR` and QueryLib searches
862 for them on the script path (`~/.ion-devel/`, `$ETCDIR`, `$SHAREDIR`,
863 `$EXTRABINDIR`) instead of assuming them being on `$PATH`.
864 * Client windows are now in a separate namespace.
865 * Resize/maximize/shade changes: Shading should work on `WIonFrame`s too
866 and shade mode is automatic when the client area gets too small when
867 resizing. Maximize toggle restores frame to previous size if shaded
868 instead of maximizing. The move/resize mode bindings were changed again
869 to be more consistent and predictable: Left/Right/Up/Down and F/B/P/N
870 grow the frame in the specific direction, Shift+keys shrink and in
871 case of floating frames, `DEFAULT_MOD+keys` move
872 * Returning from full screen mode should work on `WFloatWS`s too.
873 * Lots of minor fixes, export additions and clean-up.
875 As usual, see the (long!) list of new ChangeLog entries at the end of
876 this message for details.
879 I've finally personally switched from the old "stable" 20020207 to using
880 the latest development release at home too and I must say that it is
881 finally starting to look good. There are still things to be written, but
882 unless you need "proven" stability, I see no reason to sticking to that
883 old release anymore. Unless, of course, if you find a problem that I have
884 not encountered or simply have no need for the new features and don't want
885 to port your configuration files.
888 On screens, viewports, root windows and problems with the new
891 The objects previously called "screens" are now called "root windows"
892 and what were called "viewports" are called "screens" to better reflect
893 what the user sees. (When Xinerama is not used there's no difference
894 between a root window and a screen, but when Xinerama is used a root
895 window may be split over multiple screens.)
897 This release also creates so-called virtual root windows for each
898 Xinerama screen when there are more than one. This is to better separate
899 the windows on different screens and thus emulate normal multihead, the
900 main difference being that windows can be moved between screens.
901 Especially the virtual roots are there to keep the windows that are on
902 a floatws on the right screen.
904 Virtual root windows will, however, break a few apps:
906 * Mozilla -remote won't work because of its crappy method for looking
907 up existing windows that can't handle multiple levels of WM windows.
908 Nested workspaces have the same problem. There is, however, a simple
909 solution to this problem: gnome-moz-remote. It seems to use a saner
910 method for looking up an existing Gecko browser and also works with
911 at least Phoenix/MozillaFirebird and Galeon.
913 These two are problems only if you use floatws:s (other problems with
914 which virtual root windows are intended to solve):
916 * The background-setting apps I am aware of will require a following
917 'xrefresh' for the changes to be updated to the (transparent) virtual
918 roots. Background setting apps that support the `_NET_VIRTUAL_ROOTS`
919 property (which, I think, was meant for root window-sized WS
920 backgrounds) could be used to set a separate background for each
921 Xinerama screen, though. I am not aware of any such app.
922 * Some apps' resize and move features will behave erratically on those
923 Xinerama screens not at (0, 0) on the root window. This is again
924 because the apps are assuming there's at most one WM window between
925 them and the root and are requesting windows' positions incorrectly.
926 The ICCCM is quite vague on this and I think _all_ apps that I have
927 tried are doing it wrong but the way e.g. XMMS does it certainly is
928 not an interpretation of the ICCCM. The apps that now behave correctly
929 request position for the outermost WM window. Nested workspaces have
932 There is one more temporary problem:
934 * Status bar modules (and the dock module's statusbar mode) will be
935 *temporarily* broken when virtual roots are _not_ used. This will be
936 fixed later when parts of screen and frame code are unified (it should
937 then be possible to run Ion without any workspace modules and have
938 queries attached to screens). In the meanwhile, if you don't care about
939 the above-mentioned problems and want a statusbar (which probably needs
940 to be ported to this release), you can defined `CF_ALWAYS_VIRTUAL_ROOT`
947 There are quite a few small fixes and minor enhancements invisible to
948 the user in this release. The splitting functions were renamed to be
949 more consistent and there are a couple of enhancements in the Lua code
950 query that should make it much more usable. First, tab-completion can
951 now descend into tables and complete subexpressions. Secondly, the local
952 variable `_` in addition to 'arg[1]' is set to point to the the frame in
953 which the query is executing.
955 I have also written some new documentation that is now available from
962 The most notable change in this release is that the `target_id` system
963 was removed and instead client window status is also saved over
964 restarts in the saves/workspaces-* files. (It shouldn't be too hard
965 to hook a session management module over this.) Thanks to this
966 modification, floatframes can also save their status now. Note
967 that if you restart from older version of Ion to this one, client
968 window layout will be messed up.
970 There are also a few bug fixes and code to save and load line editor
977 There are lots of minor improvements in this release, see the
978 new ChangeLog entries for details.
984 Some minor feature enhancements and a few fixes in this new release:
986 The file system scanning completions are now put in the background
987 by receiving the data from external programs through pipes and select()
988 for data in the main event loop. This way long taking completions don't
989 block Ion from processing other events and NFS problems shouldn't hang
992 Basic window stacking management support code was added. Transients
993 on floatws:s should now be stacked above their parents. If you don't
994 want to change your modified binding configurations at this point and
995 need the functions `floatframe_raise/lower`, include `compat.lua`.
1001 This release again fixes some minor problems and enhances a few
1002 features. Most of the enhancements are related to UTF8 support and
1003 the floatws module. If UTF8 support is enabled, Ion now tries to
1004 load the "fixed" font at startup after setting up locales. If locales
1005 aren't properly set up, this probably fails and Ion will reset locale
1006 back to "POSIX" as this might make fonts loadable although support for
1007 non-ASCII characters will be crippled. It might now be safe for
1008 package maintainers to enable UTF8 support by default
1010 As apps seem to have switched to using `_NET_WM_NAME` for UTF8 titles
1011 and filling `WM_NAME` with crap, this property is also preferred over
1012 `WM_NAME` if set. Support for some other "extended" WM hints might be
1013 added in the future but I have no intentions of moking Ion NetWM-
1014 compliant. I might have thought of attempting to do so a few years
1015 ago when I last read the specification but it seems that since then
1016 they've filled it with lots of pointless bloat that may even be in
1017 opposition to Ion's goals. Take multi-parent transients, for example.
1019 Full error log is also displayed with xmessage on startup whether
1020 it is possible to continue or not.
1026 There was a bug in QueryLib written yesterday, therefore this release.
1032 I started converting the query code to Lua and discovered some rather
1033 silly bugs in the Lua interface so here's a new release with the new
1034 and improved query code included. The names of queries have changed
1035 (they're all in the table QueryLib defined in `querylib.lua` -- only
1036 `query_query` and a few temporary handlers are implemented in query.so)
1037 so your modified configuration files will be broken again :(.
1043 Be prepared to completely rewrite your configuration files once
1044 again: a new version of Ion-devel has been released that uses Lua
1045 <http://www.lua.org/> for all configuration. Version 5.0 of the
1046 language/library is required. Although scripting possibilities
1047 are now much better than before, there is one rather big drawback:
1048 Lua is not nearly as error-tolerant as Ion's old configuration
1049 parser so a syntax error in a file will cause the file not to be
1050 executed and may even cause Ion not to be able to start. More
1051 comments and documentation on scripting will follow at a later time.
1053 Libtool and libltdl are also now used to implement module support.
1054 Hopefully this will make compiling Ion easier on a wider range of
1055 platforms. (On the other hand, this could also induce new problems.)
1057 Finally, the preferred linking address for Ion's home page is now
1058 <http://www.iki.fi/tuomov/ion/>. The pages are still located at the
1059 old address, but this redirected address should be more permanent.
1065 Just some minor fixes, binary rename and better embedded workspace
1066 support in this release. I'm still contemplating whether to convert
1067 Ion to C++ and haven't written many things that I intended to as
1068 that decision will affect how those are implemented.
1070 To create an embedded workspaces in a frame, at the moment you have
1071 to modify the appropriate workspace save file (when Ion is not running!)
1072 by adding lines such as
1074 region "WFloatWS", "testiupotus" {
1077 inside the frame definition after the other options (flags, `target_id`;
1078 those options will be ignored if after any region definitions).
1080 One more thing to note: debugging infos are no longer automatically
1081 stripped from the ioncore binary or modules by 'make install' so that
1082 I don't have to explain how to get proper backtraces every time a bug
1083 is found. If you you are confident that you can send me proper backtraces
1084 when you find a bug (or maybe can fix it yourself), you can make the
1085 binary and the modules a _lot_ smaller by running 'strip' on them.
1091 The list of new ChangeLog entries is long this time, but I'm finally
1092 starting to get to what I started working on almost two years ago. Yes,
1093 there is *experimental* support for PWM-like "floating frame" workspaces.
1094 A lot of the functionality is still missing -- no need to complain of
1095 such at the time -- but the floatws.so module and basic functionality
1096 is there. Most notably perhaps a menu module is not yet implemented.
1097 (Porting the PWM menu code should a nice little task for whomever
1098 interested... *wink*.) To create some PWM workspaces, load the floatws.so
1099 module (should be loaded by default) and in `query_workspace` (F9)
1100 prefix workspace name with 'WFloatWS:' (or load the module before
1103 This release is also finally fully modularised: In addition to the
1104 ion core binary that can not function alone, there are the modules
1105 ionws.so, floatws.so and query.so. It is also possible statically
1106 compile the modules in the core binary if the system doesn't support
1109 There's also *experimental* UTF8 support that must be specifically
1110 enabled from system.mk. You must have XFree86 (4.x?) and C99 wide
1111 char support available (either libc directly or maybe libutf8+libiconv).
1112 Thanks to bugs (?) in some of the XFree86 Xutf8 functions, your locales
1113 must be properly set up or else X will stop drawing strings at non-ascii
1114 characters instead of ignoring them. See my earlier rants on the mailing
1115 list for reasons on not using the more standard Xmb functions.
1116 To actually see any special characters, you must load the necessary fonts
1117 by specifying a comma-separated list of fonts to the font and `tab_font`
1118 draw.conf options. Multiple font loading does not work when Xft support
1119 is enabled at the time being.
1121 There has been a lot of changes in the config files, again, and I can
1122 promise there's still more to come. See the ChangeLog for details.
1123 If you want to use your old workspaces configurations, move them to
1124 `~/.ion-devel/saves` and replace the strings "WFrame" and "WWorkspace"
1125 with "WIonFrame" and "WIonWS", respectively.
1131 I've made the bugfix release as promised. Get it from the usual place.
1137 There's a new major development release available from Ion web page.
1138 Not many changes are visible to the end user, though, but a lot was
1139 rewritten to be more flexible and simpler; see the ChangeLog for a
1140 full account. The older development release is also still available
1141 because this release can not be considered as stable after major
1142 changes to the code. The most visible changes are
1144 * Changes in binding configuration
1145 * A (mostly) working full screen mode toggle (see below)
1146 * The ability to switch workspaces while dragging tabs (experimental)
1147 * The ability to re-read draw.conf without restarting Ion
1151 Some notes on full screen mode toggle:
1153 * Ion doesn't detect programs trying to leave full screen mode--it
1154 should be possible to devise some method using window properties,
1156 * At least Opera unmaps the window also before changing the size to
1157 enter full screen mode, so Ion doesn't remember the last frame.
1158 * Mozilla sometimes has trouble entering full screen mode but when it
1159 succeeds, Ion remembers the last frame. However, if
1160 `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` is used to leave the full screen mode
1161 started from Mozilla, Mozilla doesn't know that the mode has been
1164 Clearly there should be some method of communication between Ion and the
1165 programs for full screen toggles to fully work. At the moment I suggest
1166 using `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` instead of the programs' native toggles
1167 unless the program has some special full screen mode and you really want