5 There's nothing major in this release, primarily just some minor fixes
6 and tuning to the previous release, that it was time to release.
12 Mostly this release still fixes issues in the big 3ds-20061015 release,
13 but in addition there are some improvements in the query department:
15 * Query activation key now cycles completions (So e.g. the
16 in the context menu activated with META+M, this same key
17 can be used to cycle through the alternatives.) This does
18 not work for queries activated by submap bindings.
20 * Likewise, it is no longer necessary to specify the key to
21 use for cycling for `mod_menu.grabmenu`.
23 * Control+R can now be used for history completion in queries.
24 (Currently matching is done for full string up to 'point', but
25 this may be changed to substring match.)
27 * Note that the parametrisation of WEdln.complete has changed,
28 and the second cycle parameter must be 'next' now instead of
35 Fixes some (expected, but minor) issues in the previous release.
41 * WIonWS and WFloatWS and the corresponding modules are gone, and
42 your custom configuration files will be broken with regard to these.
43 However, a partial backwards compatibility hack exists for layout
46 The F9 and META-F9 bindings now by default create workspaces with
47 a tiled layout of two frames. To create an "empty" workspace,
48 corresponding to the old WFloatWS, use the context menu (META-M)
49 and choose "new-empty-workspace". It is also possible to change
52 * Note that if you restart from an old version to this new version of Ion,
53 transients will stop working as expected for already existing windows.
54 They will work for newly-created windows, however.
56 * There are a few new sets of binding (including one for `WClientWin`!),
57 and some old bindings may not work exactly as expected anymore. In
58 particular, those for switching to full-screen mode.
60 **It is probably best to start from scratch with your custom
63 * `WFrame.set_tabbar` is gone. If you absolutely want to get rid off
64 the tabs, you must change the frame's "mode" with `WFrame.set_mode`.
65 The mode "tiled-alt" has been intended for this, and the corresponding
66 "framed-tiled-alt" style defaults to `bar = "none"`.
68 * The rather popular `detach.lua` script from the scripts repository
69 is obsoleted now, as Ion includes detach functionality in itself.
70 To detach a window, use META-K D in the default bindings. To tile
71 an existing frame from a workspace that doesn't have a tiling yet,
78 Some notable changes in this release include
80 * Lua 5.1 is now required.
82 * Framed transients on by default now. New binding contexts
83 "WFrame.toplevel" and "WMPlex.toplevel" were added to allow
84 for separate sets of bindings for nested transient frames and
85 top-level frames. Some of the bindings in the default binding
86 maps that are likely to be unwanted on transient frames were
87 moved to these contexts. Old custom bindings will continue to
88 work unless they modify the defaults by unbinding some of the
91 * Pressing Mod1+K K in the default bindings now switches to any
92 region with the "activity" flag set (indicated by the a box
93 at a corner of the screen), if there's one, before cycling to
94 previously active region. The same effect can be achieved in
95 your custom bindings with
97 ioncore.activity_goto() or ioncore.goto_previous()
103 This release mostly features minor bugfixes and other improvements. The most
104 visible non-bugfix changes are:
106 * Faster "fontset" filling kludge: only `-misc-fixed-*` fonts are tried. Ion
107 should now load faster in UTF-8 environments, and usually with no less
108 fonts in the fontset than before. (UTF-8 string drawing still does not
109 fully utilise these fonts under XFree86, but it does under XOrg.)
111 * Experimental auto-show-completions support, which is also on by default
112 now. In this mode the Tab key can be used to cycle forward through the
113 completions, and Shift+Tab backwards. Modify the settings seen in the
114 new `mod_query.lua` to get normal Tab-completion, or change the completion
117 * The release scripts do not run automatically autoconf anymore so maybe
118 a few more people would look into the README first.
124 The most visible changes in this release are:
126 * Mod1+space now toggles the scratchpad by default and Mod1+D the dock.
128 * The `ion-(ssh|man|view|edit)` wrapper scripts were removed and instead
129 the programs used can be configured in Ion's configuration files.
131 * `ioncore.exec(_on)` also support the `:cmd` notation for "run cmd in
132 xterm" familiar from the run query. The `::cmd` notation can be used
133 to ask for enter to be pressed even when the program quit succesfully.
135 * Those with custom configuration files should note that many exported toggle
136 functions were changed and renamed, and now accept a string parameter
137 incidating whether to toggle, set or unset the property.
139 - `WClientwin.set_fullsreen` (replaces `WClientWin.toggle_fullscreen`)
140 - `WRegion.set_tagged` (replaces `WRegion.tag/untag/toggle_tag`)
141 - `WFrame.set_tabbar` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_tabbar`)
142 - `WFrame.set_shaded` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_shade`)
143 - `WFloatFrame.set_sticky` (replaces `WFloatFrame.toggle_sticky`)
144 - `WMPlex.l2_set_hidden` (replaces `WMPlex.l2_hide/show`)
145 - `mod_sp.set_shown(_on)` (replaces `mod_sp.toggle(_on)`)
146 - `mod_dock.set_floating_shown_on` (replaces `mod_dock.toggle_floating_on`)
147 - `WRegion.set_activity` (replaces `WRegion.clear_activity` and
148 `WRegion.notify_activity`)
150 For example, `WRegion.set_tagged(_, 'toggle')` should be used in place of
151 `WRegion.toggle_tagged(_)` now.
153 Obviously there are some other changes and fixes too. See the changelog
154 for details as usual.
160 This is mostly a bug fix release, but also features improved
161 `mod_query.query_exec` (F3 key) completion support. Script writers should be
162 aware that As a side effect of one of these bug fixes, many hooks are now
163 called in "protected mode" and can not call any functions that modify the
164 internal state of Ion, except ioncore.defer.
170 The most important changes in this release are:
172 * So-called "placeholders". With the help of these the positions of
173 full-screen windows are remembered in their original frames, and don't
174 just get inserted after currently active window when returning from
175 full-screen mode. Under a session manager placeholders are also used
176 to remember the original order of windows.
178 * Improved `mod_statusbar` and `ion-statusd` communication, and colouring
179 of important/critical meters.
181 * A number of small fixes.
187 This monthly snapshot adds a few new and improved features.
189 * 'Grabbed menus' that have a single cycling key and activate selected
190 entry when all modifiers have been released. See
192 <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/scripts/wcirculate.lua>
196 * Potentially blocking status meters are now in a separate ion-statusd
197 program. Please write your additional status meters that do not monitor
198 the state of Ion itself for ion-statusd (and contribute them in the
199 Ion3 scripts repository at <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/>).
200 For help on writing such status meters, see e.g. source for
201 `statusd_load` in `ext_statusbar/ion-statusd`.
203 * Floating splits are now supported on plain tiled workspaces as well as
204 on pane workspaces. To create such a split, use the workspace context
205 menu (Mod1+M by default) or write your own bindings.
207 * Line editor now supports history search; Control+Up/Down only scrolls
208 through history entries with matching initial part.
210 * Arbitrary winprop matching criteria is supported. Lua scripts have
211 access to X properties.
213 Of course there are some other minor fixes and improvements as well.
219 This release finally includes a usable (yet still incomplete) version
220 of the `mod_panews` workspace module (that has also bored the name 'autows'
221 and 'rubberws' previously). The final outcome is not exactly what I
222 initially planned, as those plans turned out not to be that workable.
223 Instead, what `mod_panews` does is add to the basic tiled ionws approach
224 overlappable splits and automatically filled panes that are initially
225 empty. Each window is classified and assigned to the pane matching that
226 classification. (The default classifications are T(erminal), V(iewer)
227 and M(iscellaneous).)
229 For a better feel for it, try it out yourself and please give feedback.
230 The overlapping panes may be a bit confusing (this is one place where
231 true translucency might actually be useful and not just eyecandy) at
232 first, but you'll get used to them if you use the feature, and e.g.
233 the Gimp works quite splendidly with the toolboxes in the 'M' pane and
234 image windows in the 'V' pane -- although the simple initial size-based
235 classification heuristics don't always get it right and overriding
236 winprops (setting: `panews_classification`) should eventually added.
238 In addition to the new module, this release adds support for translations
239 of program messages and the manual page, regardless of whether such is
240 of any use in a program like Ion or not. (Currently Finnish and Czech
241 translations are available.) Of course there are some bug fixes and
242 other minor additions as well, and the `./configure` script is also back,
243 the abandonment of libtool being final now.
249 The first thing you'll notice when you start up this release of Ion is
250 that isn't reading your old configuration that. The next thing you
251 should notice is a neat layout-adapting statusbar at the bottom of the
252 screen. That's right, Ion now includes an `ext_statusbar` Lua script that
253 is enabled by default and displays date/time/load/mail count in a
256 So why is it not reading your configuration and save files? Firstly,
257 all of the `.lua` files were renamed to be indicative of their purpose.
258 Secondly, there have been so many changes that your old files would be
261 The `.lua` files are now named as follows:
263 cfg_*.lua Configuration file that the user may wish to edit
264 look_*.lua Drawing engine style file
265 saved_*.lua Save file
266 mod_*.lua Module stub loader
267 ext_*.lua A bigger Lua extension without a C counterpart
268 so that it is not a module
270 The configuration file for `mod_foobar` or `ext_foobar`, if it has one, is,
271 of course, `cfg_foobar.lua`. In the topic of file names, also note that
272 the default installation paths and binary names have changed to include
273 the component '3' to reflect the situation with many binary packages
276 You perhaps noticed above that modules have stub loaders now, so the
277 user has no need to use the `ioncore.load_module` routine. All extensions
278 and additional configuration files can now be loaded with 'dopath'
279 (used to be 'include'). Also, the `menulib`, `querylib`, and `ioncorelib`
280 Lua libraries are gone and instead their contents can be found in the same
281 `mod_whatever` namespace with the corresponding module (the "stub" loader
282 for these modules is a bit more than just a stub...). Some may also
283 want to know that for `mod_*` and `ext_*` only the compiled .lc files are
284 now installed, and not the source `.lua` files, thus removing redundant
285 files and making the installation slightly smaller.
287 There are few other changes to the contents of the configuration files
288 as well, so you're probably best off simply rewriting your modified
289 configuration files based on the new defaults. There quite likely won't
290 be any more _big_ changes to the configuration files before the release
291 of final Ion3, wherever that will be. (Most likely we won't see 3rc:s
292 yet this year.) However, some functions and variables are still likely
293 to be renamed or changed.
295 In addition to being renamed, the layout savefile of this Ion release
296 is incompatible with older releases. This is due to the changes made
297 to the `WIonWS` (and `WAutoWS`) split tree code to make it more modularly
298 extensible with the new kinds of nodes that `WAutoWS` requires.
300 The `mod_autows` module has infact been through many changes since the
301 last release, and I think I have the final form of it finally figured
302 out. However, it is still far from finished and unlikely to be ready
309 The major new features of this snapshot release are:
311 * `WMPlex` support for a sticky status display area to which `WIonWS`s
312 adjust properly. Modified to the dock module to support this method.
313 See the new `dock.lua` to set up the dock in the new embedded or old
314 floating manner (the API for the latter has also changed).
315 * Primitive session management support.
317 There are also some bug fixes and many minor improvements; see the ChangeLog
318 for details. Work on `mod_autows` has also started, but it isn't ready for
322 ### Note on ./configure:
324 ./configure does not exist for the moment as the source autoconf script
325 is not up-to-date. Ion no longer uses libtool/libltdl due to problems
326 with inter-module dependencies, and I have not asked Tom Payne to fix
327 the script yet, as this change may not be final (although that is most
328 likely the case; those without Linux-compatible libdl and a flexible
329 binary format such as ELF will just have to link statically against the
333 ### Notes on session management:
335 Ion loads `mod_sm` automatically when the SESSION_MANAGER environment
336 variable that should be set by the session manager is set, so there's
337 no need load it in `ion.lua`.
339 When session management is in use, all entries in the 'Session' menu
340 (previously 'Exit' menu) actually invoke the session manager to do the
341 task. 'Save' asks the SM save the whole session and 'Exit' (ioncore.shutdown)
342 asks it to shut down the session instead of just causing the WM to quite.
343 To do the latter, use ioncore.resign.
345 Unfortunately, all session managers I have tried (from Debian/unstable),
346 are broken/incomplete in one way or another:
349 xsm: doesn't support any requests from applications. This makes Ion's
350 session menu complete unfunctional. The only way to restart/exit/save
351 state is through xsm's window.
354 gnome-session: This seems the most complete of the all the session managers
355 and works fine until it is requested to shut down the session, when it dumps
356 core and session state is lost if was not explicitly saved previously.
358 A `~/.gnome2/session` file to use with Ion follows:
364 0,RestartCommand=gnome-smproxy --sm-client-id default0
367 1,RestartCommand=/usr/local/ion-3/bin/ion -smclientid default1
370 ksmserver: Only supports a global shutdown request, so that Ion can not be
371 restarted or session state saved in the middle of a session.
377 This is the first development snapshot release of what is to be Ion3.
378 The most visible changes to Ion2 so far are:
380 * Default installation directory is `/usr/local/ion-3` while user
381 configuration files go in `~/.ion3`
383 * The `mod_sp` module was added. It creates an extra toggleable
384 "scratchpad" frame on each screen. Toggle is for now bound by default
385 to Mod1+section, which should be very conveniently located on most
386 Nordic keyboards (left of "1"), but you may have to change it. The
387 scratchpad should be nice for xconsole or similar monitors, xmessage
388 and other popups and just as temporary holding space for windows.
390 * All modules except the drawing engine are now called `mod_something`.
392 * Man-page complection supports a cache of known man-pages for faster
393 completion. See the README for instructions on setting up a cronjob
394 or manually generating the index if you want to use the feature.
395 Also `query_man_path` is no longer used. Instead we try the
396 `ION_MC_MANPATH` and `MANPATH` environment variables and the
399 * Exported functions are now separated into tables (namespaces)
400 instead of cluttering the globals table. Some frequently used
401 configuration functions are imported into the globals table, though.
402 Some functions have also been removed or renamed for simpler and
403 more consistent function set.
405 * New binding configuration mechanism. Dozens of `*_bindings` functions
406 were replaced with a single `[ioncorelib.]defbindings` function that
407 accepts a context parameter. Callbacks are specified as strings
408 (although passing functions still works) to make it easier for
409 external configuration programs to understand the configuration
410 files and perhaps remove some confusion among users who do not
411 care to read a tiny bit of Lua documentation and understand the
412 concept of anonymous functions.
414 * It is now also possible to retrieve a list of bindings with
415 `ioncorelib.getbindings`, for example, for self-documentation.
417 * Single move/resize mode bindings instead of separate for both
418 ionframe and floatframe.
420 There are also quite a few internal changes; see the ChangeLog for
421 details. No documentation tarball is available at the moment as the
422 documentation is out-of-date except for the function reference. If
423 you need the reference, just checkout the documentation from the
424 Subversion repository with
426 svn co http://tao.uab.es/ion/svn/ion-doc/trunk ion-doc-3ds
428 and build the documentation.
434 This release is finally what can be called "Ion 2 release candidate #1".
435 No more new features will be added to "Ion 2" after this release, and the
436 configuration interface has already been frozen for a while. I will wait a
437 couple of weeks for bug reports, and if nothing serious is found, the new
438 stable Ion should finally be released then.
440 The most notable changes since the previous release are:
442 * The dock module is included
443 * An optional autoconf script was added
444 * A few minor bugs were fixed
445 * Some incomplete features were polished, especially focus control on
447 * Changes in X keyboard map are supported now (so e.g. switching to
448 dvorak after Ion has started should update the bindings to match the
449 locations of symbols in the dvorak layout).
452 About the version numbering scheme:
454 Due to a demand of a version numbering scheme more indicative of the status
455 of the project, I was thinking of various different new version numbering
456 schemes for this release: ion-2rc1 (then 2r1, 3d1, etc.), ion-2-20040114-rc1,
457 ion-2.20040114rc1, ion-20040114-2rc1, etc.). It would've been nice if
458 simple lexicographical sorting could be used to order the packages, but
459 in the end I decided to stick with a scheme that is consistent with the
460 'ion-devel' package names:
462 project-branch_and_status-release_date
464 Therefore this release is 'ion-2rc-20040114', and the "stable" one will be
471 This is a big clean-up release. The most noticeable changes are that
472 '-devel' has been removed from path names, user configuration files go
473 in `~/.ion2/` and the main configuration file is 'ion.lua'. (The other
474 `ioncore-*.lua` files have also been renamed.) There have been no notable
475 changes in the configuration files themselves, so your old files will
476 work if you move them to the correct directory and rename the changed
477 files. (`mv ~/.ion-devel ~/.ion2; cd ~/.ion2; mv ioncore.lua ion.lua;`
480 This release also finally contains a working PWM binary. (The ioncore+
481 scripts scheme was replaced with separate binaries statically linked
482 to ioncore.a.) Floating workspaces now support edge snapping and
483 sticky windows, but some PWM features are probably still missing.
485 Some bugs were also fixed and users are now force-fed the manual page
486 the first time Ion is started. Transients can be toggled between
487 top/bottom of the main window with Mod1+K T. The SSH query uses
488 `~/.ssh/known_hosts` for completion instead of a manually defined list.
490 There may be a few additions (e.g. the dock) and bug fixes, of course,
491 before the stable release, but this release should pretty much be what
492 the new "stable" Ion should look like. Please upgrade to it to help
493 weed out the bugs. Note that you need to upgrade Lua to the 5.0.1
501 It's finally time for a new release on Ion's development branch. Most
502 likely this will also be the last "big" release before finally, after
503 almost two years, releasing a new "stable" version of Ion. A few bug
504 fix and code clean-up releases should appear in between, though.
506 The most important additions, changes and non-changes in this release
510 * A little less broken extended character set and string encoding
512 * Extended WM hints fullscreen request support
513 * Hopefully a little clarified configuration file layout
515 * And most important of all:
517 > Configuration files written for the previous release should
518 > still work this time!
520 (However, Ion will complain of old drawing engine styles.)
522 The menu module provides both drop-down menus (in the stock configuration
523 pressing Button3 on a tab should show a context menu) and query-like
524 "in-mplex" menus (F12: main menu at screen level; Mod1+M: the same context
525 menu as above at frame level).
527 What was done enhance support for strings (mostly window titles) in
528 languages that need more than 8-bit character sets is:
530 * Remove UTF8 restriction and support almost arbitrary multibyte
531 encodings instead. (Statefull encodings will not work and combining
532 characters can cause clutter. Both are a sign of bad encoding, IMHO.)
534 * The XCreateFontSet routine that is used to load fonts in the kind
535 of structure the X utf8 and multibyte routines want apparently wants
536 to be able to load glyphs for all character sets specified in the
537 locale and therefore often fails if only single font is specified.
538 Therefore a kludge was added that tries loading more fonts while
539 keeping the fonts' size the same. (The ",*" kludge could load huge
540 fonts). Unfortunately this has a noticeable effect in startup time :(.
542 * There is no longer a system.mk option to enable utf8 (now multibyte)
543 support, but must still specifically be enabled with the -i18n
544 command line switch, mostly thanks to troublesome utf-8 locales.
546 Because Xlib's UTF-8 string drawing code is broken and very unlikely to
547 be fixed, decent text output in an UTF-8 locale is still unlikely and
548 dependent on the fonts loaded in the system. The Xmb routines that are now
549 used always use an iso10646-1 font even if other fonts are loaded and the
550 unicode font does not contain a particular glyph to be drawn. The use of
551 the Xutf8 routines in an utf8 locale can be enabled with the
552 `CF_DE_USE_XUTF8` compile-time option. The advantage of this is that
553 these routines seem to choose the font to draw particular character in
554 most cases more sanely. The downside is that there are other more serious
555 problems with unknown characters.
557 All in all, even if I'd like to support a universal move to UTF-8, thanks
558 to Xlib brokenness I can't really recommend using UTF-8 locales with Ion
559 and the default drawing engine if there's a decent alternative encoding.
560 Most if not all other stateless encodings shouldn't have the problems
561 UTF-8 has. An alternative drawing engine that didn't use the Xlib i18n
562 string drawing routines might solve the troubles with utf-8 support.
566 If you have saved a custom system.mk, you'll need to set LUAC
567 point to the Lua compiler there as some of the share/ files
574 It's been a while since the previous release as I wanted to freeze the
575 Lua configuration/scripting interface for this release and therefore
576 finish work on a few things. Well, on my part the interface is frozen,
577 but I will still accept constructive complaints for a short time and
578 after that the implemented parts of the scripting interface will be
579 frozen. But in all likelihood, if no one has anything else to say, but
580 "it's ok", "it sucks", the interface will no longer change, only possibly
583 What's new for this release then?
585 * Drawing engine module support.
586 * OO-style exported functions. The old `class_fn` functions are now
587 `WClass.fn` (an ugly wrapper is provided in `compat.lua`).
588 * No more screen-specific configuration or savefiles.
589 * Session name (can be specified on command line) instead of display
590 name based savefiles. Also affects query history and not just workspace
592 * Bug fixes, most small and one bigger (almost complete rewrite of
593 the split resizing algorithm).
594 * Some documentation improvements.
596 Converting configuration files.
598 Old `.lua` colour schemes and workspace save files can be automatically
599 converted to a format suitable to be loaded by this latest release.
600 Other files will have to be ported manually. To convert colour schemes,
601 use the script `utils/lookconv.lua`. The usage is
603 lookconv.lua look-old.lua > look-new.lua
605 To convert workspaces savefiles, use the script `utils/saveconv.sh`.
608 saveconf.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-DISPLAY.*.lua \
609 > ~/.ion-devel/SESSIONNAME/workspaces.lua
611 `DISPLAY` here is the actual display part of `$DISPLAY`, probably just `:0`.
612 '*' stands for all screens (if you have only one screen you could do with
613 perhaps just `workspaces-:0.0.lua`). SESSIONNAME is the name of the session
614 where you want to use the converted savefiles. Default session name for
615 `DISPLAY` is `default-session-DISPLAY` with the colon in `DISPLAY` converted
616 to a dash. For most people this is `default-session--0`. In the simplest
617 case the whole command line is therefore
619 saveconv.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-:0.0.lua \
620 > ~/.ion-devel/default-session--0/workspaces.lua
622 The scripts may or may not work and are only provided as a potential
623 convenience that will not be maintained and will be removed eventually.
629 Quite a few bug fixes and one most likely unnoticeable improvement:
633 * Fixed pointer warping on screen change.
634 * A bug in grab handler calling code could crash Ion when leaving
635 keyboard resize mode manually.
636 * Resize display was showing incorrect values for keyboard resize.
640 * Client window last height request bookkeeping code had been lost
641 when configure request policy was changed. This caused transient
642 sizes to be calculated incorrectly.
643 * Return from full screen mode to floatws had been broken.
644 * As the number of dynamic functions has been getting bigger, the
645 functions are now sorted on first use and then binary-searched
646 instead of naive linear searching.
647 * Screen lookup had been broken for windows that are not properly
654 Just some bug fixes and minor behavioural changes and improvements in
661 This release fixes some small problems with the previous release and
662 adds a workaround kludge for the XFree86 textprop bug (it's been fixed
663 but no release with the fix is available) that could cause Opera to
664 crash Ion when UTF8 support was enabled. I also added the winprop
665 needed for galeon's find dialog to default `kludges.lua` and there's
666 some extra documentation and defaults for some systems in system.mk.
672 Most changes in this release centre around making Ion more tolerant
673 to broken configuration files; for details see the ChangeLog. There
674 are also changes in binding configuration as I already mentioned in
675 an earlier poting. Namely `common-frame-bindings.lua` is gone and the
676 bindings previously set there (into variables that the `*ws.lua`
677 files later referenced) were moved to `ioncore-bindings.lua` and are
678 set using the new functions `mplex_bindings` and `genframe_bindings`
679 are were added. Old modified configuration files should still work,
680 however, but if you use `make_active_leaf_fn`, you will need to
681 include `compat.lua` as the `global_bindings` that used this were
682 replaced by bindings in `mplex_bindings` and the function
683 `make_current_clientwin_fn`.
685 There are also some (minor) bug fixes and a few other improvements
686 worth a mention. In particular all regions are now given names of
687 the form `WFoobar<n>` by default and `DEFAULT_MOD.."F9"` was bound to
688 create a new workspace without asking for a name. This binding and
689 `QueryLib.query_workspace` use the workspace type defined in the
690 variable `default_ws_type` instead of being hardcoded to `WIonWS`.
692 All objects passed to Lua now have a unique userdata (a `WWatch`
693 cached in a weak table) so they can be used e.g. as indices to tables.
699 This release unifies some parts of `WScreen` and `WGenFrame`, which makes
700 screen-level queries possible. (Later the queries for small frames might
701 be changed to be shown at screen level.) The statusbar restriction from
702 ion-devel-20030531 was also removed by this some change and a few
703 non-fatal bugs have been fixed.
709 A bug was discovered:
713 * An off-by-one error in `extl_l1_finalize` caused references to some
714 Lua tables (including large completions) never to be released.
716 It could be that this bug was causing some other errors in Lua as well.
717 Sometimes QueryLib bindings failed because some function generators
718 returned nil although they shouldn't. Adding dummy lines (!) in those
719 functions fixed the problem and for some reason this patch also seemed
720 to remove those problems.
723 One more note: as `ioncorelib.lua` and `querylib.lua` are now installed
724 in `$SHAREDIR`, you must remove the old files in `$ETCDIR` if installing
725 over a previous release or else there will be errors. You should also
726 not use any possible old copies you have in `~/.ion-devel/`. (One of the
727 reasons for moving these to `$SHAREDIR` is to stop users from making
728 copies of them as they are not configuration files.)
734 As the subject line says, Ion-devel-20030531 was just released. The short
737 * The license was changed from the Clarified Artistic License to the
738 GNU Library/Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
739 * Screen, viewport and root window renames and other changes (see below).
740 * Some installation directory changes; the ion-* helper programs are now
741 installed either in `$SHAREDIR` or `$EXTRABINDIR` and QueryLib searches
742 for them on the script path (`~/.ion-devel/`, `$ETCDIR`, `$SHAREDIR`,
743 `$EXTRABINDIR`) instead of assuming them being on `$PATH`.
744 * Client windows are now in a separate namespace.
745 * Resize/maximize/shade changes: Shading should work on `WIonFrame`s too
746 and shade mode is automatic when the client area gets too small when
747 resizing. Maximize toggle restores frame to previous size if shaded
748 instead of maximizing. The move/resize mode bindings were changed again
749 to be more consistent and predictable: Left/Right/Up/Down and F/B/P/N
750 grow the frame in the specific direction, Shift+keys shrink and in
751 case of floating frames, `DEFAULT_MOD+keys` move
752 * Returning from full screen mode should work on `WFloatWS`s too.
753 * Lots of minor fixes, export additions and clean-up.
755 As usual, see the (long!) list of new ChangeLog entries at the end of
756 this message for details.
759 I've finally personally switched from the old "stable" 20020207 to using
760 the latest development release at home too and I must say that it is
761 finally starting to look good. There are still things to be written, but
762 unless you need "proven" stability, I see no reason to sticking to that
763 old release anymore. Unless, of course, if you find a problem that I have
764 not encountered or simply have no need for the new features and don't want
765 to port your configuration files.
768 On screens, viewports, root windows and problems with the new
771 The objects previously called "screens" are now called "root windows"
772 and what were called "viewports" are called "screens" to better reflect
773 what the user sees. (When Xinerama is not used there's no difference
774 between a root window and a screen, but when Xinerama is used a root
775 window may be split over multiple screens.)
777 This release also creates so-called virtual root windows for each
778 Xinerama screen when there are more than one. This is to better separate
779 the windows on different screens and thus emulate normal multihead, the
780 main difference being that windows can be moved between screens.
781 Especially the virtual roots are there to keep the windows that are on
782 a floatws on the right screen.
784 Virtual root windows will, however, break a few apps:
786 * Mozilla -remote won't work because of its crappy method for looking
787 up existing windows that can't handle multiple levels of WM windows.
788 Nested workspaces have the same problem. There is, however, a simple
789 solution to this problem: gnome-moz-remote. It seems to use a saner
790 method for looking up an existing Gecko browser and also works with
791 at least Phoenix/MozillaFirebird and Galeon.
793 These two are problems only if you use floatws:s (other problems with
794 which virtual root windows are intended to solve):
796 * The background-setting apps I am aware of will require a following
797 'xrefresh' for the changes to be updated to the (transparent) virtual
798 roots. Background setting apps that support the `_NET_VIRTUAL_ROOTS`
799 property (which, I think, was meant for root window-sized WS
800 backgrounds) could be used to set a separate background for each
801 Xinerama screen, though. I am not aware of any such app.
802 * Some apps' resize and move features will behave erratically on those
803 Xinerama screens not at (0, 0) on the root window. This is again
804 because the apps are assuming there's at most one WM window between
805 them and the root and are requesting windows' positions incorrectly.
806 The ICCCM is quite vague on this and I think _all_ apps that I have
807 tried are doing it wrong but the way e.g. XMMS does it certainly is
808 not an interpretation of the ICCCM. The apps that now behave correctly
809 request position for the outermost WM window. Nested workspaces have
812 There is one more temporary problem:
814 * Status bar modules (and the dock module's statusbar mode) will be
815 *temporarily* broken when virtual roots are _not_ used. This will be
816 fixed later when parts of screen and frame code are unified (it should
817 then be possible to run Ion without any workspace modules and have
818 queries attached to screens). In the meanwhile, if you don't care about
819 the above-mentioned problems and want a statusbar (which probably needs
820 to be ported to this release), you can defined `CF_ALWAYS_VIRTUAL_ROOT`
827 There are quite a few small fixes and minor enhancements invisible to
828 the user in this release. The splitting functions were renamed to be
829 more consistent and there are a couple of enhancements in the Lua code
830 query that should make it much more usable. First, tab-completion can
831 now descend into tables and complete subexpressions. Secondly, the local
832 variable `_` in addition to 'arg[1]' is set to point to the the frame in
833 which the query is executing.
835 I have also written some new documentation that is now available from
842 The most notable change in this release is that the `target_id` system
843 was removed and instead client window status is also saved over
844 restarts in the saves/workspaces-* files. (It shouldn't be too hard
845 to hook a session management module over this.) Thanks to this
846 modification, floatframes can also save their status now. Note
847 that if you restart from older version of Ion to this one, client
848 window layout will be messed up.
850 There are also a few bug fixes and code to save and load line editor
857 There are lots of minor improvements in this release, see the
858 new ChangeLog entries for details.
864 Some minor feature enhancements and a few fixes in this new release:
866 The file system scanning completions are now put in the background
867 by receiving the data from external programs through pipes and select()
868 for data in the main event loop. This way long taking completions don't
869 block Ion from processing other events and NFS problems shouldn't hang
872 Basic window stacking management support code was added. Transients
873 on floatws:s should now be stacked above their parents. If you don't
874 want to change your modified binding configurations at this point and
875 need the functions `floatframe_raise/lower`, include `compat.lua`.
881 This release again fixes some minor problems and enhances a few
882 features. Most of the enhancements are related to UTF8 support and
883 the floatws module. If UTF8 support is enabled, Ion now tries to
884 load the "fixed" font at startup after setting up locales. If locales
885 aren't properly set up, this probably fails and Ion will reset locale
886 back to "POSIX" as this might make fonts loadable although support for
887 non-ASCII characters will be crippled. It might now be safe for
888 package maintainers to enable UTF8 support by default
890 As apps seem to have switched to using `_NET_WM_NAME` for UTF8 titles
891 and filling `WM_NAME` with crap, this property is also preferred over
892 `WM_NAME` if set. Support for some other "extended" WM hints might be
893 added in the future but I have no intentions of moking Ion NetWM-
894 compliant. I might have thought of attempting to do so a few years
895 ago when I last read the specification but it seems that since then
896 they've filled it with lots of pointless bloat that may even be in
897 opposition to Ion's goals. Take multi-parent transients, for example.
899 Full error log is also displayed with xmessage on startup whether
900 it is possible to continue or not.
906 There was a bug in QueryLib written yesterday, therefore this release.
912 I started converting the query code to Lua and discovered some rather
913 silly bugs in the Lua interface so here's a new release with the new
914 and improved query code included. The names of queries have changed
915 (they're all in the table QueryLib defined in `querylib.lua` -- only
916 `query_query` and a few temporary handlers are implemented in query.so)
917 so your modified configuration files will be broken again :(.
923 Be prepared to completely rewrite your configuration files once
924 again: a new version of Ion-devel has been released that uses Lua
925 <http://www.lua.org/> for all configuration. Version 5.0 of the
926 language/library is required. Although scripting possibilities
927 are now much better than before, there is one rather big drawback:
928 Lua is not nearly as error-tolerant as Ion's old configuration
929 parser so a syntax error in a file will cause the file not to be
930 executed and may even cause Ion not to be able to start. More
931 comments and documentation on scripting will follow at a later time.
933 Libtool and libltdl are also now used to implement module support.
934 Hopefully this will make compiling Ion easier on a wider range of
935 platforms. (On the other hand, this could also induce new problems.)
937 Finally, the preferred linking address for Ion's home page is now
938 <http://www.iki.fi/tuomov/ion/>. The pages are still located at the
939 old address, but this redirected address should be more permanent.
945 Just some minor fixes, binary rename and better embedded workspace
946 support in this release. I'm still contemplating whether to convert
947 Ion to C++ and haven't written many things that I intended to as
948 that decision will affect how those are implemented.
950 To create an embedded workspaces in a frame, at the moment you have
951 to modify the appropriate workspace save file (when Ion is not running!)
952 by adding lines such as
954 region "WFloatWS", "testiupotus" {
957 inside the frame definition after the other options (flags, `target_id`;
958 those options will be ignored if after any region definitions).
960 One more thing to note: debugging infos are no longer automatically
961 stripped from the ioncore binary or modules by 'make install' so that
962 I don't have to explain how to get proper backtraces every time a bug
963 is found. If you you are confident that you can send me proper backtraces
964 when you find a bug (or maybe can fix it yourself), you can make the
965 binary and the modules a _lot_ smaller by running 'strip' on them.
971 The list of new ChangeLog entries is long this time, but I'm finally
972 starting to get to what I started working on almost two years ago. Yes,
973 there is *experimental* support for PWM-like "floating frame" workspaces.
974 A lot of the functionality is still missing -- no need to complain of
975 such at the time -- but the floatws.so module and basic functionality
976 is there. Most notably perhaps a menu module is not yet implemented.
977 (Porting the PWM menu code should a nice little task for whomever
978 interested... *wink*.) To create some PWM workspaces, load the floatws.so
979 module (should be loaded by default) and in `query_workspace` (F9)
980 prefix workspace name with 'WFloatWS:' (or load the module before
983 This release is also finally fully modularised: In addition to the
984 ion core binary that can not function alone, there are the modules
985 ionws.so, floatws.so and query.so. It is also possible statically
986 compile the modules in the core binary if the system doesn't support
989 There's also *experimental* UTF8 support that must be specifically
990 enabled from system.mk. You must have XFree86 (4.x?) and C99 wide
991 char support available (either libc directly or maybe libutf8+libiconv).
992 Thanks to bugs (?) in some of the XFree86 Xutf8 functions, your locales
993 must be properly set up or else X will stop drawing strings at non-ascii
994 characters instead of ignoring them. See my earlier rants on the mailing
995 list for reasons on not using the more standard Xmb functions.
996 To actually see any special characters, you must load the necessary fonts
997 by specifying a comma-separated list of fonts to the font and `tab_font`
998 draw.conf options. Multiple font loading does not work when Xft support
999 is enabled at the time being.
1001 There has been a lot of changes in the config files, again, and I can
1002 promise there's still more to come. See the ChangeLog for details.
1003 If you want to use your old workspaces configurations, move them to
1004 `~/.ion-devel/saves` and replace the strings "WFrame" and "WWorkspace"
1005 with "WIonFrame" and "WIonWS", respectively.
1011 I've made the bugfix release as promised. Get it from the usual place.
1017 There's a new major development release available from Ion web page.
1018 Not many changes are visible to the end user, though, but a lot was
1019 rewritten to be more flexible and simpler; see the ChangeLog for a
1020 full account. The older development release is also still available
1021 because this release can not be considered as stable after major
1022 changes to the code. The most visible changes are
1024 * Changes in binding configuration
1025 * A (mostly) working full screen mode toggle (see below)
1026 * The ability to switch workspaces while dragging tabs (experimental)
1027 * The ability to re-read draw.conf without restarting Ion
1031 Some notes on full screen mode toggle:
1033 * Ion doesn't detect programs trying to leave full screen mode--it
1034 should be possible to devise some method using window properties,
1036 * At least Opera unmaps the window also before changing the size to
1037 enter full screen mode, so Ion doesn't remember the last frame.
1038 * Mozilla sometimes has trouble entering full screen mode but when it
1039 succeeds, Ion remembers the last frame. However, if
1040 `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` is used to leave the full screen mode
1041 started from Mozilla, Mozilla doesn't know that the mode has been
1044 Clearly there should be some method of communication between Ion and the
1045 programs for full screen toggles to fully work. At the moment I suggest
1046 using `clientwin_toggle_fullscreen` instead of the programs' native toggles
1047 unless the program has some special full screen mode and you really want