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RELNOTES
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ion-3-20090110
--------------
This is yet another maintenance release.
ion-3-20081002
--------------
Some minor fixes again, including a few that should've already
been in the previous release.
ion-3-20080825
--------------
This release again fixes some issues found with the previous one.
ion-3-20080707
--------------
This is yet another maintenance release fixing a few issues.
ion-3-20080411
--------------
This is a maintenance release that fixes a few issues in the
previous release.
ion-3-20080207
--------------
.
ion-3rc-20080103
----------------
This release features a few minor fixes to behavioural regressions
in the previous release, as well as some build configuration file
self-documentation improvements.
ion-3rc-20071220
----------------
There are a few minor fixes in this RC, plus a major one related to
layout restore under a session manager.
ion-3rc-20071130
----------------
This RC features various minor fixes, and some clarifications and
simplifications to the license, which people seem to have had trouble
understanding.
ion-3rc-20071109
----------------
It seems people are a bit slow, or only scaring them with a final
release makes them report issues. So, still no stable release but
a candidate, with many minor fixes and improvements wrt. important
omissions. The most important changes are better behaviour of the
unsplit operation, better handling of main window being closed
before a transient, and use of the workspace's working directory
for run query file name completion.
ion-3rc-20070927
----------------
Another attempt at last "rc" release.
ion-3rc-20070902
----------------
This release features a few minor fixes. If no major problems are
discovered, this is likely to be the last "rc" release before the
first and hopefully final "stable" release.
ion-3rc-20070720
----------------
This fourth "rc" release fixes some minor bugs and omissions in
the previous release.
ion-3rc-20070708
----------------
This third "rc" release again simply fixes some minor problems in
the previous release.
ion-3rc-20070608
----------------
This is the second "rc" release, and contains primarily bug fixes
and other minor improvements.
ion-3rc-20070506
----------------
This is the first "rc" or "(stable) release candidate" release of
Ion3. This means that there will not be any further major changes
to it. Bugs will be fixed, and as an exception to the general
feature freeze, some hooks may still be added, if deemed useful.
Translations may also be included. After no new bugs (that can not
be deemed features) have been found in this or following "rc"
releases, the stable Ion3 will be released.
Most of the changes in this release to the previous one already
are bug fixes, in addition to some general clean-up. Other notable
changes are:
* Winprop matching improvements: it is possible to match against
`is_dockapp` and `is_transient` (booleans), and there's a hack
to support `class` and `instance` for dockapps too.
* The default configuration puts dockapps in the statusbar's
tray area.
* The autoconf kludge has been removed, as I will have nothing
to do with it, and nobody else seems to support or maintain
it either.
* Tab numbers are displayed when releasing modifiers in the
`Mod1+K` submap.
Distributors should pay heed to the name policy notice in the
LICENSE file.
ion-3ds-20070318
----------------
This may be the last "ds" release if Ion3; if all goes well, the next
release is likely to be an "rc". Some minor improvements will still
be done, and minor requests may be accepted, so be quick.
The most notable changes in this release from the previous one are:
* Transients and queries in too small frames are "unsqueezed" out
of them, unless disabled with `ioncore.set{ unsqueeze = false }`.
* Some changes in default `cfg_ion.lua`: instead of loading
various other files, just `cfg_default.lua` is loaded instead.
* `mod_tiling.untile` (available in the context menu) may be used
to decompose tilings into floating frames. (This is the approximate
opposite of `mod_tiling.mkbottom` and the "new tiling" context menu
entry.)
* Improved context menus.
* Slightly improved defaults style, using the drawing engine's
added possibility of partial borders.
* Various fixes and other improvements, in particular in relation
to focus code.
ion-3ds-20070203
----------------
* There's been changes in padding/spacing usage in styles. Frames
now surround stuff inside borders not with `spacing` pixels, but
with `padding_pixels`. Spacing is only used to space things within
the borders (all the tabs and the client window from each other).
Consequently, custom styles may need to be updated to reflect this,
by increasing the padding, possibly also altering/removing colour
(to set it to background colour).
* The use of drawing engine attributes has also changed, and strict
ordering of them in the styles is no longer necessary. Additionally,
much more attributes are supported, including the name of every
statusbar meter.
* Xinerama support is gone. In addition to being problematic as such,
it had bit-rotted, and I will not waste time fixing it.
* `ioncore.set` no longer supports the `default_ws_params` parameter
for configuring the default layout. It is replaced by
`ioncore.deflayout("default", { ... })`, which allows configuring
other layouts as well, known by `mod_query.query_workspace` (F9).
Some default layouts are configured in `cfg_layout.lua`.
* It is now possible to automatically create new workspaces for
windows with the `new_group` winprop.
ion-3ds-20061223
----------------
There's nothing major in this release, primarily just some minor fixes
and tuning to the previous release, that it was time to release.
ion-3ds-20061029
----------------
Mostly this release still fixes issues in the big 3ds-20061015 release,
but in addition there are some improvements in the query department:
* Query activation key now cycles completions (So e.g. the
in the context menu activated with META+M, this same key
can be used to cycle through the alternatives.) This does
not work for queries activated by submap bindings.
* Likewise, it is no longer necessary to specify the key to
use for cycling for `mod_menu.grabmenu`.
* Control+R can now be used for history completion in queries.
(Currently matching is done for full string up to 'point', but
this may be changed to substring match.)
* Note that the parametrisation of WEdln.complete has changed,
and the second cycle parameter must be 'next' now instead of
`true`.
ion-3ds-20061020
----------------
Fixes some (expected, but minor) issues in the previous release.
ion-3ds-20061015
----------------
* WIonWS and WFloatWS and the corresponding modules are gone, and
your custom configuration files will be broken with regard to these.
However, a partial backwards compatibility hack exists for layout
savefiles.
The F9 and META-F9 bindings now by default create workspaces with
a tiled layout of two frames. To create an "empty" workspace,
corresponding to the old WFloatWS, use the context menu (META-M)
and choose "new-empty-workspace". It is also possible to change
the default layout.
* Note that if you restart from an old version to this new version of Ion,
transients will stop working as expected for already existing windows.
They will work for newly-created windows, however.
* There are a few new sets of binding (including one for `WClientWin`!),
and some old bindings may not work exactly as expected anymore. In
particular, those for switching to full-screen mode.
**It is probably best to start from scratch with your custom
bindings.**
* `WFrame.set_tabbar` is gone. If you absolutely want to get rid off
the tabs, you must change the frame's "mode" with `WFrame.set_mode`.
The mode "tiled-alt" has been intended for this, and the corresponding
"framed-tiled-alt" style defaults to `bar = "none"`.
* The rather popular `detach.lua` script from the scripts repository
is obsoleted now, as Ion includes detach functionality in itself.
To detach a window, use META-K D in the default bindings. To tile
an existing frame from a workspace that doesn't have a tiling yet,
use META-K B.
ion-3ds-20060519
----------------
Some notable changes in this release include
* Lua 5.1 is now required.
* Framed transients on by default now. New binding contexts
"WFrame.toplevel" and "WMPlex.toplevel" were added to allow
for separate sets of bindings for nested transient frames and
top-level frames. Some of the bindings in the default binding
maps that are likely to be unwanted on transient frames were
moved to these contexts. Old custom bindings will continue to
work unless they modify the defaults by unbinding some of the
moved bindings.
* Pressing Mod1+K K in the default bindings now switches to any
region with the "activity" flag set (indicated by the a box
at a corner of the screen), if there's one, before cycling to
previously active region. The same effect can be achieved in
your custom bindings with
ioncore.activity_goto() or ioncore.goto_previous()
ion-3ds-20050607
----------------
This release mostly features minor bugfixes and other improvements. The most
visible non-bugfix changes are:
* Faster "fontset" filling kludge: only `-misc-fixed-*` fonts are tried. Ion
should now load faster in UTF-8 environments, and usually with no less
fonts in the fontset than before. (UTF-8 string drawing still does not
fully utilise these fonts under XFree86, but it does under XOrg.)
* Experimental auto-show-completions support, which is also on by default
now. In this mode the Tab key can be used to cycle forward through the
completions, and Shift+Tab backwards. Modify the settings seen in the
new `mod_query.lua` to get normal Tab-completion, or change the completion
delay.
* The release scripts do not run automatically autoconf anymore so maybe
a few more people would look into the README first.
ion-3ds-20050322
----------------
The most visible changes in this release are:
* Mod1+space now toggles the scratchpad by default and Mod1+D the dock.
* The `ion-(ssh|man|view|edit)` wrapper scripts were removed and instead
the programs used can be configured in Ion's configuration files.
* `ioncore.exec(_on)` also support the `:cmd` notation for "run cmd in
xterm" familiar from the run query. The `::cmd` notation can be used
to ask for enter to be pressed even when the program quit succesfully.
* Those with custom configuration files should note that many exported toggle
functions were changed and renamed, and now accept a string parameter
incidating whether to toggle, set or unset the property.
- `WClientwin.set_fullsreen` (replaces `WClientWin.toggle_fullscreen`)
- `WRegion.set_tagged` (replaces `WRegion.tag/untag/toggle_tag`)
- `WFrame.set_tabbar` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_tabbar`)
- `WFrame.set_shaded` (replaces `WFrame.toggle_shade`)
- `WFloatFrame.set_sticky` (replaces `WFloatFrame.toggle_sticky`)
- `WMPlex.l2_set_hidden` (replaces `WMPlex.l2_hide/show`)
- `mod_sp.set_shown(_on)` (replaces `mod_sp.toggle(_on)`)
- `mod_dock.set_floating_shown_on` (replaces `mod_dock.toggle_floating_on`)
- `WRegion.set_activity` (replaces `WRegion.clear_activity` and
`WRegion.notify_activity`)
For example, `WRegion.set_tagged(_, 'toggle')` should be used in place of
`WRegion.toggle_tagged(_)` now.
Obviously there are some other changes and fixes too. See the changelog
for details as usual.
ion-3ds-20050304
----------------
This is mostly a bug fix release, but also features improved
`mod_query.query_exec` (F3 key) completion support. Script writers should be
aware that As a side effect of one of these bug fixes, many hooks are now
called in "protected mode" and can not call any functions that modify the
internal state of Ion, except ioncore.defer.
ion-3ds-20050227
----------------
The most important changes in this release are:
* So-called "placeholders". With the help of these the positions of
full-screen windows are remembered in their original frames, and don't
just get inserted after currently active window when returning from
full-screen mode. Under a session manager placeholders are also used
to remember the original order of windows.
* Improved `mod_statusbar` and `ion-statusd` communication, and colouring
of important/critical meters.
* A number of small fixes.
ion-3ds-20041104
----------------
This monthly snapshot adds a few new and improved features.
* 'Grabbed menus' that have a single cycling key and activate selected
entry when all modifiers have been released. See
<http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/scripts/wcirculate.lua>
for an application.
* Potentially blocking status meters are now in a separate ion-statusd
program. Please write your additional status meters that do not monitor
the state of Ion itself for ion-statusd (and contribute them in the
Ion3 scripts repository at <http://iki.fi/tuomov/repos/ion-scripts-3/>).
For help on writing such status meters, see e.g. source for
`statusd_load` in `ext_statusbar/ion-statusd`.
* Floating splits are now supported on plain tiled workspaces as well as
on pane workspaces. To create such a split, use the workspace context
menu (Mod1+M by default) or write your own bindings.
* Line editor now supports history search; Control+Up/Down only scrolls
through history entries with matching initial part.
* Arbitrary winprop matching criteria is supported. Lua scripts have
access to X properties.
Of course there are some other minor fixes and improvements as well.
ion-3ds-20040906
----------------
This release finally includes a usable (yet still incomplete) version
of the `mod_panews` workspace module (that has also bored the name 'autows'
and 'rubberws' previously). The final outcome is not exactly what I
initially planned, as those plans turned out not to be that workable.
Instead, what `mod_panews` does is add to the basic tiled ionws approach
overlappable splits and automatically filled panes that are initially
empty. Each window is classified and assigned to the pane matching that
classification. (The default classifications are T(erminal), V(iewer)
and M(iscellaneous).)
For a better feel for it, try it out yourself and please give feedback.
The overlapping panes may be a bit confusing (this is one place where
true translucency might actually be useful and not just eyecandy) at
first, but you'll get used to them if you use the feature, and e.g.
the Gimp works quite splendidly with the toolboxes in the 'M' pane and
image windows in the 'V' pane -- although the simple initial size-based
classification heuristics don't always get it right and overriding
winprops (setting: `panews_classification`) should eventually added.
In addition to the new module, this release adds support for translations
of program messages and the manual page, regardless of whether such is
of any use in a program like Ion or not. (Currently Finnish and Czech
translations are available.) Of course there are some bug fixes and
other minor additions as well, and the `./configure` script is also back,
the abandonment of libtool being final now.
ion-3ds-20040730
----------------
The first thing you'll notice when you start up this release of Ion is
that isn't reading your old configuration that. The next thing you
should notice is a neat layout-adapting statusbar at the bottom of the
screen. That's right, Ion now includes an `ext_statusbar` Lua script that
is enabled by default and displays date/time/load/mail count in a
configurable format.
So why is it not reading your configuration and save files? Firstly,
all of the `.lua` files were renamed to be indicative of their purpose.
Secondly, there have been so many changes that your old files would be
incompatible anyway.
The `.lua` files are now named as follows:
cfg_*.lua Configuration file that the user may wish to edit
look_*.lua Drawing engine style file
saved_*.lua Save file
mod_*.lua Module stub loader
ext_*.lua A bigger Lua extension without a C counterpart
so that it is not a module
The configuration file for `mod_foobar` or `ext_foobar`, if it has one, is,
of course, `cfg_foobar.lua`. In the topic of file names, also note that
the default installation paths and binary names have changed to include
the component '3' to reflect the situation with many binary packages
of Ion.
You perhaps noticed above that modules have stub loaders now, so the
user has no need to use the `ioncore.load_module` routine. All extensions
and additional configuration files can now be loaded with 'dopath'
(used to be 'include'). Also, the `menulib`, `querylib`, and `ioncorelib`
Lua libraries are gone and instead their contents can be found in the same
`mod_whatever` namespace with the corresponding module (the "stub" loader
for these modules is a bit more than just a stub...). Some may also
want to know that for `mod_*` and `ext_*` only the compiled .lc files are
now installed, and not the source `.lua` files, thus removing redundant
files and making the installation slightly smaller.
There are few other changes to the contents of the configuration files
as well, so you're probably best off simply rewriting your modified
configuration files based on the new defaults. There quite likely won't
be any more _big_ changes to the configuration files before the release
of final Ion3, wherever that will be. (Most likely we won't see 3rc:s
yet this year.) However, some functions and variables are still likely
to be renamed or changed.
In addition to being renamed, the layout savefile of this Ion release
is incompatible with older releases. This is due to the changes made
to the `WIonWS` (and `WAutoWS`) split tree code to make it more modularly
extensible with the new kinds of nodes that `WAutoWS` requires.
The `mod_autows` module has infact been through many changes since the
last release, and I think I have the final form of it finally figured
out. However, it is still far from finished and unlikely to be ready
for use yet.
ion-3ds-20040703
----------------
The major new features of this snapshot release are:
* `WMPlex` support for a sticky status display area to which `WIonWS`s
adjust properly. Modified to the dock module to support this method.
See the new `dock.lua` to set up the dock in the new embedded or old
floating manner (the API for the latter has also changed).
* Primitive session management support.
There are also some bug fixes and many minor improvements; see the ChangeLog
for details. Work on `mod_autows` has also started, but it isn't ready for
use yet.
### Note on ./configure:
./configure does not exist for the moment as the source autoconf script
is not up-to-date. Ion no longer uses libtool/libltdl due to problems
with inter-module dependencies, and I have not asked Tom Payne to fix
the script yet, as this change may not be final (although that is most
likely the case; those without Linux-compatible libdl and a flexible
binary format such as ELF will just have to link statically against the
modules).
### Notes on session management:
Ion loads `mod_sm` automatically when the SESSION_MANAGER environment
variable that should be set by the session manager is set, so there's
no need load it in `ion.lua`.
When session management is in use, all entries in the 'Session' menu
(previously 'Exit' menu) actually invoke the session manager to do the
task. 'Save' asks the SM save the whole session and 'Exit' (ioncore.shutdown)
asks it to shut down the session instead of just causing the WM to quite.
To do the latter, use ioncore.resign.
Unfortunately, all session managers I have tried (from Debian/unstable),
are broken/incomplete in one way or another:
xsm: doesn't support any requests from applications. This makes Ion's
session menu complete unfunctional. The only way to restart/exit/save
state is through xsm's window.
gnome-session: This seems the most complete of the all the session managers
and works fine until it is requested to shut down the session, when it dumps
core and session state is lost if was not explicitly saved previously.
A `~/.gnome2/session` file to use with Ion follows:
[Default]
num_clients=2
0,id=default0
0,Priority=0
0,RestartCommand=gnome-smproxy --sm-client-id default0
1,id=default1
1,Priority=10
1,RestartCommand=/usr/local/ion-3/bin/ion -smclientid default1
ksmserver: Only supports a global shutdown request, so that Ion can not be
restarted or session state saved in the middle of a session.
ion-3ds-20040316
----------------
This is the first development snapshot release of what is to be Ion3.
The most visible changes to Ion2 so far are:
* Default installation directory is `/usr/local/ion-3` while user
configuration files go in `~/.ion3`
* The `mod_sp` module was added. It creates an extra toggleable
"scratchpad" frame on each screen. Toggle is for now bound by default
to Mod1+section, which should be very conveniently located on most
Nordic keyboards (left of "1"), but you may have to change it. The
scratchpad should be nice for xconsole or similar monitors, xmessage
and other popups and just as temporary holding space for windows.
* All modules except the drawing engine are now called `mod_something`.
* Man-page complection supports a cache of known man-pages for faster
completion. See the README for instructions on setting up a cronjob
or manually generating the index if you want to use the feature.
Also `query_man_path` is no longer used. Instead we try the
`ION_MC_MANPATH` and `MANPATH` environment variables and the
'manpath' program.
* Exported functions are now separated into tables (namespaces)
instead of cluttering the globals table. Some frequently used
configuration functions are imported into the globals table, though.
Some functions have also been removed or renamed for simpler and
more consistent function set.
* New binding configuration mechanism. Dozens of `*_bindings` functions
were replaced with a single `[ioncorelib.]defbindings` function that
accepts a context parameter. Callbacks are specified as strings
(although passing functions still works) to make it easier for
external configuration programs to understand the configuration
files and perhaps remove some confusion among users who do not
care to read a tiny bit of Lua documentation and understand the
concept of anonymous functions.
* It is now also possible to retrieve a list of bindings with
`ioncorelib.getbindings`, for example, for self-documentation.
* Single move/resize mode bindings instead of separate for both
ionframe and floatframe.
There are also quite a few internal changes; see the ChangeLog for
details. No documentation tarball is available at the moment as the
documentation is out-of-date except for the function reference. If
you need the reference, just checkout the documentation from the
Subversion repository with
svn co http://tao.uab.es/ion/svn/ion-doc/trunk ion-doc-3ds
and build the documentation.
ion-2rc-20040114
----------------
This release is finally what can be called "Ion 2 release candidate #1".
No more new features will be added to "Ion 2" after this release, and the
configuration interface has already been frozen for a while. I will wait a
couple of weeks for bug reports, and if nothing serious is found, the new
stable Ion should finally be released then.
The most notable changes since the previous release are:
* The dock module is included
* An optional autoconf script was added
* A few minor bugs were fixed
* Some incomplete features were polished, especially focus control on
floatws, and:
* Changes in X keyboard map are supported now (so e.g. switching to
dvorak after Ion has started should update the bindings to match the
locations of symbols in the dvorak layout).
About the version numbering scheme:
Due to a demand of a version numbering scheme more indicative of the status
of the project, I was thinking of various different new version numbering
schemes for this release: ion-2rc1 (then 2r1, 3d1, etc.), ion-2-20040114-rc1,
ion-2.20040114rc1, ion-20040114-2rc1, etc.). It would've been nice if
simple lexicographical sorting could be used to order the packages, but
in the end I decided to stick with a scheme that is consistent with the
'ion-devel' package names:
project-branch_and_status-release_date
Therefore this release is 'ion-2rc-20040114', and the "stable" one will be
'ion-2-20040???'.
ion-devel-20031211
------------------
This is a big clean-up release. The most noticeable changes are that
'-devel' has been removed from path names, user configuration files go
in `~/.ion2/` and the main configuration file is 'ion.lua'. (The other
`ioncore-*.lua` files have also been renamed.) There have been no notable
changes in the configuration files themselves, so your old files will
work if you move them to the correct directory and rename the changed
files. (`mv ~/.ion-devel ~/.ion2; cd ~/.ion2; mv ioncore.lua ion.lua;`
etc.)
This release also finally contains a working PWM binary. (The ioncore+
scripts scheme was replaced with separate binaries statically linked
to ioncore.a.) Floating workspaces now support edge snapping and
sticky windows, but some PWM features are probably still missing.
Some bugs were also fixed and users are now force-fed the manual page
the first time Ion is started. Transients can be toggled between
top/bottom of the main window with Mod1+K T. The SSH query uses
`~/.ssh/known_hosts` for completion instead of a manually defined list.
There may be a few additions (e.g. the dock) and bug fixes, of course,
before the stable release, but this release should pretty much be what
the new "stable" Ion should look like. Please upgrade to it to help
weed out the bugs. Note that you need to upgrade Lua to the 5.0.1
pre-release.
ion-devel-20031119
------------------
It's finally time for a new release on Ion's development branch. Most
likely this will also be the last "big" release before finally, after
almost two years, releasing a new "stable" version of Ion. A few bug
fix and code clean-up releases should appear in between, though.
The most important additions, changes and non-changes in this release
are:
* Menu module
* A little less broken extended character set and string encoding
support
* Extended WM hints fullscreen request support
* Hopefully a little clarified configuration file layout
* Quite a few fixes
* And most important of all:
> Configuration files written for the previous release should
> still work this time!
(However, Ion will complain of old drawing engine styles.)
The menu module provides both drop-down menus (in the stock configuration
pressing Button3 on a tab should show a context menu) and query-like
"in-mplex" menus (F12: main menu at screen level; Mod1+M: the same context
menu as above at frame level).
What was done enhance support for strings (mostly window titles) in
languages that need more than 8-bit character sets is:
* Remove UTF8 restriction and support almost arbitrary multibyte
encodings instead. (Statefull encodings will not work and combining
characters can cause clutter. Both are a sign of bad encoding, IMHO.)
* The XCreateFontSet routine that is used to load fonts in the kind
of structure the X utf8 and multibyte routines want apparently wants
to be able to load glyphs for all character sets specified in the
locale and therefore often fails if only single font is specified.
Therefore a kludge was added that tries loading more fonts while
keeping the fonts' size the same. (The ",*" kludge could load huge
fonts). Unfortunately this has a noticeable effect in startup time :(.
* There is no longer a system.mk option to enable utf8 (now multibyte)
support, but must still specifically be enabled with the -i18n
command line switch, mostly thanks to troublesome utf-8 locales.
Because Xlib's UTF-8 string drawing code is broken and very unlikely to
be fixed, decent text output in an UTF-8 locale is still unlikely and
dependent on the fonts loaded in the system. The Xmb routines that are now
used always use an iso10646-1 font even if other fonts are loaded and the
unicode font does not contain a particular glyph to be drawn. The use of
the Xutf8 routines in an utf8 locale can be enabled with the
`CF_DE_USE_XUTF8` compile-time option. The advantage of this is that
these routines seem to choose the font to draw particular character in
most cases more sanely. The downside is that there are other more serious
problems with unknown characters.
All in all, even if I'd like to support a universal move to UTF-8, thanks
to Xlib brokenness I can't really recommend using UTF-8 locales with Ion
and the default drawing engine if there's a decent alternative encoding.
Most if not all other stateless encodings shouldn't have the problems
UTF-8 has. An alternative drawing engine that didn't use the Xlib i18n
string drawing routines might solve the troubles with utf-8 support.
One more note:
If you have saved a custom system.mk, you'll need to set LUAC
point to the Lua compiler there as some of the share/ files
are compiled now.
ion-devel-20030810
------------------
It's been a while since the previous release as I wanted to freeze the
Lua configuration/scripting interface for this release and therefore
finish work on a few things. Well, on my part the interface is frozen,
but I will still accept constructive complaints for a short time and
after that the implemented parts of the scripting interface will be
frozen. But in all likelihood, if no one has anything else to say, but
"it's ok", "it sucks", the interface will no longer change, only possibly
grow.
What's new for this release then?
* Drawing engine module support.
* OO-style exported functions. The old `class_fn` functions are now
`WClass.fn` (an ugly wrapper is provided in `compat.lua`).
* No more screen-specific configuration or savefiles.
* Session name (can be specified on command line) instead of display
name based savefiles. Also affects query history and not just workspace
saves.
* Bug fixes, most small and one bigger (almost complete rewrite of
the split resizing algorithm).
* Some documentation improvements.
Converting configuration files.
Old `.lua` colour schemes and workspace save files can be automatically
converted to a format suitable to be loaded by this latest release.
Other files will have to be ported manually. To convert colour schemes,
use the script `utils/lookconv.lua`. The usage is
lookconv.lua look-old.lua > look-new.lua
To convert workspaces savefiles, use the script `utils/saveconv.sh`.
The usage is
saveconf.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-DISPLAY.*.lua \
> ~/.ion-devel/SESSIONNAME/workspaces.lua
`DISPLAY` here is the actual display part of `$DISPLAY`, probably just `:0`.
'*' stands for all screens (if you have only one screen you could do with
perhaps just `workspaces-:0.0.lua`). SESSIONNAME is the name of the session
where you want to use the converted savefiles. Default session name for
`DISPLAY` is `default-session-DISPLAY` with the colon in `DISPLAY` converted
to a dash. For most people this is `default-session--0`. In the simplest
case the whole command line is therefore
saveconv.sh ~/.ion-devel/saves/workspaces-:0.0.lua \
> ~/.ion-devel/default-session--0/workspaces.lua
The scripts may or may not work and are only provided as a potential
convenience that will not be maintained and will be removed eventually.
ion-devel-20030623
------------------
Quite a few bug fixes and one most likely unnoticeable improvement:
2003-06-23:
* Fixed pointer warping on screen change.
* A bug in grab handler calling code could crash Ion when leaving
keyboard resize mode manually.
* Resize display was showing incorrect values for keyboard resize.
2003-06-21:
* Client window last height request bookkeeping code had been lost
when configure request policy was changed. This caused transient
sizes to be calculated incorrectly.
* Return from full screen mode to floatws had been broken.
* As the number of dynamic functions has been getting bigger, the
functions are now sorted on first use and then binary-searched
instead of naive linear searching.
* Screen lookup had been broken for windows that are not properly
on any screen.
ion-devel-20030620
------------------
Just some bug fixes and minor behavioural changes and improvements in
this release:
ion-devel-20030617
------------------
This release fixes some small problems with the previous release and
adds a workaround kludge for the XFree86 textprop bug (it's been fixed
but no release with the fix is available) that could cause Opera to
crash Ion when UTF8 support was enabled. I also added the winprop
needed for galeon's find dialog to default `kludges.lua` and there's
some extra documentation and defaults for some systems in system.mk.
ion-devel-20030614
------------------
Most changes in this release centre around making Ion more tolerant
to broken configuration files; for details see the ChangeLog. There
are also changes in binding configuration as I already mentioned in
an earlier poting. Namely `common-frame-bindings.lua` is gone and the
bindings previously set there (into variables that the `*ws.lua`
files later referenced) were moved to `ioncore-bindings.lua` and are
set using the new functions `mplex_bindings` and `genframe_bindings`
are were added. Old modified configuration files should still work,
however, but if you use `make_active_leaf_fn`, you will need to
include `compat.lua` as the `global_bindings` that used this were
replaced by bindings in `mplex_bindings` and the function
`make_current_clientwin_fn`.
There are also some (minor) bug fixes and a few other improvements
worth a mention. In particular all regions are now given names of
the form `WFoobar<n>` by default and `DEFAULT_MOD.."F9"` was bound to
create a new workspace without asking for a name. This binding and
`QueryLib.query_workspace` use the workspace type defined in the
variable `default_ws_type` instead of being hardcoded to `WIonWS`.
All objects passed to Lua now have a unique userdata (a `WWatch`
cached in a weak table) so they can be used e.g. as indices to tables.
ion-devel-20030606
------------------
This release unifies some parts of `WScreen` and `WGenFrame`, which makes
screen-level queries possible. (Later the queries for small frames might
be changed to be shown at screen level.) The statusbar restriction from
ion-devel-20030531 was also removed by this some change and a few
non-fatal bugs have been fixed.
ion-devel-20030601
------------------
A bug was discovered:
2003-06-01:
* An off-by-one error in `extl_l1_finalize` caused references to some
Lua tables (including large completions) never to be released.
It could be that this bug was causing some other errors in Lua as well.
Sometimes QueryLib bindings failed because some function generators
returned nil although they shouldn't. Adding dummy lines (!) in those
functions fixed the problem and for some reason this patch also seemed
to remove those problems.
One more note: as `ioncorelib.lua` and `querylib.lua` are now installed
in `$SHAREDIR`, you must remove the old files in `$ETCDIR` if installing
over a previous release or else there will be errors. You should also
not use any possible old copies you have in `~/.ion-devel/`. (One of the
reasons for moving these to `$SHAREDIR` is to stop users from making
copies of them as they are not configuration files.)
ion-devel-20030531
------------------
As the subject line says, Ion-devel-20030531 was just released. The short
list of changes is:
* The license was changed from the Clarified Artistic License to the
GNU Library/Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
* Screen, viewport and root window renames and other changes (see below).
* Some installation directory changes; the ion-* helper programs are now
installed either in `$SHAREDIR` or `$EXTRABINDIR` and QueryLib searches
for them on the script path (`~/.ion-devel/`, `$ETCDIR`, `$SHAREDIR`,
`$EXTRABINDIR`) instead of assuming them being on `$PATH`.
* Client windows are now in a separate namespace.
* Resize/maximize/shade changes: Shading should work on `WIonFrame`s too
and shade mode is automatic when the client area gets too small when
resizing. Maximize toggle restores frame to previous size if shaded
instead of maximizing. The move/resize mode bindings were changed again
to be more consistent and predictable: Left/Right/Up/Down and F/B/P/N
grow the frame in the specific direction, Shift+keys shrink and in
case of floating frames, `DEFAULT_MOD+keys` move
* Returning from full screen mode should work on `WFloatWS`s too.
* Lots of minor fixes, export additions and clean-up.
As usual, see the (long!) list of new ChangeLog entries at the end of
this message for details.
I've finally personally switched from the old "stable" 20020207 to using
the latest development release at home too and I must say that it is
finally starting to look good. There are still things to be written, but
unless you need "proven" stability, I see no reason to sticking to that
old release anymore. Unless, of course, if you find a problem that I have
not encountered or simply have no need for the new features and don't want
to port your configuration files.
On screens, viewports, root windows and problems with the new
implementation
The objects previously called "screens" are now called "root windows"
and what were called "viewports" are called "screens" to better reflect
what the user sees. (When Xinerama is not used there's no difference
between a root window and a screen, but when Xinerama is used a root
window may be split over multiple screens.)
This release also creates so-called virtual root windows for each
Xinerama screen when there are more than one. This is to better separate
the windows on different screens and thus emulate normal multihead, the
main difference being that windows can be moved between screens.
Especially the virtual roots are there to keep the windows that are on
a floatws on the right screen.
Virtual root windows will, however, break a few apps:
* Mozilla -remote won't work because of its crappy method for looking
up existing windows that can't handle multiple levels of WM windows.
Nested workspaces have the same problem. There is, however, a simple
solution to this problem: gnome-moz-remote. It seems to use a saner
method for looking up an existing Gecko browser and also works with
at least Phoenix/MozillaFirebird and Galeon.
These two are problems only if you use floatws:s (other problems with
which virtual root windows are intended to solve):
* The background-setting apps I am aware of will require a following
'xrefresh' for the changes to be updated to the (transparent) virtual
roots. Background setting apps that support the `_NET_VIRTUAL_ROOTS`
property (which, I think, was meant for root window-sized WS
backgrounds) could be used to set a separate background for each
Xinerama screen, though. I am not aware of any such app.