FVWM: recent additions/fixes in tkgoodstuff

From: <mark.crimmins_at_umich.edu>
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 16:28:41 -0400

For those following the life of tkgoodstuff4.1...

I'm done with tkgoodstuff4.1b6, which means I'm starting b7, and hope
that this is the last beta (it'll go through patches before becoming
4.1, though).

Tcl7.5/tk4.1 has been released (ftp.smli.com), fvwm2 is not far from
release, and so I'd like to have something to release pretty soon.

I'd appreciate anyone who has needed to tweak the makefiles or
configure scripts for tkxpm and tkfvwm to let me know what you needed
to do. A little work now might save me serious headaches after the
main release.

As always, I very much appreciate your help.

The latest changes and bugfixes:

  - Gary Dezern contributes a TkMan client, which interfaces with the
  tkman man page viewer the way our WWW client interfaces with web
  browsers. (Thanks!)

  - Thanks (a lot) to code from R. Angiel and G. Dezern, Biff now does
  new-message counting, handles multiple mailboxes, and handles MH
  much more correctly. It's still "in transition", and I have ideas
  for enhancement (multiple buttons, and individually adjustable
  properties, including variable "alert levels", for different
  mailboxes) that will have to wait until I find or write a usable
  list-configuration thingy, but what is there now works in my use.

  - I had subtracted the option where Biff pops up a list of new mail
  on arrival, but now it's back in: you get a different popup for each
  mailbox.

  - There are Win95-like additions to auto-minimize in full-screen
  mode and for dragging the (full-screen) panel from screen-edge to
  screen edge (as it stands, we have to restart if we go from vertical
  to horizontal or vice-versa). There was a bug in the interaction
  between auto-minimize and subpanels, which I think I've killed or at
  least maimed, but I don't understand why it happened in the first
  place (see a comment in TKGPanelButtonInvoke if you'd like to do
  some bug detective work).

  - In Net, we now show connection up-time in the label (if any).
  This updates only as often as we check the net connection (by
  default, every 20 seconds). What else would people like to see in
  Net?

  - Somehow I had broken the Ical client's midnight update. Fixed.

  - The response to errors in preferences or configuration is much
  improved, and you shouldn't lose all your config work over and over
  anymore (as often ;-|).

  - M. Beynon contributed patches for tkxpm, and the configure scripts
  were updated/streamlined.



The top of the CHANGES file:

4.1b6: (unreleased)

   - There is a new on-line preferences manager (so you don't have to
   edit the rc file by hand). Start up tkgoodstuff. You will get a
   default configuration. Select Preferences from the tkgoodstuff
   menu, and choose the "Configuration" section. Here, add, delete or
   move Client, AddButton, AddLabelBox, stacking, and panel-creating
   commands. Then, save the preferences and restart. Now you can set
   using the preferences manager the things you used to have to adjust
   with variables.

   - tkgoodstuff:

       + New options for icon scale and font scale (small or large).
       Also, where an iconfile is called for, you can specify
       "%biffnew" and tkgoodstuff will look, depending on whether the
       scale is small or large, for biffnew.xpm or biffnew-sm.xpm.

       + New option for standard padding inside buttons, etc. Adjust
       to 0 for very busy but compact look, to 2 or 3 for more roomy
       look.

       + Now you can specify a pathlist of icon directories
       in the preferences manager. You also can specify an icon that
       is somewhere in that path with just its name (full filenames
       work too).

       + In fullscreen mode, now you can "drag" the main border to
       move the panel to another edge of the screen. It's a quick
       hack (if we go from horizontal to vertical or vice versa we
       save a changed fullscreen-side preference and restart
       tkgoodstuff), but nothing wouldn't be better. We should really
       be able to do this on the fly (which means regridding, and
       resizing the auto-sized clients (Clock, Pager, Load).

       + Also there is a new option Auto-minimize which in fullscreen
       mode reduces tkgoodstuff to a line along the edge of the screen
       when the mouse leaves the tkgoodstuff panel.

       + Killed (I hope) bug without understanding why: sometimes in
       auto-minimize mode clicking on a panelbutton would cause an
       error whose entire stack trace is ("after" script). Since
       removing an "update" command from TKGPanelButtonInvoke, I no
       longer see this problem. Any speculations as to why would be
       welcome!

   - New Client: TkMan, by G. Dezern, interfaces with the tkman man
   page viewer the way our WWW client interfaces with web browsers.

   - WindowList: Shorten windownames before using scrollbar (patch
   from E. Kahler).

   - Biff:
     + Mail-checking methods now work as advertised (thanks R. Angiel
     and G. Dezern). I hope.
     + Optional on-button display of number of new messages (except
     for users of the mh method). (Thanks R. Angiel.)
     + Display of new messages was too fancy, or not fancy enough, to
     work right; now we just display the entire header with the message.

   - Net:
     + Added elapsed-time-of-connection counter.
     + Deleted net-type from label.

   - Jots and Calc: respond sensibly to window manager DELETEs.

   - Icons: ruthless color-pruning. Now the icons use colors from a
   palette of 19 colors, and tkgoodstuff's default widget colors are
   among them.

   - tkxpm and tkfvwm: much tidier configure scripts (not using
   autoconf), relying on tclConfig.sh and tkConfig.sh. Also, fvwm
   source is no longer needed to compile tkfvwm (libfvwm2.a is now
   installed at fvwm installation). M. Beynon contributed bug fixes.

4.1b5: 2/27/96

  Now tkgoodstuff assumes tk4.1b1 or later (we're aiming at supporting
  the ultimate 4.1 release, and backward compatibility is too much
  work).

     - tkgoodstuff:

       + We use the grid geometry manager rather than pack for almost
       everything. TKGPack is superseded by TKGGrid. Had hoped that
       this would make fullscreen mode easier, but no.

       + Added subpanels which are formed with StartPanel and
       EndPanel, can be linked to a button with PanelButton, or placed
       on the screen at startup with PutPanel. See the tkgoodstuffrc
       html docs for more.

       + Now xpm capability is mandatory. I hope Ioi Lam's xpm image
       type will get in the core before our main 4.1 release.

       + "create-label-box" renamed to "TKGLabelBox". NOTE!!!

       + AddButton and AddLabelBox no longer take a name as first
       argument. NOTE!!!

       + Clock_zerotrim moved to tkgoodstuff and called TKGZeroTrim.

       + Use "ps -p [pid]" if "ps [pid]" gives an error, and don't
       assume there's a STAT column in the ps output (thanks
       J. Robinson).

       + Implement TKGAddToHook and TKGDoHook (general hook
       utilities). Several hooks are defined (for client use) in
       tkgoodstuff, Fvwm.tcl, etc.

       + Change default fonts to non-italic, non-bold.

     - Biff: avoid tcl7.5b1's gets bugs by not doing "gets $f var".

     - New client "Pager" by Eric Kahler. Check out the current
     version in this distribution. Needs tkgoodstuff to be run as an
     fvwm module (from the fvwm window manager).

     - New client "Chooser" by Eric Kahler. Pops up a window at
     startup to let you choose among different tkgoodstuff
     configuration files.

     - New client in "alpha" stage: Calc (dec/hex/oct calculator).
     Has paper-tape-like scrollable history. Some features not
     implemented, but it's fairly usable. I'm not inclined to develop
     this further right now, so I'd be very happy if someone were to
     adopt it.

     - New client in "beta" stage: Webster (net dictionary client).
     Pops up a definition of the word you highlight (the current X
     selection). Can use unix "webster" command, but also has its own
     internal webster client code (using the new Tcl socket stuff,
     with a kludge required because Tcl strings can't yet contain
     NULLs).

     - The tkfvwm source is now included in the tkgoodstuff
     distribution.

     - The fvwm WindowList feature has become a client. To call it,
     you now issue "Client WindowList". It's become more robust too,
     I hope. I also added a few default icons for shells, editors,
     mailers, newsreaders. If it doesn't recognize your favorite
     apps of these types, please let me know the resource Class name,
     and the application type (e.g., "Xmh" is a mailer, "XTerm" is a
     shell). I'd be happy to have some graphically competent person revise
     these or submit other 11x11 icons.

     - Fvwm: fvwm's messages are more easily available to clients, we
     maintain a more complete database of the information available
     from fvwm, and we slightly enhanced tkfvwm (the new version of
     tkfvwm4.1 is needed to take advantage of all the information).
     Look at Fvwm.tcl for more info. These changes were primarily to
     support WindowList and Eric Kahler's cool Pager client.

     - Clock, Ical, Jots: use the new "clock" command instead of "exec
     date".

     - Ical: Gave one alarm per item per calendar fetch. Oops. Stick
     to one per item.

     - Jots: Made widgets behave sensibly under manual resizing (until
     tk4.1b1's empty-frame bug showed up, that is).

     - Net: (bug) call TKGButton, not TKGMakeButton, to change the
     text on a switch of net types. Also, (feature removal) don't
     bind mouse <3> to change Net_type (too confusing for those who
     don't want it and don't want to know about it, and it's easy
     enough to change types with the popup menu).

(Earlier changes available on request.)

For anyone wondering what tkgoodstuff is, see:
  http://www-personal.umich.edu/~markcrim/tkgoodstuff

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Received on Tue Apr 30 1996 - 16:18:10 BST

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