Subject: FVWM: tkgoodstuff4.1b6

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 08 Mar 1996 10:57:18 -0500

In pub/in-progress now at merv.philosophy.lsa.umich.edu is an early
4.1b6 with some big changes that need refinement and debugging.
Comments of all kinds are welcome.

  - There is a new preferences manager that will cause some havoc
  until it's in better shape.  For now, it's usable.  Here is what
  you will need to do to migrate:

     Start up tkgoodstuff.  You will get a default configuration.
     Select Preferences from the tkgoodstuff menu, and choose the
     "Configuration" section.  Here, copy all the Client, AddButton,
     AddLabelBox, stacking, and panel-creating commands, BUT NOT
     VARIABLE SETTING COMMANDS, from your old .tkgoodstuffrc.  Then,
     save the preferences and restart.  Now you can set the things you
     had previously adjusted with variables using the preferences
     manager. 

     Configuration/preferences information is now kept by default in
     ~/.tkgrc, which you can edit manually if necessary, but which is
     supposed to be maintained primarily by the preferences manager.

     One awkwardness I need to adjust: preferences for sub-panel
     clients don't show up in the preferences manager until you first
     open the sub-panel.

     Another: the technique for letting you debug configurations is
     probably too fragile (if there is an error swallowing your config
     file, you get a stack trace and the preferences manager).

Html documentation does not exist for this stuff yet, and the html
docs on tkgoodstuffrc files and variable-setting in Clients is of
course all false.

Fvwm folks may not have heard about the changes in 4.1b5:

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  TKGPack is superseded by TKGGrid.

       + 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 extension 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 and tkxpm 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.

     - 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).

Cheers,
Mark
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