foXdesktop news

All foXdesktop applications and depending libraries have been updated to work with the actual FOX-1.4 (stable). The new releases are:

I just downloaded and compiled FOX-1.3.25, and therefore compiled the latest released versions of foXdesktop applications.
They all work great with FOX-1.3.25.

We aim to switch to FOX-1.4 as soon as it comes out, which should be very soon. We then plan to develop with the stable release of FOX to support you with more stable foXdesktop applications and environment.

• introducing myself (Jochen)
• writing about my point of views and intentions
• some site formatting
• new link to the Sourceforge project description page

• ported to gcc 3.3 & gcc 3.4
• ported to fox 1.3.20, should also work with 1.2 stable branch
• minor code cleanups
• new settings which are stored and reloaded
• attribute dialog partially rewritten

With this release all foXdesktop applications are up to date.
Future plans are to write a window manager and an application launcher to complete a minimalistic desktop environment, which is workable and the important basis for future development.

• ported to gcc 3.3 & gcc 3.4
• ported to fox 1.3.20, should also work with 1.2 stable branch
• minor code cleanups
• minor bugfixes
• edit dialog enhanced

• ported the above applications to gcc 3.3 & gcc 3.4
• ported the above applications to fox 1.3.20, should also work with 1.2 stable branch
• minor code cleanups

I always have been thinking about developing a desktop environment or advanced windowmanager. There are really nice windowmanagers, but some of them are not usable as I like it or are missing some - for me - basic features. Other systems are nice to handle, but are really slow or unstable or really ugly.

Regular switches between Gnome, fluxbox, KDE, XFCE, and others to find a fitting desktop environment really sucks. So this was definetly the time to change something!

So I may not have the high intentions as Mathew or Josua, but want to have a system, which really supports me working and not slowing me down. So my main intentions are to improve this project and add some basic applications, which complete the DE - at least for a basic state. Keeping the Un|x philosophy in mind and knowing that the FOX-toolkit is very, very fast, I think there may be no need for extreme wariness. But i _will not_ develop a all-in-one-hammer-you-down-until-you-are-stunned application like for example konqueror. Not only for speed issues, but particularly for stability issues.

mailto:Jochen Rassler <j_a_r@users.sourceforge.net>

The FOX Extension library (FOXEX) is a package built to extend the FOX GUI library in ways which may not be suitable for a GUI library. For example, socket support may not be suitable for FOX, but it falls into the domain of FOXEX.

The main reason for building the library is to gather the various bits and pieces development by the FOX community (and myself of course), into a single package which can be installed.

I have found that during the development of various parts of foXdesktop, I needed to create some useful generic functionality. As such, this functionality is being rolled into a seperate package, which other FOX programs (not necessarily foXdesktop programs) can use.

I agree for the most part that software should be minimal but, I believe that component functionality can really be useful when you consider it from the point of view that a GUI environment is just an extension to the terminal that we know and love...
As such, there is no need to be extremely minimalistic when it is not necessary to do so. For example, there is no reason to not embed a simple text viewer widget in a file manager, _provided_ that the embedding of that widget, doesn't impact on the performance of the application.

One particular aspect that I am keen on extending is the concept of a dynamically updatable/configurable desktop. I see a few aspects to this:

• some form of interprocess communication actually, this will probably take two forms,
  • a light-weight mechanism, such as X Atoms
  • a heavy-weight mechanism, such as TCP sockets
• a desktop server/controller process for managing the global resources such as the FOX registry
• a desktop library

• Minor code cleanups
• Some documentation

• foXcontrol-desktop's documentation was added.

• Some documentation

• foXcontrol's documentation was added.

• foXdesktop-mimetypes contains two foXdesktop components:
  1. A foXcontrol-type component being a mime type browser and
  2. A foXcommander-type component with which you can edit a particular mime type and that is invoked from 1) and also embeds itself in foXcommander's file attributes dialogue.

• The file context menu has been improved.
• A refresh bug was fixed.
• Other minor bug fixes.

• An improved default configuration

• New button icons

• Support for foXcommander-type foXdesktop components
• Removal of some broken code
• Minor bug fixes

• A nasty bug was fixed.
• New audio icons and mime types

• Some new icons
• An improved default configuration
• Minor UI issues

• Some software documentation updates
• A new links page was added.

• Compatibility with FOX 0.99.172
• Code cleanups, minor bug fixes
• Improved documentation
• Major English language bug fixes ;-)

• The preferences dialog was rewritten as a foXdesktop component.
• Bug fixes
• Code cleanups
• Finished removal of code that is not necessary for a file manager

• Minor bugfixes.

• An Ansi C++ violation was fixed.

• Bug fixes
• Code cleanups
• A new logo :-)
• Continued removal of code that is not necessary for a file manager

• Fixes for two minor bugs.

• Compatibility with FOX 0.99.167
• Continued removing code that is not necessary for a file manager

• A new (yet simple) icons component was added.
• Four new color schemes :-)
• Minor Makefile things

• Minor documentation updates
• Minor GUI improvements ;-)

• Rewrite of crucial code: The number of loadable components now only depends on the available memory.
• Minor Makefile things

• Some software documentation was incorporated
• Various other improvements

• Compatibility with FOX 0.99.165 (the FXIconDict thing)

• The license was changed from GPL to LGPL 2.1
• Some documentation was added
• Minor Makefile things

• GNU autoconf/automake support
• Continued removing code that is not necessary for a file manager

• The colors' component now supports color schemes
• Minor compatibility issues in the fonts' component

• Compatibility with recent FOX drops (the menubar thing)
• Some documentation was added
• The --help option is now supported
• man's --all option can be used
• Redirected man's output to foXman's window
• Other minor things

• Derived from X WinCommander 0.91-4 (C) by Maxim Baranov
• Some ugly hacks to make it compile and run with FOX 0.99.145
• Radically simplified the copying/deleting... process
• Removed some code that is not necessary for a file manager
• Code cleanups, minor changes/improvements...