-*-outline-*-

* Version 2.5 (6 Mar 2002)

This is mostly a get-it-out-of-the-door release, and is identical with
the preceeding 2.5 alpha.  Some of the new features are not
documented, so you may have to resort to reading code to use them.

** Abstraction for internal windows

The core class Client now subclasses the new class Window.  The new
class InternalWindow is also a subclass of Window.  The main advantage
of this is that wm-internal windows (e.g. the ModeWindow) can be
wrapped in an InternalWindow.  The internal window can use the same
event system as Client windows, and also use a number of methods
previously only provided for Client windows.

** New extensions: message and input

Message is an abstraction refactored out of menu for displaying
windows containing text.  The new input extension uses this to display
a text input window.  It can e.g. be used to let the user input
shell commands or python code.

** New mode window mixin: mw_load

mw_load displays the current load average in the mode window.  It
has support for Linux /proc and the more general Unix
/usr/bin/uptime. 

** Code reorganization: plwm.misc

The module plwm.misc contains various useful hacks.  Most of these
were previously found in the example wm petliwm.py, but having them
here makes them easier to use in other peoples wms.  Take a look in
the file to see what is available, it is self-documented.

** New feature: Screen border allocation

The Screen class now provides the method alloc_border(), which can be
used by mixins to reserve screen area at the edges.  Client windows
will not be allowed to cover these borders.  Initially it is used by
the mode window.


* Version 2.4 (12 Dec 2001)

** New extensions: panes and menu

Mike Meyer has written two nice extension modules.  Panes provides a
ratpoison-ish, or screen(1)-ish, or Emacs-ish way of handling windows
on the screen.  See the comment at the top of plwm.panes for more
details, and try out the example window manager example/plpwm.py.

Menu opens a keyboard-controlled menu in the middle of the screen, and
can be used to start applications, selecting among windows and other
niceties.

** Focus management rewritten

There is now a WindowManager method set_current_client() which takes
care of all the details in switching focus between different clients.

The extension module plwm.focus now uses the new method, much reducing
the former clutter in that module.  The mixin FocusHandler has been
renamed to PointToFocus, and the mixin FocusClient is no longer
needed.  If the old names are used, a warning is printed.

The method move_focus() has been moved to the new mixin MoveFocus.

** Internal events collected in plwm.wmevents, and also documented

The various internal events previously scattered over plwm.wmanager
and plwm.focus has now been collected in the new module plwm.wmevents.

They have also been documented in the manual chapter "Core Events".

** Dropped support for old xmodewin

The old stand-alone xmodewin, the utilities xmwbiff and xmwclock, and
the related modules modewinctl and modetitle have been removed.  They
were superceded by the plwm.modewindow and plwm.mw_* extension modules
in 2.1.

** View remembers focus, and stores info at exit

Views now also remembers the focused client, and is thus able to give
it focus no matter where the pointer is located.  Very nice when using
SloppyFocus.

The current view configuration is now stored when exiting the window
manager, in addition to when switching views.  This allows even more
view configuration to be restored when PLWM is restarted.

** CycleActivate improved

plwm.cycle.CycleActivate has been improved to work well with both
iconified and deiconified clients.  Inspiration came from Meik
Hellmund.

** Fixed bug in Screen.system()

If PLWM was killed by a signal, all programs started with
Screen.system() also got that signal.  This has been fixed by creating
a new process group for the child process executing the program.

** WindowOutlineClient added

An outline client mixin drawing the outline using a set of windows has
been added.  It is less effecient than the XorOutlineClient, but
avoids some of its problems.  See the section for the "outline"
extension in the documentation for further details.

** NetBSD APM interface added to mw_apm

The modewindow APM mixin can now fetch battery status both from Linux'
/proc/apm and NetBSD's /dev/apm, thanks to Henrik Rindlöw.

** Finalization methods added

Mixin classes can now clean up after themselves, by providing the
appropriate method of __wm_del__, __screen_del__, or __client_del__.

** Bugfix in MapRequest handling

An if-expression missed a "not", which resulted in that windows
created after PLWM has started always was mapped, no matter the value
of Client.start_iconified.  Consequently existing windows' map
requests always was ignored.  The first effect is a bug, the second
one turned out to be the correct behaviour.  (This is because Netscape
6.1 abuses window mapping by attempting to deiconify whenever a web
page has loaded.  This is _not_ what you want if the Netscape windows
is iconified because it is on another view than the current one...)

** Python 2.1 incompitability fixed

It turned out that Python 2.1 is very picky about the __all__ list in
__init__.py, so installation failed since a now removed module was
listed in it.  Fixed now.


* Version 2.3 (29 Aug 2001)

** Documentation revised

The oldest part of the documentation have been revised for grammar,
correctness and prettyness.

** Key handling modified

The key handling of keys.py has been modified so that keymaps can now
be bound to specific screens or windows.  For the first time in the
history of PLWM, this is a modification that is backward-compatible.
However, when the old interface is used, a warning is issued.

** Focus tracking conforms better to ICCCM

focus.py has been somewhat revised to comply more fully with ICCCM.
Now no-input clients will never get focus, which is required for
applications like xvkbd.  This introduces a new WindowManager
attribute: current_client.  This should replace most instances where
focus_client previously was used.

A new event is sent when focus changes: CurrentClientChange.  The
modestatus.py code that displays the currently active client has been
rewritten as a result of this: the Screen mixin ModeFocusedTitle is
now replaced by the Client mixin ModeFocusedTitleClient together with
the new Screen mixin ModeFocusedTitleScreen.

** New modewindow module: mw_apm

mw_apm displays the battery status of laptops, by reading from the
special file /proc/apm provided by Linux systems.  It should be easy
to extend the module to support other APM systems.


* Version 2.2 (6 Feb 2001)

** Complete documentation available

The documentation has been extended with detailed descriptions for all
relevant extension modules, plus a chapter on client filters.  Now
there are no excuses for not writing your own plwm.py!

** Changed default window manager

The old default window manager, examples/petliwm.py, has been
transformed into something not necessarily useful for other people
than Petli himself, so now examples/examplewm.py is the default
instead.  It has the same key bindings as the old petliwm.py, though,
so most default window manager users will not notice any difference.

** Event system improvements

The core event system has been extended to provide support for file
events.  This allows events to be generated when a file is ready for
reading or writing.  Also, a bug causing the modewindow clock to
freeze has been fixed.

** Functionality to inspect the internals of a running PLWM

The module plwm.inspect together with the utility inspect_plwm can be
used to inspect and modify the internals of a running PLWM.  This can
be thought of as telnetting, or logging in, to the window manager.
You get a prompt, and any entered expression is evaluated inside the
running window manager.  See the documentation for details.

** Modewindow cleanups

Modewindow is a little cleaner coded, and now avoids redrawing more of
the modewindow than necessary.  A single Message object can also be
added to several modewindows.

** Key grabbing improved

PLWM now grabs all keys that have a certain keysym, not just the first
one.  PLWM also knows about shifting, so a handler for C_Q is
equivalent to C_S_q.

** move_focus bug fix

move_focus failed to move focus when there was only one mapped
window.


* Version 2.1 (12 Jan 2001)

** Python 2.0 fixes.

Some incompatibilities with Python 2.0 has been fixed.

** Modewindow is now a PLWM module.

xmodewin has been replaced by the module plwm.modewindow.  It contains
a Screen mixin which opens a modewindow on all screens, removing the
need for separate xmodewin instances.  xmwbiff and xmwclock has also
been replaced by the modules plwm.mw_biff and plwm.mw_clock,
respectively.  These contains WindowManager mixins that perform those
functions, using plwm.modewindow.

The reason for this change is the quite large footprint of Python
Xlib, which causes even these very modest applications to be some 3Mb
large.  This makes a PLWM environment somewhat more lightweight.

** keys: support for handling KeyRelease events.

The keys.KeyHandler has been extended to allow methods to be bound to
key releases, and not just key presses.  This is done by prefixing the
KeyHandler method name with "R_", e.g. "R_C_Return".


* Version 2.0 (8 Jan 2001)

** Testing completed.

PLWM 2.0a1 has been run for a while, and has uncovered a number of
bugs and performance problems with Python Xlib.  These have been fixed
in version 0.7 of Python Xlib.  No bugs have been found in PLWM 2.0
(relatively easy, as there is no new functionality), so lets call this
a real release.


* Version 2.0a1 (21 Dec 2000)

** plxlib no more

PLWM has been rewritten to use the Python X Library, instead of the
disgusting pile of C code that was plxlib.  Well, it seems to work...