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PCManFM 0.9.2 and libfm 0.1.5 alpha

I just released pcmanfm 0.9.2 + libfm 0.1.5 alpha.
The main change beside bug fixes is the ability to set default web
browser and mail client.
This is achieved via a new gio module. Now you can execute
libfm-pref-apps to see it.

By default it’s hidden from applications menu if you’re in Gnome, KDE, or XFCE.
I think it should work most of the times, except in kde programs.

As most of the planned features are already finished, other minor
things are left for the next major release.
Now it’s time to declare ‘feature freeze’ for the first release.
Any objections?

After feature freeze, no new feature is going to be added in git
master branch (new feature is only allowed in other development
branches).
Please examine the English strings in both libfm and pcmanfm to see if
there are errors in spelling or grammar.
Later if no big problems are found, we’ll enter ’string freeze’.

I plan to release the first beta before the end of March.
So, if there are serious bugs, please report.

Thank you all.

Posted 09 March 2010 † PCMan § Development ‡ Comments (6) °

PCManFM 0.9.1 + libfm 0.1.1 Alpha

Today, new alpha releases of PCManFM and libfm were made.

Again, let me show you the screenshot first.

Here are highlights of this release:

  1. Auto-mount for removable devices and and “Auto-run” dialog. (Finally we have this!)
  2. Support ‘menu://applications/’ to show installed applications in pcmanfm. (needs lxmenu-data) (reported to be a little bit buggy?)
  3. Support ‘menu://applications/DesktopSettings/’ to show configuration tools. This just acts like control center. (only when you have lxmenu-data installed)
  4. “Open in terminal” now works for folders on desktop
  5. “Create New” is working on desktop.
  6. The color of location bar is changed when pcmanfm is executed with root user.
  7. Fix command line argumnent-related bugs.
  8. Fix sorting related bugs
  9. New configure option: –enable-debug
  10. Some minor bugs were fixed.

Please get it heavily tested.

Cheers!
Posted 05 March 2010 † PCMan § Development § PCManFM ‡ Comments (9) ° Tagged: , , , , ,

LXMusic 0.4.3 released

LXMusic 0.4.3 was released by Jürgen Hötzel.

Most important changes include:

* Adopt XMMS2 DrNo 0.7 API changes
* Fix a double free (on_playback_track_loaded)
* Translation updates

Please help to advance LXDE development and test releases, help with translations and update the wiki.

Links:

* Git Repository: http://lxde.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=lxde/lxmusic

* LXMusic in the LXDE Wiki: http://wiki.lxde.org/en/LXMusic

* LXDE Translation Project: http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Category:Translations

Posted 03 March 2010 † Mario Behling § Development § Release ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

openSUSE-LXDE development status

Ok people… openSUSE 11.3 Milestone2 has been released and quite soon we will have the Milestone3.

So now, after lot’s of promises, what is the status now?

IT’S DONE!

yes… it’s done… openSUSE 11.3 allow now to install LXDE directly from installation DVD or Net install. I’m sure all of you reading this post wants to try it, but for lazy people (and i know there are a lot of them outside), just click here and watch some pictures.

Can that be all? No of course not!

Just today i announced to opensuse-lxde and opensuse-factory mailing lists that we switched finally to pcmanfm2.

Even if that one is not yet stable, and even if it’s still on alpha release stage, it’s already feature rich and stable enoguht for daily usage. Of course bugs exist and you report is welcome, so we can fix them.

But it’s not enough, thanks to sidux lxde community we have a couple of nice tools: lxdm-conf and lxcc.

lxdm-conf as name suggest, it is a simple and powerful tool that helps you to edit lxdm settings without take care to manually edit /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf file. This tool is already into repos.

lxcc instead is a small control center, written using python-gtk. It’s based on an idea of PCLinuxOS Community that wrote lxdecc using gtkdialog. Instead to port original lxdecc to openSUSE we choose to cooperate with Sidux on lxcc simply because gtkdialog looks to be a dead project. Lxcc is not yet into repos, so here a screenshot:

Schermata

And to finish a very good news. We are working on live cds. Yes, it’s taking looong time, but now we should be able to provide you better ISOs in shorter time since we moved from suse-studio to OBS kiwi system. Preliminary images can be downloaded from here: X11:lxde (login required).

Most probably, a preliminary image will be published soon for a testing (based on openSUSE 11.2), in the same way, a Factory based live CD should be ready soon. Of course, i can’t forget, all that work on ISOs couldn’t be possible without the Dmitry serpokryl help (The author of SOAD).

I hope you’ll enjoy openSUSE-LXDE experience. So please, test test test and test it again. We have to provide the best LXDE ever!

Posted 01 March 2010 † Andrea Florio § Community § Components § Development § Distributions § Documentation § Press ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged:

LXDE on the Nokia N900

Siraj has posted a nice video of the Nokia N900 running Ubuntu 9.04 Mobile with LXDE on top over at the Maemo Area.

For more screenshots, read his blog article.

Via: Maemo Central

Posted 21 February 2010 † Christoph Wickert § Development ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: , , ,

PCManFM 0.9 Alpha is released!

After endless waiting, here comes the first public tarball release of next generation PCManFM.
But don’t expect too much. This is an Alpha release. :-)
Everybody loves screenshots. This is PCManFM 0.9.0 alpha running under LXDE with its desktop manager turned on.

There will be 1.0, but before it become stable enough for production use, let’s call it 0.9.

Actually, 0.9.0 is not a new version of PCManFM. It is a whole new total rewrite and redesign from scratch. So its code base is totally different from the old PCManFM 0.5.x series.

Major improvements:

  1. Have GIO/GVFS support but “still keep original speed” and memory usage is still acceptable
  2. Seamless remote filesystem access such as sftp and smb (provided by gvfs)
  3. Trash can (provided by gvfs)
  4. Much better designed configuration dialogs
  5. Much better thumbnail support
  6. Better wallpaper handling
  7. Better drag and drop handling and also support X direct save
  8. Basic auto-mount (provided by gvfs)
  9. Better application chooser based on applications menu installed on the dsektop system
  10. The core part is moved to a separate lib called libfm, which can be used by other programs
  11. Much better structure of source code, so future hacking is easier
  12. Better configurability
  13. and more…

Please give it heavy tests. This will be the default file manager in next generation LXDE.
So quality and usability are extremely important.

Grab tha tarballs now!

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pcmanfm/


Cheers!

Posted 21 February 2010 † PCMan § Development § PCManFM ‡ Comments (4) °

LXDE Google Summer of Code 2010

LXDE is applying as a project for the Google Summer of Code 2010. For students it is a good way to get deeper involved into Free and Open Source Software and LXDE specifically. During the summer students have the chance to code on LXDE and get paid by Google.

Some other projects usually also offer student slots for the LXDE community in the program. We are gathering project ideas, as a way to start for applicants here. If you are interested to join LXDE at the summer of code and would like to discuss project ideas, please join us on IRC at irc.oftc.net #lxde and on the mailing list: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/lxde-list

If you have already an idea about a project you would like to do, please also leave your idea here as well: http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Google_Summer_of_Code_2010

Please also check out our students check list: http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Google_Summer_of_Code_-_Student_Check_List

Background info on Google Summer of Code

The most common question we get from students is “How do I prepare for Google Summer of Code?” The simple answer is not to wait for the program to get involved in open source. Start checking out projects now: take a look at documentation, check out their source code and idle in some IRC channels to see what interests you. The projects who have been past participants in Google Summer of Code are a great place to start; use the categorized list of mentoring organizations (e.g. projects listed by programming languages) from 2009 to help you get started.

About Google Summer of Code

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a global program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source software projects. We have worked with several open source, free software, and technology-related groups to identify and fund several projects over a three month period. Since its inception in 2005, the program has brought together nearly 3,400 students and more than more than 3,000 mentors & co-mentors from nearly 100 countries worldwide, all for the love of code. Through Google Summer of Code, accepted student applicants are paired with a mentor or mentors from the participating projects, thus gaining exposure to real-world software development scenarios and the opportunity for employment in areas related to their academic pursuits. In turn, the participating projects are able to more easily identify and bring in new developers. Best of all, more source code is created and released for the use and benefit of all.

* Frequently asked questions: http://socghop.appspot.com/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2010/faqs

* LXDE Project Ideas: http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Google_Summer_of_Code_2010

* Student Check List: http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Google_Summer_of_Code_-_Student_Check_List

http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Google_Summer_of_Code_2010
Posted 11 February 2010 † Mario Behling § Community § Development § Events ‡ Comments Off ° Tagged: , , , , , ,

Our source code repositories has migrated to Git

We migrated the source code repositories from Subversion to Git recently. Thanks to the HOW-TO, the commit logs in Subversion are all preserved.

Why we want to migrate them to Git? The main reason is speed. LXDE is a desktop environment with fast in mind, thus we need a fast SCM which can match our motto. For more information, please read “Why Git is better than X.”

For newcomers of Git, you can also read the git documentations on its website. I believe it is not too difficult to learn how to use it.

Please use the following command to get the source code:
git clone git://lxde.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/lxde/REPO_NAME
The REPO_NAME is the repository name, which is listed here.

In addition, I made this video during the migration to Git. Enjoy!

(For those who don’t have Flash plugin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwi1ZDTAqZU)

Posted 06 February 2010 † medicalwei § Events § Videos ‡ Comments (3) °

Desktop support of PCManFM is working now!

The latest source code of next generation pcmanfm, aka pcmanfm2, in git repo already supports desktop management. The new desktop manager looks better than the old one in pcmanfm 0.5.

Let’s see the screenshot:
Desktop management support of next generation PCManFM

Desktop management support of next generation PCManFM

After compiling the latest source code, run the desktop manager with:
pcmanfm2 –desktop
Then you’ll see the desktop. Change the wallpaper from the popup menu or invoke the desktop configuration with:
pcmanfm2 –desktop-pref
Known Issues:
  1. RTL is not yet handled, but it will be fixed in final release.
  2. Icons are not yet movable, but it will be supported in next major release
  3. Trash can is not yet shown on the desktop
  4. Tools drawing on the root window might not work correctly since our desktop window covers the root window. However, using a window covering the whole screen space to implement desktop management feature is suggested in freedesktop.org specs, and this is what Gnome and XFCE did, too. So, it’s not a bug.

Please test the latest pcmanfm and libfm in our git repo. The first public tarball release is coming soon!

Posted 26 January 2010 † PCMan § Development ‡ Comments (4) °

Lxdm is now themeable!

Hooray!  I just finished theming support of LXDM. :-)

lxdm-industrial

LXDM, the display manager of LXDE, now has full theming support based on gtkrc styles + GtkBuilder xml UI definition. No technology outside GTK+ iteself is needed and no additional library is required for this new feature. Now lxdm even comes with a default theme ported from gdm Industrial theme (See the screenshot).

The documentation for theming lxdm will be published later once things are settled. Now it’s themed with gtk pixmap engine with some dirty hacks, which is inefficient and quite limited. However, as I know, gtk-css-engine is being developed and it can be used to theme gtk+ applications with css syntax. So, later our gtkrc-based theming mechanism can directly benefit from gtk-css-engine and we can have more themes. So artists, stay tunned!

Cheers!!

Posted 22 January 2010 † PCMan § Development § lxdm ‡ Comments (7) °