xfce4-clipman 1.4.0 (Gtk3 port) and libxfce4ui 4.13.1 released!

clipmanxfce4-clipman-plugin 1.4.0 released

So finally I’ve decided to release xfce4-clipman-plugin 1.4.0, which is the Gtk+3 port of the plugin. For a while I was unsure whether to do a development or a stable release – to be clear: this was not a decision based on the stability of the product itself but the fact that it relied on the development release of a Xfce core component (libxfce4ui-4.13.0). However I decided to revert the commit that introduced the dependency (I will apply it again latest when 4.14 is out).

As the port is a 1:1 port there are practically no new features. The only notable difference is that the panel plugin’s icon is now a symbolic icon.

Thanks to Eric, Steve and Florian for helping me get this off the ground!


libxfce4uilibxfce4ui 4.13.1

This is only a smaller bugfix release that replaces a deprecated call and – more importantly – fixes the default theming of XfceHeading in all Gtk+3 settings dialogs of Xfce.

Greybird 3.20.1 released (mostly bugfixes)

Plank theme (by Sean Davis)
theme for Plank (a simple dock) by Sean

So the first bugfix release for Greybird 3.20 is here and while the changelog isn’t an overly exciting read, there are some goodies in this one!

The single new feature in this – otherwise – bugfix release is a Greybirdy theme for Plank (a simple dock), contributed by Sean.

Other than that I have tweaked or fixed the following:

  • less padding on some widgets, e.g. buttons (makes the whole theme feel more like the original and matches Gtk2)
  • less bold input focus line on GtkEntries
  • improved progressbar theming (no more tiny artifacts when the fraction is 0.00), also fixes LP #1617705
  • tweak the look of OSDs
  • mention librsvg build-dependency in the README

Download

https://github.com/shimmerproject/Greybird/releases/tag/v3.20.1

Featurette: xfce4-notifyd 0.3.2 released

This release came a bit sooner than expected, but it’s primary goal is to fix a showstopper regression which slipped into 0.3.1 and practically rendered xfce4-notifyd useless on systems with Gtk+3 <=3.18 (i.e. not showing any notifications). Thanks to Olivier for noticing immediately and posting a patch!

notifyd_retro_and_bright
the “Retro” and “Bright” themes

But while this had to be a fast release I still managed to put in some feature-goodness. For instance I came through on my promise to add more default themes and in this release I added “Retro” and “Bright“.

notifyd_symbolic_zomgponies
(symbolic) audio volume icon recolored ZOMG-PONIES! style

The biggest feature in this release however is the support for symbolic icons. For those of you who haven’t heard of the feature before: it’s basically Gtk+ coloring your icon with the color of the font of that particular context, so the icon will color-wise match the font. This is especially useful for monochrome icons and (usually) prevents white-on-white scenarios. It also gives users and theme-makers more freedom (instead of having a “dark panel” or a separate “dark notifications” variant of an icon-theme). Note that your notification-sending application also has to request a symbolic icon, xfce4-notifyd is not enforcing symbolic icons.

Another notable fix (that I forgot to mention in the release notes) is the fix of styles of the progressbars in notifications. Those were not styled according to the notifyd-theme selected but always used the style of the base (as in: screen-wide) Gtk+ theme.

Finally, a minor improvement is that all themes are now sorted alphabetically in the Settings Dialog.

With this bugfix release out of the way it won’t be long until I merge my feature branch and get more testing for the “Do not disturb” mode.

Enjoy!

Bugfixes incoming: xfce4-notifyd 0.3.1 released!

notifyd

More good news in notification-land: I just released a new version of xfce4-notifyd – aka 0.3.1 – which fixes some nasty issues, amongst others

  • memory leaks (thanks Tony!)
  • an issue which caused build problems on Gtk<=3.18 systems (thanks Michał!)

I also added a Help button which links to the docs I wrote for notifyd a while ago: http://docs.xfce.org/apps/notifyd/start

I hope this will make 0.3 smoother in everyone’s daily usage and the Gtk+3 port more regression-free.

Read more here: https://mail.xfce.org/pipermail/xfce-announce/2016-September/000457.html

Upcoming changes

On the plate for the next release are more default themes (hint: “Retro” has already been pushed to git master) and potentially the per-application settings and “Do not disturb” mode which I previously teased. The latter might also warrant a major version number bump so we’ll see whether it’ll really end up in 0.3.2.

Stay tuned!

Preview: Per application settings and Do-not-disturb mode in xfce4-notifyd

Per application settingsAs previously announced I’ve been working on per-application settings and a “Do not disturb” mode for xfce4-notifyd, which is Xfce’s notification daemon.

Finally I’ve come to a point where I’m ok with pointing to the code and encouraging people to try it and spot potential issues with it. As both of these features have been long-time requested I hope it’ll Do not disturb modemake quite a few people happy. I know I’ve been quite happy myself since I can use it 🙂

The way that the “known applications” are handled by xfce4-notifyd is that they are remembered once they have sent a notification. This means that you can only mute applications which have – at some point since you’ve been running the code from the branch – actually sent notifications. I’ve been previously thinking about trying to collect all potential candidates somehow but this turned out too pesky and personally I think most users will want to mute those applications that send notifications often and those will quickly appear in that (alphabetically sorted) list.

Caveats: Some of this isn’t final – I might still be updating the wording on some of the labels or even some of the functionality might be amended a little, but generally I’m quite pleased with how things are working. Furthermore there may be memory leaks, I just haven’t had the time to really get to that (bugreports and patches are warmly welcomed ;)).

If you have feedback or suggestions please feel free to add some comments to this post or contact me on other communication channels.

So here’s the code: https://git.xfce.org/users/ochosi/xfce4-notifyd/log/?h=private/per_app_settings

Related bugreports: