Path: usenet.cise.ufl.edu!usenet.ufl.edu!usenet.nerdc.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!azure.xara.net!xara.net!news.thenet.net!uunet!in2.uu.net!192.108.254.3!news.teleport.com!not-for-mail From: randy@byz.org (Randy) Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce,comp.lang.perl.modules Subject: X11::Fvwm 0.2 uploaded to PAUSE Followup-To: comp.lang.perl.modules Date: 31 Mar 1997 00:40:07 GMT Organization: Disorganized Sender: news-merlyn@gadget.cscaper.com Approved: merlyn@stonehenge.com (comp.lang.perl.announce) Message-ID: <5hn157$3pd$1@nadine.teleport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: gadget.cscaper.com Keywords: fvwm perl tk x11 X-Disclaimer: The "Approved" header verifies header information for article transmission and does not imply approval of content. Lines: 97 Xref: usenet.cise.ufl.edu comp.lang.perl.announce:150 comp.lang.perl.modules:2319 Fri Mar 28 18:24:21 MST 1997 Version 0.2 of X11::Fvwm has been uploaded to PAUSE, and should propagate to CPAN servers over the next few days. Information on this package may be found at: http://www.byz.org/~randy/perl/X11::Fvwm Please note that the links to download the package will take a day or two before functional, waiting for CPAN sites to receive the package from PAUSE. This is the second alpha release. Not all planned features are in, not all data packet types are yet correctly identified and dissected. The interface style and overall functionality are still subject to drastic change before this moves into beta. Changes in this version are list below. IMPORTANT: This version makes heavy changes to the packet handler interface and use of Tk. Handlers now receive the object reference to the X11::Fvwm object as their first argument, and Tk functionality is sub-classed into X11::Fvwm::Tk, to make it easier to add other GUI packages (such as Xforms) at a later date. >From the README file for 0.2: X11::Fvwm version 0.2 (alpha 2) WHAT IS IT? This is a Perl 5 extension to simplify writing Fvwm2 modules in Perl 5. Not only in Perl 5, but with the Tk extension as your GUI library! This requires fvwm 2.0.45 or better, and perl 5.002 or better. It is very highly recommended that you also install the latest version of Tk (which is Tk400.202 as of this writing), also available from CPAN. WHAT DOES IT DO? Fvwm2 has a very well-defined module API, to allow the brunt of non-core window-manager work be done by external modules. X11::Fvwm is a layer over this interface, allowing you to use Perl rather than C as the language for developing these modules. When fvwm launches a module, it sets up file descriptors for two-way communication, and proceeds to occassionally broadcast data packets to those modules that have asked to receive the given data type. The modules, in turn, can send commands back to fvwm, including requests for more (and more specific) data, operation on windows managed by fvwm, etc. PROBLEMS/BUG REPORTS Please send any reports of problems or bugs to randy@byz.org. I wouldn't mind a short note to know that you're using this, just so I can justify its continued development :-). CREDITS AND LICENSES This package is copyright (c) 1997 by Randy Ray (randy@byz.org) and may be distributed under terms of the Artistic License used to cover Perl itself. See the file Artistic in the distribution of Perl 5.002 or later for details of copy and distribution terms. All rights reserved. >From the Changes file for 0.2: * Changed the invocation of handlers to include a reference to the X11::Fvwm object as the first parameter. Otherwise, handlers have no access to the object unless the object is global or the handler is created as a closure. * Removed the Tk references in Fvwm.pm, so that X11::Fvwm acts as a base class for the API. Fvwm/Tk.pm (X11::Fvwm::Tk) now is a subclass of X11::Fvwm with the new() and eventLoop() methods overloaded. Also adds one new instance variable and a method to access it by. This should simplify adding other GUI widget sets, such as Xforms. * Put in some simple default handlers in Fvwm/Defaults.pm (package X11::Fvwm::Defaults), that can be used if they meet the developer's needs. So far, only M_ERROR seems to lend itself to such a default handling. * X11::Fvwm, X11::Fvwm::Tk, X11::Fvwm::Defaults and PerlTkWL are all -w and -T clean. * Makefile.PL now handles the demos as *.PL files, which allows them to be extracted by perl itself, which results in an invocation line based on the user's configuration of perl. Also checks for a usable version of the Tk extension. Randy -- ^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^ randy@byz.org http://www.byz.org/~randy/ "Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." --Calvin