Ion (window manager)
| Ion3
|
|
|---|---|
 Ion desktop |
|
| Basic data
|
|
| developer | Tuomo Valkonen |
| Current version | ion-3-20090110 (January 10, 2009) |
| operating system | unixoid systems |
| category | Window manager |
| License | LGPL with clause ( Free Software ) |
| tuomov.iki.fi | |
Ion is a window manager for the X11 - Window System . The window manager licensed under the LGPL from version 2 (modified from version 3) is the successor to PWM . Development began in 2000 and was discontinued in 2009.
Window management
The most noticeable feature of Ion is that windows usually never overlap. The screen is divided into different areas (frames), with one or more windows being located in one area . So the entire screen is always used by windows. If there is more than one window in an area, this is indicated by tabs.
Alternatively, Ion also offers a mode in which windows can be freely moved and grouped. In this case, the interface behaves like PWM or Fluxbox and is intended for applications that are not so easy to use in a normal Ion environment, such as the GIMP .
service
One advantage of the window organization that Ion operates is the ability to use the keyboard easily. Operations that bring a window into the foreground or put it in the background are not necessary and the user can select the areas directly with directional information or a window of an area with numerical information.
Ion has built-in input lines that are similar to Emacs' minibuffer. These can be used to start applications, execute Ion commands or enter a window name to which Ion should jump. All of these input lines support auto-completion and line editing.
extension
Only the core of the window manager is written in the C programming language. Large parts of the program are in the Lua language . All elements of the window manager are available in an object-oriented interface and can be used in scripts. This allows Ion to be expanded extensively, as the script collection on the Ion homepage shows.
Similar window managers: Larswm , WMI
Licensing problems
The license from Ion3 forces the providers of package sources who do not offer the latest release version of the author to mark their packages as outdated and unsupported no later than 28 days after the last release . In addition, it only allows changes to the source code with restrictions:
"Versions not based on the copyright holder's latest release (on the corresponding" branch ", such as Ion3 (tm)), must within 28 days of this release, be prominently marked as (potentially) obsolete and unsupported.
Significantly altered versions may be provided only if the user explicitly requests for those modifications to be applied, and is prominently notified that the software is no longer considered the standard version, and is not supported by the copyright holder. The version string displayed by the program must describe these modifications and the "support void" status. "
After the developer of Ion3 threatened to take legal action to enforce this license, u. a. the projects Arch Linux , FreeBSD and NetBSD the packages of Ion3 from their repositories . Also, Gentoo Linux provides because of licensing issues to only the first version.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Arch Linux Mailing List
- ↑ FreeBSD Mailing List
- ↑ NetBSD Mailing List ( Memento of the original from December 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Gentoo forum post on licensing issues
