*** Thu Oct 04 06:00:09 EEST 2001 -Dan Property lists handling code ---------------------------- Code to handle property lists was added to WINGs. It is more robust than the libPropList code, mostly because some conflicting concepts borrowed from UserDefaults (which libPropList use) are no longer used in the WINGs property lists code. These borrowed concepts conflicted with the retain/release mechanism of property lists and could lead in certain cases to segmentation faults when executing libPropList based code. But the worse part was that these libPropList problems were practically unsolvable without removing one of those conflicting concepts and without a complete redesign. The new WINGs property lists code is also better integrated with the other data types from WINGs and is actively maintained. Practically the things that were removed from the WINGs property list implementation compared to the old libPropList implementation, are exactly the UserDefaults borrowed concepts that conflict with the retain/release mechanism: - The container of a proplist object and the associated functions are gone. - The filename associated with a proplist object and the corresponding functions are gone. Now the saving function needs the filename as a parameter. - The synchronization functions are no longer supported. They are part of the UserDefaults and are implemented there. - No functions related to domains/registering were implemented in the WINGs property lists code, because they are also not part of property lists. They are more in connection with UserDefaults and a central point of access for domains. The above 2 concepts: container and filename were added to libPropList just to let it support synchronization which was borrowed from UserDefaults. Property lists as defined in the openstep specification are just complex data structures composed of strings, data, arrays, dictionaries and a mix of them and are not associated with any file in particular. UserDefaults on the other hand are property lists read from a specific file and they associate that property list with that file and allow them to be synchronized. Old libPropList based code can still be used by linking against the WINGs library containing the new proplist code with minimal changes which are described in detail in the comments at the top of the WINGs/proplist-compat.h header file (the same file carries the #defines for mapping old libPropList functions to the new WINGs proplist functions). Our recommendation is to move to the new functions WINGs provide because they better integrate with other function naming conventions in WINGs. The proplist-compat.h header file is just a way to have old code up and running with minimal changes so that we can remove the old and unmaintained libPropList from systems while keeping to use old libPropList based code without rewriting it and it should not be used for other purposes. *** Sat Apr 21 09:12:09 EEST 2001 -Dan API change ---------- To allow a correct display of icon images with alpha blending in panels and other places where a WINGs based application may use them the following changes took place: 1. The following functions were renamed: - WMSetApplicationIconImage() --> WMSetApplicationIconPixmap() - WMGetApplicationIconImage() --> WMGetApplicationIconPixmap() - WMSetWindowMiniwindowImage() --> WMSetWindowMiniwindowPixmap() 2. The following functions were added: - WMSetApplicationIconImage(WMScreen *scr, RImage *image) - RImage* WMGetApplicationIconImage(WMScreen *scr) - WMPixmap* WMCreateApplicationIconBlendedPixmap(WMScreen *scr, RColor *col) As you can see the old functions that operated on WMPixmap images (which are basically X Pixmaps that lack alpha information) were renamed to ...Pixmap() to make them more suggestive about what they do and to make room for the new functions that operate on RImages (that hold alpha information). Since the corresponding WMGet... functions only retrieve the stored image/pixmap from the application, I'll outline how the WMSet... functions operate: All WM...IconPixmap() functions operate on WMPixmaps All WM...IconImage() functions operate on RImages - WMSetApplicationIconImage() will set the RImage to be used in panels and will also convert the RImage to a WMPixmap with a threshold of 128 and will use that pixmap for the appicon image. If that doesn't satisfy you, you can make a call to WMSetApplicationIconPixmap() on your own to set whatever WMPixmap you see fit for the appicon. - WMSetApplicationIconPixmap() will set the WMPixmap to be used for the appicon and for the panels If you use only one of the above functions, the corresponding image/pixmap will be used everywhere where needed (panels and appicon), but the pixmap version will not be able to handle alpha blending correctly. If you use both WMSetApplicationIconImage() and WMSetApplicationIconPixmap() then the RImage will have priority in panels, and the WMPixmap will only be used for the appicon. This allows you to better control what icon is displayed in the appicon, in case the default conversion of the RImage to a pixmap with a threshold of 128 is not good enough, or in case you want a different icon to be shown in the appicon than in panels. Also this new function was added: - WMCreateApplicationIconBlendedPixmap() will use the RImage set with WMSetApplicationIconImage() if available and will blend it with the color you passed. This will make the image show well on a background of that color. If the RImage was not set it will return NULL. You need to call WMReleasePixmap() on it after you finish with it. Passing a NULL pointer instead of a color will make the RImage be blended with the default color of the WINGs widgets: '#aeaaae' making it suitable to be assigned to any WINGs widget. To make your existing code work as before all you need to do is to rename the following functions: - WMSetApplicationIconImage() --> WMSetApplicationIconPixmap() - WMGetApplicationIconImage() --> WMGetApplicationIconPixmap() - WMSetWindowMiniwindowImage() --> WMSetWindowMiniwindowPixmap() But if you want to take advantage of the new abilities to show alpha blended images you need to start using the new functions.