wmaker/WINGs/NEWS

*** 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.