Tag Archives: ubuntu

What’s new on the Diodon front?

Projects,

The development on Diodon has been continuing and I’m happy to introduce you to a new feature which makes accessing the indicator easier.

The idea for this has come from fatlp. Thanks a lot for this. You can find all details about it on this blueprint.

Up to today, when you wanted to access the indicator with your keyboard, you pressed and released <Ctrl><Alt>V and then used the arrows up and down following with Enter to choose a clipboard item.
This will still work in future releases. However in the new release (which is currently available in the daily ppa for testing) you can do the following:
Press <Ctrl><Alt>V. While you keep pressing <Ctrl><Alt> you can browse through the different clipboard items by pressing V multiple times until you have selected the item you want to paste. Now release <Ctrl><Alt> and the selected item will be copied to your clipboard and pasted (when enabled).
This of course also works with your customized key. The rule is that you keep pressing the modifiers and with the key you can browse through your history.

After I have been using this new key combination a couple of times I’ve already started to love. I hope you do as well ;).

I’m happy to hear your comments.

Diodon 0.6.0 released and how to build it on your preferred distribution

Projects,

The last stable release of Diodon had been released quite a while ago. However the development has been going on and major changes now are ready to be released. Some of the changes have been discussed in this blog post

However here is a quick overview what has changed and what needs to be taken care of:

Release notes:

  • Diodon has been updated to gtk+-3.0 and therefore runs only on Oneiric (or all other distributions supporting gtk+-3.0).
  • gconf has been replaced with GSettings/dconf. All settings (except the history) will be lost after installing this version and need to be set again
  • Unity Lens is not installed per default anymore. Install the package diodon-plugins and activate it in the preferences plugins tab. When building from source use ./waf configure –enable-unitylens-plugin to enable it.
  • The Application Indicator is now also a plugin which is enabled by default. The plugin can be disabled in the preferences however.

Changelog:

  • Implement plugin system using libpeas (LP: #826422)
  • Unity Lens now runs on Oneiric (LP: #830001)
  • Using libunique so only one instance can be started (LP: #870774)
  • Update to gtk+-3.0 (LP: #794637)
  • Fixed issues with gtk+-3.0 applications (LP: #879256, #875708)
  • switching to GSettings/dconf (LP: #689462)

You can install Diodon with the following commands

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:diodon-team/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install diodon

This release also brought about changes which should make it easier to build Diodon on your preferred distribution. It used to be the case that Diodon required packages for the Application Indicators which are unfortunately not available on all other distribution.
When Diodon is built from source just running ./waf configure such packages will still be needed. However you can disable it with ./waf configure --disable-indicator-plugin.
Please notice when building Diodon with this option you can only use it with the Hotkey (<Ctrl><Alt>V per default).

I would love to see packages of Diodon for other distribution as well. So go for it :).
When you struggle building Diodon please contact us.

When will Diodon be stable for Oneiric?

Projects,

I have found a few request in my Inbox today pointing out this question. I’m very happy to hear that so many are keen to use a stable Diodon version on Oneiric. I can tell you: So am I ;).

However I hope this blog post will clarify why Diodon is not already available for Oneiric in the stable ppa.

Firstly, you might say, the easiest and safest way would be to build and upload the latest stable release 0.5.0 for Oneiric. Yes it would be. Unfortunately, due to API changes in Unity this version does not even compile.

Such compile errors have been fixed while updating to a new plugin system. However this has brought about a lot of refactoring and therefore needs good testing. (read more about it on this blog post).

So before a stable release will be available, I need some more feedback of testers whether the new version has any regression or bugs.

For this checkout the daily ppa. Leave a comment on this post if everything runs smoothly or otherwise report a bug.

You can also take a look at the milestone 0.6.0 for an overview of open issues which need to be fixed before the stable release.

I’m working hard so a stable Diodon version will be available for Oneiric as soon as possible.

Ramping up plugin system for Diodon

Projects, ,

I’ve been working on a plugin system for Diodon for quite a while. Now, finally, it is ready for testing in the daily ppa.

Before you go ahead testing the new version please remember that this code is in development state and therefore should not be used on a production system.

This said, let’s talk about what has really changed:
Basically Diodon still works as usual. However, under the hood a lot has changed.
First is to mention the update to gtk3 and dconf/GSettings. This changes bring about two consequences:

  • All your customized settings will be lost on a upgrade. So please check the preferences dialog.
  • Diodon will only be installable on Oneiric or higher (and of course on any other distribution with gtk3 support but then from source). Older versions of Diodon will still be available for older Ubuntu versions.

Furthermore, a lot of refactoring was needed to have a clean API for the plugin system. A blog post how you can develop your own plugin for Diodon will follow soon.
If you cannot wait 🙂 you might take a look at Libpeas which is the library Diodon uses for its plugin system.

Currently, Diodon has two plugins. One is the application indicator which is installed and activated per default with the diodon package.
Additionally is there a diodon-plugins package which currently only contains the Unity Lens Plugin.
When installed the Unity Lens is not activated per default and needs to be enabled in the Preferences Dialog of Diodon.

I will soon write a few other posts about the new plugin system. However this should do for now ;).

Looking forward to hear what you think about this move.