Tag Archives: ubuntu

When will Diodon be stable for Oneiric?

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

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.

GemRB heading for Oneiric

Finally the new GemRB version 0.6.5 released on July 2011 is now available for Oneiric and of course other Ubuntu versions such as Natty,Maverick and Lucid.

The release notes states the following:
two new config options (off by default):
UseSoftKeyboard: Toggle use of software keyboard on devices that support one. It pops up when text input is required
TouchScrollAreas: Toggles a wider and visible gutter around the screen for scrolling the game area. Intended for devices with a touch interface.

You can find the package as always on my ppa.

More details see http://www.gemrb.org.

Diodon 0.5.0 and what to do when diodon does not start

Finally, the instant paste feature is available in a stable release and enabled by default. But no worries if you do not like it you can still disable it in the preferences.

When you suffer from the issue that Diodon does not start anymore, this new release might help you as well. There was an issue that Diodon did not handle some UTF-8 strings correctly what led to Diodon not starting. This issue is fixed in this release.

However it brought up the question what you can do when you suffer from a different issue which causes Diodon not to start either. (although I hope this will never happen to you).

Firstly checkout out the post After updating to Natty: Why has Diodon stopped working?.

If that is not the case on your machine another way is to remove (resp. move) the history file. You can do that with following command:
mv ~/.local/share/diodon/storage.xml ~/.local/share/diodon/storage.xml.old

Start diodon again. Hope you are lucky and it will work. However please file a bug on https://bugs.launchpad.net/diodon and attach the storage.xml.old file.

If diodon still does not start please still file a bug. Run Diodon on the console and add the output to the bug report.

Hope you will get happy with the new Diodon version. If not please let me know ;).

Diodon with instant paste for testing

The instant paste feature has finally landed into the Diodon trunk. With this feature there is now no need to press Ctrl+V after choosing a clipboard item (which you wanted to paste anyway ;))
Diodon does this now for you…

However, before this change gets released it needs intensive testing. And, of course, I want to hear your comments on what you think.

Before you go ahead please remember that this code is in development state and therefore should not be used on a production system:

So let’s start with the installation by running following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:diodon-team/daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install diodon

Close Diodon and open it again. The instant paste feature should now be activated. Set the cursor at the position you want to paste, choose an item from the clipboard history and see how it works (hopefully anyway ;))

Note that currently the instant paste feature only works for applications which do not ignore events of X (see here for details) and use
Ctrl+V to paste content.

Please file a bug when you find an application where the instant paste does not work.