Subject: X11::Fvwm 0.2 uploaded to PAUSE
From: [email-masked] (Randy)
Date: 31 Mar 1997 00:40:07 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce,comp.lang.perl.modules

Fri Mar 28 18:24:21 MST 1997

Version 0.2 of X11::Fvwm has been uploaded to PAUSE, and should propagate to
CPAN servers over the next few days.

Information on this package may be found at:

	http://www.byz.org/~randy/perl/X11::Fvwm

Please note that the links to download the package will take a day or two
before functional, waiting for CPAN sites to receive the package from
PAUSE.

This is the second alpha release. Not all planned features are in, not all
data packet types are yet correctly identified and dissected. The interface
style and overall functionality are still subject to drastic change before
this moves into beta. Changes in this version are list below.

IMPORTANT: This version makes heavy changes to the packet handler interface
and use of Tk. Handlers now receive the object reference to the X11::Fvwm
object as their first argument, and Tk functionality is sub-classed into
X11::Fvwm::Tk, to make it easier to add other GUI packages (such as Xforms)
at a later date.

>From the README file for 0.2:

X11::Fvwm version 0.2 (alpha 2)

WHAT IS IT?

This is a Perl 5 extension to simplify writing Fvwm2 modules in Perl 5. Not
only in Perl 5, but with the Tk extension as your GUI library!

This requires fvwm 2.0.45 or better, and perl 5.002 or better. It is very
highly recommended that you also install the latest version of Tk (which is
Tk400.202 as of this writing), also available from CPAN.

WHAT DOES IT DO?

Fvwm2 has a very well-defined module API, to allow the brunt of non-core
window-manager work be done by external modules. X11::Fvwm is a layer over
this interface, allowing you to use Perl rather than C as the language for
developing these modules.

When fvwm launches a module, it sets up file descriptors for two-way
communication, and proceeds to occassionally broadcast data packets to
those modules that have asked to receive the given data type. The modules,
in turn, can send commands back to fvwm, including requests for more (and
more specific) data, operation on windows managed by fvwm, etc.

PROBLEMS/BUG REPORTS

Please send any reports of problems or bugs to [email-masked]. I wouldn't
mind a short note to know that you're using this, just so I can justify its
continued development :-).

CREDITS AND LICENSES

This package is copyright (c) 1997 by Randy Ray ([email-masked]) and may be
distributed under terms of the Artistic License used to cover Perl itself.
See the file Artistic in the distribution of Perl 5.002 or later for details
of copy and distribution terms. All rights reserved.

>From the Changes file for 0.2:

* Changed the invocation of handlers to include a reference to the X11::Fvwm
  object as the first parameter. Otherwise, handlers have no access to the
  object unless the object is global or the handler is created as a closure.

* Removed the Tk references in Fvwm.pm, so that X11::Fvwm acts as a base
  class for the API. Fvwm/Tk.pm (X11::Fvwm::Tk) now is a subclass of X11::Fvwm
  with the new() and eventLoop() methods overloaded. Also adds one new
  instance variable and a method to access it by. This should simplify adding
  other GUI widget sets, such as Xforms.

* Put in some simple default handlers in Fvwm/Defaults.pm (package
  X11::Fvwm::Defaults), that can be used if they meet the developer's needs.
  So far, only M_ERROR seems to lend itself to such a default handling.

* X11::Fvwm, X11::Fvwm::Tk, X11::Fvwm::Defaults and PerlTkWL are all -w and -T
  clean.

* Makefile.PL now handles the demos as *.PL files, which allows them to be
  extracted by perl itself, which results in an invocation line based on
  the user's configuration of perl.  Also checks for a usable version of
  the Tk extension.

Randy
--
^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^
[email-masked]                                        http://www.byz.org/~randy/
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in
the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." --Calvin