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Here's a list of recent changes and updates to the Joy of ROX.
I uploaded ROX-MMS 0.3.7. This fixes a one-line bug. That's right, one line. Apparently I was trying to free() a statically allocated variable in the time setting routine and it was cauing the program to crash. For some reason, it worked fine up until recently. Probably a change in glibc.
I've uploaded ROX-Menu 1.0.2. This realease fixes a design flaw whereby the process ID file used for the command-line options to pop up the menu was being written in the Choices directory. I failed to account for the situation in which the user doesn't have write permissions to that directory. Therefore, I changed the path for this file to /tmp/roxmenu-$USERNAME.pid, which should always be writable. This path can be changed by modifying a variable in the AppRun script. If, for whatever reason, you want to revert to the old behavior, you can just comment out that line in the AppRun script. Thanks to Gregor Mitsch for reporting this bug.
I also added a couple of lines to AppRun to set the strings passed to kill -s
for SIGUSR1 and SIGUSR2. For some reason, the exact string that the -s option to
kill expects seems to vary, so I just made it configurable. If you can't get the
menu popup options to work, try running /path/to/ROX-Menu/AppRun --menu
from the menu and see if you get an error message related to the kill command. If so,
you probably need to change the variable for the signal name. I've seen both USR1 and
SIGUSR1, so if one doesn't work, then try the other.
Well, ROX lovers, I have good news, bad news, and neutral news. I'll give you the good news first and work my way down to the bad.
There are several updates to the software page today. ROX-MMS 0.3.6 adds some options for more user-friendly handling of vertical panels. PyMessage 0.2.1 adds option buttons, an AppDir package format, and a few other things which, quite frankly, I can't remember. (To be perfectly honest, I just fixed up the current CVS, which has been sitting untouched on my hard drive for months, and released it.) Lastly, I added a French translation for the text of Trash contributed by Sebastian LOSS. I didn't get an AppInfo.xml translation, so I did one myself. Unfortunately, I don't speak French, so I had to go by the text translation I had. I apologize to the entire French-speaking world for any mistakes.
In neutral, site-related news, you may have noticed that the Joy of ROX has a new home. I finally broke down and bought myself a domain name and hosting account, so the new permanent address of the Joy of ROX is http://www.skepticats.com/rox/. You may have also noticed (although you probably didn't) that I've converted the site to XHTML (for practice). I've been doing a little web development at work lately, so I finally have an excuse to sit down and read up on proper HTML coding.
Lastly, the bad news. (Well, it's not bad for me, but some of you might be disappointed.) I am no longer a ROX user. I switched to KDE 3.2 about a month ago, and I like it so much that I'm not coming back. As a result, the Joy of ROX is now officially in "maintenance mode," which means that I won't be adding any new content. I will continue to support the programs on the software page, so please continue to report any bugs you find, but don't look for much in the way of new features. In addition, the AppDir repository has been removed. I no longer want to maintain it and I didn't think an unmaintained archive of out-of-date software would be particularly useful. It also uses more disk space than I have in the new hosting account, so I decided to just drop it. If you want to try out any of the packages, the old page is still online for right now, so grab them while you still can.
It was fun while it lasted. Best wishes to all the ROX developers and the rest of the community!
OK, let's try this again.
ROX-Menu 1.0.1 is up now. This release
fixes several bugs in 1.0.0. Among them are some dodgy pointer
manipulation in the regular file image generation code that was
causing random segfaults, a few slow memory leaks, and a couple
of bugs that kept the menu from being properly updated under certain
conditions.
While I was at it, I also put up
Battle for Wesnoth 0.7.3
and Opera 7.50 beta 1,
for anyone who's interested.
ROX-Menu 1.0.0 has been released. In addition to a couple of bug fixes to the handling of command line options (stale PID files weren't being killed, for one thing), the menu building code has been completely rewritten. You can now have regluar files in the menu. The menu contents are now updated automatically, so no more manually refreshing it just to get a new program to show up. It's also updated in place, so there's no issue with waiting for large menus to rebuild.
There are also some package updates. I've upgraded to IV 0.3.6, GRip 3.1.9, GQView 1.4.2, and MPlayer 0.92.1. I've also added MPlayer 1.0pre3try2 and Battle for Wesnoth 0.7.2, the new development version, complete with new scenarios and built with the level editor and all the other goodies which apparently aren't built by default.
I've made several updates to the AppDir repository this week. I've upgraded to GRip 3.1.6 (note the change in dependencies), RipperX 2.6.1, IV 0.3.5, GKrellM 2.1.28, and Battle for Wesnoth 0.7. There's one new addition in the form of Feh 1.2.6, a fast image viewer with lots of eye candy and features.
I've also added a couple of items to the long-neglected patches page. The new entries are a couple of ROX-Filer patches that I sent to the rox-devel list earlier this month. They can be applied to either the development (2.1.1) or stable (2.0.1) release of the filer.
I updated the AppRun script in the KoboDeluxe package. I changed the score directory to /var/lib/games/kobodeluxe and added code to the AppRun script to try to create the directory and issue a warning if it's not present/writable. I've also added a README.AppDir file.
This update is due to the fact that Kobo will act funny if it can't write to the scores directory. When this happens, it will allow you to enter your name, but will refuse to create a profile and won't let you go any farther. The updated package adds an error message when the scores directory doesn't exist and can't be created. It also adds instructions on overriding the default scores directory.
If you don't feel like downloading the update, you can simply edit the "scores" line in your $HOME/.kobodlrc file to use the directory of your choice. Just make sure you create the directory, as Kobo will not do it for you.
A whole bunch of updates to the AppDir repository today. The new additions for this month are Audacity, a graphical audio file editor, IV, a nice, light-weight image viewer, and Kobo Deluxe, a 2D shooting game. Updates include GKrellM 2.1.27, GQView 1.4.1, GRip 3.1.5, Battle for Wesnoth 0.6.99.4, and Sylpheed 0.9.10.
ROX-Menu 0.6.4 is out. This release
fixes a major bug in the last version that caused the program to
crash if the choices directory did not exist. This broke the menu
completely for first-time users and broke multiple configurations
for old users. I guess I was a little too eager to get the last
version out. My apologies to anyone who was inconvenienced. If
you tried ROX-Menu for the first time since the last release and
it wouldn't run at all, please try it again now.
This release also adds a small feature and a big
feature. The small one is to exclude directories or AppDirs with
the presence of a ".rox-menu_ignore" file. The big feature is that
ROX-Menu can now be run without creating a window. This allows
you to do things like pop up menu with a mouse click on the root
window, like you would do with a native window manager menu.
See the README for details.
I've put Trash 0.3.0 up. With this version, libtrash is no longer a requirement. When working without libtrash, it will behave very much like the Trashcan app that inspired it, except with a few more bells and whistles. It also includes a secure file deletion feature, which goes nicely with the incinerator metaphor.
I've also put up new AppDirs for Battle for Wesnoth 0.6.99.3 and Dillo 0.8.0 . The new Dillo has been patched to include drag-and-drop saving, just like the old version. Please check the README.AppDir file for details.
Oops! There's a goof in the AppRun script for the Sylpheed AppDir. On line 42, it currently has the following:
export SYLPH_MANUALDIR=$APP_DIR/Help/manualThere should be some quotes and another line there. The correct code is this:
export SYLPH_MANUALDIR="$APP_DIR/Help/manual" export SYLPH_FAQDIR="$APP_DIR/Help/faq"This will only cause problems if you try to access the manual or FAQ from within Sylpheed. The source and binary archives have both been fixed now, so don't worry if you haven't downloaded anything yet. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I also fixed the broken link to the Sylpheed source tarball. (Thanks to Chris Scheller for bringing this to my attention.)
I came down with a nasty cold this afternoon and I don't feel like doing anything productive tonight, so I thought I'd update the old web site. Unfortunately, there's not much to update.
ROX-MMS 0.3.5 is out. I added a few useful things like tooltips for the display, an option to make the eject button do something useful, and a "clock mode" so that you can see the time while XMMS is running. (I got sick of having two clocks on my panel all the time.)
I updated the AppDir template to reflect a few recent changes. I moved some code around, found a better way to get the APP_DIR path, and changed the choices code to detect the choices dir correctly (using a small script contributed by Chris Arndt).
A few AppDir package updates as well. I upgraded Sylpheed to version 0.9.9 and LTris to version 1.0.6. I also added the new development version of Battle for Wesnoth, version 0.6.99.1. This version includes some very,very cool changes. The UI, for one, is much inproved.
Fixed a problem with the AppDir for Battle for Wesnoth 0.6.1. Apparently the value I used for the data path caused a bug that made the program unable to load saved games. It seems to work correctly now. I apologize for any inconvenience.
Happy slightly late Christmas and slightly early New Year! In honor of the fact that I get New Year's day off from work (one of the few benefits of public service), I have an update for you.
Time for the monthly update.
PyMessage 0.2.0 is out. Lots of enhancements to this version, including text formatting and multiple input boxes, check boxes, and lots of other stuff.
ROX-MMS 0.3.4 is available as well. Just some minor additions in this version.
Trash 0.2 is out too. This version has some simple graphical configuration, an "incinerator" mode, and a bunch more error checking.
Several AppDirs added to the repository.
Apparently I rushed with the last couple of updates and didn't actually upload the new archives for LTris, LMarbles, or GQView. I've remedied that problem and upgraded to GQView 1.3.4 in the process. I apologize for any inconvenience. Thanks to Matthias Hennemann for bringing this problem to my attention.
Updated several AppDir packages. I've added an AppDir for GRip. The Dillo AppDir has a new icon, new toolbar icons, and a bug fix. A new development version of GQView is up and RipperX has been updated to version 2.6. I've also upgraded to Opera 7.21 and Sylpheed 0.9.7. I've also repackaged the new Battle for Wesnoth, version 0.5, and upgraded to PySol 4.82.
Several new things today. Here's the list:
Oops! Make that ROX-Menu 0.6.1! Thanks to Matthias Hennemann for pointing out a rather large bug in 0.6.0.
It's update day here at The Joy of ROX. There are several new things to report.
Upgraded to Sylpheed 0.9.5. You can get it from the AppDir packages page.
ROX-Menu 0.5.0 has been released. This version is a feature enhancement release. It includes a new, configuration system, support for multiple, independent configurations, and an option that allows for sorting entires by name without mangling the display. Grab it from the software page.
Fixed bug in LGeneral AppDir. Thanks to Matthias Hennemann for reporting this.
Upgraded to iRATE radio 0.2. This version includes support for native code via GCJ and GTK+ 2.x widgets via SWT. Grab it from the AppDir packages page.
Added an AppDir package for Sylpheed 0.9.4.
It's update day, here at The Joy of ROX. All the backlogged stuff is going up today, so there are several things to mention.
ROX-Menu is now at version 0.4.0! This release has a major feature addition in the form of nested submenus. The best part is that there's no special configuration required. Just add a directory entry to your config file and every subdirectory of that directory will be recursively added as a submenu. ROX-Menu will filter out hidden directories and directories that don't have AppDirs or children with AppDirs.
In other news, I've upgraded to Dillo 0.7.3. Check out the AppDirs page to download it. I'm also in the process of updating all my other AppDirs to use the latest extended AppRun code. The need to do this became apparent while using the new version of ROX-Menu. I had submenus with spaces in their names, and all my old AppRun scripts choked on those paths.
Added MPlayer to the the applications section of the AppDir packages page. Although MPlayer has a reputation for being difficult to install, I think this AppDir should be as painless to use as any other. The only problem is if you want to use the Win32 codecs, as they have to be installed in a fixed location before the program is even built. Don't ask me why.
ROX-Menu is now at version 0.3.7. Lots of bug fixes and other little enhancements.
I added PySol and NuclearChess to the games section. NuclearChess is pretty cool, especially if you enjoy traditional chess, but aren't very good at it. As for PySol, it deserves all the praise it's gotten.
ROX-Menu has reached version 0.3.6. It now has a nifty configuration window with a few miscellaneous options, the ability to change the icon, and better scaling of the menu pixmaps.
ROX-Menu is now at version 0.3.5. I finally (mostly) fixed that annoying memory leak. Previously, with my menu of three groups and totalling 75 AppDir, refreshing the menu would increase memory usage by one megabyte or more. Now, it only increases by about 100KB. Now I can move on to things like a configuration dialog without guilt.
I just discovered there's a new version of Vim out. I'm about a month late on that, but it's still exciting. This one even supports GTK+ 2.0. In celebration, I've repackaged the new version, Vim 6.2 as an AppDir.
Added a slightly better version of ROX-CLI.
Updated the guide to writing AppDirs to reflect the lessons learned from that GQView package I did last night. I've had to re-evaluate my policy of not passing options to the configure script.
Lots of small changes to the site.
The word is out! Thomas Leonard has added some links to this site on the official ROX website. I guess that means that some people might actually visit this site now, so I should probaby get it into shape!