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Good Intentions

unique: this morning I released version 0.9.4 of libunique, everyone (least) favourite library for writing single instance applications. it’s mostly a bug fixing release, and since I’ve decided to release 1.0.0 soon, this is also the first release candidate for the 1.0 milestone. I’ve also moved the git repository to github, so you can clone it with:

  git clone git://github.com/ebassi/unique.git

I plan to add back a new x11 backend for the 1.2 release, targeting small embedded environments were D-Bus might not be an option, and support for a --replace command line switch. after that, I’ll try to get the same functionalities into GLib/GTK+, as part of the future “desktop platform” module.

Clutter: I did a 0.6.2 release of both the core and the Python bindings, but things are afoot in trunk. we recently landed the multi-stage branch, which means that you’ll be able to create multiple windows and multiple GtkClutterEmbed widgets per application with Clutter 0.8. we’re also about to land the massive COGL rewrite that Ivan Leben of ShivaVG fame did — which will make the GL and GLES abstraction more powerful, will reduce the code duplication and in general will rock your world. Neil Roberts has been doing loads of work on the native Win32 backend: he not only made it possible to run Clutter on WGL, but also use the GtkClutterEmbed on Windows natively:

GtkClutter on win32

now, only the Quartz backend is missing the party — hint hint, nudge nudge.

OpenedHand: we’re hiring!

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Well That Was Easy

After a bit more than six months of work, Clutter 0.2.0 is finally out!

We put a lot of effort in making the API a bit less rough around the edges, and adding new features at the same time. Like the new Behaviour objects which can be used to control multiple actors using a function of time; or the fixed point API, which should make Clutter work fast even on embedded devices; or the Pango integration, which should keep the texture memory usage low and give you all the features of pango. On top of that, there’s the new memory management semantic of the actors – now working like GTK+ widgets: now you just ave to add an actor to a group, and the group itself will be responsible of deallocating the memory when the group gets destroyed.

Along with the core library there’s a GStreamer integration library, which you can use to add audio and video support to a Clutter application; a Cairo integration library, for drawing directly on a Clutter texture actor; and, obviously, Perl and Python bindings, so that you don’t have to use C to use Clutter.

Clutter is still a work in progress, and we at OpenedHand hope to add even more new features in the 0.3 development cycle – some of them are already planned and in the works right now. What we need are application developers willing to use Clutter and telling us what we need to add to Clutter to make it rock even more.

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John Saw That Number

Thanks to Ross and his mad python-fu skillz, now we have a working Python binding for gtkunique – for the brave souls which may want to use it.

The repositories locations have been changed, after the servers update at OpenedHand, so here’s where the fun is:

  trunk:  bzr branch http://folks.o-hand.com/~ebassi/bzr/gtkunique
  python: bzr branch http://folks.o-hand.com/~ebassi/bzr/pygtkunique
  perl:   bzr branch http://folks.o-hand.com/~ebassi/bzr/gtkunique-perl

Testing is greatly appreciated.

gtkunique future: GtkUnique is API frozen, and feature complete as far as I’m concerned (bug fixing and eventual feature requests notwithstanding). I’ve opened a bug for integration into GTK+: #378260. You can watch it and give your opinion there.

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Tides that I tried to swim against

gtk-recent: For those who missed the mail on gtk-devel-list, language-bindings and desktop-devel:

Unfortunately, when importing the GtkRecent API in GTK+ I made a mistake and these two functions have been erroneously left inside the GtkRecentChooser interface API:


  gtk_recent_chooser_set_show_numbers()
  gtk_recent_chooser_get_show_numbers()

These two functions try to set the “show-numbers” property, which is installed only by GtkRecentChooserMenu and it’s not one of the properties defined by the GtkRecentChooser interface. Using these functions on a GtkRecentChooserMenu (or any other custom GtkRecentChooser implementation which defines a boolean “show-numbers” property) will yield the expected results, while using them on a GtkRecentChooser implementation that does not support the “show-numbers” property will result in a warning.

Since we are in a stable release we can’t mark those functions as deprecated, and we cannot remove them without breaking the API. You are advised not to use these functions: use the GtkRecentChooserMenu functions instead:


  gtk_recent_chooser_menu_set_show_numbers()
  gtk_recent_chooser_menu_get_show_numbers()

Language binding authors should not bind those functions, but bind the GtkRecentChooserMenu functions instead.

These functions will be marked as deprecated as soon as GTK+ will branch off for the 2.11/2.12 cycle, so you’ll have to bear with this inconsistency for a short period of time.

language-bindings/1: By the way, gtk2-perl now supports the GtkRecent code in HEAD, thanks to the hard work of Torsten kaffee Schoenfeld who fixed most of my first iteration binding code and wrote the tests for it.

language-bindings/2: I also finished the Perl bindings for Clutter, as well as the Python ones. As I changed Clutter to behave like GTK, with the ClutterActor objects being created with a “floating” reference count, you’ll have to update Clutter to HEAD if you want to test the bindings. Beware that Clutter’s API is still a bit fuzzy at the moment. Of course, if you find bugs in the library or in the bindings, be sure to report them.

Now Listening: Last-exit, Neighbour radio

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GUADEC/Day 1

The OH Gang arrived yesterday at GUADEC – just in time for my talk. I think that the tutorial went well – Clutter worked out of the box on the VGA port, which was quite a surprise. About Clutter: it was fun to see Jeff use it for his presenytation too. I’ve met with many interesting people – just hope to remember their names, though: I’m terrible with name memory; so, if OI see you and I’ll look desperatly at your name tag even if we already introduced ourselves, please bear with me.

GUADEC this year is awesome, and kudos goes to Quim and all the wonderful staff that made this magic possible.

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Clutter

Behold the power of Clutter!

Clutter is a pretty raw user interface toolkit for building heavily visually applications for platforms such as media boxes and kiosks. It’s built on various GNOME libraries such as Pango and GObject, uses Gstreamer for media playback, and all this sits upon OpenGL for fast graphics rendering.

Yes, it’ll soon have bindings for Perl (like it already has bindings for another high-level language with funny syntax that begins with P).