State of the E-nion 188
An anonymous reader writes: "Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) has posted a "state of the union" for the enlightenment project on their mailing list. It has been over 2 years since the last major release of the Enlightenment window manager. It looks like 0.17 is a ways off but it's nice to see an update."
evo is cool (Score:1)
Re:evo is cool (Score:2, Informative)
Re:evo is cool (Score:1)
I've been waiting for E17 to become stable. From what I have read and from seeing parts of E17 in action it's more of the desktop that I'm looking for. I don't need all the bells and whistles
Too bad... (Score:1)
One key reason development moves like a snail (Score:2, Insightful)
- Pulling stuff from cvs SPLIT and HEAD branches (both
had working and broken pieces)
- Finding some document describing the correct order to
build two dozen libs/apps; there was no such up-to-date
document on enlightenment.org
- Build failures, this month here, next month there
- Website says: "Don't complain it doesn't build. It does."
Nothing kills motivation like being told the problems you
are seeing and might even feel inclined to tackle don't
e
it's moving in that direction (Score:2)
Re:Too bad... (Score:2)
Typically in Open Software, the amount and quality of coders in the project is usually proportional to the task attraction, architecture design, exisiting code implementation of it and the existing team working on it. Therefore, one or more those factors are wrong with Enlightenment.
The task is not less attractive now than it was in days of E16. The design has been even more improved. People are ex
stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:5, Informative)
Of course perhaps I'm a bit biased, since E16 is still my favorite window manager (a better way to view/edit remembered window/app attributes being my only real feature request), but I think the E17 team is doing a good job contributing to the overall Free Software codebase. And though it's a bit frustrating that E17 is taking so long, reading through the components is impressive -- everything is being engineered carefully. While many window managers hack things in, everything in E -- from the theming engine to the window decorations -- is carefully designed with a clean interface. Should be impressive when it's done.
My only main worry about E17 is that it seems to be going desktop-environment-ish, a la GNOME/KDE, which I really can't stand. Hopefully we'll be able to turn all that off.
Re:stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:5, Informative)
My only main worry about E17 is that it seems to be going desktop-environment-ish, a la GNOME/KDE, which I really can't stand. Hopefully we'll be able to turn all that off.
[/quote]
it's going to be a desktop shell. they'll have an icon bar, a filemanager, and a desktop, epplets. now that would be rather okay, because i like their original ideas, and my guess is that it will outperform gnome/kde in that area. probably speedwise, and certainly interface-wise.
i think E16 is the most easy to handle WM i have used (and i've used a lot of them). this is all a matter of personal preferences of course. the deal is, E has a tradition of being able to change those preferences to suit your needs. i think this is one of E's bigest merits (customisability)
this will probably translate into the ability to switch off everything if you want to in E17. and you'll just have a WM again
Re:stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:1)
But I am thinking of learning C and the E stuff like Evas ( and the EProg extension ) are designed to make life really easy, so you can have a window with an image in it in less than a minute. I assume that I could still use the GTK+ tool kit for GUI work, but have the faster E stuff for the connections to X. So, in terms of it being a DE, I am excited and hope that the
Re:stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:2)
Typos hold great truth.
Re:stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:2)
I think E itself will remain a WM, with some very nice tools and features.
E16.5 is my favourite WM. I really, really dig its pager. But my biggest E16.5 gripe is wi
Re:stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:2)
Yes and no. Here's a quote from the article:
ecore: Currently it has basic IPC wrapping, X wrapping, Evas wrapping, job handling
I think it's kind of a bad sign when you have to write a wrapper for your own library to be released with your library
Re:stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:1)
Re:stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
Didn't Afterstep become GNUStep [gnustep.org]?
I have to agree with you, I miss the abundance of window managers that used to be out there. All the different approaches, the interesting ideas, etc... Now the innovation that was taking place is kind of dying. GNOME and KDE are nice, but they don't try much that is edgy. Enlightenment is about the last stop these days if you want to see some innovative ideas in GUI design.
I think a lot of this has to do with lowest common denominator thinking. MOST people are satisfi
Re:stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:4, Informative)
Nope. A popular misconception however.
Afterstep was a window manager based on Bowman, which was in turn based on FVWM 1. GNUstep is the GNU reimplementation of the NeXTSTEP libraries and interfaces (i.e. the Cocoa part of Mac OS X). As a matter of fact, they recommend using Window Maker as your window manager to complete your NeXT under Linux experience.
--
Daniel
Re:stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:2)
Re:stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:2)
Re:stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:2)
Note: the page is, if not broken, at least very ugly in my Gecko version.
Re:stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:2)
--
Daniel
Re:stick to e16 for a wm, but e17 has nice stuff (Score:1)
> I think it's kind of a bad sign when you have to write a wrapper
> for your own library to be released with your library, so you can
> write your program which depends on... your library.
FYI, evas is has backends for multiple environments, including X11, OpenGL, DirectFB, native FB, Qtopia, and Windows. In order to allow this flexibility, a little setup is required to prepare an area for the evas. The ecor
e16 gripes (Score:2)
Other than that, e16 is pretty damn good. I _love_ the icon box. That is the bes
Re:e16 gripes (Score:1)
as for the focus-switching: sloppy focus is default. i couldn't live without it anymore, but hey...
you can change focus policies though, and the keys to switch between windows, and..., and...
i recommend you read documentation, and try out some features, before you start complaining... really, there's not a lot you cannot do with e
Re:efm (is now evidence) (Score:2, Informative)
"evidence" will basically be that -- efm features (icon-view, "typebuffer" micro-shell, with a browser-view a la Mac OS X thrown in for good measure), but on top of the new e17 libs. A working (if unoptimized) version can be pulled from CVS (cvs -z3 -d:pser
Re:efm (is now evidence) (Score:1)
tnx
Re:e16 gripes (Score:1)
if so then you have a kind of graphical taskbar but one that only lists minimised applications so you cant find a non minimised window to bring it to the foreground.
It just seems like a poor taskbar to me.
I'll be retired.... (Score:3, Informative)
(I've only just finished school)
Re:I'll be retired.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I'll be retired.... (Score:2)
Enlightenment is the window manager/platform of the future... and always will be!
Enlightenment (Score:2, Interesting)
Its age causes the odd compatability problems (esp with nautilus), but there certainly aren't things which cannot be worked around...
It does entertain me that nearly every user who was introduced to linux after RedHat switched their default wm to be sawhorse/sawfish has never even heard of what is sti
Re:Enlightenment (Score:1)
What type of problems have you had? I use nautilus and Enlightenment together and have not had any problems. Of course, I don't let nautilus manage the desktop (why would I want that when I am using Enlightenment?)
Re:Enlightenment (Score:1)
I'm waiting for them to iron this out and test it before I dive in. Enlightenment, Evolution and XEmacs are my work environment and I don't like messing about with that too much. All on top of Solaris/SPARC, if that matters to anyone.
Re:Enlightenment (Score:2)
Ironic, I used to run E or IceWM, then switched to Sawfish. I recently switched to KDE, and am loving every minute
Linux GUIs are worsening (Score:1, Insightful)
The Windows 95 interface is a great example in my opinion of a
Re:Linux GUIs are worsening (Score:1)
I checked out fluxbox about a year ago and I stopped using enlightenment. Now while I'm still looking forward to checking out e17 once the wm is mostly finished, I agree that there's a point where all the eye candy just looks cheap and garish.
Could be that I'm just getting older, boring, don't have enough time to do window dressing [drbbs.com] or all of the above.
Either that or the teletubby theme on XP ruined the whole con
Re:Linux GUIs are worsening (Score:1)
Every since enlightenment was abandoned by Redhat as stock option, I have been eternally let down by all other window managers. KDE 3.0 run as extension (kicker) to Blackbox or FluxBox is the only thing that will compare to the days of E.
RH would do themselves a large favor by backwards compat'ing some of the apps that a few of us have all come to know and love through years of usage. Each new OS that comes from RH has me more cropped at the knees than ever before. And Enlightenment was one of the
Re:Linux GUIs are worsening (Score:1)
Re:Linux GUIs are worsening (Score:1)
I don't agree. I think 95's interface is too plain and harsh to look at. People like to enjoy their experience on a computer. That is why interfaces like in OS X are popular. They look good, and they're fun to use. But I do agree somewhat, in that I like interfaces that are clean with hard edges ... not curves, and solid colors ... not gradiants. Sometimes window decorating goes
Argh! (Score:3)
I've been waiting for e17 for so long, tried cvs occasionally but it's always got faults (unsurprising) making it not worth the effort. Especially now it's been declared as a glorified "test program"
Evas looks promising though. I've just never found a home since Afterstep/Enlightenment. Ion was very, very desirable but a few applications are irritating. Still I think the pros outweigh the cons.
Lies (Score:1)
Re:Lies (Score:2)
mouse, n. The funny shaped thing on my desk that I move around when I wanna type in a different xterm!
(Actually, no joke - CDE sux0rz, but my Slowaris box has all four ugly-ass desktops covered with xterms and browser windows, so I don't notice how hard it sux0rz :)
it lives ? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:it lives ? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:it lives ? (Score:1)
Re:it lives ? (Score:2)
Re:it lives ? (Score:1)
And I'm waiting to play Duke Nuken Forever on E17 on a GNU/Hurd system...
Re:it lives ? (Score:1)
We have a winner!
Re:it lives ? (Score:2)
Re:it lives ? (Score:1)
E's not quite dead yet!
maintenance (Score:1, Funny)
<AC> still a few years left in it yet
Very Pretty (Score:2)
Rus
Re:Very Pretty (Score:2)
Now that's what I call a practical selling point. Time to call up my manager and show him this post. He'll want to switch everyone over company-wide after reading this one!
On second thought, maybe I'll just stick with tried-and-true fvwm...
Re:Very Pretty (Score:1)
Worth the wait (Score:3, Interesting)
I currently switch between E-16 cvs (it's got some work-arounds for rendering issues with later version of X) and E-17 cvs. Every so often I'll try out Gnome / KDE out for a couple of days, but I always end up getting annoyed enough to go back to E. It's just a better interface.
Re:Worth the wait (Score:2)
Umm, last I checked I could do that under any window manager on my box. It's just a matter of having one of the standard X toys like the daylight globe or moon clock (don't recall the executable names offhand) occupy the root window.
Woah! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Woah! (Score:2)
Enlightenment one of the first... (Score:1)
Re:Enlightenment one of the first... (Score:1, Informative)
I definitely agree with you there. One of Linuxs big selling points on the desktop is the configurability of the windowing system. The abstraction of the windowing system and the open nature of Linux have resulted in people experimenting with different types of interface. For a taster, check these out:
FluxBox [freshmeat.net]
Ion [freshmeat.net]
PekWM [freshmeat.net]
TreeWM [freshmeat.net]
WindowLab [freshmeat.net]
by the time this comes out.. (Score:2)
Version 0.17 coming out soon? (Score:1)
Enlightenment Work Cycle. (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Write heavily hacked code that create beautiful thing.
2. Rewrite it, using
2.1 a more object-oriented approach
2.2 a more conventional approach
3. Improve the code using heavily hacked code.
4. Goto (2).
Well, back to the topic - Enlightenment is what attracted me to the graphical world of linux, and well, I really hate them having put off my wet dreams when I was using efm (enlightenment file manager) several years ago. I thought that they will continue with the same codebas
Re:Enlightenment Work Cycle. (Score:2)
Is that such a bad thing?
If you view it as the hacked version being a prototype and the rewritten version being the product then it is much better than most projects that ship an improved prototype as the final version.
Evas is cool stuff (Score:1)
Gnome2 / E16 (Score:1)
I used to use Enlightenment all the time, it was my favourite window manager... but it very broken under Gnome2, and since I've moved to RedHat 8.0, I've missed it terribly..
(btw: I now use KDE 3)
Re:Gnome2 / E16 (Score:1)
Re:Gnome2 / E16 (Score:2)
The screenshots look just as beautiful ... (Score:2)
Re:The screenshots look just as beautiful ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The screenshots look just as beautiful ... (Score:2)
Enlighenment development cycle (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Enlighenment development cycle (Score:2)
Actually let's not confuse one projects lack of resources with another projects wealth of resources. Both Gnome and KDE have become very useful desktops for normal users. E on the other hand in its current state is only appealing to a very small group of users and probably won't be feat
CDE workspaces (Score:1)
I'll be picky and point out that you can definately have more than four workspaces with CDE. I'm not sure about an upper limit, but you can have at least nine, since that's what I've got set up on a Solaris workstation. Sun's got documentation [sun.com] to show you how to add more workspaces.
If your only reason for using Gnome on Solaris is to get more workspaces/desktops, then you reall
updated document on website (Score:3, Informative)
the link [enlightenment.org]
I really wish things would pick up... (Score:5, Interesting)
We really need Evas and the rest of E17 to get mature -- it's something that can potentially make Linux desktop technology take off in a big way. Think about an OpenGL accellerated composited windowing system. That would lend itself to all sorts of interesting possibilities for desktops.
For one, we'd certainly get rid of a lot of the ugly artifacting and flicker that you see with Qt and GTK today (assuming they could somehow be ported). While a lot of that could be fixed with double buffering, you still wouldn't get all the benefits of Evas.
If you wanna see what I mean, you can go and download only the Evas package and run a small test suite. If you've got an OpenGL accellerated graphics card, you're in for a real treat -- this stuff is incredibly cool.
Now only if they would finish it!
Re:I really wish things would pick up... (Score:2)
We're all off to Vegas then (Score:1)
I really need glasses (Score:2)
Re:I really need glasses (Score:2)
Re:I really need glasses (Score:1)
Aren't those things dead yet?
0.16.6 (Score:2)
Mostly just bugfixes, but also includes some stuff from Kim for running with current desktop hints from gnome/kde.
You know.. (Score:1)
Re:You know.. (Score:1)
Re:You know.. (Score:2)
major rewrite.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been following Enligtenment for some time, and the most annoying thing about it is that it undergoes a "major rewrite" nearly every major release. The new release always causes your current themes to break, and removes many of the features you were using.
Major re-writes are something developers like to do, but in the commercial sector their bosses won't let them. Why not? Most of the value of the re-write is in the developer's mind: they see the code, no the final product. There are three kinds of expenses to doing a re-write 1) the cost to actually implement the rewrite and 2) time cost to not market your products in a timely manner ad 3) loss of marketability due to feature loss and increased bug count. Even though it's free, the enlightenment project suffers from these costs.
Yes, I am a developer, and yes, I like to re-write. I'm just glad for my job's sake that my boss usually won't let me do it
In other news (or, Look what we have in CVS!) (Score:1)
e16 was just patched to work with current releases of GNOME and KDE, ie, e16.6 understands current hints.
Lastly, evidence [sourceforge.net] (Screenshot [sourceforge.net]), the experimental e17 file-manager was accidentally left off the list because it resides in its own CVS @ cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ evidence co evidence
Re:Whoa. (Score:1)
And that's not counting sick stuff like animated themes. ;-) No worries, if you don't want those, the module won't be loaded -- no bloat.
But seriously, most of that credit must of course go to the artists. Without good icons, the icon-view is nothing. ; )
There are debs on SF, but they are out of date. I need to phase in some cleanup and optimizations. Expect new (0.9.5) debs in about two weeks.
Another State of the Union (Score:1)
Couple of comments/quick summary (Score:3, Interesting)
- E17 as present is a moderately functional window manager, with few features but great looks. Expect this present window manager to be eventually nuked pending completion of the underlying libraries, to make way for the real Enlightenment.
- There are several other libraries and apps that are being worked on, notably ebg, ebits, ecore, ewl (widget library), evidence (file manager, although a fairly separate project presently), entrance (login/display manager) and so on.
Want to see what E17 looks like? Check out my collection of screenshots here [xcomputerman.com] and here [xcomputerman.com].
And if you've ever done some sort of GUI programming, you need to check Evas out NOW!
E17 screenshots (Score:2)
"ERROR: Forum not found"
Second, I have some E17 screenshots up.
http://fire-eyes1.darktech.org/gal/e17-cvs
I ask that you not view too many of the full sized versions, which show up if you click the thumnail, then click the result again.
Alternative Link (Score:1)
why do you do this do me? (Score:1)
On a side note, the link in the article does not work for me, I get ERROR, forum not found...
If you haven't tried E, I highly recommend it.
evas - (Score:2, Interesting)
It should also be noted that evas is disgustingly easy to code for - i was making simple windows with a couple of buttons (button code writen myself - evas is just the canvas not the widget API) and resizing decently in about 3 hours - that includes the time it took me to learn the API.
In addition to a really clear and powerful API, evas is also provides heaps of typechecking and other debugging goodness. It picks up 90% of the errors for you, and you can fix them in a thrid (perhaps a quarter) the time i
E is dead (Score:1)
Over a year ago I was just plain sick and tired of waiting for E17 (don't go off on the 'you should contribute' thing because they won't let you) and decided to check out OSX. I switched within a week. OSX is not
E and Slack (Score:2)
I miss my Eterm...
Enlightenment Seduced Me (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:mozilla (Score:1)
Re:Here's a simple move... (Score:2)
While it might make some folks happy that E17 is jumping the alpha-blending anti-aliasing bandwagon behind Apple's OS X, what annoys me it that they do not copy the intelligent concept behind Aqua: display PDF.
What Apple has done is define an abstraction for graphical applications. What others are copying are some of the nice uses of those abstractions: anti-aliasing and alpha-blending.
It's really a shame the only thi
Re:Here's a simple move... (Score:2)
Re:Here's a simple move... (Score:2)