JTL's Home Page
University of Manchester
Department of Computer Science
AnotherLevelUp Future Enhancements
AnotherLevelUp Home Page
Major features planned for the (near?) future include the following (in no
particular order). If you like AnotherLevelUp and wish to `vote' for some of
these to be made a priority, or have other suggestions, please email me.
- Possible integration with the FvwmThemes project. It's not clear how easy
this will be, or even if it is possible. Some work is being done to study the
feasibility.
- Restructuring so that less configuration is calculated via M4 before fvwm2
starts, and more of it by scripts called by fvwm2. This will speed up start
and restart, and enable more changes to be made dynamically without the need
for a restart. Eventually, the M4 files might even disappear
completely. This work has already started: most new features added since
AnotherLevel have been done in this way (e.g. favourites menu), and some old
features have been converted, such as the XLock form. In AnotherLevel the
XLock form was generated at start and restart, whereas it is now generated
just before it is needed.
- Component configuration. Recently I have been moving towards use of atomic
components for features. This enables greater control of configuration for
advanced users. The next step in this is a component configurator. This will
allow the user to replace components with certain non-configurable versions
each with particular properties. For example, the default pagescroll component
permits the user to change the screen page scrolling behaviour at run time. A
user might decide to choose one setting forever instead, and so replace that
component with one which gives them their choice, but which does not allow
them to change it. In this way, the preference menu can be tailored (cut down)
to suit the user, resulting in a faster and smaller configuration. I am
currently experimenting with component configuration caches instead, to see
whether the speed benefits can be gained automatically.
- Audio events support
- User menu for casual users (advanced users can already have this)
- Task bar enable / disable (use desktop icons instead)
- Task bar configuration
- Support for xscreensaver
- Terms other thans XTerm (Advanced users can already do this, ish)
- Alternative settings for other named xterms (e.g. so remote logins may be
coloured differently)
- Selection of menu icons
- Theme independent user settings (partially implemented)
- Hosts menu for casual users (advanced users can already have this)
- Direct control over whether background pictures are centered, tiled or
stretched (AnotherLevelUp currently guesses based on file size, or a magic
string in the file's name.)
- Periodically changing static background (e.g. slide show)
- Wharf configuration
- Shortcut keys list
- Shortcut keys configuration
- Set directory for applications started from menus, rather than always
$HOME. This will be per virtual desktop by (ab)using FvwmBacker! This will
allow `projects' associated with desktops.
- FvwmNoClutter configuration
- FvwmTalk enable / disable
- Changing resources for existing running xterms after loading new
preferences. Does anybody know how to do this? Can the editres protocol
help?
- Random xsnow: the closer you are to Christmas day, the more likely it will
snow! (Maybe I should grow up!)