tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77776435730726648082024-03-08T00:48:27.005+00:00the dude abidesNeil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-40769442670307293952011-06-12T21:21:00.003+01:002011-06-12T21:39:34.900+01:00Ubuntu Varsity WallpaperDecided to scratch a "design a wallpaper" itch on Friday. It's the first wallpaper I've created in a very long time but people seemed to like the first cut on <a href="http://twitter.com/njpatel">Twitter</a> on Friday so I went ahead and created a few more colours and sizes.<div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqqt92nSnw7-zgWFPWEGZs-INsi7D68f1jz3sj4NBbrIkfYYNPZcCp1_TBZuUpf2UpLTxxk0vNR6dLdFHUzAXDebVAV3wyvvmABHJ6387tJLnefEWeXDWFX7-Xbzhk0ZraK5l29lmMoTQ/s1600/ubuntu-varsity-blue-1280x800.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqqt92nSnw7-zgWFPWEGZs-INsi7D68f1jz3sj4NBbrIkfYYNPZcCp1_TBZuUpf2UpLTxxk0vNR6dLdFHUzAXDebVAV3wyvvmABHJ6387tJLnefEWeXDWFX7-Xbzhk0ZraK5l29lmMoTQ/s320/ubuntu-varsity-blue-1280x800.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5617433865613191522" /></a><br /></div><div>It's inspired from a pretty standard t-shirt design and so it's no surprise most people wanted a t-shirt of it! I might create a few mobile size variants if I get some time, but for now here are the links by size, with each archive containing all the colours:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://goo.gl/nZh5Q">1280x800</a></div><div><a href="http://goo.gl/uUex6">1440x900</a></div><div><a href="http://goo.gl/SdP75">1680x1050</a></div><div><a href="http://goo.gl/qZnJB">1920x1200</a></div>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-39797847310848000322011-03-11T13:27:00.004+00:002011-03-11T14:03:44.447+00:00Of Borders and Shadows<a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/light-themes/+bug/733233">Finally</a>, after nearly three cycles, we now have zero pixel window borders and larger shadows for the active window:<div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_MNNeTAgou_5J-V73fO2G32GD6mDFlJ8XzOvwOAnH3v6rnej5yMiwL4jF51XEcEuOetfluqtqajdL2K9DRrBnWDsc1fg6jhI2ExPSxP4QlcKSdqiU30PWD_B-c0H-Lml7sfv6dwNaAuc/s1600/Screenshot-1.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_MNNeTAgou_5J-V73fO2G32GD6mDFlJ8XzOvwOAnH3v6rnej5yMiwL4jF51XEcEuOetfluqtqajdL2K9DRrBnWDsc1fg6jhI2ExPSxP4QlcKSdqiU30PWD_B-c0H-Lml7sfv6dwNaAuc/s320/Screenshot-1.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582819739638129522" /></a><br /><br /></div><div>Huge thanks go to <a href="http://smspillaz.wordpress.com/">Sam Spilsbury</a> for generally being awesome but more specifically for adding the invisible-window-borders and state-dependant-shadows to unity-window-decorator and also the ability to tweak these through the theme.</div><div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_mK1XW3_xiDjvfiW5AulD48DV4PaOsxE6YHm_dsViOLh8uCZBUs1cypZlQnKpuL2BpvqY_d-a3Q1VQmI5eP9_Yj7OVgnG6kLEmclIImXcu3fQmSFbQKJRXCWvHc0k0tD9MfuYgJ1_j_0/s1600/Screenshot.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_mK1XW3_xiDjvfiW5AulD48DV4PaOsxE6YHm_dsViOLh8uCZBUs1cypZlQnKpuL2BpvqY_d-a3Q1VQmI5eP9_Yj7OVgnG6kLEmclIImXcu3fQmSFbQKJRXCWvHc0k0tD9MfuYgJ1_j_0/s320/Screenshot.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582819941083805234" /></a><br /><br /></div><div>You can see that Radiance needs a tiny amount of work to remove the border around the title-bar that makes it look like the there is a size mismatch, I'm hoping that will get fixed soon.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>N.B.</b> Remember this is purely visual, there is still a nice big hit areas on the left, right and bottom edges for you to resize the window with, you just can't see them :)</div><div><br /></div><div><b>N.N.B.</b> We'll try and fix <a href="http://launchpad.net/bugs/710356">http://launchpad.net/bugs/710356</a> before beta. </div>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-69003934442170796212010-10-25T17:24:00.003+01:002010-10-25T17:52:03.719+01:00Unity on the DesktopMark's keynote at UDS spoke about one of the biggest changes to happen in Ubuntu since it's inception: Unity as the default desktop. As the technical lead for the project, I wanted to explain some of the technical changes that will occur this cycle to put us in the best position for Natty:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Graphics Support</span><br /><br />Firstly, it's good to mention that it's actually "Unity as the default desktop if your graphics card and drivers support it". We've learnt a harsh lesson this cycle about where Unity works well, where it should work but doesn't and finally where we just can't expect it to work.<br /><br />Therefore, it is going to be a primary focus this cycle to enable Unity on as many chipsets as possible. We will be much more lenient about what OpenGL features are required (allowing runtime fallbacks through detection and through quirks files for those chipsets that lie about their capabilities).<br /><br />That means that we'll make a best attempt at running, trying to gracefully degrade through features, but at least getting to you a panel, launcher and places.<br /><br />So what happens when we detect that we just can't run? We hope to automatically fallback to GNOME Desktop, which will give the best experience at that point.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Performance and Compiz</span><br /><br />This is a huge issue on the current Unity implementation. Yes, if you have good hardware it'll work fine, but it's unacceptable for it not to be performant on, for instance, Intel i945 based systems. There are a few reasons for the current performance issues, and after much thinking and testing, we have decided to move Unity's view implementation from Mutter to Compiz 0.9.<br /><br />For what Unity needs to do, Compiz will give us a huge benefit in terms of performance and power usage, as well as allowing us to get closer to the graphics hardware and easily implement the graceful fallbacks of GL capabilities that I mentioned above.<br /><br />It also means we can build on the great work of the Compiz team's upstream work and their excellent window management plugins to provide a more complete desktop experience, faster.<br /><br />We're finalising some technical bits and pieces with regards to the switch and we're aiming to get it into archive ASAP. I'll be sure to post here as soon as we've done that.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Stability and Quality</span><br /><br />Stability is the final technical issue to solve for the desktop. We have come leaps and bounds from the early Maverick cycle (currently most of the crashes are graphics issues, trying to do things the drivers don't support). We want to continue this and we will be pushing more things out of the Unity process and into D-Bus based services that can crash at their pleasure (but hopefully they won't :), and Unity can just restart the services instead of crashing itself.<br /><br />Unity was always architected like this, but we've found ways to get the last bits of logic out of process and so you should see a rock-solid Unity on your desktop this cycle.<br /><br />Quality is of upmost importance and is the focus for this cycle, over features or anything else. The community did an excellent job last cycle for Unity and we hope to repay the favour by fixing as many bugs as possible and assuring that Unity oozes quality.<br /><br />Finally, for those thinking that we are starting from scratch due to the move to Compiz, I can assure you that we aren't and honestly, we couldn't. Unity is architected to separate the views from the models and controllers, and we are using that to enable us to quickly port our views to Compiz while keeping and bug fixing the models and controllers.Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-77427863000288060682010-07-17T18:24:00.007+01:002010-07-17T18:55:22.170+01:00Gwibber Concept - Part 1I was going through one of my old computer's hard-drives recently and found lots of mockups from a couple of years back of GNOME applications I had done in my spare time. I was inspired and opened up Inkscape to see if I could still come up with anything interesting. Gwibber was my victim of choice as I had spoken to Ryan and Ken at UDS recently about it's UI and the difficulties Gtk was providing them (and of course, someone saying something is hard to do in Gtk is always a challenge I can't resist ;).<div><br /></div><div>Gwibber was an interesting problem user-interface wise as, although there are many Twitter applications with great UIs out there, there aren't many that have to:</div><div><br /></div><div>1. Support multiple accounts from different services, presenting the information in one stream to the user</div><div>2. Be able to filter the main view to one account (i.e. choosing to only see Twitter-related material in the views)</div><div>3. Integrate into many different desktops, but still try and have it's own identity</div><div><br /></div><div>So, after thinking about these points and also looking at/using the best microblogging applications on Windows and Mac (Seesmic, Tweetie, TweetDeck), I've stolen a lot of ideas and come up with:</div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP-QJuHq7c0O_IaOqJw-G2ykh2CgDLQNlF2Q8H4MoHglmXQHj0Ba7Gprqdv114a5YYpWYmtpa2cI7rF0XsroNWVFIBGtvw5gbTHfwxSDoptjS9yiD_GtJ2u9rOzVtMFpGiF1sTE5mo3qA/s1600/compact-home.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP-QJuHq7c0O_IaOqJw-G2ykh2CgDLQNlF2Q8H4MoHglmXQHj0Ba7Gprqdv114a5YYpWYmtpa2cI7rF0XsroNWVFIBGtvw5gbTHfwxSDoptjS9yiD_GtJ2u9rOzVtMFpGiF1sTE5mo3qA/s320/compact-home.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494930729628010946" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJFFuW2w34lLUrjs-MIOUxjQX_t0kVyp_BZAhnKQwOO61ULinpc-2IuHvUGW6_3GzAsxjwwGrXXpTOv7Hg8MhNOXFblkj-95FX39NQbB13zjxbO0OQZy84KqMUSEOCUabBi-jwFBBWDSA/s1600/compact-multi-column.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJFFuW2w34lLUrjs-MIOUxjQX_t0kVyp_BZAhnKQwOO61ULinpc-2IuHvUGW6_3GzAsxjwwGrXXpTOv7Hg8MhNOXFblkj-95FX39NQbB13zjxbO0OQZy84KqMUSEOCUabBi-jwFBBWDSA/s320/compact-multi-column.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494931062793225650" /></a><div><br /></div><div>Theme-wise, they are obviously using Ubuntu's Ambiance theme as the palate, but I think the look would work fine on Fedora/SuSe as long as your taking the right colours from the Gtk theme. There is controlled use of gradients to work better with Gtk themeing (so you get something good looking without having to write tons of custom widgets which do lot's of drawing). There is use of some DX-team tech (Windicators, CSD), but nothing that couldn't have a simple fallback on other desktops.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have highlighted some of my favourite things in the next image:</div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJAjC2xmiOziDoC3zQANWuK-oICeYZSUcDlZAl419BP0Z2mmTgs5j57c7u0nkBBqEQ_eyvR3R66l_NLPUW7-COzywWGhqaxYu93GpzLvmU3gwuJMXBPmLwFzoUQen1J15PeaechvXedn8/s1600/compact-home-info.png"><img style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJAjC2xmiOziDoC3zQANWuK-oICeYZSUcDlZAl419BP0Z2mmTgs5j57c7u0nkBBqEQ_eyvR3R66l_NLPUW7-COzywWGhqaxYu93GpzLvmU3gwuJMXBPmLwFzoUQen1J15PeaechvXedn8/s320/compact-home-info.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494932372863934146" /></a></div>There are lots of nice ideas (I think) missing, hence this is "part 1". Hopefully I'll have time to finish off the other views soon, as well as apply some more polish to these ones (and apply feedback you give :).<div><br /></div><div>Okay, time to pack bags for flight tomorrow to Prague for the Platform Sprint. I've got more ideas for other applications that could fit into this style (Rhythmbox and Evolution are on my radar), if you guys like it.</div>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-37123214359546673422010-05-10T13:46:00.006+01:002010-05-10T13:47:52.470+01:00Unity<div style="text-align: left;">Following on from <a href="http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/383">Mark's keynote at UDS</a>, I'm very pleased to announce Unity:</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxSQnRWbsPuZh8TLEUm5_tHVtghMUN5rCV48PmVLUsGzZiCuNyu-dLlA1FzOnAPzI2ndRWJiL31wTAaLsnqJ9JF4CQo757GovoY72Qeg3mjaEF7NbwmonI-60taxIPOahfXJSuHYeim0s/s320/Screenshot-1.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5469611912852949442" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 181px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></div><div>In it's current iteration, Unity consists of an easy-to-use launcher on the left and a panel up top. We have been and will continue to focus on a very quick log-in time, touch-friendliness and excellent usability.</div><div><br /></div><div>The launcher allows you to launch and switch to your favorite programs, as well as any other applications you open during your session. The launcher is designed to be touch-friendly and group all your application windows into one icon. You can easily access your windows via a right-click (or long-touch) on the application icon. Adding a new favorite launcher is as easy as launching the application and then right-click-> Add to launcher.</div><div><br /></div><div>The panel is a custom implementation that consists simply of a Ubuntu icon allowing you to quickly pick an open window and, on the other side, we've been able to harness the excellent work being done in the other half of the Desktop Experience team on Indicators, which allow us to render you panel entirely in Clutter.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgivb7V7zH2Lyuof5j_Svmet4hpFGhnBKuUgR93s-PcuDjYFtYznsMyc4PKnRi-7mLRsQ7Hke0iYb_MZ_To1QH9BYmdNcRw-jgXoVJl-gA1bJHCqr75h2bO4HjbjMsf5vgOqOtVv49mcx4/s1600/Screenshot.png"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgivb7V7zH2Lyuof5j_Svmet4hpFGhnBKuUgR93s-PcuDjYFtYznsMyc4PKnRi-7mLRsQ7Hke0iYb_MZ_To1QH9BYmdNcRw-jgXoVJl-gA1bJHCqr75h2bO4HjbjMsf5vgOqOtVv49mcx4/s320/Screenshot.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5469612102437579378" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 181px; " /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>In it's current incarnation, Unity is geared towards a <a href="http://www.canonical.com/products/unity">'light' variation of Ubuntu</a>, which concentrates on getting the user to the web as quickly as possible. We would like Unity to be the default session for Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 (Maverick) and we hope to present some ideas this week to show how we think we can make the transition to a mostly web-based session to a more fully-featured session for netbooks (including search, better file management, and easier window management). I hope people will attend the UNE sessions this week (either personally or remotely) and give their feedback/ideas).</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4OmblXtkGkSsJcT0NCgHgk8sKquKR2ZyY6O-EsQhZsIIK-ZGUeUpPD6ybVdcRA8iuWF41e9S5Emvb_rsdmaDUVvIpzuvmJ4v6LJ1UX4EA3gaUK3q9xc8-0F_D2aV-AXUOExQpd1E8EGA/s320/Screenshot-2.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5469612163712198802" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 181px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></div><div>I'm really excited about this release and I can't wait to begin working on some of the new ideas (which you'll hear about shortly from others involved in the project :). In addition to the user-friendliness, I feel there are some interesting technical aspects of Unity that I'll detail in another post. For now, please go ahead and grab Unity using the following instructions:</div><div><br /></div><div>1. sudo add-apt-repository <a href="https://edge.launchpad.net/~canonical-dx-team/+archive/une">ppa:canonical-dx-team/une</a></div><div>2. sudo apt-get install unity</div><div>3. Logout and then log back in selecting 'Unity UNE Session' from your login screen.</div><div>4. Enjoy!</div>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-91802915818080716702010-04-11T23:34:00.003+01:002010-04-11T23:52:21.141+01:00Shiney ShineySeeing as I wasn't ever able to complete the work I started on AWN 0.4 a couple of years ago, it's only fitting that I congratulate the guys that have done a *massive* amount of work since picking it up over a year ago and brought AWN 0.4 to release!<div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglK-GfrdcpbJxgZxuOfaZFyzOvDWQ9ZeVHUjO0c9S0bAwl8oGnqbQwd3r7fiYfoCdFDKaIpI7CmyRpENe_KC-NUGVwd8PUnq633mU6i0N5r-XCprdUqv-axXYrYlU0C0R0KwikcR3anFZx/s1600/h4writer.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 550px; height: 350px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglK-GfrdcpbJxgZxuOfaZFyzOvDWQ9ZeVHUjO0c9S0bAwl8oGnqbQwd3r7fiYfoCdFDKaIpI7CmyRpENe_KC-NUGVwd8PUnq633mU6i0N5r-XCprdUqv-axXYrYlU0C0R0KwikcR3anFZx/s1600/h4writer.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><div><br />It contains a bunch of new features, as well as being a complete rewrite from the ground up, introducing some exciting possibilities and should allow much faster release cycles in the future.<br /><br />Instead of going through all the features here, I'd ask you to check out <a href="http://mhr3.blogspot.com/2010/04/awn-awn-extras-040-are-out.html">Michal's excellent post</a> which has all the new features plus pictures and videos.</div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio9Kp1laNcF4WVOzFDNGDMwrskyrg_5n7EIzrO-8FAXkNuBa9H7BccPnoibgiGVv_UQCk7bNSJBmlU9RPH0Hd1uvDHKPMie2fGe1nADcO8Ztcmu6-8v1wy1xUMAEwjHqdZXb5qGuz_3rNK/s1600/media-control-docklet.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 550px; height: 80px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio9Kp1laNcF4WVOzFDNGDMwrskyrg_5n7EIzrO-8FAXkNuBa9H7BccPnoibgiGVv_UQCk7bNSJBmlU9RPH0Hd1uvDHKPMie2fGe1nADcO8Ztcmu6-8v1wy1xUMAEwjHqdZXb5qGuz_3rNK/s1600/media-control-docklet.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /></div><div>I've been told it should be landing in Lucid's archives soon, so keep a look out. A tarball is available <a href="https://edge.launchpad.net/awn/0.4/0.4.0">here</a>. If you have any questions/comments, please see the <a href="http://wiki.awn-project.org/">wiki</a> or join #awn on Freenode.</div>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-54529957297731061532009-09-26T12:45:00.002+01:002009-09-26T12:51:08.295+01:00Ubuntu Netbook Remix KarmicAs Karmic hit beta freeze this week, and the artwork began to freeze, I thought it would be a good time to introduce the latest version of Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR):<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGF2vdfBXYDXhCURAoXXXWedv8hlrNATbd577JMY8yaw6CPKcXsWl8nwCmx70wqR6SYp-We1buvVhE_SYbn9mQOo01dZImJGc_lfxX4IX_2r1k1t-GPflHYsVNc4Qn72NR0J2EePWaDM0/s1600-h/preview-1.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 317px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGF2vdfBXYDXhCURAoXXXWedv8hlrNATbd577JMY8yaw6CPKcXsWl8nwCmx70wqR6SYp-We1buvVhE_SYbn9mQOo01dZImJGc_lfxX4IX_2r1k1t-GPflHYsVNc4Qn72NR0J2EePWaDM0/s400/preview-1.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385741933793516434" /></a><br />As you can probably tell, the largest change from the previous version is a new design and layout. This is thanks to the awesome work of the <a href="https://edge.launchpad.net/%7Ecanonical-ux">design team</a>. In addition to the new UI, there has been a fair amount of work in the architecture of the various UNR components. Apart from the users ( :) ), the largest beneficiaries of this are the <a href="https://launchpad.net/netbook-remix-launcher">launcher</a> and <a href="https://launchpad.net/window-picker-applet">window-picker-applet</a>.<br /><br />The launcher has been updated to use the latest version of <a href="http://www.clutter-project.org/">Clutter</a>, and benefits from the performance improvements that the Clutter 1.0 release carries. In addition to that, the launcher now has a framework for plugins, which allow extending the home screen and adding new categories on the left (and example is the Files & Folders category). There's not too much documentation at the moment, but I'll follow this post up in the coming weeks with some examples.<br /><br />Window Picker Applet has had a major overhaul thanks to <a href="http://launchpad.net/%7Ejassmith">Jason Smith</a> of Docky fame. In addition to making the code more sane, he's transformed the look and feel of the applet and fixed a bunch of annoying bugs. Coupled with the new Gtk and icon theme (Dust and Humanity), Jason's work makes the panel look much, much nicer than before:<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/7Bw_xfXq2XdoAvosarSVhg?feat=directlink"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeShl-aYbfl9ndQT8ni0-yJLrEDgWlQnooLRD7YvYRPTR-lPLDOQ1uYMyf_Aqht89swmyc_6KrybhRGCH-I9FxXoxK27M67TQvjsOxWZ30qNMaVDqD5m_Q90vpLm6k3ytv8dvbZ6t9r84/s400/preview-2.png" /></a></div><br />In addition to these bits, there are a couple of things I'd like to highlight:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqpjD7bfG-G6qsFZ7LDQbp_pUc7XPq8PG4f9iFRg5FE5LK04bWpiapJX7WHQWrhesLfnb6UH4iyR7l-0jqm90PDQhp05QWR9T_wViNWDWob7oxM8CXln3v4VxRkvgQck0P0GUPcFF3VRo/s1600-h/preview-3.png"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 181px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqpjD7bfG-G6qsFZ7LDQbp_pUc7XPq8PG4f9iFRg5FE5LK04bWpiapJX7WHQWrhesLfnb6UH4iyR7l-0jqm90PDQhp05QWR9T_wViNWDWob7oxM8CXln3v4VxRkvgQck0P0GUPcFF3VRo/s400/preview-3.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385734608116957426" /></a>UNR Karmic contains both the excellent <span style="font-weight:bold;">Messaging and Session Indicators</span>. The message indicator allows you to quickly see how many unread emails/IM messages/Twitter replies you have. The session indicator allows you to easily set your IM presence and also lets you switch users (if you hardware supports it) and log out easily.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVARpXryD1rxVI_3sKdljHmk4FZiKGZFLqwl-GBCXXjBs8a1mr4KNELK0Sch7vATW6BxzM9OVnef_BgNswh5x6HRYCs3BpqUbm1cXDPC9lReY0DU5C95PfZI4NQcyC4_8IeQXBrk4kD4A/s1600-h/preview-4.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 350px; height: 195px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVARpXryD1rxVI_3sKdljHmk4FZiKGZFLqwl-GBCXXjBs8a1mr4KNELK0Sch7vATW6BxzM9OVnef_BgNswh5x6HRYCs3BpqUbm1cXDPC9lReY0DU5C95PfZI4NQcyC4_8IeQXBrk4kD4A/s400/preview-4.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385736736062121970" /></a><br /><br />We've also got the very latest <span style="font-weight:bold;">Notify OSD</span> and the <span style="font-weight:bold;">Ubuntu Software Store</span>, for a nice and easy way to expand your netbook's usefulness :).<br /><br /><br /><br />That's it for now, you can grab the latest UNR image from the daily builds <a href="http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-netbook-remix/daily-live/current/">here</a>, and I've posted links to a few more screenshots below.<br /><table><br /><tr><br /><td><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUe6o7dl9qpFjg45FcqDp8Mdn18kd0qZq6P8t8kNI1U4b8OOUa8jmv_070-Hosr1IlprybqVfGf3ISAknFweEvrPasmOO6otcMWxnyy7piCG5kEcjA63L11Kx57iPYXpb_PrQsBDSxsb0/s1600-h/Screenshot.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 117px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUe6o7dl9qpFjg45FcqDp8Mdn18kd0qZq6P8t8kNI1U4b8OOUa8jmv_070-Hosr1IlprybqVfGf3ISAknFweEvrPasmOO6otcMWxnyy7piCG5kEcjA63L11Kx57iPYXpb_PrQsBDSxsb0/s200/Screenshot.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385740787620497890" /></a><br /></td><br /><td><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLdGj8ioZXxz4yc9Pu5DgFjXYVtgyqWpmc9T4EZyhxo9SvsHBllsJTEJvOz8leJeDXGPdAMYwpldke8b5wS4vUfxE2-qSwn7yuXh8tI4PnytMh729p-LCC_DXybZryuwhnMnXjbUAjBI0/s1600-h/Screenshot-1.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 117px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLdGj8ioZXxz4yc9Pu5DgFjXYVtgyqWpmc9T4EZyhxo9SvsHBllsJTEJvOz8leJeDXGPdAMYwpldke8b5wS4vUfxE2-qSwn7yuXh8tI4PnytMh729p-LCC_DXybZryuwhnMnXjbUAjBI0/s200/Screenshot-1.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385739283078295986" /></a><br /></td><br /></tr><br /><tr><br /><td><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBZGpWKv1LJo59LlvtwOFJTzbjeQMaO4pSagjn2tB4niE5XDvrMcQRc5j3vqJ1G7n4ODpMaYc6iuQokg-OCl7-xfzbl-4mmdUVG8if3mfoooclJWewlAKiwghhAF5rKl4yyq3THsAfNrg/s1600-h/Screenshot-2.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 117px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBZGpWKv1LJo59LlvtwOFJTzbjeQMaO4pSagjn2tB4niE5XDvrMcQRc5j3vqJ1G7n4ODpMaYc6iuQokg-OCl7-xfzbl-4mmdUVG8if3mfoooclJWewlAKiwghhAF5rKl4yyq3THsAfNrg/s200/Screenshot-2.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385739442767466978" /></a><br /></td><br /><td><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieHB3svrxt0SBJ8gMvn3Sd5JEG1k2cW6OA07t-o8JmGcgHn6ZT4p5XUUbZB760tKvJF5nyTrzC2xrj5KfF9KfOMTakcumpHvHg6h2b22gWlvJCa0gcyjzJpqDASVLC8aaVX0-68yR1DqA/s1600-h/Screenshot-8.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 117px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieHB3svrxt0SBJ8gMvn3Sd5JEG1k2cW6OA07t-o8JmGcgHn6ZT4p5XUUbZB760tKvJF5nyTrzC2xrj5KfF9KfOMTakcumpHvHg6h2b22gWlvJCa0gcyjzJpqDASVLC8aaVX0-68yR1DqA/s200/Screenshot-8.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385739617764385922" /></a><br /></td><br /></tr><br /><tr><br /><td><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKWOKlYNGR5Y7e10EBBoaWGzI_4WrMs7ECQ5CGhE9lyUYLC1DWQypF4nJk0ICpOcvDY6-ematAMiQzOTo2Aqbz3KJcvQpAKVXaWEscPDD0s9O_xqMJVNVrpREp4VXgrUziJR7G1KXA7jw/s1600-h/Screenshot-9.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 117px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKWOKlYNGR5Y7e10EBBoaWGzI_4WrMs7ECQ5CGhE9lyUYLC1DWQypF4nJk0ICpOcvDY6-ematAMiQzOTo2Aqbz3KJcvQpAKVXaWEscPDD0s9O_xqMJVNVrpREp4VXgrUziJR7G1KXA7jw/s200/Screenshot-9.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385739708483159474" /></a><br /></td><br /><td><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJi2POjfs18EZLdZlsH_BYPeiTRVSwbL6aC9qC0opYfHX-hvQ3GNrwCgUhhb313gece6C8R0jx4Pp63aWe_ZLjiNzH9gtGx_4fVo2z5UwmC9673Ej8xj8I9Ws1TbgBrCJqqvD7oMEGCOg/s1600-h/Screenshot-10.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 117px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJi2POjfs18EZLdZlsH_BYPeiTRVSwbL6aC9qC0opYfHX-hvQ3GNrwCgUhhb313gece6C8R0jx4Pp63aWe_ZLjiNzH9gtGx_4fVo2z5UwmC9673Ej8xj8I9Ws1TbgBrCJqqvD7oMEGCOg/s200/Screenshot-10.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385739789216569746" /></a><br /></td><br /></tr><br /></table>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-17323878390214546432009-06-03T20:18:00.006+01:002009-06-03T20:48:37.247+01:00Android applications on UNR Jaunty - Part Deux<a href="http://mjfrey.blogspot.com/">Mike</a> uploaded a video of Android applications running natively on Jaunty UNR:<br /><br /><object width="640" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OwCGvFvxYPM&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OwCGvFvxYPM&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">(didn't realize pgo cuts videos, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwCGvFvxYPM">click here</a> to see it)</span><br /><br />The applications are very responsive thanks to the accelerated Android drawing engine (and that means they aren't a burden on the CPU either).<br /><br />The video shows the Android browser working like normal, which points to the next challenge in getting everything working great: piping the services and the filesystem on the host computer through to the Android runtime so apps can take advantage (and be more useful :).<br /><br />If you have any questions or just want to bug Mike about getting his packaging finished, you can leave a comment on his <a href="http://mjfrey.blogspot.com/2009/06/video-of-android-on-jaunty-unr.html">blog post</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update</span>: Added link to video</span>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-87713594300447440642009-05-26T14:47:00.007+01:002009-05-26T15:48:44.518+01:00Android Applications Running on Ubuntu Netbook RemixWow, it's been quite some time since I've last blogged. However, this drought isn't due to lack of awesome work or news, it's just that I'm pretty lazy :).<br /><br />I'm working to remedy this with more frequent blogging about my work at Canonical, but I thought I'd start off with highlighting something which I think is really cool: <a href="http://mjfrey.blogspot.com/2009/05/android-full-screen-on-ubuntu.html">Android applications running natively on Ubuntu Netbook Remix</a>:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy4Y-w-vJj3_1C6Mp3qQSp64xcFk-r9izFUjhwsQuu06zGODNthv_6-i9tthbXS24ZBZUJ2zaIDHYfJZeuzSZf6ZgZ0CSFDEPDqnWIqzkueEFLkH2UtvfTUHNaqyg8ZHqaDSzZcxMX_mo/s1600-h/Android-Music.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy4Y-w-vJj3_1C6Mp3qQSp64xcFk-r9izFUjhwsQuu06zGODNthv_6-i9tthbXS24ZBZUJ2zaIDHYfJZeuzSZf6ZgZ0CSFDEPDqnWIqzkueEFLkH2UtvfTUHNaqyg8ZHqaDSzZcxMX_mo/s400/Android-Music.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340137395133314402" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIA2W1U5DCucJMLEVWn2t79WJmtky-0pHpXIRKA0zVRA3B4P206XW6dcSq8-jy_OqeksDjQZZSFKUxdUXUmYitm0nFhak2KELNzC8EYkj1G-jZ1hWusLswY3fcVgiSUxi9NcRMbwYj5n8/s1600-h/Android2.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIA2W1U5DCucJMLEVWn2t79WJmtky-0pHpXIRKA0zVRA3B4P206XW6dcSq8-jy_OqeksDjQZZSFKUxdUXUmYitm0nFhak2KELNzC8EYkj1G-jZ1hWusLswY3fcVgiSUxi9NcRMbwYj5n8/s400/Android2.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340136887701213586" border="0" /></a><br />The work has been done by <a href="http://mjfrey.blogspot.com/">Michael Frey</a> and his team in the OEM services group in Canonical. I think this is cool because I've seen a bunch of pictures and videos of Android running as the OS on a netbook, but it's the first time I've Android mixing with other apps on a Linux desktop. It means you can get the best of both worlds :).<br /><br />If you want to see more pics, or want to find out how it was achieved, Mike's doing a series of posts about the work on his <a href="http://mjfrey.blogspot.com/">blog</a> or you can follow him on <a href="http://twitter.com/chickencutlass">twitter</a>.Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-42324319434690432592008-10-05T20:19:00.003+01:002008-10-05T20:42:45.833+01:00HackfestingAs per usual, I'll start off by apologising about not writing enough blog posts and how I'll be better in the future. Although, this time there may actually be a chance of me sticking by my word as I've got a few posts lined up with talk about <a href="https://launchpad.net/netbook-remix">Ubuntu Netbook Remix</a>, specifically the individual apps that make up the conversion of Gnome from desktop->netbook. There's been quite a few articles and reviews about UNR, but there seems to be some features that people have missed so I thought I'd be nice to get those code-paths tested out :-).<br /><br />Currently I'm in Boston for the <a href="http://live.gnome.org/Boston2008/GUIHackfest">UI hackfest</a>, which should be really cool and hopefully very fruitful. I'm here to pimp Awn and I guess Clutter too (although I doubt it needs pimping anymore :-). It will be nice to meet up and chat with other people who've worked on panels/docks/sidebars/applet server etc, and try and figure out how we can combine our work into something great for Gnome.<br /><br />As you may have guessed, the planned hiatus from working on Awn didn't quite pan out. Actually, the very opposite happened and I've been busy rewriting Awn in a <a href="https://code.edge.launchpad.net/%7Eawn-core/awn/trunk-rewrite-and-random-breakage">private branch</a> to add all the features and fix all the bugs people having been asking for since the begining. To sum up the work, I'd say that the rewrite makes Awn a panel rather than a dock, and that's an important distinction. Some of the features that are beingworked on are not currently available in any other panel/dock and I hope will really push things forward in desktop experience.<br /><br />You can follow the work on the rewrite in #awn on irc.freenode.net, it's not usable just yet as there's been a lot of breakage, but we're getting there and things have recently started to come together. I'll write a post detailing whats changed and the new features as soon as it's ready to be tested. It's funny,suddenly all my ideas for the desktop revolve around making Awn absolutely great :-).Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-17456156998075493872008-05-09T23:53:00.000+01:002008-05-09T23:54:43.997+01:00Bits & PiecesAs usual, I'm leaving far too long between each blog post, but I thought I'd make a small update until I get a chance to write up everything that's been going on:<br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Canonical</span> - The first couple of months have been awesome! Lots of cool things are happening here, everyone's very busy and there are some really exiting projects which will hopefully be in public very soon.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">UDS Prague</span> - I'll be attending UDS this year, so ping me if your attending and would like to discuss various bling on desktop/mobile environments! Extra points if you support Manchester United, and want to go watch the Champions League final on the wednesday that week :-).</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Awn</span> - Not much happening at the moment from my side. Hopefully this will change in a couple of weeks, at which point I hope to finish the remainder of non-composite support in trunk, and make a beta release for 0.4<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Random Hacking</span> - Since late last year, most of my spare hacking time has been spent on Awn, which is great, but it means some of my other ideas/projects got left behind. So, I've been trying to remedy this by picking up these projects and starting to work on them once again. The two I'm concentrating on at the moment are Nautilus and Affinity. I hope to get some code out soon, so stay tuned!</li></ul>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-58268906101056099082008-03-10T20:24:00.000+00:002008-03-10T20:25:07.213+00:00We don't discriminate babyThe awn-core team released <a href="https://launchpad.net/awn/0.2/0.2.6/">Awn</a> & <a href="https://launchpad.net/awn-extras/0.2/0.2.6/">Awn-Extras</a> 0.2.6 couple of weeks ago!<br /><br />These releases bring with them more stability, a lots of bugfixes, and some interesting new features which include Vala bindings, an updated UI for Awn Manager, new applets, more documentation and support for non-gnome desktop environments.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Desktop Agnostic</span><br /><br />Mark Lees (malept) long-standing desktop-agnostic branch was finally merged into trunk. What it does is separate three 'desktop-specific' parts of Awn and provides multiple implementations of them, suiting your current desktop set-up:<br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Configuration: </span>Either a GConf (default) or GKeyFile settings backend.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">VFS:</span> Three VFS backends, GnomeVFS (currently-default), ThunarVFS and GIO.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Desktop File Reading: </span>Either libgnome-desktop (default) or EggDesktop.</li></ul>As you can see, by default Awn uses Gnome libs, however, it's now possible to compile it specifically for Xfce4 or just Glib/GIO.<br /><br />This abstraction also spreads to the applets in Awn-extras, and most of them have been ported to the new style, with the goal of porting all of them by the next release.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Roadmap</span><br /><br />Speaking of the next release, there have been some changes to the Awn versioning system & the roadmap. The new roadmap looks like this:<br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">0.4</span> - Non-composited WM support; Better handling of multi-monitor setups; GtkTheme support; Awn-curves;</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">0.6</span> - Rewrite the launcher/task-manager, adding support for window grouping, window sorting, window-thumbnails-as-icons, easier plugin writing, and a more extensive DBus backend.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">0.8</span> - Allow Awn to reside on any edge of the screen; TBD<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">1.0</span> - Multiple Awn panels; TBD</li></ul>More details available <a href="http://awn.planetblur.org/index.php?shard=forum&action=g_reply&ID=1603&page=1&isLive=true">here</a>.<br /><br />As you can see, the 'major-rewrite' of Awn has been split-up into sizeable chucks, which allows for more releases and allows us to introduce the new code a bit at a time.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Misc<br /><br /></span>If you need help installing Awn, are having problems, or just want to chat about development & features, please check out the <a href="http://awn.planetblur.org/">forums</a>, <a href="http://wiki.awn-project.org/">wiki</a> or stop by #awn on irc.freenode.net, where there's always someone willing to help!<br /><br />I'd also like to welcome Julien Lavergne, Mark Lee and Rodney Cryderman to the core team. They have done a lot (most) of the work for this release, and have kept the Awn boat floating.<br /><br />Finally, once you've installed the Awn and feel like trying out something new, set /apps/avant-window-navigator/bar/bar_angle t0 -1, and see what happens (this is courtesy of ;-).<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-60354398510699127012008-02-22T16:26:00.009+00:002008-02-22T17:42:35.349+00:00To continue the trendtoday was my last day with <a href="http://www.o-hand.com/">OpenedHand</a>. I'd just like to take this opportunity to say "thank you" to everyone at OH. I've had a great time working there, and learnt so much while working with people like <a href="http://butterfeet.org/">Matthew</a>/<a href="http://log.emmanuelebassi.net/">Emmanuele</a>/<a href="http://burtonini.com/blog">Ross</a>/<a href="http://blogs.gnome.org/thos/">Thomas</a> on some of the coolest projects around.<br /><br />Looking forward, I'm excited to say that on Monday I'll be starting at <a href="http://canonical.com/">Canonical</a> as a "User Interface and Applications Engineer for Mobile Internet Devices". I'll be doing the same type of work as before, with continuing work with creating/adapting Gtk & Clutter applications for mobile systems & touch-based UIs. The goal being to make sure that Ubuntu Mobile is as usable & pretty as any other mobile platform out there :-).Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-77067880287860339092007-11-24T21:30:00.000+00:002007-11-24T21:57:33.988+00:00Wires sticking outSo earlier this week, a mixture of migraine, sickness and deep pain in the right side of the chest sent me to the doctors. Doctors messed around for a while then sent me on the hospital for emergency surgery.<br /> <br />The excellent surgical (& nursing) staff found and (sort of) fixed the problem, and now i'm in recovery with a hole at the side of my chest. <br /><br />Unfortunately, i don't have much movement in my right arm at the moment, so anyone expecting emails etc, please be patient, i haven't been ignoring you :-).<br /><br />ps. This is brought to you in association with painkillers, heavy antibiotics & a nokia e65...please excuse if it doesn't make sense!Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-86137173076629556752007-11-06T21:42:00.000+00:002007-11-07T07:21:07.452+00:00I think I just found another dimentionSo, I've had some spare time at work today, and thought I might as well tackle an idea that has been floating around OH towers since before Guadec, which was to use the <a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=318807">Gtk offscreen rendering patch</a> to embed Gtk widgets within the <a href="http://www.clutter-project.org/">Clutter</a> stage.<br /><br />Now, I only go this working today, and it's pretty hacky, but heres where I am so far:<br /><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-009958358428313985 visible ontop" href="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=374006&server=vimeo.com&fullscreen=1&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=01AAEA"></a><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-009958358428313985 visible ontop" href="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=374006&server=vimeo.com&fullscreen=1&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=01AAEA"></a><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=374006&server=vimeo.com&fullscreen=1&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=01AAEA" height="377" width="550"> <param name="quality" value="best"> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"> <param name="scale" value="showAll"> <param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=374006&server=vimeo.com&fullscreen=1&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=01AAEA"></object><br /><a href="http://vimeo.com/374006/l:embed_374006">Clutter + Gtk offscreen rendering patch</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user290306/l:embed_374006">Neil Patel</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/l:embed_374006">Vimeo</a> (if you can't see the video, click through).<br /><br />Thats a GtkWindow which has been told to also draw to a GdkDrawable, which is then being pushed into a ClutterTexture (did I mention it was hacky?).<br /><br />However, thanks to <a href="http://log.emmanuelebassi.net/">Emmanuele</a> (and by proxy <a href="http://blogs.gnome.org/alexl/">Alex</a>), I have an idea of where to go with this, so hopefully we'll able to have some sort of canvas based on Clutter, where you can manipulate real widgets.<br /><br />Anyway, that's it for Bling Tuesday, some more updates coming soon :-).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update:</span> The video doesn't seem to work with some flash players, so <a href="http://folks.o-hand.com/njp/clutter-offscreen-2.ogg">here</a> is a link to the original ogg. That's what I get for trying out a new video serviceNeil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-78639595002227286992007-10-07T17:24:00.000+01:002007-10-07T18:29:02.928+01:000.1 + 0.1 = ?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwcbPnXBVMGbaNUIi4_0qm7x58wCRsg5ewO3H30-L625cDEBDnpHE7JlvL7WFNdUlpkYwPUkRy2sD9HrkxmhP6LJzdwslcK9vpY6Mtdh2tOGJILfZEjctOKfesC5YXIBV-CKhS3-u742k/s1600-h/awn.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwcbPnXBVMGbaNUIi4_0qm7x58wCRsg5ewO3H30-L625cDEBDnpHE7JlvL7WFNdUlpkYwPUkRy2sD9HrkxmhP6LJzdwslcK9vpY6Mtdh2tOGJILfZEjctOKfesC5YXIBV-CKhS3-u742k/s320/awn.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5118633301820871074" border="0" /></a><br />Well <a href="https://launchpad.net/awn/+download">there</a> you have it, Awn 0.2 has been released!<br /><br />With over six months since the last release, you'd think we were working on something as complicated as Gnome, but I think there are enough new features to show where the time has gone ;-).<br /><br />I'd like to highlight a few of the main features that have landed into trunk over the recent weeks, and others that I maybe haven't mentioned before.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Icon Effects</span><br /><br />You can have user-selectable colours and a 3d-look bar, but the ability to choose whether your icons bounce like cartoon characters, spin like a coin, or have a spotlight cast on them has to be the best blingy feature :-D!<br /><br /><div align="center"><embed style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=5963113639256134658&hl=en" flashvars=""></embed><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:78%;">(you may need to click the blog title to see the video)</span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Awn Manager</span><br /><br />After having to endure my simple preferences dialog (and my lack of updating it to reflect new features), a few brave souls from the forums decided to create a proper configuration dialog for Awn:<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTcWlUnEpOVlJugB4UKb_XvqsUdHOYd7CgJ9kscTxNXb7pC_4Di-CacJZ_KMUcsX7pNxJol4h2MrB1k-8g4AiMCBNyvq-O7pwPBaFT5JjhG2g8uYkeKH_p3ZZAVoH9PYA5g4sfG51nTYA/s1600-h/screenshot1.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTcWlUnEpOVlJugB4UKb_XvqsUdHOYd7CgJ9kscTxNXb7pC_4Di-CacJZ_KMUcsX7pNxJol4h2MrB1k-8g4AiMCBNyvq-O7pwPBaFT5JjhG2g8uYkeKH_p3ZZAVoH9PYA5g4sfG51nTYA/s320/screenshot1.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5118638262508097970" border="0" /></a><br />Together with wrapping all the gconf options, the ability to load/save and share your Awn theme was also included, which is a very cool feature. Themes have already started popping up in gnome-look.org!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Applets</span><br /><br />I've been over applets before, but we've been working very hard to make sure there is a continuous look and feel across applets and the main launcher/task bar. As of now, 99% of the applets behave the same on the bar (including animations & reflections).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdTDIRgOPyWH7gEF_1fdkqjOuv9LJwiRDgBnxDCvnrodKq85LZB5lfeps99mrd0kN2JpI-u3LFtoEuttthKfCl_XQEm6rKzeRrujgYWKQE16quJrBszjbJHQFKCQSUtpYvvW9LrWU3M7Q/s1600-h/screenshot3.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdTDIRgOPyWH7gEF_1fdkqjOuv9LJwiRDgBnxDCvnrodKq85LZB5lfeps99mrd0kN2JpI-u3LFtoEuttthKfCl_XQEm6rKzeRrujgYWKQE16quJrBszjbJHQFKCQSUtpYvvW9LrWU3M7Q/s320/screenshot3.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5118646530320142786" border="0" /></a><br />I'll be making a stable release of applets in the next few days, but you can get to them via <a href="http://launchpad.net/awn-extras">launchpad</a> if you can't wait!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Stability</span><br /><br />In addition to new features, Awn has grown more and more stable. Many 'hacks' that were put in place in January have either been swapped for newly available APIs, or have been replaced with standard Gtk widgets (although you can't tell ;-).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Future</span><br /><br />From now on, I hope to make more regular releases of Awn, especially as there are many more people involved now, and a lot of code is being written. Also, I may take some time off from writing code for Awn myself, as I'd really like to spend some time on Affinity and Arena, plus help out on some other projects.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Thanks</span><br /><br />I'd just like to say a huge thanks to everyone who has been on the forums, wiki and launchpad trawling through questions/bugs etc, and all the tranlsators (43 languauges!). I'd also like to say special thanks to Jeff Fortin, Mike Jones, haytjes, Miika-Petteri Matikainen, Anthony Arobone, Ryan Rushton, Michal Hruby, Julien Lavergne, who have all picked up the slack when I couldn't work on Awn as much as I wanted to.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-14392561186362368332007-09-13T00:02:00.000+01:002007-09-13T10:21:20.760+01:00How'd you like me now!So in my tradition of one post per month (which, I know, needs to change), I present you with some updates from the world of Awn:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Applets</span><br /><br />There have been lots of cool applets popping up, especially since the python bindings were committed a week or so ago.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29906893@N00/1368421748/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1317/1368421748_1ecaaaedfc_o.png" alt="stacks" height="594" width="456" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span>Stacks</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /> </span></span><br /><span><span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29906893@N00/1367555327/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1264/1367555327_121328dd38_o.png" alt="last.fm player" height="405" width="357" /></a></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>last.fm<br /><br /></span><span><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 14px ! important;" title="Block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab visible ontop" href="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=280225428639996951&hl=en"></a><embed style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=280225428639996951&hl=en" flashvars=""></embed> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Main menu<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Launchpad</span><br /></span><span><br />The move to launchpad has also created some very cool branches of Awn by other people which focus on new ideas, or new ways to implement existing ones. Below are two examples, the first being the libawn-effects branch, which migrates a lot of effects code from Awn to libawn, wraps a nice api around them, and adds a few more fancy effects:<br /><br /><a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 14px ! important;" title="Block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab visible ontop" href="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-5276584716858178798&hl=en"></a><embed style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-5276584716858178798&hl=en" flashvars=""></embed><br /><br />The second branch concentrated on providing another approach to the usual linear arrangement of icons on the dock. Awn-curves puts icons on a slight curve which increases the feeling of depth:<br /><br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSX0i-Ls7ssFV0eGHo-WaNGtdmbnB-_J6o4JXxqgGXZekPiEJ7Y1BBHjsk2Zex79UO0tKpjQYfaTbw_WQkNlwzCWBY-wbBKoWqR-SpVtwXV0LlRrKligaWpvV0RC0r4v548jgrKn8bi7k/s1600-h/withreflection2089.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSX0i-Ls7ssFV0eGHo-WaNGtdmbnB-_J6o4JXxqgGXZekPiEJ7Y1BBHjsk2Zex79UO0tKpjQYfaTbw_WQkNlwzCWBY-wbBKoWqR-SpVtwXV0LlRrKligaWpvV0RC0r4v548jgrKn8bi7k/s320/withreflection2089.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5109601465204535698" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Both are quite stable and are in line for a merge :-)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">*Update*</span> As usual, the videos have been stripped out, so if you want to see them you'll have to click on the post title above.Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-44696258622263179262007-07-30T18:06:00.000+01:002007-07-31T23:32:30.442+01:00We are sailing......across the shore from code.google.com to launchpad.net!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why?<br /><br /></span>Don't get me wrong, Google Code is great, and I still use it for Affinity and other projects, but Awn is getting larger and larger, in community and developers, and this needs some proper structure. Launchpad provides that structure incredibly well, with excellent road-mapping/bug reporting/feature requests/translation infrastructure, and we hope to make the most of it!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Show me the source!</span><br /><span><br /><a href="http://www.launchpad.net/awn">http://www.launchpad.net/awn</a></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>is the new home of Awn. Over the past few days, those belonging to the <a href="http://www.launchpad.net/%7Eawn-core">awn-core</a> team have helped me move everything over to launchpad.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Development of Awn will be in Launchpad from now on</span>, bug reports, feature requests (blueprints) and translations should be directed there too. The <a href="http://www.launchpad.net/awn">Awn page</a> in launchpad has instructions on how to download the development version.<br /><br />I am working on transferring the existing bugs from code.google.com to launchpad. If you have previously opened/commentated on a bug, and would like to help me out, you can create the corresponding bug in launchpad, and just leave a comment in the original bug report that you have done so :-D.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What now?<br /></span><br />Well, there's been a burst of activity on the<a href="http://www.planetblur.org/hosted/awnforum/index.php?shard=forum"> Awn forum</a>, with patches coming at me left, right and center. Consequently, Awn has gained some new developers and bug-people, and we are working towards a 0.2 release, with a ton of ideas for 0.3! I'll make an other post outlining the new devels and their contributions soon.<br /><br />Also, Awn currently has an universal <a href="http://aarobone.blogspot.com/2007/07/awn-applet-dialog-test-case.html">applet menu-system</a>, a <a href="http://www.planetblur.org/hosted/awnforum/index.php?shard=forum&action=g_reply&ID=493&page=1&isLive=true">brand new preferences application</a>, <a href="http://www.planetblur.org/hosted/awnforum/index.php?shard=forum&action=g_reply&ID=496&page=1&isLive=true">mac-stacks applet</a> and many more applets in development in the forum, with updates everyday! I am currently working on a way to get everyone working in the same place, so we can have a awn-applets release along side the main Awn release, but more on that later.<br /><br />I think that's it for now :-).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-85454865272549224082007-07-24T22:01:00.000+01:002007-07-24T23:34:08.056+01:00Clutter FooSo Guadec went really well, for both me and everyone at <a href="http://www.o-hand.com/">OH</a>. I got to meet lots of people, see all the cool things people have been working on, and everyone got a chance to see all the different things we have been working on at OH towers :-).<br /><br />One of the coolest things was that everyone seemed to love the work we've been doing on <a href="http://www.clutter-project.org/">Clutter</a>, a lot of people spent time at our stand playing with the apps we have written, and generally asking questions on how to start developing with Clutter. Matthews <a href="http://butterfeet.org/?p=38">presentation</a> also went very well, and the audience seemed to enjoy seeing all the demos on the big screen.<br /><br />So, for all those who missed the presentation, and those who just like to watch pretty videos, I'll do a quick recap of some of the example apps that we have in svn (<a href="http://svn.o-hand.com/repos/clutter/trunk/toys">http://svn.o-hand.com/repos/clutter/trunk/toys</a>).<br /><br />These should be a great place to start to get an idea of how clutter works, and how the animation framework works. If you are comfortable with Gtk, then it should be quite easy for you to get started with Clutter.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Table<br /><br /></span>I'll start with this because it's probably the one I play around with the most :-D. It's basically a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Surface">Surface</a>-type app, written by <a href="http://www.qoheleth.uklinux.net/blog/">Tomas</a>. You point it to a directory, and it'll crawl it, putting all the pictures and videos it finds onto the screen for you to manipulate:<br /><br /><div align="center"><br /><embed style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=5623221548018224547&hl=en" flashvars=""></embed><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Woohaa</span><br /><br />This is Matthew's really funky, stupendously cool, hotter than a hot cup of tea, movie player!It has a 'slider' menu for filtering your video collection, plus it'll do something clever with all those TV shows you've recorded (legally ;-) from the BBC, so you can easily see the episode number and season:<br /><br /><br /><div align="center"><br /><embed style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-1597385431317997410&hl=en" flashvars=""></embed><br /></div><br />Hint: Press 'e' during playback for some fun during a boring video<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Aaina<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span>Yay, my turn :-). This didn't work during the presentation as there wasn't an active internet connection, but its by far the coolest :-p! Coming back down to earth, it's a slideshow program, which has two backends, a directory one (which needs some work), and a Flickr one. The Flickr one is quite cool, you just provide a bunch of tag names when you start it, and its pull all photos matching the tags from Flickr, and continuously update the slideshow. It'll also show the title of the image and the authors name:<br /><br /><br /><div align="center"><br /><embed style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=8463744223600137949&hl=en" flashvars=""></embed><br /></div><br /><br />Hint: Press left and right arrows to rotate the entire stream of photos. Press up to flip them.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Flowers</span><br /><br />Last but not least, we have the flowers demo, which shows how you can use your cairo skills with clutter. It is a very simple app, but everyone likes it, so I thought I'd post a video anyway :-).<br /><br /><div align="center"><br /><embed style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=3895873435120347227&hl=en" id="VideoPlayback" quality="best" bgcolor="#ffffff" scale="noScale" salign="TL" flashvars="playerMode=embedded" align="middle"></embed><br /></div><br />This really needs to be made into a screensaver...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Points To Note<br /><br /></span>These are in 'toys' for a reason :-). They are still rough around the edges, but they should provide a nice demo of what's possible, and where to start when you decide to create your 3-d masterpiece! All the demos require <a href="http://www.clutter-project.org/blog/?p=21">Clutter 0.3</a> (some may need clutter-trunk).<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span></span></span><span><span><span>Also, please bare in mind that the performance is much better in real life. Capturing the screencast uses a lot of resources, and the conversion from the resulting video file to google video looses a lot of clarity!<br /><br />Finally, the python bindings for 0.3 are coming, if you would like to help with them you can let someone know in #clutter on irc.gimp.net, or contact <a href="http://www.robster.org.uk/blog/">Rob</a>, who is in charge of the python bindings (sorry Rob ;-).<br /></span></span></span>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-4997643622980398872007-07-14T23:38:00.000+01:002007-07-17T10:57:18.265+01:00So now that we have some depth...Apparently, if you don't pay attention to your projects <a href="http://www.planetblur.org/hosted/awnforum/index.php?shard=forum">forums</a> for more than a week, something beautiful will happen...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvjQU-WyniVK43twu5P7n77V9Lg7jiETzDZ1j0IeDwHnM7eDzkyWWbkuCLcYY-k0TRuVSxzWm-kO72r4rAndILTP0xGcq8SUJ4tTzWBgmzOoh-O0uV-jJlPWZueydAi2K1HhmOTl3q7RU/s1600-h/Screenshot.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvjQU-WyniVK43twu5P7n77V9Lg7jiETzDZ1j0IeDwHnM7eDzkyWWbkuCLcYY-k0TRuVSxzWm-kO72r4rAndILTP0xGcq8SUJ4tTzWBgmzOoh-O0uV-jJlPWZueydAi2K1HhmOTl3q7RU/s320/Screenshot.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5087190018611629426" border="0" /></a><br />Yes, that's Awn svn, in all its 3D and reflective glory :-). I'd like to say a huge thanks to <a href="http://www.planetblur.org/hosted/awnforum/index.php?shard=user_profile&action=g_ep&ID=323">haytjes</a><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>&<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><a href="http://www.planetblur.org/hosted/awnforum/index.php?shard=user_profile&action=g_ep&ID=378">nablaa</a> from the forums, who managed to make their patches work together to create this effect. There are also a buch of other fixes in svn, so its well worth the upgrade.<br /><br />As we all like videos, here's one of the reflection in action:<br /><div align="center"><br /><a style="left: 339px ! important; top: 0px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab visible ontop" href="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-3875372171296774565&hl=en-GB"></a><a style="left: 339px ! important; top: 0px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab visible ontop" href="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-3875372171296774565&hl=en-GB"></a><a style="left: 339px ! important; top: 0px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab visible ontop" href="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-3875372171296774565&hl=en-GB"></a><a style="left: 339px ! important; top: 0px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab visible ontop" href="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-3875372171296774565&hl=en-GB"></a><a style="left: 339px ! important; top: 0px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab visible ontop" href="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-3875372171296774565&hl=en-GB"></a><a style="left: 339px ! important; top: 0px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab visible ontop" href="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-3875372171296774565&hl=en-GB"></a><embed style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-3875372171296774565&hl=en-GB" id="VideoPlayback" quality="best" bgcolor="#ffffff" scale="noScale" salign="TL" flashvars="playerMode=embedded" align="middle"></embed></div><br /><br /><br />I've recently got a bunch of help from people for different things regarding Awn (thank you to you all), this should see development become quicker, and bug fixes faster. It'll also mean that I can make a proper roadmap, now that I have some help in achieving it!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">In other news</span><br /><br />There's a bunch of cool stuff I need to blog about, and as soon as I get some time, I will :-). I'm off to Guadec tomorrow, so there won't be much stuff happening code wise, but I do have an Awn-related surprise for you all when I get back this weekend ;-).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update</span><br /><br />As pointed out, it may help if I told you how to actually get Awn looking like this :-/. You need to change two gconf keys (UI coming soon). For the perspective, navigate to /apps/avant-window-navigator/bar/bar_angle, and set it to 45. For reflection, navigate to /apps/avant-window-navigator/bar/icon_offset, and set it to 18. Restart Awn and enjoy!Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com70tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-10644970359511918072007-06-19T09:11:00.001+01:002007-06-19T09:36:32.299+01:00Flickr + Clutter = FluttrHey, I did say your gonna get sick of me :-).<br /><br />So, what this post about? Well, a little while ago, Matthew and I were talking about what could we do with Clutter which would be quite different and cool, and he had the idea of something involving the internet. So with a little help from our resident <a href="http://burtonini.com/">flickr master</a>, I embarked on a mission to bring Clutter and Flickr together, in a great union of animations and pixels.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fluttr<br /><br /></span>Fluttr is a Clutter based Flickr photo viewer. Once you have authorized with Flickr, you can browse and view your photo sets, together with viewing your photos individually.<br /><br />A video makes much more sense than I ever could, so:<br /><div align="center"><br /><a style="left: 339px ! important; top: 0px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab visible ontop" href="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=7144282169124609322&hl=en"></a><a style="left: 339px ! important; top: 0px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab visible ontop" href="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=7144282169124609322&hl=en"></a><a style="left: 339px ! important; top: 0px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab visible ontop" href="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=7144282169124609322&hl=en"></a><embed style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=7144282169124609322&hl=en" id="VideoPlayback" quality="best" bgcolor="#ffffff" scale="noScale" salign="TL" flashvars="playerMode=embedded" align="middle"></embed></div><br />As you can see, it has cool things like the sets will show the photos within them, photos are downloaded as necessary (and cached locally). It also has a fullscreen option, so it works quite nicely when you want to show off your pictures on your laptop/TV.<br /><br />You can grab Fluttr from svn by running:<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">svn co http://svn.o-hand.com/repos/clutter/trunk/toys/fluttr fluttr</span></span><br /><br />Be sure to read the <a href="http://svn.o-hand.com/repos/clutter/trunk/toys/fluttr/README">README</a>, as it contains valuable info on how to authorise with Flickr. There are some things that still need to be added, but it works really well, and I hope you guys like it!<a href="http://www.clutter-project.org/sources/clutter/0.2/"></a>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-71581087553471609842007-06-19T07:34:00.000+01:002007-06-19T09:11:08.959+01:00And the others thought they had caught up...hate to depress you again boys, but Awn just keeps getting better and better :-p.<br /><br />No long time no blog, eh? Don't worry though, that's unlikely to happen again, in fact, I'm sure you'll be sick of me always taking up precious space on PGO with my transparent this and three-dimensional that!<br /><br />So,<br />a) how has Awn got better and<br />b) why am I so happy about it?<br /><br />Many people already know the answer to (a), latest Awn has full applets support! Yes, that means you can have a trash applet, workspace switcher, and all those other things which you missed from your bottom gnome-panel. I have included a Workspace switcher applet, a Trash applet and a Separator applet in Awn. More to come from me, plus I know of others working on some cool stuff (more on that below).<br /><br />So, whats the best way to describe this 'applets' malarkey? Well, with a screenshot, of course:<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29906893@N00/557257106/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1211/557257106_06f2eea9a6.jpg" alt="desktop-16-06-2007" height="313" width="500" /></a></div><br />Oh, the main Launcher/Window manager is also an 'applet' (albeit an internal one). So you can position other applets around it.<br /><br />Okay, moving on, the reason why I am so happy about this feature (over anything else), is that I believe we will now see some really cool stuff for Awn. There have been so many ideas floating around for months, which go from simple applets, to <a href="http://awn.wetpaint.com/page/My+Topaz+Gaim+Awn+Twist">the</a> <a href="http://awn.wetpaint.com/page/Make+Topaz+Ideas+a+Reality">extravagant</a> (which is pretty easy to do with the excellent <a href="http://live.gnome.org/Empathy">Empathy</a>.<br /><br />I would also love to see some cross-over happening with <a href="http://beatniksoftware.com/gimmie/Main_Page">Gimmie</a>, especially embedding its panel-applet into Awn (blinged up, of course :-).<br /><br />Anyway, before we get there, I still need to make the applets system a bit more robust, and try and move as much as I can into libawn, so other applets can use colour settings etc, but this is a great start!<br /><br />P.S. Can I just say thanks to everyone on the forums, bug reporters, and those who leave comments here, they have been really patient, plus they have been invaluable in giving feedback.Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-63523379728770190372007-04-04T19:16:00.000+01:002007-04-04T19:54:29.574+01:00Look lively boy!Okay, so I haven't really been doing as much blogging/coding as I probably should have...sorry! The past few weeks have been crazy for me, a *lot* of personal/family stuff was going on, however, this week started very nicely, as I began working for <a href="http://o-hand.com/">OpenedHand</a>!<br /><br />This is a dream come true for me, so you can imagine how happy i am ATM :). I'll mostly be working on/with <a href="http://www.clutter-project.org/">Clutter</a>, which means hopefully you will able to see some cool integration work (for OH and personal projects), especially as I get better at OpenGL & Clutter.<br /><br />Although I've been away, I have been doing work on Awn & Affinty, heres an account:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Awn</span><ul><li>Beryl window thumbnailer support.</li><li>Support for international fonts (Varun Ratnakar)</li><li>Better launcher to window matching code</li><li>Heavily debugged auto-hide, which should not crash anymore.</li><li>Better auto-hide animation</li><li>Bar resizes if it gets larger than the screen width</li><li>Translation works</li><li>Some improvements in the DBus backend</li></ul>I know there is some more info, but I can't remember it right now, and I really need to dedicate Awn its own entry some time over the weekend.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Affinity</span><br /><br />Thanks for all the testers! I have been working on getting all the features in. Svn has a panel applet, so you can have super-quick searching any-time :).<br /><br />I have been busy pulling out the search & app code into libaffinty, as I have been working on the following two apps (which are part of affinity):<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Application Browser</span><br /><br />This is an app browser, which is required for the panel applet. This is the main reason for libaffinity, as once you've loaded Affinity, the app-browser loads super-quick. Heres a few mockups I am working off :<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZFv7GYzAvYHDw5YLWtoshNP-XPVDmLUvlxJLSrdFx31UlO_tiQmHTnbRKwpa06G0zN0piOi10YPXDEhN66BLlie8gNb_U2t7biJ3oKZl78OL2poHWoo8n4v-A316BuutDaINeSfVZEk0/s1600-h/affinity-appbrowser.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZFv7GYzAvYHDw5YLWtoshNP-XPVDmLUvlxJLSrdFx31UlO_tiQmHTnbRKwpa06G0zN0piOi10YPXDEhN66BLlie8gNb_U2t7biJ3oKZl78OL2poHWoo8n4v-A316BuutDaINeSfVZEk0/s320/affinity-appbrowser.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5049645889595141874" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD75klXVXIbuRDeM8Ios1L8F3AL7NxwNH1DSU0aq_c9Q3DLQ3FdUibx2zTZeSXYJYF6Kjb1GF0aVO5Db6akXMoBx0oW0-2LS3sU6SSRAl8GHIPleaIKbBQf-99627u82rZSul462yrSOw/s1600-h/affinity-appbrowser2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD75klXVXIbuRDeM8Ios1L8F3AL7NxwNH1DSU0aq_c9Q3DLQ3FdUibx2zTZeSXYJYF6Kjb1GF0aVO5Db6akXMoBx0oW0-2LS3sU6SSRAl8GHIPleaIKbBQf-99627u82rZSul462yrSOw/s320/affinity-appbrowser2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5049646224602590978" border="0" /></a><br /><br />As per usual, suggestions are welcome. I hope to commit this over easter.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Desktop Search</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Frontend</span><br /><br />Affinity works fine when you know exactly what you are looking for, but not so well, when you either need to browse everything containing a certain search term, or when you need finer tuning. To this end, Affinity 0.2 will also ship with a search-tool which provides a unified search interface for Beagle & Tracker. Its easy to tell what app it is based on, but I think it looks unique enough not to cause me a problem :). Heres the current mockups I am working towards (about 70% done):<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLjcOIqiUhkStqX4595gTKUg_1b9BgoVMIbyGT2lvJg2JWdqojXAYhcPitjjYtFa3607nBk0ZLJw97nn90BdQHHXTYweRSirn3BgJp3S_KgTrqXld1KFdF9KUD_6HYq0JZwpYXjhLyTak/s1600-h/Desktop+Search+1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLjcOIqiUhkStqX4595gTKUg_1b9BgoVMIbyGT2lvJg2JWdqojXAYhcPitjjYtFa3607nBk0ZLJw97nn90BdQHHXTYweRSirn3BgJp3S_KgTrqXld1KFdF9KUD_6HYq0JZwpYXjhLyTak/s320/Desktop+Search+1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5049645503048085202" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1fcpTduAgHi-a04foxxyzsxhZwGNCu3SSFE-96TPd-T5AW6JoZomy0bJd6ToVpJvILIJlM2mLWy_UevhTnGnEtlR-bXQH_ZwKnJPd2eXEazRx7aGZAG-yeO3DisGWif3djTZqU_lvfX4/s1600-h/Desktop+Search+2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1fcpTduAgHi-a04foxxyzsxhZwGNCu3SSFE-96TPd-T5AW6JoZomy0bJd6ToVpJvILIJlM2mLWy_UevhTnGnEtlR-bXQH_ZwKnJPd2eXEazRx7aGZAG-yeO3DisGWif3djTZqU_lvfX4/s320/Desktop+Search+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5049645747861221090" border="0" /></a>Yes, those fancy reflection effects are in the real one :). This is a much more complicated app, so I hope to commit by the end of next week, but can't promise.<br /><br />Anyway, I hope that stops the 'are you alive' emails ;). I will back in #awn & forums from tonight.Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com62tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-35724172892694409282007-03-16T01:09:00.000+00:002007-03-16T18:14:22.767+00:00Arrfinity ;)What a week! Its weird how so many things come up at once! I won't bore you with the details, but lets just say that 5 days without a net connection wasn't the worst thing that happended!<br /><br />Anyway, being without the internet gave me some much-needed time with Awn, the fruits of which you'll see over the coming days! However, it did also push me back a few days with some important stuff, so with out further ado:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHZJLyPQ7I3uS8zC5peDBlGc9h_UDEjgm2AbqPWQG4PT5gzhibuhJWnc9qrHELsTovrZbNgVS0GcFozfXMt_I3NIV3ribKCE2nwQdD9esYO8szBEaaoxB580KsAYLtbK0bgtn4yvt8nWE/s1600-h/affinity-start.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHZJLyPQ7I3uS8zC5peDBlGc9h_UDEjgm2AbqPWQG4PT5gzhibuhJWnc9qrHELsTovrZbNgVS0GcFozfXMt_I3NIV3ribKCE2nwQdD9esYO8szBEaaoxB580KsAYLtbK0bgtn4yvt8nWE/s400/affinity-start.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5042324769538613794" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Yep, thats really Affinity, no mockups, just real code, which you can get <a href="http://code.google.com/p/affinity-search/downloads/list">here</a>!<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><br />Now, as this is a 0.1 release, I ask you to be gentle ;). Here's a break down of some basic features:<br /><br />* Front-end to both the Beagle & Tracker desktop search engines.<br />* Has actions (configurable through Desktop files), which should help to speed up common tasks.<br />* Has in-built, user-configurable, filters which work in the the entry box, so typing 'pics:london' will only bring up pictures.<br />* Super-fast application searching through an in-built list of applications.<br />* Colours can be customised to your taste.<br />* Lives in the system-tray, but can be called by a global key stroke. Default is Ctrl+Alt+a, but you can change it to anything you like!<br />* Written in C for minimal impact on your system, but maximum speed!<br /><br />More info is available on the <a href="http://code.google.com/p/affinity-search/">project page</a>. I have removed 'Favourites' for now as it was a bit unstable, but it should be back in over the weekend.<br /><br />Please bear in mind that Affinity currently only works on gtk+-2.0 >= 2.10, I am working on 2.8 support. Also, Affinity should work without <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">RGBA</span> (i.e. without Beryl or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Compiz</span>), but this has not been extensively tested.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">OTH</span>, it shouldn't take down your system or anything ;p. One bug that I do know about is that scrolling up & down fast on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">treeview</span> widget will cause artifacts to appear, which disappear when you move your mouse over them or press a key. I'm sure that this is just some teething pains between <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Gtk</span> + <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">RGBA</span>, but I'll try and fix this ASAP.<br /><br />Also, an I probably should have blogged about this sooner, shortly after I published the Affinity <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">mockups</span>, I got an email from a person who wanted to make something <a href="http://code.google.com/p/loro-launcher/"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">similar</span></a> for OS X! <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Lol</span>...<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">who'da</span> thunk it? The application is called <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Loro</span>, and is free software. He is working on some really cool ideas, such as <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Google</span> maps integration, check out his <a href="http://recycledaircode.blogspot.com/">blog</a> for more info.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br />Anyway, better get to bed, I'll leave you with some more screenshots:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWwvnrr_DqraO40glbuMH7n3X1MLHW6eDHe1_aF4eIL_IwwM6goCu84LllzUwqwjq23HBDkVMhqLLqsCK1ADy2ecF9G8LbcU9zi1iyotvjfcIoGQZM0WaSpwaJwgVVB0U-1moxKqUITHs/s1600-h/affinity-beagle.png"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWwvnrr_DqraO40glbuMH7n3X1MLHW6eDHe1_aF4eIL_IwwM6goCu84LllzUwqwjq23HBDkVMhqLLqsCK1ADy2ecF9G8LbcU9zi1iyotvjfcIoGQZM0WaSpwaJwgVVB0U-1moxKqUITHs/s320/affinity-beagle.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5042329820420153906" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJtF50rNlc_qRfNNc3IImxNuJLALs0y5n7tCf-w-Byj16PxM1fcWc1c3x1bTCwN6JsiwvBfWS8LVbVe8ERHqBADkW53ZVtWajwDtyxtGrtVeUd96InhuC_zt0AWjLqa7BKTGkpx5Shotk/s1600-h/affinity-black.png"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJtF50rNlc_qRfNNc3IImxNuJLALs0y5n7tCf-w-Byj16PxM1fcWc1c3x1bTCwN6JsiwvBfWS8LVbVe8ERHqBADkW53ZVtWajwDtyxtGrtVeUd96InhuC_zt0AWjLqa7BKTGkpx5Shotk/s320/affinity-black.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5042330155427603026" border="0" /></a>Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com62tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777643573072664808.post-43797468161619665332007-03-09T19:07:00.000+00:002007-03-09T20:23:29.399+00:00Awn UpdatesI've been spending all of my free time on Awn recently, cleaning up the code, adding some missing features, and merging some excellant patches, here's a breakdown:<ul><li>Merged a patch by Chirstian Kirbach which cleans up a lot of warning during compilation</li><li>Fixed a mem leak caused by applications which change their icon many times (ie. Gimp). Also, on my system, g-s-m reports Awn using only 2.6Mb after several hours usage :).</li><li>Separator will position itself correctly when adding new launchers</li><li>Fixed bug when closing lots of windows at once, and Awn getting 'stuck'</li><li>Merged a patch from James Willcox which makes the icons actually 'bounce' on hover, rather than go up & down. I blame him for wasting the next 30 mins of mine as I sat there watching the icons bouncing ;)!</li><li>When in auto-hide mode, the bar will pop-up when you are dragging a file </li><li>Launcher icons will change when you change your theme (GNOME/Gtk)</li><br /></ul> Last week I was talking about having the ability to add menu items to the popup menu of a task through D-Bus, well, now its here!<br /><br />I have added another Rhythmbox plugin under the plugins/Rhythmbox directory. It's called awn-menus, and you have to move the awn-menus.rb-plugin & awn-menus folder to your ~/.gnome2/rhythmbox/plugins. Heres a preview:<br /><br /><embed style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-2383258505469443406&hl=en" quality="best" bgcolor="#ffffff" scale="noScale" salign="TL" flashvars="playerMode=embedded" align="middle"><br /><br />AddTaskMenuItemByName ("rhythmbox", "gtk-media-previous", " "):<br />where arg1 is the name of the task, arg2 is optionally a gtk-stock-id, and arg3 is a normal name (if you can't use a stock id).<br /><br />AddTaskCheckItemByName("rhythmbox", "P_lay", False):<br />where arg1 is the name of the task, arg2 is a mnemonic name for the item, and arg3 is a bool, as to whether it is 'checked' or not.<br /><br />Both return an ID integer. You then listen for "MenuItemClicked" & "CheckItemClicked" signals on com.google.code.Awn. The "MenuItemClicked" will come with one arg, which is the ID, so if it matches your ID, you should do something. "CheckItemClicked" will come with two args, the ID, and a bool telling you whether the check is active or not.<br /><br />You can also use AddTaskCheckItemByName ( name, ID, bool) to set the check from your plugin after you've created it. The rhythmbox plugin is the best example, so have a look at it ;). At the moment, I have put a limit of 5 extra items per task, as I think more than that looks a bit over-the-top. I still need to add the code for removing an item, and disabling an item. <br /><br />Okay, thats it for now, expect lots more bug fixes over the weekend, and some brand new auto-hide code!Neil J. Patelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06101886145554030110noreply@blogger.com20