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State of the E-nion
An anonymous reader writes: "Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) has posted a "state of the union" for the enlightenment project on their mailing list. It has been over 2 years since the last major release of the Enlightenment window manager. It looks like 0.17 is a ways off but it's nice to see an update."
but even with the update it's hard to imagine it keeping up to, say, KDE. gotta check it out & compare, though, it's been a while
"Sanity is not statistical", George Orwell, "1984"
0.17 was not just an improvement, but a really different way of thinking enlightenment, something more near to KDE or Gnome than to WMaker or Ice... sad to see that development is slowing down...
If you want a working window manager, stick to e16; e17 isn't really being actively worked on as a window manager yet, and doesn't have many features. The work is on a lot of useful backend stuff; the joke is that once the backend is done, the window manager will be five lines of code. Take a look at the components though. Many of them are in a very good state, and the E folk are to be commended for their excellent modular development -- many of these components are already being used by other projects (imlib2 in particular), and many of the others either are or soon will be in shape to be used in other projects too.
Of course perhaps I'm a bit biased, since E16 is still my favorite window manager (a better way to view/edit remembered window/app attributes being my only real feature request), but I think the E17 team is doing a good job contributing to the overall Free Software codebase. And though it's a bit frustrating that E17 is taking so long, reading through the components is impressive -- everything is being engineered carefully. While many window managers hack things in, everything in E -- from the theming engine to the window decorations -- is carefully designed with a clean interface. Should be impressive when it's done.
My only main worry about E17 is that it seems to be going desktop-environment-ish, a la GNOME/KDE, which I really can't stand. Hopefully we'll be able to turn all that off.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
...by the time that's released!
(I've only just finished school)
I don't know about many of the rest of you, but I've been using E16 nearly nonstop (give or take a few weeks of experimentation with each of several other wms) since its original release four or so years ago.
Its age causes the odd compatability problems (esp with nautilus), but there certainly aren't things which cannot be worked around...
It does entertain me that nearly every user who was introduced to linux after RedHat switched their default wm to be sawhorse/sawfish has never even heard of what is still arguably the best looking thing out there. (I've not touched KDE3.1 yet, but seeing as I have stylistic issues with most of the KDE 'way', my subjective opinion would probably remain the same even with such an experience.)
I know many of you won't like this post as most of you adore the Mac OS X interface, but I believe there is jus too much work being done to make Linux GUIs look nice. Intentions may be good but they don't look nice at all. They TRY to look nice but they fail... and miserably too. PLEASE lets focus on functionality and not so much on looks like those damn rounded windows and buttons. Christs sake its a functionality contest not a beauty contest.
The Windows 95 interface is a great example in my opinion of a excellent GUI. It's not too fancy but not too plain either. A few enhancements and features to this already great gui would be the best thing to happen to linux since that faster and better new virtual memory manager.
Thank you for your time.
How much longer? Enlightenment was my second window manager, Afterstep being my first. I loved enlightenment, made my system look so smooth.
:)
I've been waiting for e17 for so long, tried cvs occasionally but it's always got faults (unsurprising) making it not worth the effort. Especially now it's been declared as a glorified "test program"
Evas looks promising though. I've just never found a home since Afterstep/Enlightenment. Ion was very, very desirable but a few applications are irritating. Still I think the pros outweigh the cons.
if i think a project is dead i usually say the next version will be released just after E17
Smile... tomorrow will be worse.
* AC * dusts off the E icon
<AC> still a few years left in it yet
I use e16 on and off and must say that as a Window Manger it is really cool in terms of being able to skin it. I can skip from and Aqua skin to a BeOS skin in a few seconds. Good place to look is at freshmeat
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Yeah it's taken for ever. But you can tell it will be good when it gets here. There has been a long-running thread about a real-time background which represents the weather / time / moon-phase. Sounds _really_ sweet. Eye-candy galore once the libs are finally set in stone.
I currently switch between E-16 cvs (it's got some work-arounds for rendering issues with later version of X) and E-17 cvs. Every so often I'll try out Gnome / KDE out for a couple of days, but I always end up getting annoyed enough to go back to E. It's just a better interface.
I dont remember seeing the E logo in a slashdot posrt... it must be true it hasnt been news about it in ages ...
------- The last Sig. got fired.
Last time I checked out e17 trying to contribute meant:
- Pulling stuff from cvs SPLIT and HEAD branches (both
had working and broken pieces)
- Finding some document describing the correct order to
build two dozen libs/apps; there was no such up-to-date
document on enlightenment.org
- Build failures, this month here, next month there
- Website says: "Don't complain it doesn't build. It does."
Nothing kills motivation like being told the problems you
are seeing and might even feel inclined to tackle don't
exist.
Geez, contributing to a freakin' OS kernel is a piece of
cake compared to the chores prospective e hackers are
facing.
Too bad, really. e16 is my wm of choice, and e17 has been
looking promising from its early beginnings.
If you read this and know better than I do, don't argue
about the details. The point I'm trying to make is that
e will see more contributions when it makes it easier to
do just that.
Granted, development was at a snail's pace as interest for it tapered off but E really broke ground on the linux desktop in terms of showing off how different (and excellent) X can look. Sure Afterstep, WindowMaker, etc all co-existed with E, but most if not all of the others were based on TWM. Enlightenment offered total customization, resulting in window manager eyecandy that was really unprecedented at the time. Over the years, how many people have been turned onto Linux from seeing a tricked-out E desktop? I'd say a lot.
As a GUI junky I'm glad to hear about this update from rasterman, and even happier that slashdot reported it. Everyday I mouse around my KDE desktop I miss my tear-off/pinnable menus and wait for the day E will shine once again. Looks like that day might not be too far off.
____
ATS11=0 the secret to beating everyone else to a 1 line board.
I do agree that E17 development has seemed pretty "if you're not one of the core developers, you shouldn't be touching it," but it's moving away from that. The post linked to in this story is a good example of an increasing openness and attention to at least some documentation. A lot of documentation has appeared on enlightenment.org in the past month or two as well; the relatively new build notes are particularly useful when trying to build from CVS.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
..will anyone still want it? They'll have to print up an Eprom that fits into my skulljack by then. Should fit right next to my CopTalk skillchip. ;)
Wow! I can't wait until Enlightenment gets out of alpha and 1.0 is announced!
Not trolling, but... ;-)
1. Write heavily hacked code that create beautiful thing.
2. Rewrite it, using
2.1 a more object-oriented approach
2.2 a more conventional approach
3. Improve the code using heavily hacked code.
4. Goto (2).
Well, back to the topic - Enlightenment is what attracted me to the graphical world of linux, and well, I really hate them having put off my wet dreams when I was using efm (enlightenment file manager) several years ago. I thought that they will continue with the same codebase and evolve into something like MacOS.. now that they go for a major rewrite (wel, this is old news anyway)...
I have nothing to say now.
If you want to see something cool download evas (gentoo users just emerge evas) and run 'evas_test' ('evas_test_old' is pretty good too I suppose). You have to hand it to Rasterman, he knows how to make delicious eyecandy.
Is anyone working on making E16 working with Gnome / GTK 2.x ???
I used to use Enlightenment all the time, it was my favourite window manager... but it very broken under Gnome2, and since I've moved to RedHat 8.0, I've missed it terribly..
(btw: I now use KDE 3)
The revolution will not be televised. It won't be on a friggin blog either
Oh no it doesn't. I'm using Mozilla 1.3 and it works fine.
Omnis amans amens
... as half a year ago when I saw them, which means they are either still the same or not up to date.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Although I do not use E, I have checked the progress of its development through www.cuddletech.com and their efforts to improve E and port it to Solaris. I actually like the idea of slow, methodical development as opposed to the "let's add every feature under the sun (no pun intended)" effort ending up in a convuluted mess of bad code and incomplete or non working features. My experiences with Gnome and KDE under Solaris attest to the "it's gotta look cool despite the bad code" effort. People complain about CDE's memory footprint, Gnome just sucks up memory like there is no tomorrow and the only "feature" I can see that remotely benefits anyone is the ability to have more than four desktops (Gnome 6, CDE 4). And lets not mention KDE's memory leaks (which I do not know if they have been totally fixed yet). All I want from a graphical interface is the ability to run graphical applications effectively. At least with cuddletech's efforts (being performed by a working system administrator) functionalty is not being lost to "cool features". Maybe it is time to take another look at E since (at least for me) I am not satisfied with Gnome and Sun's efforts to bring it to Solaris.
see subject includes some other libs as well
the link
Evas is the technology in E17 that can really turn heads. For the uninitiated, it's a display library that abstracts the pixels, handling hardware accelleration and optimization for you. The concept is very similar to Quartz Extreme on OS X (except I don't see any of the functionality of Display PostScript).
We really need Evas and the rest of E17 to get mature -- it's something that can potentially make Linux desktop technology take off in a big way. Think about an OpenGL accellerated composited windowing system. That would lend itself to all sorts of interesting possibilities for desktops.
For one, we'd certainly get rid of a lot of the ugly artifacting and flicker that you see with Qt and GTK today (assuming they could somehow be ported). While a lot of that could be fixed with double buffering, you still wouldn't get all the benefits of Evas.
If you wanna see what I mean, you can go and download only the Evas package and run a small test suite. If you've got an OpenGL accellerated graphics card, you're in for a real treat -- this stuff is incredibly cool.
Now only if they would finish it!
Join Tor today!
Other than that, e16 is pretty damn good. I _love_ the icon box. That is the best damn feature of e16, IMO. I've been waiting 2 years for something like that to appear as a standalone app for any WM, or for Gnome or KDE to add something like that.
Had I known it would never come, I would have done it myself. Now I'm not sure what to do...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Your first window was twm until you figured out how to configure X... admit it!
If I can't smoke and swear I'm fucked.
When I saw the title, I saw "State of the Enron"
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
Mostly just bugfixes, but also includes some stuff from Kim for running with current desktop hints from gnome/kde.
Geoff "Mandrake" Harrison
Some Random UI Hacker
I'm planning to run Duke Nukem Forever on my E17 install.
I'll be picky and point out that you can definately have more than four workspaces with CDE. I'm not sure about an upper limit, but you can have at least nine, since that's what I've got set up on a Solaris workstation. Sun's got documentation to show you how to add more workspaces.
If your only reason for using Gnome on Solaris is to get more workspaces/desktops, then you really have no reason to be using Gnome.
This is one of the annoyances of open source... the tendency of developers to undergo major rewrites.
:)
I've been following Enligtenment for some time, and the most annoying thing about it is that it undergoes a "major rewrite" nearly every major release. The new release always causes your current themes to break, and removes many of the features you were using.
Major re-writes are something developers like to do, but in the commercial sector their bosses won't let them. Why not? Most of the value of the re-write is in the developer's mind: they see the code, no the final product. There are three kinds of expenses to doing a re-write 1) the cost to actually implement the rewrite and 2) time cost to not market your products in a timely manner ad 3) loss of marketability due to feature loss and increased bug count. Even though it's free, the enlightenment project suffers from these costs.
Yes, I am a developer, and yes, I like to re-write. I'm just glad for my job's sake that my boss usually won't let me do it
e16 was just patched to work with current releases of GNOME and KDE, ie, e16.6 understands current hints.
Lastly, evidence (Screenshot), the experimental e17 file-manager was accidentally left off the list because it resides in its own CVS @ cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ evidence co evidence
Bush gives another State of the Union at The SmokeHammer.
"evidence" will basically be that -- efm features (icon-view, "typebuffer" micro-shell, with a browser-view a la Mac OS X thrown in for good measure), but on top of the new e17 libs. A working (if unoptimized) version can be pulled from CVS (cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ evidence co evidence, don't bother with the 0.9.4 RPMs).
sounds gorgeous... wil check that out
tnx
- As Mandrake pointed out, a new patch has just been committed to CVS that will enable E 0.16 to support new KDE/GNOME Window Manager hints. For the uninitiated, this means that it will finally be possible for you to use Enlightenment as your window manager in GNOME 2 or KDE 3 (and get the best of both worlds, if you wish). So expect an 0.16.6 release very soon. :)
:)
- E17 as present is a moderately functional window manager, with few features but great looks. Expect this present window manager to be eventually nuked pending completion of the underlying libraries, to make way for the real Enlightenment.
- There are several other libraries and apps that are being worked on, notably ebg, ebits, ecore, ewl (widget library), evidence (file manager, although a fairly separate project presently), entrance (login/display manager) and so on.
Want to see what E17 looks like? Check out my collection of screenshots here and here.
And if you've ever done some sort of GUI programming, you need to check Evas out NOW!
Am I a hipster-doofus?
Someone needs to mod the parent up. Here's a repost of someone "telling it like it is":
While it might make some folks happy that E17 is jumping the alpha-blending anti-aliasing bandwagon behind Apple's OS X, what annoys me it that they do not copy the intelligent concept behind Aqua: display PDF.
What Apple has done is define an abstraction for graphical applications. What others are copying are some of the nice uses of those abstractions: anti-aliasing and alpha-blending.
It's really a shame the only thing they understand is the surface details, and don't get the underlying beauty.
Un-news
First off, that page doesn't work anymore:
"ERROR: Forum not found"
Second, I have some E17 screenshots up.
http://fire-eyes1.darktech.org/gal/e17-cvs
I ask that you not view too many of the full sized versions, which show up if you click the thumnail, then click the result again.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
If the above link does not work for you, try this one.
I love E! Always have, always will. I've just got over my last round of excitement for E 17.. Why do you torture me with E 17 news!! WHY WHY WHY!!!
On a side note, the link in the article does not work for me, I get ERROR, forum not found...
If you haven't tried E, I highly recommend it.
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
And that's not counting sick stuff like animated themes. ;-) No worries, if you don't want those, the module won't be loaded -- no bloat.
But seriously, most of that credit must of course go to the artists. Without good icons, the icon-view is nothing. ; )
There are debs on SF, but they are out of date. I need to phase in some cleanup and optimizations. Expect new (0.9.5) debs in about two weeks.
Actually, EVAS is much cooler than Quartz. Wheras Quartz (even Quartz Extreme) renders all those beautiful graphics via the CPU, EVAS is a high-level display manager that can take full advantage of OpenGL acceleration if its available. Since it's basically a scene graph (retained mode for you DirectX people), it takes care of all the display optimization for you, so you don't have to worry about writing efficient update code. EVAS is good step away from Quartz, and more in line with Microsoft's Longhorn.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
It should also be noted that evas is disgustingly easy to code for - i was making simple windows with a couple of buttons (button code writen myself - evas is just the canvas not the widget API) and resizing decently in about 3 hours - that includes the time it took me to learn the API.
In addition to a really clear and powerful API, evas is also provides heaps of typechecking and other debugging goodness. It picks up 90% of the errors for you, and you can fix them in a thrid (perhaps a quarter) the time it would have taken before.
if you want to dive in and have a play with evas, Id suggest going here Rephorms page and getting eprog (its a little library to abstract some of the setup of an evas for you - great if you just want a simple X app), evas and imlib, although the ones of rephorms site are a bit out of date, so CVS is your friend here.
Another nice thing about evas, is that the only thing that differs between a X11 app, a framebuffer app, a DirectFB app and an iPaq/Zarus app is the init code basicly (and wether it needs to resize). Thats alot of power. In that line, future ports include PalmOS and MacOSX (native - its already there under their X server)
Lots of acceleration there two; OpenGL which has already been mentioned a bit, although i dont know if Raster actually has this in the mainline code yet (it was in the old Evas, but go removed during the refactor / recode). Theres also MMX/SSE support to.
Summary; lots of power & easy to use from a programmers perspective, and not sacrificing flexibility either. Check it out if you need a good canvas
The Lockdown Project
Way back in the day when I finally dumped FVWM, I switched to E13 and it seriously changed the way way I thought of computers and GUI design. At the time it was a huge leap forward. Since that time elements of the E style have crept into several other platforms and UI styles, which is a good thing.
Over a year ago I was just plain sick and tired of waiting for E17 (don't go off on the 'you should contribute' thing because they won't let you) and decided to check out OSX. I switched within a week. OSX is not as slick as E, and I still miss the glory days of E13-E15 when there was a very large and very active E theming community.
At this point I think that Raster has pretty much killed off any real enthusiasm for E by delaying even a beta release for so long and in much the same way the E themers were killed off - "No wait, it's better if we do it this way. No, nevermind. Let's change the interface again. It'll be really better this time. Ok, now we're going to completely change the theme format, but it's much better this way, really".
Pick formats, methods, etc and go forward. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to work. Release early and often.
So, at this point who cares really? E is dead. Long live OSX.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - BF
Maybe when E17 comes out, Patrick will put it back in Slack so I can get my Eterm back.
:^(
I miss my Eterm...
- for some curious reason everyone else seems to want to look like microsoft.
Duke Nukem Forever...
In E17...
On Xfree86 5.0 (X12)
On The HURD...
On new Amiga hardware!
0 1 - just my two bits
It was when I saw Enlightenment running on FreeBSD 3.0 that I was hooked on open-source software. The idea of a bunch of nerds cranking out free editors and compilers was fine in and of itself, but the artistry and raw sex appeal Mandrake (Geoff Harrison) and Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler) achieved was completely unexpected. It was then that I knew I had to have this stuff. I still insist there is a place for art and personal expression in computer design, a position that so far only Apple appears to appreciate.
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
Look. I wouldn't post these things if I hadn't done anything more than read a marketing blurb off Apple's website. Check out the PDF Apple submitted to Siggraph. Look at the data-flow diagrams on page 10. Look at the line that says "Quartz2D." Note the color: orange. Now, look at the legend in the top right hand corner. Lookup the meaning of the color orange: "software," as in "software-rendered." Quartz Extreme is a misnomer. It should actually be Quartz _Compositor_ Extreme. OpenGL is only used to accelerate window compositing, not to actually draw stuff inside the window. In EVAS, the little line for Quartz2D would be red, as in "Hardware accelerated."
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
all i want is a small FM that does wonders like EFM did. the last time i tried evidence it was too buggy to really run. anyone have a copy of EFM laying around on their HDD somewhere? i know it's not being worked on, but I want it, or something simular to it.
JUST GIMME SOMETHING LITE AND FAST DAMN IT!
are you that stupid? England is alied with the US, so why whould you go watch their news if you arnt going to watch CNN?
E17 is backend stuff. the main new feature of E17 is the iconbar and it has been backported. The new backend stuff in E17 will be incredible, and make E even cooler, imo. Also, it better be as configurable as E16 since a lot of the fluff may be unnecessary for me.
Btw, all you KDE/GNOME people complaining about a lack of aqua look and feel themes should check E. You can even make the iconbar function like a dock. Except E has more features than Aqua.
I gotta agree that Windows 95 is still hard to beat. Even on a crappy P133 with a clean install of Win95, the GUI is FAAAASTTT!!! It's functional and easy to navigate. With every new version of Windows the performance decreases and access to vital stuff gets obscured behind layers of "more user-friendly" GUI.
That being said, KDE3.1.1 looks awesome with it's eye candy, but wish it still had the fast response and cleanness of Windows 95.
dead unless all development has stopped. i would say the actually e17 wm is dead at the moment but since the underlying libraries are being developed it dead state is only temperary.
i remember the days when e was the nicest looking thing around and from some of the screen shots it looks like it can be again. however looks arent everything copout.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.