Flit 1.3.0 Beta

[MikeLockmoore]

Forum member Jakob Bysewski generously volunteered to enhance Flit with a feature requested by forum member ACRizona, but then went much further!  A bit thanks from me on making Flit even more flexible and useful to more people.   

The Flit 1.3.0 feature list now includes:

 * ALSA is now working with USB soundcards without a hardware mixer using an alsa virtual softvol device

 * Flit prevents itself from starting multiple instances (using a "pidfile")
 
 * Flit can be made dockable

 * Flit can be made to appear on all desktops (experimental - to be tested)
 
 * Flit got command line parameters using argp
 
 * Flit can be passed an optional config filename to be used instead of ~/.flit.conf

 * support for custom fg and bg colors in config

The "-m" multiple instance option combined with "-c file" option allows you to run multiple copies of Flit in different parts of your screen.  You can now easily have the clock in the upper left and battery monitor in the lower right if you like.

If you want to beta-test Flit 1.3.0, you can unpack and compile the following source code archive.  You will need compiletc. and xorg-7.5-dev extensions at a minimum (maybe more?) installed to build it.  If you cannot or do not want to build this beta yourself, please contact me (e_mail mlockmoore _a_t_ gmail _d_o_t_ com or PM here in the forums).

I think both Jakob and I are both interested hearing from testers on how the new docking (sets _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_DOCK) and "visible in all desktop" features work in different WM/DE environments.  Please post you experiences here!  If we do not see any significant bugs reports, I am likely to submit this to the official repository by the end of December.  Hope it works well for you!
--
Mike Lockmoore

[marquitico]

I see you haven't had much response...For what it's worth: works beautifully for me.

Successfully built on Microcore 2.10 with Xorg-7.4. Running Metacity as stand-alone wm with wbar.

I sooo needed the docking feature, and am enjoying the custom color option, too.

[Jakob Bysewski]

Good to know that docking is working for you - hav you been able to test the "prevent multiple instances"-feature, too?
We have a bug report that it's not working properly but I was not able to sort it out until now (given that I only had a few spare minutes to spend for it).

[marquitico]

I just found the other thread where tinypoodle and you are talking about it: should I be commenting over there? Will move over if you say so. Anyway:

Alas, my needs are modest, and I neglected to test exhaustively.

No, it will not forbid multiple instances. The .flit.pid file is created, and the process id is correctly updated if I exit and restart several times, but it will happily put multiple instances all over the place, even without the -m switch. Meanwhile the -c option works fine without the -m option, so I can populate my desktop with multiple flits as I like.

I am using a Rockwell Riptide sound controller, and volume control responds OK, although controlling how much up or down is inexact, and alsamixer is easier and more precise. But the instant mute is very cool.

By the way, if I'm reading the Help file, the clock stops running (the flit clock, not the actual system clock). Strangely, it doesn't always readjust when I close the Help, but will sometimes simply pick up where it left off, leaving me with a discrepancy. I fix it by exiting and restarting. Can't reproduce on command, though, but it's happened three times. Weird.

I am on a lower system/version than the system reqs in the first post, though: Micro 2.10 w/ Xorg 7.4. Don't know if that would affect anything...

I have noticed something after reading that other thread:

When running new instances, the content appears to be overwritten with PID of most recent instance.

After exiting the most recent of multiple instance, it's (no longer existing) PID would remain in the file.

This is not my experience, interestingly. It's true that the .flit.pid file gets overwritten with the pid of the most recent instance, but in my case, exiting from any instance deletes the .flit.pid file altogether, leaving the other instance(s) running with no .flit.pid file.

In that other thread, I'm also seeing a lot of commentary about the docking feature, so I suppose I ought to clarify for your sake: I don't use a panel, so I don't have a real tray for docking. What I'm happy about is that the --dock option forces "always on top", which the older extension lacked.

[Jakob Bysewski]

Thank you very much for your detailed description which will allow me to investigate further - maybe I'll get to it this weekend!

On my system the "forbid multiple instances"-feature worked while testing, so I'm puzzled why it doesn't work on other systems.
As for the docking feature, it's supposed to dock in the docking area of the window manager (!) if it supports that feature - not in a system dock.