icewm issues

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

antiX-19-beta3 shipped with icewm from debian testing 1.5.5+git20190610-1.
Since then, I uploaded icewm version 1.6.1 to antiX buster, testing and sid repos.
However, version 1.6.1 (and 1.6.2) have distorted the icons in the toolbar eg see the web-browser icon.

So, I think I should revert back to the version used in beta3 for final release.

Agreed?

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

[Member PPC]

Agreed!

Also: sorry if the idea sounds dumb: I tried to check if this if a reported IceWM bug- I found nothing on https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?pkg=icewm;dist=unstable
…So could this, in any way be a antiX only or icon theme problem?

P.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

The bug list you link to is for versions 1.5.5+git20190610-1 and that does not show the icon problem. It is the one I will revert back to.
Debian doesn’t have the problematic 1.6.1 version.

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

[Member BobC]

I’m fine with either. 1.5.5 will work well for the antiX default setups.

I noticed something weird on the icons with 1.6.1 on my own setup, but I was messing with the toolbar and icons and thought it was caused by something I had done.

[Member BobC]

anti, Do you know if the issue you found with the icons in 1.6.1 and 1.6.2 has been fixed? There was a fix in 1.6.1 that I do wish I had…

[Member oops]

Hi,
FI: After some tests, for me it is mostly a icon design issue … not all icons (.png or .svg) have this problem with the version 1.6.2 (only some) … a problem of transparency (alpha channel /alpha threshold) ?

See here:
https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?p=539113#p539113

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 4 days ago by oops.

[Member skidoo]

monitor this ticket:
https://github.com/bbidulock/icewm/issues/392

[Member BobC]

Thanks a lot, skidoo. I got 1.6.2 installed and working. To be honest, I don’t see a lot of problems with icons, but maybe its just me being old and not so picky about visual effects.

LOL, I’m not looking for tuna with good taste, I want tuna that tastes good!

I will now investigate adding my drive space monitors based on the existing monitors included in IceWM… It may well be way beyond my feeble programming skills, but nobody else is willing (and why should they be, lol), so I’m going to see if I can figure it out. These old computers in many cases have very limited memory, cpu, AND disk space, and so if I can build configurable drive space monitors in that don’t eat much memory or cpu to monitor, then maybe I can avoid needing to run conky completely, and SAVE overall memory and cpu cycles as a side benefit of adding drive space monitors.

I downloaded the matching source, so I’m on my way. Thanks for the help!

[Member skidoo]

I downloaded the matching source

So that everyone is “on the same page”, it would be helpful if you cite the URL of what you downloaded
(it’s unclear whether you cloned some git repository, or you downloaded icewm_1.5.5+git20190610-1.debian.tar.xz from antiX repo)

I got 1.6.2 installed and working. To be honest, I don’t see a lot of problems with icons

The linked ticket page contains illustrative screencaps.

investigate adding my drive space monitors based on the existing monitors included in IceWM

upload your (proto)code for custom drive space monitors to gitlab.com/cheapybob or to pastebin.com

[Member BobC]

skidoo, thanks much for your help and taking an interest. I had saved some instructions from you and eugen from the past and worked from those. I admit to not knowing enough, but am trying to learn.

I added the unstable and unstable src repos to my source list, then did

sudo apt-get update
wget ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/i/icewm/icewm-common_1.6.2+git20190929-1_amd64.deb
wget ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/i/icewm/icewm_1.6.2+git20190929-1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i icewm-common_1.6.2+git20190929-1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i icewm_1.6.2+git20190929-1_amd64.deb
apt-get source icewm

$ icewm -V
IceWM 1.6.2+git20190929, Copyright 1997-2003 Marko Macek, 2001 Mathias Hasselmann.

I then commented out the unstable repos and redid the 
sudo apt-get update

That upgraded me to the Debian sid 1.6.2 version and got me the matching source for it and put my repo and package list back to normal afterwards. I am doing this on a test laptop loaded and installed from a snapshot of my main laptop running my tweaked antiX19 full 64 bit.

Next, I should make sure that I can compile the existing, unchanged source that I downloaded, install that and run it to prove I have all the pieces in place to be able to build it correctly.

Maybe I should do it on github, but lack the how to knowledge for that at the moment. To be honest, I don’t even want to tell anyone I am messing with it at all unless I can get it to work. The IceWM Dev’s aren’t interested in doing it, and could be offended that I am messing with their code. Maybe I should start with github to learn how to use it. It’s not a method I am familiar with.

Anyway, the modifications. My strategy is as follows.

I intend my disk space monitors to work similar to the existing IceWM battery monitors, just with different inputs, calculations, tooltips and colors, etc.. I will make it work for a list of disk partitions, the list being fed similar to the NetworkStatusDevice list, called instead DiskspaceStatusDevice. I will grep the source for “NetworkStatusDevice” in order to get a starting list of program that will be affected or cloned partially or fully. I will need to do the same for the variables affected by changes to the values in those programs, the intent being to find all the code that will get affected. I will first just modify to add the DiskspaceStatusDevice option to the preferences, and test with icewm –postprefreferences and then I will know I can modify and build the application.

Then I will use icewm –postprefreferences | grep “APM” to get a list or the preferences for the existing APM battery monitor in the same manner. I will then copy the APM programs to DSK programs (assuming I find no use of that in current code) literally just changing as little as possible, and figure out how to make a DiskspaceStatusDevice list work as a list of disk mounts to monitor if I’m saying that right. I may just run it at that point for a second BAT0 just to make sure the basic stuff works before turning it into monitoring Disk space instead. Once monitor windows work, I plan to just use du to get my values for calculation and display. I will start with a very short list of just / and see if I can get a monitor for it to work, and then add a 2nd drive to monitor to the list to get that working, and then an invalid one to make sure it fails gracefully when fed something invalid.

In my cloned programs I plan to just delete all BSD and other code irrelevant to me because I have zero knowledge on any other systems, the code is for battery monitoring, and I’m already way over my head. I bought 5 C and 2 Linux programming books and need to keep the code as simple as possible, to a novice level for anything that isn’t just copy/changed. With me not being a Linux or C programmer the best case outcome will be code that works and is no worse that what I copied/changed.

If people that knew the code and language were willing and had wanted to, they could have added this feature decades ago, but they probably saw no need for it and/or didn’t have time, etc. It’s Ok, I understand. I have to look at it with blinders because I don’t have their knowledge, experience or ability. If they like the Disk Space Monitors feature, they can improve it or make it work for other environments they are familiar with.

I guess its like so many other things I’ve done over the years. I have the advantage of existing code that works to do something similar, and not knowing it’s an almost impossible project for me. I won’t fail unless I quit trying. And even if I do, I will have learned things by trying.

As always, inputs and suggestions are appreciated. What I really do know is that I don’t know what I don’t know. Thanks.

[Forum Admin Dave]

BobC wrote:

I will now investigate adding my drive space monitors based on the existing monitors included in IceWM… It may well be way beyond my feeble programming skills, but nobody else is willing (and why should they be, lol), so I’m going to see if I can figure it out. These old computers in many cases have very limited memory, cpu, AND disk space, and so if I can build configurable drive space monitors in that don’t eat much memory or cpu to monitor, then maybe I can avoid needing to run conky completely, and SAVE overall memory and cpu cycles as a side benefit of adding drive space monitors.

I have set this up in a script with df / du, which takes the output and compares it to a variable holding a set level I am comfortable with and then email me if it is close. This is more for pre/post nightly backups then for live usage monitoring (which would require a lot of polling. ) the script is similar to here

https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/shell-script-to-watch-the-disk-space.html

Perhaps a more passive way would be to setup disk quotas. Then set a soft limit of the level of space you are comfortable with and a hard limit of the full disk space. Notifications can be sent when the soft limit is reached. Then again I am not sure if this would end up more or less resource intensive then polling.

Computers are like air conditioners. They work fine until you start opening Windows. ~Author Unknown

[Member BobC]

Thanks, Dave. Yes, logic and calculation wise my thought was to use something like that. I would then run every 10 to 60 seconds or so depending on how much it affects performance. If built in, it would be based on a preferences setting, but yes, your cron idea is certainly a good way to do it in a script. I guess I need to run it on the old Pentium II with a slow IDE drive to really see the performance impact. LOL, don’t get mad at me if you see your code inside whatever I end up with 🙂

The difference is that I am trying to get it in front of me all the time because on the lesser machines it’s almost always at least somewhat an issue, and the YAD popup type message was popping up too much. Also, although silly, I think it would look cool in the tray, just like the tray monitor ones that eat up 26 to 40 mb of memory. Perhaps yours really is the better answer, especially when the situation gets desperate, ie whatever you do, avoid running out completely.

Definitely if I get obstacled on building it in seamlessly, your idea would be the best fallback.

[Member skidoo]

Before you sink effort into attempting to shoehorn additional components into the icewm C+ taskbar,
I suggest you check http://gkrellm.srcbox.net/ (screenshots, list of many extra plugins available)
and
sudo apt install gkrellm

gkrellm is wildly configurable and its memory footprint is only about 7MB.

[Member BobC]

I was able to make a minor change to test if I could rebuild it. I installed the new packages, rebooted and it worked. It did give me an error on something about a key, but worked anyway.

[Member BobC]

Hmmmmm, 7 mb is not bad, especially compared to the others at 30+ mb.

I will give it a try 🙂 Thanks skidoo. LOL, IceWM is not written in C, its C++, which I’m even less familiar with than C.

[Author]

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