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Matchbox 0.5 Released

Apr 23, 2003 — by LinuxDevices Staff — from the LinuxDevices Archive — views

The open source “Matchbox” project announced a new release of the Matchbox X11 small footprint window manager and associated applications. Matchbox is designed specifically for resource-constrained X11-enabled devices such as handheld computers, PDA's, set-top boxes, and consumer devices where display size, storage, CPU bandwidth, and input mechanisms are limited, the group said.

Basically, Matchbox consists of five main components: a window manager, a panel, a desktop, a shared utility library, and a number of small panel applications.

Features of the new release, Matchbox 0.5, are described as . . .

  • Many many bug fixes, UI and App improvements and new features.
  • New PDA style launcher included desktop application – 'mbdesktop'.
  • Optional PNG Image support throughout, leading too lightwieght alpha blended goodness throughout application suite.
  • Optional support now for Startup Notification, XSettings, Expat, Dnotify.
  • New website, New manual and other documentation
  • Improved themeing – supports alpha blending, shaped window frames, themeable window borders and much more.
  • Improved freedesktop.org 'extended window manager hint' support.
  • Much improved fully defineable keyboard support.
  • Better Gnome2/KDE3 integration – Support now for multiple panels, icon themes, desktops and more.
  • Still can have a core wm as little as 48k !

An article by Matthew Allum, founder of the matchbox project appears here. The Matchbox project homepage is here, and screenshots are here.


 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.



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