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.

 
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