Project Looking Glass Developer's Release Notes
Release 0.5.1 

These release notes contain important information about the Project Looking Glass 3D Desktop developer's release version 0.5.1. In addition to an overview of the major changes since the previous release (0.5.0), known limitations and bugs, technical notes, and other information are addressed here. Read this document before you begin using the Project Looking Glass 3D Desktop developer's release version 0.5.1.

1. Overview of the changes
    1.1 Rendering fixes
    1.2 Configuration file fixes
    1.3 GNOME fixes
    1.4 Miscellaneous bug fixes
2. Application status
3. Limitations of this release
4. Known Bugs

1. Overview of the changes

This section provides an overview of the changes which have been made to Project Looking Glass since the previous release (version 0.5.0).

1.1 Rendering fixes

The most significant change is that the PLG-knowledgable X11 release bundled with the PLG release has been upgraded to X.org X11R6.8. This new X11 release fixes many rendering errors. Most X11 applications now render correctly to their windows. (Although significant rendering problems have still been reported on some ATI systems).

1.2 Configuration file fixes

In addition, the new X11 server now recognizes the X11 server configuration file /etc/X11/xorg.conf. The previous release did not recognize this file and this caused many problems with the recognition of input devices. In the previous release it was necessary to create a symlink to work around the problem. This workaround will no longer be necessary for many systems.

Don't need workaround: If the X11 configuration file on your system is named /etc/X11/xorg.conf or /etc/X11/XF86Config, you don't need any symlink workaround.

Still need workaround: If the X11 configuration file on your system is named /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, you will need to do the following prior to running lg3d-session:

(Become the root user)

# cd /etc/X11
# ln -s XF86Config-4 xorg.conf

1.3 GNOME fixes

The Xorg server included in the lg3d-core project now seems to work relatively well when run with GNOME instead of lg3d-session. If you discover any bugs in this mode, please file issues on the lg3d-core project.

1.4 Miscellaneous bug fixes

The following bugs have been fixed in this release:

2   P3 WM_PROTOCOLS 250 error message
17 P3 Window selection can move window off screen
24 P3 Memory leak when destroying a window
67 P4 bitmap: File button drawing is corrupted
81 P1 Running same app back-to-back causes a lightpipe failure
79 P3 xgc: Text 16 overflows the subwindow boundaries
83 P4 DS should only track damage on a window when it is mapped
91 P3 Uniconify doesn't put window at correct place

2. Application status

This section illustrates the current status of various important X11 applications which the team is in the process of debugging.

The most significant change from the previous release was that Mozilla Navigator improved from Red (app doesn't work at all) to Yellow (somewhat usable).

Green  = App has no major bugs; basically usable
Yellow = App has some significant bugs, but is somewhat usable
Red      = App is so buggy as to be unusable

Mozilla Navigator                              Yellow

Bug: menus and help windows don't come up properly. Sometimes the help window for the URL window interferes with typing of chars. Sometimes using the scroll bars on various URLs can hang system.

Emacs                                                 Yellow

Moving cursor into buttons under menu bar can segv emacs (Also, I get BadWindow from ChangeProperty).

gnome-calculator                             Yellow

Performing 96 * 3 no longer hangs, but instead generates an XCompositeRedirectWindow BadAccess error. Also, if you click on Help/About and then move into 9, the system hangs.

Mozilla Mail                                         Red

Couldn't start because of Navigator menu problems.

Nautilus                                               Red

I encounter all kinds of corba and other problems.

Evolution                                             Red

I get tons of corba and configuration errors.

StarOffice Word                                 Red

App doesn't come up.

StarOffice Spreadsheet                    Red

App doesn't come up.

StarOffice Presenter                         Red

App doesn't come up.

Netbeans                                             Red

A small black window comes up. After a while this goes away. Then a dialog comes up in the upper right hand corner of the screen, partially off the screen. I click yes and I get a BadWindow from the ReparentWindow request.

Realplay                                               Red

GetWindowAttributes: Bad window and realplay segvs.

Gaim                                                     Red

LightPipe Error: init_window: could not get window attributes and other failure messages

gtk-demo                                            Red

Click on Source tab causes java.lang.NullPointerException in X11Client.mapNotify

freecell                                                Red

Like mozilla, menus and help windows are bad. Moving cursor into New button causes bad help window to come up.

3. Limitations of this release

- This release supports only a single instance of an lg3d-session running per machine. Only a single screen is supported. Configurations with more than one screen, either separate or combined (Xinerama mode) are not yet supported.

- Warning: Shells brought up by clicking the terminal icon default to the root user. So exercise suitable caution when entering commands into these shells.

- Applications that take over the entire screen (i.e. full screen mode) won't work. OpenOffice presentation is one such application.

Note: The following limitations and bugs apply only when the keyboard focus is a 3D object or application. They do not apply to normal X11 applications.

- X11 input methods aren't supported for 3D scene graph objects. Therefore, you won't be able to input multi-key characters.

- Keyboard listeners for 3D scene graph objects don't fully work.

- The Meta, Alt and Alt_graph key modifiers for 3D scene graph objects are not implemented.

- The Num Lock key is not implemented for 3D scene graph objects.

4. Known Bugs

For a list of known bugs, go to https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net and click on Issue Tracker. Click on Query database, go to the bottom of the resulting page and click on Submit query.


See also:

Getting started with the Project Looking Glass 3D Desktop
Project Looking Glass 3D Desktop Developer's Guide