README ====== Twm4Nx is a port of twm, Tab Window Manager (or Tom's Window Manager) version 1.0.10 to NuttX NX windows server. No, a port is not the right word. It is a re-design of TWM from the inside out to work with the NuttX NX server. The name Twm4Nx reflects this legacy. But Twm4Nx is more a homage to TWM than a port of TWM. The original TWM was based on X11 which provides a rich set of features. TWM provided titlebars, shaped windows, several forms of icon management, user-defined macro functions, click-to-type and pointer-driven keyboard focus, graphic contexts, and user-specified key and pointer button bindings, etc. Twm4Nx, on the other hand is based on the NuttX NX server which provides comparatively minimal support. Additional drawing support comes from the NuttX NxWidgets library (which necessitated the change to C++). Twm4Nx is greatly stripped down and targeted on small embedded systems with minimal resources. For example, no assumption is made about the availability of a file system; no .twmrc file is used. Bitmaps are not used (other than for fonts). The TWM license is, I believe compatible with the BSD license used by NuttX. The origin TWM license required notice of copyrights within each file and a full copy of the original license which you can find in the COPYING file. within this directory. STATUS ====== Progress: 2019-04-28: This port was brutal. Much TWM logic was removed because it depended on X11 features (or just because I could not understand how to use it). The replacement logic is only mostly in place but more needs to be done to have a complete system (hence, it is marked EXPERIMENTAL). The kinds of things that need to done are: 1. Right click should bring up a window list (like the icon manager???) 2. For TWM-like behavior, a window frame and toolbar should be highlighted when the window has focus. 3. A right click on the toolbar should bring up a window-specific menu. 2019-05-02: Some testing progress. The system comes up, connects to and initializes the VNC window. For some reason, the VNC client breaks the connection. The server is no longer connected so Twm4Nx constipates and and eventually hangs. 2019-05-08: I abandoned the VNC interface and found that things are much better using a direct, hardware framebuffer. The background comes up properly and the Icon Manager appears properly in the upper right hand corner. The Icon Manager Window can be iconified or de-iconified. The Icon Manager window can be grabbed by the toolbar title and moved about on the window (the movement is not very smooth on the particular hardware that I am working with). 2019-05-10: A left click on the background brings up the main menu. At present there are only two options: "Desktop" which will iconify all windows and "Twm4Nx Icon Manager" which will de-iconify and/or raise the Icon Manager window to the top of the hierarchy. That latter option is only meaningful when the desktop is very crowded. 2019-05-13: Added the NxTerm application. If enabled via CONFIG_TWM4XN_NXTERM, there will now be a "NuttShell" entry in the Main Menu. When pressed, this will bring up an NSH session in a Twm4Nx window. 2019-05-14: We can now move an icon on the desktop. Includes logic to avoid collisions with other icons and with the background image. That later is an issue. The background image image widget needs to be removed; it can occlude a desktop icon. We need to paint the image directly on the background without the use of a widget. 2019-05-15: Resizing now seems to work correctly in Twm4Nx. 2019-05-20: Calibration screen is now in place. 2019-05-21: A "CONTEMPORARY" theme was added. Still has a few glitches. How To: Icon Manager - At start up, only the Icon Manager window is shown. The Icon Manager is a TWM alternative to more common desktop icons. Currently Twm4Nx supports both desktop icons and the Icon Manager. Whenever a new application is started from the Main Menu, its name shows up in the Icon Manager. Selecting the name will either de- iconify the window, or just raise it to the top of the display. Main Menu: - A touch/click at any open location on the background (except the image at the center or on another icon) will bring up the Main Menu. Options: o Desktop. Iconify all windows and show the desktop o Twm4Nx Icom Manager. De-iconify and/or raise the Icon Manager to the top of the display. o Calibration. Perform touchscreen re-calibration. o NuttShell. Start and instance of NSH running in an NxTerm. - All windows close after the terminal menu option is selected. Window Toolbar - Most windows have a toolbar at the top. It is optional but used in most windows. - The toolbar contains window title and from zero to 4 buttons: o Right side: A menu button may be presented. The menu button is not used by anything in the current implementation and is always suppressed o Left side: The far left is (1)the terminate button (if present). If present, it will close window when selected. Not all windows can be closed. You can't close the Icon Manager or menu windows, for example. Then (2) a resize button. If presented and is selected, then the resize sequence described below it started. This may the be preceded by a minimize button that iconifies the window. Moving a Window: - Grab the title in the toolbar and move the window to the desired position. Resizing a Window: - A window must have the green resize button with the square or it cannot be resized. - Press resize button. A small window should pop-up in the upper left hand corner showing the current window size. - Touch anywhere in window (not the toolbar) and slide your finger. The resize window will show the new size but there will be no other update to the display. It is thought that continuous size updates would overwhelm lower end MCUs. Movements support include: o Move toward the right increases the width of the window o Move toward the left decreases the width of the window o Move toward the bottom increases the height of the window o Move toward the top decreases the height of the Window o Other moves will affect both the height and width of the window. - NOTE: While resizing, non-critical events from all other windows are ignored. Themes - There are two themes support by the configuration system: o CONFIG_TWM4NX_CLASSIC. Strong bordered windows with dark primary colors. Reminiscent of Windows 98. o CONFIG_TWM4NX_CONTEMPORARY. Border-less windows in pastel shades for a more contemporary look. Issues: 2019-05-16: Twm4Nx is in a very complete state but only at perhaps "alpha" in its maturity. You should expect to see some undocumented problems. If you see such problems and can describe a sequence to actions to reproduce the problem, let me know and I will try to resolve the problems. Here are all known issues and features that are missing: TWM Compatibilities Issues: 1. Resizing works a little differently in Twm4Nx. 2. Right click should bring up a window list 3. For TWM-like behavior, a window frame and toolbar should be highlighted when the window has focus. 4. A right click on the toolbar should bring up a window-specific menu. There are no near-term plans to address these compatibility issues. Other issues/bugs 1. Icon drag movement includes logic to avoid collisions with other icons and with the background image. That later is an issue. We need to paint the image directly on the background without the use of a widget. 2. There are a few color artifacts in the toolbar of the CONTEMPORARY theme. These look like borders are being drawn around the toolbar widgets (even though the are configured to be borderless). 3. Most Twm4Nx configuration settings are hard-coded in *_config.hxx header files. These all need to be brought out and made accessible via Kconfig files 4. I have seen some odd behavior when many NxTerm windows have been opened (around 15). Specifically, I see failures to start NSH in the windows so they come up blank. All other behaviors are normal. Most likely, some NxTerm resource allocation is failing silently and leaving things in an unusable. The board I am using has 128Mb of SDRAM so I can't believe that memory is the limiting factor. These are, however, RAM-backed windows and will use significant amounts of memory. The primary issue is that the number of windows should probably be managed in some way to assure that the end-user does not experience odd behaviors when resource usage is high. 5. Menus with sub-menus have not been verified. There is no use of sub- menus in the current code base so I expect that there are issues when, for example, and item from a sub-menu item: That menu and all of its antecedent menus should be closed. 6. There is an optional MENU button that may appear at the far left on the toolbar. It is not used by any window in the current code base and, hence, is unverified. I would expect some issues with generating and routing the MENU button events to applications. There are likely other unverified features. 7. X/Y input may be either via a touchscreen or a mouse. Only touchscreen input has been verified. There is, however, very little difference. The primary issue is in cursor support: Cursors are needed with a mouse. Cursor images also change depending on the state (like grabbing and dragging or resizing). There is also a possibility of using auto-raise with a mouse as well. All of this logic is in place, but none has been verifed.