PBButtons / News: Recent posts

This releases fix some minor bugs. PBButtonsd is able again to read the trackpad configuration from the config file and GTKPBButtons doesn't block the sound device anymore when launched as daemon.

This release got support for the new automatic ambient light controller model in pbbuttonsd and any other new feature of pbbuttonsd 0.8.0. To make this instantly visible the version numbers of both programs have been aligned.

A lot of ancient restrictions were eliminated and all GUI elements were adapted to pbbuttonsds modern and flexible driver system.

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Matthias

This release adds support for Apples MacBooks an MacBook Pros to pbbuttonsd. This includes support for LCD and keyboard backlight control, ambient light sensor with automatic brightness adjustment and basic ACPI support.

Furthermore the automatic brightness controller was replaced by a new one. The new model results in a more precise brightness adjustment of LCD backlight and keyboard illumination and is easier and more flexible to configure.... read more

This PBButtonsd release got support for the new SysFS backlight interface introduced with kernel 2.6.18. In this context parts of the client API were redesigned. Brightness values are transmitted as percentage now rather than in device dependent units. The fading mechanism was redesigned to become device independent too. See the Changelog and manual pages for full details. Client programmers should take care about the changes and adapt their programms as soon as possible.... read more

This release got an additional input handler that works around the synaptics trackpad driver that blocks certain event devices for exclusive use.

Problems with an unstable autoconf package have been solved so that pbbuttonsd will compile and install as usual again.

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Matthias

This release now uses sysfs and open firmware to detect the machine type and the I2C device, the LMU is connected to. This leads to a more detailed machine identification and a more reliable detection of ambient light sensor and keyboard illumination. A fix of a possibly division by zero error in the ALSA module completes this release.

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Matthias

This release supports now 255 brightness steps for the keyboard illumination. Fading becomes really smooth now. Furthermore some problems with machine identification, especially old G3 PowerBooks were fixed. Code optimization to decrease CPU load and a fix of a segmentation fault in the alsa module complete the release.

This release fixes following debian bugs: #372760.

This release fixes a couple of small problems like synchronize disks before calling a suspend mode or allow the user to dim the display to complete darkness even if the automatic brightness controller is running. Furthermore this release won't use vendor and product id of USB devices any longer because they were found as not unique. Due to this pbbuttonsd missed some input devices in the past.

This bug fix will close debian bug #345314 and #357595.

This release got support for the ambient light sensor and the keyboard illumination of latest 15" and 17" Powerbooks. Furthermore the keyboard mode of USB keyboards can be set the same way as for ADB keyboards, as long as you use kernel 2.6.16 or later.

As a first big step towards major future enhancements, the main loop and the input device management of pbbuttonsd was moved to glib. This change is the basis now for moving pbbuttonsd's IPC system towards dbus-1 and to implement a dynamically loadable module system for user space device drivers (USDD).

This release got a new time estimation algorithm called IBaM, which leads to formidable accurate runtime predictions if running on battery. Also battery warnings will be very accurate and reliable. If it says you have 10 minutes left, you will have 10 minutes left.

Battery aging will be continously tracked so that the time predictions will be accurate over time nevertheless how old the battery is. Adjusting battery warnlevels in a configuration file is yesterday, IBaM is now.... read more

PBButtonsd now cooperates with the appletouch trackpad driver as well as with most graphic tablets. Furthermore a new HIBERNATE command was added to improve support for suspend-to-disk and last but not least pbbuttonsd won't suspend the machine anymore if a shutdown or reboot process is already in progress.

This release was checked with valgrind for the first time and as result some memory leaks and other minor problemes were fixed, too. Read the changelog for full list.

This release make the power management control scripts POSIX compilant. They should work now even the underlying shell is not bash.

The mountpoint search routine was improved. It finds the mountpoint now even if the cdrom link contains a relative device path.

The volume control is more comfortable now. It changes the volume level in bigger steps by default and allows fine tuning in conjunction with the shift modifier. In this context a bug was fixed that caused the fine tuning to fail on sound hardware with more than 100 volume steps.

This release fixes some serious bugs that caused busy loops. Furthermore some bugs in the alsamixer module are fixed and the search algorithm for the CDROM mountpoint was improved. The 'NoTapTyping' feature is now disabled by default and the code was restructured to reduce ADB bus load.

The command line tool 'pbbcmd' got some new features and is able to trigger server actions now.

This release polish the interface a bit, updated the language files and especially improve the german language file. Furthermore a tooltip to the 'NoTapTyping' option was added that would give a recommendation to solve the conflict between mouseemu and pbbuttonsd on this issue if both programs were used.

GtkPBButtons now speaks spanish. A spanish language file was added in this release.

This release fixes the problem that under certain circumstances pbbuttonsd causes 100% of CPU load. The power key of recent aluminum powerbooks is now supported and the ASLA mixer module got an improved error management. The evdev module is no longer loaded automatically. The system must have been set up properly before using pbbuttonsd.

This release has been fixed to work around a bug in Gtk+ libs. This bug caused problems with transparency of the popup windows.

A new theme can be downloaded from the gtkpbbuttons section on the pbbuttons homepage:

http://pbbuttons.sourceforge.net

The main improvement of this release is that it takes care of other running instances of GtkPBButtons. The new launched program replaces the running instance so that no more than one GtkPBButtons process is in memory at the same time.

This release reconfigures the trackpad much faster after typing on the keyboard to prevent the cursor from unintentionally movements.

Furtheron pbbuttonsd uses the laptop-mode-tools package from Bart Samwel now if installed. The internally laptopmode.sh script will only be used as fallback.

Some fixes for bugs collected in the debian bugtracker and also some not recorded there as well as an extended and revised documentation completes this release.... read more

This release is adapted to handle all the new options of PBButtonsd 0.6.8 including ALSA and OSS mixer configuration and the new 'NoTapTyping' option, which disables trackpad's mouse click emulation while typing on a keyboard.

see: http://pbbuttons.sourceforge.net

This release could be configured to detect the active mixer
automatically. The trackpad mouse click emulation will be
temporarely switched off while typing on the keyboard.
Furtheron a new configuration manager has been introduced
so that modules can always be configured wether they are
active or not. No configuration option will be lost anymore.

The pbblib now accepts unlimited number of clients. A client
is now able to tell the server what should happen if the client
has been launched twice.... read more

This release has got a new popup window for external video. Furthermore the GNOME session support was broken in former versions and has been fixed. In this context Gtkpbbuttons uses libpopt for command line evaluation now to avoid conflicts with GNOME. Some small bugfixes complete this release package.

This release has got a brand new native ALSA mixer module (Thanks to John Steele Scott for his contribution). If both mixer modules were compiled in you could set the sound system to be used in the configuration file.

As second highlight on supported graphics cards the external video output could be switched on/off with a hotkey (m*mirror).

Furthermore a spanish translation was added (Thanks to Rudy Godoy) and the brightness level will be automatically resync'ed after it has been changed outside of pbbuttonsd. Last but not least a design flaw regarding character sets has been removed.

The main new part of GTKPBButtons is the new 'Crystal' theme from Johannes Kanefendt, many thanks to him. Furthermore it shows a special message if the CDROM closes and a bug in the brightness popup was fixed.

see: http://pbbuttons.sourceforge.net

Powerprefs now suports the new restructured power management configuration and all other new options of the server. All power management modes could be adjusted with a comfortable GUI as usual.

see: http://pbbuttons.sourceforge.net