Enlightenment (software)

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Enlightenment

Enlightenment E17, with former default theme Black&White and GTK+2 programs running using a GTK+2 port of the theme
Original author(s)	Carsten Haitzler
Developer(s)	Enlightenment development team
Initial release	1997; 24 years ago (1997)
Stable release	E24 0.24.2 / 26 July 2020; 12 months ago (2020-07-26)[1]
Repository	git.enlightenment.org
Written in	C (EFL)
Operating system	Unix-like
Type	Window manager Graphical shell Desktop environment
License	BSD License
Website	www.enlightenment.org

Enlightenment, also known simply as E, is a compositing window manager for the X Window System. Since version 20, Enlightenment is also a Wayland compositor.^[2] Enlightenment developers have referred to it as "the original eye-candy window manager."^[3]

Enlightenment includes functions to provide a graphical shell, and it can be used in conjunction with programs written for GNOME or KDE. When used together with the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL), Enlightenment can refer to an entire desktop environment.^[4]

History[]

The first version of Enlightenment was released by Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler) in 1997.^[5]

Version 0.17, also referred to as E17, was in development for 12 years starting in December 2000^[6] until 21 December 2012 when it was officially released as stable.^[7] During the development period it was also referred to as DR17 (Development Release 17).

It is a complete rewrite on DR16 and was designed to be a full-fledged desktop shell, based on the new Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL).

E16 itself is still in active development that runs independently of E17, reaching the 1.0 milestone in 2009 (1.0.23 as of 2021).^[8]

Bodhi Linux was built around the Enlightenment 17 desktop, but forked it to create the . Elive Linux also used a fork of E17 as its main desktop environment until 2019, when the 3.7 series was created.

The current version is E24.^[9]

Version history[]

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This section needs to be updated. The reason given is: needs e24 information. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (April 2021)

E16[]

E16 provides features that you don't even see in many "advanced" desktop environments to this day. It allows the user to create a grid of workspaces known as "virtual desktops". Switching between them is achieved by hurling the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen, after which the desktop appears to slide across to reveal the next. All the desktops are connected, meaning that if a window is too big for the screen size you can go to the adjacent desktops to find the rest of it. You can have up to 8 by 8 desktops in a single grid, and up to 32 grids are possible (each can have a different background), making 2048 possible workspaces. Users can enable a sort of "map" of the desktops, called the pager, in case they get lost. It also provided the ability to put windows in groups (so they can be removed, resized, closed, etc all together), "iconification" which is similar to minimizing but are stored in "iconboxes" that can be moved, the ability to change the type of or remove completely the borders and title bars, advanced keybinding settings to allow use of Enlightenment solely with a keyboard (e16keyedit is a GUI program simplifying this process), a scriptable command-line interface that works with most if not all of E's features, and (with newer versions) a compositor with effects such as fading and transparency,

One of the aims of the window manager is to be as configurable as possible, and to this end, it includes customization dialogs for focus settings, window movement, resizing, grouping and placement settings, audio, multiple desktop, desktop background, pager, tooltip and autoraise settings. It also includes a special effects dialog, with two effects, one of which being a desktop 'ripple' effect.

E17[]

DR17 with former default theme Bling-bling. The theme was superseded by Black and White

E17 has many core features such as:

• Fully themeable, with both a menu-based and command-line theme-changing interface
• A built-in file manager
• Icons on the desktop
• Virtual desktop grid feature
• Modular design: can dynamically load external modules. Currently available modules include:
  • Pager: Switching between different virtual desktops
  • iBar: Launching applications
  • iBox: Holding minimized applications
  • Engage (original^[10] and rewrite based on iTask NG): A dock similar to the Mac OS X dock
  • Dropshadow: Provides a drop-shadow for every window
  • Clock: Analog and digital clock
  • Battery: Monitoring a laptop battery
  • CPUFreq: Monitoring a laptop CPU
  • Temperature: Monitoring laptop temperature
  • Illume: Modifies the user interface of enlightenment to work cleanly on a mobile device
  • Composite: Allows the user to run enlightenment with composite effects
  • Tiling: Allows setting up tiling on specified virtual desktops
• One or more shelves to manage the gadget placement and appearance on the screen
• Animated, interactive desktop backgrounds, menu items, iBar items and desktop widgets are all possible
• Window shading, iconification, maximising and sticky settings
• Customizable key bindings
• Support for internationalization
• Standardized: supports all needed standards (NetWM, ICCCM, XDG and so on)
• A screenshot menu

E21[]

• Greatly improved Wayland support
• New gadget infrastructure
• Wizard improvements
• Video backgrounds

E22[]

• Greatly improved Wayland support
• Improvements to new gadget infrastructure
• Added a sudo/ssh askpass utility GUI
• Meson build system
• Tiling policy improvements
• Integrated per-window volume controls

E23[]

• New padded screenshot option
• Meson build now is the build system
• Music Control now supports rage dbus protocol
• Add Bluez5 support with totally new and redone module and gadget
• Add dpms option to turn it off or on
• Alt-tab window switcher allows moving of windows while alt-tabbing
• Many bug fixes, compile warning fixes, etc.
• Massive improvements to Wayland support

Release history[]

Legacy sources

Developers[]

Principal

• Carsten "Rasterman" Haitzler: lead developer
• Kim "kwo" Woelders: E16 maintainer
• Hisham "CodeWarrior" Mardam Bey
• Christopher "devilhorns" Michael
• Mike "zmike" Blumenkrantz

Inactive

• Geoff "Mandrake" Harrison

See also[]

• Terminology (software)
• Comparison of X window managers
• Enlightenment Foundation Libraries
• Bodhi Linux
• OpenGEU

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Enlightenment.

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: The Unofficial Enlightenment User's Manual

• Official website
• Official website for older e16
• Sources(git)
• Operating-systems distribution status
• Elive Linux's fork of E17