ntrack 002 release comes with easy tracking of online/offline state for glib applications

Written for ntrack by Alexander Sack on 2009-10-18

Hi,

I finished the second release cycle for my current pet and spare-time project "ntrack". Let's see how long I can keep up this weekly release schedule ... at least for now there are definitly enough tasks to release often and early. If you want to help, see TODO: in the "facts section" below.

ntrack is ment to improve the linux desktop experience by making it easy for application developers to track network online status changes and make their applications react accordingly.

Similar to ntrack 001 release, this one is still a "get-out-in-the-wild" proof-of-concept release and as that far from complete.

ntrack 002's development focus was glib integration. The result is that this release now comes with a low-level way of integrating ntrack with your glib mainloop driven application. Technically speaking, ntrack 002 ships a GSource that emits event changes to a callback. Check out the glib/test/mtest_gsource.c for a comprehensible example. Also note that for most Gtk+ applications, the GSource approach might still be a bit too low-level. Applications that use the GObject's rather than pure glib mainloop should wait for the higher level GObject API that is in the pipeline for ntrack 003 or 004.

As usual, here some quick facts on ntrack in general and this release in particular:

Project: ntrack - Network Online Status Tracking library for Desktop Applications
Project-Summary: ntrack aims to be a lightweight and easy to use library for application developers that want to get events on network online status changes such as online, offline or route changes.
Project-Homepage: https://launchpad.net/ntrack
Release: https://launchpad.net/ntrack/main/002
Download: http://launchpad.net/ntrack/main/002/+download/ntrack-002.tar.gz
TODO: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ntrack
Release notes:
        New Stuff:
         * glib mainloop integration through a GSource for ntrack events
         * working glib test for gsource that echoes state changes to stdout
         * improved build-system with support for BSD-make
         * libntrack.la is now a top level library installed in libdir

        Fixed Bugs:
         * glib: implement a GSource wrapping NTrackMonitor API - lp:448350
         * glib: lack of make check tests - lp:448355
         * common/glib: cache and export accessor to current NTrackMonitorState
           in common and glib APIs - lp:448360

        Known Issues:
         * API/ABI cannot be considered stable yet
         * qt bindings are only stubbed out - not working yet
         * gobject api still missing; only low level mainloop integration avail

 - Alexander

Updated on 2009-10-18.