I don't want to start a window manager war, but I'm doing a fresh(ish)
install and wondered what the latest 'gen' is on window managers.

Ideally I want a small, light one which is also politically correct (and
therefore tightly integrated with gnome).

I was using windowmaker which I like the look and feel of, but I wondered
if there was anything else which fits my bill?

Thanks,

"Steve Naïve" <steven> writes:

> I don't want to start a window manager war, but I'm doing a fresh(ish)
> install and wondered what the latest 'gen' is on window managers.
>
> Ideally I want a small, light one which is also politically correct (and
> therefore tightly integrated with gnome).
>
> I was using windowmaker which I like the look and feel of, but I wondered
> if there was anything else which fits my bill?

Sawfish? IceWM? Fluxbox? :8)

I think those are all I use; in fact, I've been stuck on sawfish alone
(none of this Gnome bloat unless an app requires it!) for the last 8
months. Customizeable like blazes, go play :)

~Tim

Steve Naïve wrote:

> I was using windowmaker which I like the look and feel of, but I wondered
> if there was anything else which fits my bill?

IceWM?

"Steve Naïve" <steven> writes:

> I don't want to start a window manager war, but I'm doing a fresh(ish)
> install and wondered what the latest 'gen' is on window managers.
>
> Ideally I want a small, light one which is also politically correct (and
> therefore tightly integrated with gnome).

Don't know about gnome, don't touch the stuff. wm2 is as small, light,
and politically correct as they come, and is also very pretty.

<URL: http://www.all-day-breakfast.com/wm2/ >

On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 11:32:28 +0100, Steve Naïve wrote:

> I don't want to start a window manager war, but I'm doing a fresh(ish)
> install and wondered what the latest 'gen' is on window managers.
>
> Ideally I want a small, light one which is also politically correct (and
> therefore tightly integrated with gnome).

Not so sure about the gnome stuff, because my attitude is much the same as
Tim's, but I can echo endorsements for IceWM - which I has, I think, a
good set of features without being bloated, and is being steadily
developed.

Geoff

Geoff <capsthorne> writes:

> On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 11:32:28 +0100, Steve Naïve wrote:
>
>> I don't want to start a window manager war, but I'm doing a fresh(ish)
>> install and wondered what the latest 'gen' is on window managers.
>>
>> Ideally I want a small, light one which is also politically correct (and
>> therefore tightly integrated with gnome).
>
> Not so sure about the gnome stuff, because my attitude is much the same as
> Tim's, but I can echo endorsements for IceWM - which I has, I think, a
> good set of features without being bloated, and is being steadily
> developed.

Just for the record, icewm is capable of respecting gnome; at the last
count, I thought at least one distribution had an `icewm-gnome' package,
and over here on gentoo, there's this:

| DEPEND="virtual/x11
| esd? ( media-sound/esound )
| gnome? ( gnome-base/gnome-libs gnome-base/gnome-desktop )
| imlib? ( >=media-libs/imlib-1.9.10-r1 )
| nls? ( sys-devel/gettext )
| truetype? ( >=media-libs/freetype-2.0.9 )"

Worth considering; I keep it as a backup just in case I manage to bork
sawfish :8)

~Tim

On 22 Aug 2003 12:23:39 GMT, Tony Houghton wrote:

> Sawfish is excellent, but it has a nasty bug on (some) Xinerama systems
><http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91056>. The developer can't
> reproduce it and I know very little about how WMs work, so it might be
> unfixable :-(. Is there anything Gnome-enabled that's nearly as good?

enlightenment-0.16.6-pre5

> Metacity would be OK except that it can't seem to maximise in one
> direction at a time, which is something I really like about the better
> X WMs.

You can define keybindings for maximize_vertically and
maximize_horizontally, the problem is that metacity doesn't save the
old geometry, so there's no such thing as toggle_maximize_vertically
or toggle_maximize_horizontally.

Achim

In <3f469a7c$0$9537$9b4e6d93>,
Achim Linder <achim.linder> wrote:

> On 22 Aug 2003 12:23:39 GMT, Tony Houghton wrote:
>
>> Sawfish is excellent, but it has a nasty bug on (some) Xinerama systems
>><http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91056>. The developer can't
>> reproduce it and I know very little about how WMs work, so it might be
>> unfixable :-(. Is there anything Gnome-enabled that's nearly as good?
>
> enlightenment-0.16.6-pre5

Gnome support seems to be limited to being able to use the panel and gmc
(ie Gnome 1) if you tweak around to stop enlightenment messing them up.
I find it really horrible anyway. And it isn't Xinerama-compliant.

>> Metacity would be OK except that it can't seem to maximise in one
>> direction at a time, which is something I really like about the better
>> X WMs.
>
> You can define keybindings for maximize_vertically and
> maximize_horizontally, the problem is that metacity doesn't save the
> old geometry, so there's no such thing as toggle_maximize_vertically
> or toggle_maximize_horizontally.

I suppose I could get used to that. I really want it to do the right
thing when clicking on the maximise icon with different mouse buttons
though.

I've also found another nasty thing about it: clicking a window, other
than to lower it with button 3 always raises it. Doesn't seem to be a
way to turn that off. Broken by design. :-(

On 27 Aug 2003 21:29:00 GMT, Tony Houghton wrote:
> In <3f469a7c$0$9537$9b4e6d93>,
> Achim Linder <achim.linder> wrote:
>
>> On 22 Aug 2003 12:23:39 GMT, Tony Houghton wrote:
>>
>>> Sawfish is excellent, but it has a nasty bug on (some) Xinerama systems
>>><http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91056>. The developer can't
>>> reproduce it and I know very little about how WMs work, so it might be
>>> unfixable :-(. Is there anything Gnome-enabled that's nearly as good?
>>
>> enlightenment-0.16.6-pre5
>
> Gnome support seems to be limited to being able to use the panel and gmc
> (ie Gnome 1) if you tweak around to stop enlightenment messing them up.

You are talking about enlightenment-0.16.5, try enlightenment-0.16.6-pre6.

> I find it really horrible anyway.

I like it - apart from raise on click in click-to-focus mode. Patch

--- enlightenmentold-0.16.6/src/evhandlers.c 2003-08-22 22:28:28.000000000 +0200
+++ enlightenment-0.16.6/src/evhandlers.c 2003-08-28 11:42:57.000000000 +0200
@@ -1667,8 +1667,6 @@
ewin = FindEwinByBase(win);
if (ewin)
FocusToEWin(ewin);
- if (ewin)
- RaiseEwin(ewin);
/* allow click to pass thorugh */
if ((ewin) && (ewin->win_container == win))
{
@@ -1676,6 +1674,8 @@
XAllowEvents(disp, ReplayPointer, CurrentTime);
XSync(disp, False);
}
+ else if (ewin)
+ RaiseEwin(ewin);
/* done */
}
if (m)


The other EWMH compliant window managers have their own problems.
Icewm-1.2.12 doesn't start from a gnome session (ie it must be started
separately). Oroborus-2.0.13 lacks Xft2 support and a good window
placement algorithm and openbox 3 is still alpha
(already stable, no configuration tool).

Gnome panel is always on top with oroborus and openbox, some people don't
like this. Workaround

--- oroborusold-2.0.13/src/client.c 2003-05-26 02:28:17.000000000 +0200
+++ oroborus-2.0.13/src/client.c 2003-08-25 13:43:46.000000000 +0200
@@ -525,7 +525,7 @@
{
c->win_state = c->win_state | WIN_STATE_STICKY;
c->non_focusing = True;
- c->win_layer = WIN_LAYER_DOCK;
+ c->win_layer = WIN_LAYER_NORMAL;
}
else
c->non_focusing = False;


--- openboxold-3.0-alpha6/kernel/client.c 2003-08-22 18:08:07.000000000 +0200
+++ openbox-3.0-alpha6/kernel/client.c 2003-08-25 13:37:36.000000000 +0200
@@ -1597,7 +1597,7 @@
else if (self->type == OB_CLIENT_TYPE_DESKTOP)
l = OB_STACKING_LAYER_DESKTOP;
else if (self->type == OB_CLIENT_TYPE_DOCK) {
- if (!self->below) l = OB_STACKING_LAYER_TOP;
+ if (!self->below) l = OB_STACKING_LAYER_NORMAL;
else l = OB_STACKING_LAYER_NORMAL;
}
else if (self->above) l = OB_STACKING_LAYER_ABOVE;


> And it isn't Xinerama-compliant.

Xinerama-HOWTO:

"From their news page: Sun Mar 26 2000

E with Xinerama support

We just got done adding real xinerama support to E this weekend. Now you
have edge resistance moving windows between heads, windows will always
pop up on the currently focused head (unless it wants to go someplace
else by geom settings or you have it saved to go someplace else),
maximize (unless you use "absolute" maximize) stays on the current head
also."

>>> Metacity would be OK except that it can't seem to maximise in one
>>> direction at a time,

> I've also found another nasty thing about it: clicking a window, other
> than to lower it with button 3 always raises it. Doesn't seem to be a
> way to turn that off. Broken by design. :-(

Yep.

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=115753

Achim

In <3f4de74f$0$2329$9b4e6d93>,
Achim Linder <achim.linder> wrote:

> On 27 Aug 2003 21:29:00 GMT, Tony Houghton wrote:
>> In <3f469a7c$0$9537$9b4e6d93>,
>> Achim Linder <achim.linder> wrote:
>>
>>> enlightenment-0.16.6-pre5
>>
>> Gnome support seems to be limited to being able to use the panel and gmc
>> (ie Gnome 1) if you tweak around to stop enlightenment messing them up.
>
> You are talking about enlightenment-0.16.5, try enlightenment-0.16.6-pre6.

OK, I may try that some time.

>> I find it really horrible anyway.
>
> I like it - apart from raise on click in click-to-focus mode. Patch

That's OK, because I always use sloppy focus anyway. Is there a simple
way to stop it starting up its panel etc and just be a wm and nothing
else? Even with the full environment up I couldn't find a way to
configure it.

> The other EWMH compliant window managers have their own problems.
> Icewm-1.2.12 doesn't start from a gnome session (ie it must be started
> separately).

Doesn't seem to have maximising in one direction either.

> Oroborus-2.0.13 lacks Xft2 support and a good window
> placement algorithm and openbox 3 is still alpha
> (already stable, no configuration tool).

I had a quick look and ditched that one too, can't remember exactly why
now.

>> And it isn't Xinerama-compliant.
>
> Xinerama-HOWTO:
>
> "From their news page: Sun Mar 26 2000
>
> E with Xinerama support
>
> We just got done adding real xinerama support to E this weekend. Now you
> have edge resistance moving windows between heads, windows will always
> pop up on the currently focused head (unless it wants to go someplace
> else by geom settings or you have it saved to go someplace else),
> maximize (unless you use "absolute" maximize) stays on the current head
> also."

I'm sure it wasn't working for maximise when I tried it.

>>>> Metacity
>
>> I've also found another nasty thing about it: clicking a window, other
>> than to lower it with button 3 always raises it. Doesn't seem to be a
>> way to turn that off. Broken by design. :-(
>
> Yep.
>
> [..]

Oh, I tried searching for "click raise" in the summary and got nothing,
so I entered a new bug. I suppose searching doesn't do subwords and
hyphenated words count as one.

In <3f4f4686$0$2333$9b4e6d93>,
Achim Linder <achim.linder> wrote:

> On 28 Aug 2003 21:30:44 GMT, Tony Houghton wrote:
>>> Oroborus-2.0.13 lacks Xft2 support and a good window
>>> placement algorithm and openbox 3 is still alpha
>>> (already stable, no configuration tool).
>>
>> I had a quick look and ditched that one too
>
> Which one?

Oroborus.

> What about fvwm-2.5.7?

I used to use fvwm 2 for ages. I liked the flexibility, but I got fed up
with its arcane configuration language and having to restart it whenever
I changed anything. Then I discovered that sawmill (as it was then) was
really configurable too but much more easily. But I wanted some sort of
launcher, and especially a desktop pager, so I tried Gnome and
discovered it was actually quite nice, not a horrible bloaty Windows
clone after all...

On 29 Aug 2003 17:39:22 GMT, Tony Houghton
<tony> wrote:

>I used to use fvwm 2 for ages. I liked the flexibility, but I got fed up
>with its arcane configuration language and having to restart it whenever
>I changed anything.

Which is dead easy, just left click on the desktop, select Exit FVWM
and then Restart FVWM. Or do as I have, add a key combination which
does it. No applications lost, just the focus (if you use
click-to-focus).

>Then I discovered that sawmill (as it was then) was
>really configurable too but much more easily. But I wanted some sort of
>launcher, and especially a desktop pager, so I tried Gnome and
>discovered it was actually quite nice, not a horrible bloaty Windows
>clone after all...

I don't like Gnome or KDE, I want a small and light WM which can be
configured to run 40+ xterms by default and switch between them using
the keyboard, with nothing else cluttering up the real estate. I also
dislike the attidude of "This application is best run with <x> window
manager" (like web sites do), or even worse "this program will only
compile if you have $WM installed".

Chris C

On 28 Aug 2003 21:30:44 GMT, Tony Houghton wrote:
> In <3f4de74f$0$2329$9b4e6d93>,
> Achim Linder <achim.linder> wrote:

>> Icewm-1.2.12 doesn't start from a gnome session (ie it must be started
>> separately).
>
> Doesn't seem to have maximising in one direction either.

Shift+double click on titlebar -> toggle maximize vert.
Alt+Shift+double click on titlebar -> toggle maximize horiz.

Achim