Dear evilwm users

phrakture · 2008-02-08 21:38:08

So I have been using ratpoison for jebus-only-knows how long. Recently I got fed up with some of the issues due to forced maximization, so decided to try out evilwm. I have been using it for a month or so now, and I think I like it. But, of course, I have some gripes, and wanted to know what *you guys* do:

a) I don't like that new windows are positioned where my mouse is. I'd like them to start centered. Is there any easy way to do this?
b) Having some keybindings internal, and some in xbindkeys seems annoying. Any advice?
c) I used to abuse ratpoison's message window to display things, like mpd song changes and the like. evilwm doesn't have anything like this. Is there an alternative?

Thanks in advance

phrakture · 2008-02-09 00:15:51

One is the loneliest number.
Ooonnnnee is the LONELIEST number.

/me sheds a tear

abstracity · 2008-02-09 03:06:33

A) Well, in response to your desire to have windows centered, I do not know if anyone has ever developed a chunk of code independent of the window manager to do a thing like that. You could "hide the mouse" from the X server by unloading the module that permits access to your mouse before the window manager draws the window, hope because the X server cannot find the position of your mouse it will stick it in the center, and then reload the module that allows you to control your mouse. This doesn't seem to make too much sense unless you were to not open new windows very often. A more hopeful idea, although still inadequate, would be to set the mouse cursor to a calculated position on the screen so that by bringing up a new window that window is thus centered (and afterwords, the code would move the cursor back to where it was previously). Both of these inelegant hacks will probably not be as easy to implement as editing the source code. If you think you may use this window manager for quite some time, why not modify this little part of its internal structure?

B) I thought about that, too, one time, and I reached the idea that maybe the author liked it that way--or thought the split was more in alignment with the concept of minimalism. Maybe the author enjoyed structuring the application around the "do one thing well" argument. If you change the internal key bindings quite a bit, I would agree with your thought process that it would be more simple to have them configurable from the same place xbindkeys has its information at. But I think the author assumed that most users would only change the internal key bindings in the beginning and then make minute changes every now and then, so therefore, why have configurable key settings in a configuration file that may never change?

C) You may find dzen2 to suit your needs quite fittingly. It functions by displaying your message through a piped input. For example, if you use mpc, the following command (typed in a regular console) will display the current playing song with small, white terminus font for a total of 5 seconds:

mpc | head -1 | dzen2 -fn '-*-terminus-*-*-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*' -fg white -p 5

I believe I read one of your posts a while back where you indicated you primarily work on a laptop, and if that means you do not attach a second monitor very often, you may not need to compile dzen2 on your own; the binary Arch package will do just fine. Support for a multi-head setup requires a custom compile-time setting that is not enabled in the default binary.

axion419 · 2008-02-10 16:42:33

as far as configuring where new windows are launched you could use Devils Pie. http://burtonini.com/blog/computers/devilspie

Ive never used it, but it seems like you tell it where you want programs to start, and this will make them start there.

abstracity · 2008-02-10 19:19:29

That is an interesting application you have suggested axion419; I have never heard of anything like that.

Phrakture, this isn't absolutely pertinent to the discussion, but I am curious on the details of your transition from a tiling window manager to a non-one. The path I have took from one WM to another is a tad bit different from yours: evilwm ---> ratpoison ---> xmonad. Did you start using the mouse more and spotted the potential advantage in an application such as evilwm? or was it solely due to the maximization issue?

You didn't go into detail about your issue with ratpoison and the "forced maximization" deal, but perhaps, if you get tired of using a mouse (=D), you could try out other tiling window managers that allow you to control the layout windows open in, such as being either maximized or self-tiled depending on the situation. I do know that with xmonad you can easily customize the manner in which windows are laid out on the screen; you can completely do away with the automatic, full screen paradigm if you want. In fact, there are over 30 different extensions that users have written to tile windows in a different, non-traditional manner, and one of those might be what you were looking for. As an example, you can easily set up your xmonad environment to horizontally tile or vertically tile windows without any user interaction required and then, if the need arises, switch to full screen tiling by hitting "Alt-space" (the default key binding to cycle through different layout algorithms). Then, when you are ready to move out of automatic, full screen tiling, you may switch back to the tiling mode you were in previously by hitting "mod-space" one more time.

Dusty · 2008-02-10 19:34:19

abstracity wrote:

That is an interesting application you have suggested axion419; I have never heard of anything like that.

pekwm has something like that built in called autoproperties. It also has a nice expand mode where you can invoke an action and it makes the window take up as much space as is available, expanding until it hits another window border in each dimension. This makes it easy to tile windows without actually enforcing tiling.

I'm turning this into a which window manager thread, I can tell. I'm such a hijacker. Somebody should reprimand me.

Dusty

peets · 2008-02-10 20:01:41

I was going to suggest pekwm and its autoprperties and configurable window placement rules, but I didn't want to hijack.

stonecrest · 2008-02-10 20:56:30

phrakture, I believe the latest kde4 can do everything you want. Glad to help!

Crooksey · 2008-02-10 21:00:50

Seeing as you are still trying other WM's, I would suggest pekwm, started using a few months ago, very nice.

phrakture · 2008-02-11 17:41:32

Meh, pekwm isn't for me... it's too... *present*.

And yes, I remembered Devil's Pie at some point after the first response. I figured it'd cover my centering issue easily. Plus, who doesn't love S-Expressions?

Seriously though, my WM path has gone from "do whatever" (gnome, fluxbox, openbox), to "do things for me" (wmi, wmii, awesome), to "shut up and let me do it" (ratpoison, evilwm)

My needs are simple: give me a window, and put it right there. I think window chrome is dumb, so that's out. ratpoison is, in a sense, my ideal WM, with a few caveats: I don't like the way it handles floating windows, and has no virtual desktops.

Sigi · 2008-02-11 17:57:42

Have you tried dwm? Or, seeing you used wmii, what did you miss there?

phrakture wrote:

a) I don't like that new windows are positioned where my mouse is. I'd like them to start centered. Is there any easy way to do this?

Would starting the window in the master area (first app full screen, second app left side of the screen, etc...) also fit your needs?

phrakture wrote:

b) Having some keybindings internal, and some in xbindkeys seems annoying. Any advice?

Configuring all of them in config.h of dwm.

phrakture wrote:

c) I used to abuse ratpoison's message window to display things, like mpd song changes and the like. evilwm doesn't have anything like this. Is there an alternative?

You can pipe things like this into the dwm bar using your .xinitrc

Agent69 · 2008-02-11 18:09:10

I love Evilwm but I don't care for it's lack of user configurable hotkeys. I wonder if it would be easy to modify the source code to add custom shortcuts?

smoon · 2008-02-11 19:13:02

Agent69 wrote:

I love Evilwm but I don't care for it's lack of user configurable hotkeys. I wonder if it would be easy to modify the source code to add custom shortcuts?

It is. At least from looking at the sourcecode it seems like it shouldn't be a problem.

phrakture wrote:

Meh, pekwm isn't for me... it's too... *present*.
And yes, I remembered Devil's Pie at some point after the first response. I figured it'd cover my centering issue easily. Plus, who doesn't love S-Expressions?
Seriously though, my WM path has gone from "do whatever" (gnome, fluxbox, openbox), to "do things for me" (wmi, wmii, awesome), to "shut up and let me do it" (ratpoison, evilwm)
My needs are simple: give me a window, and put it right there. I think window chrome is dumb, so that's out. ratpoison is, in a sense, my ideal WM, with a few caveats: I don't like the way it handles floating windows, and has no virtual desktops.

Sounds like what you want is awmul. It was born out of similar needs. It does basically nothing on its own and lets the user use LUA to configure it (Ie. to bind keys (or combinations of) to fancy functions). Actually, the use of LUA makes it possible to change every part of the window manager.
Unfortunately it is not really useable in its current state and I don't have enough time to work on it at the moment. It is Open Source and everyone is free to hack on it, though

dolby · 2008-02-11 20:10:13

i use dwm as a fullscreen window manager (aka only 1 application per tag) kinda like ratpoison only switching windows with mod4+number of tag (workspace) with better floating support. i have been using it the same way for more than a year and with the addition of dmenu it fits my needs perfectly.
dzen would be a decent alternative for a bar in case the default dwm one with the piping scripts isnt enough

Last edited by dolby (2008-02-11 20:12:57)

Sigi · 2008-02-11 20:22:01

dolby wrote:

i use dwm as a fullscreen window manager (aka only 1 application per tag) kinda like ratpoison only switching windows with mod4+number of tag (workspace) with better floating support. i have been using it the same way for more than a year and with the addition of dmenu it fits my needs perfectly.
dzen would be a decent alternative for a bar in case the default dwm one with the piping scripts isnt enough

It use it in the same manor, works great for me. I really like to be able to pan and resize floating windows (alt-<left/right MB>)

awagner · 2008-02-11 20:57:32

Since this is already a which WM thread...
While I am in the process of getting used to dwm, I remember having come across http://subtle.scrapping.cc/subtle before deciding to take the plunge. Subtle has a part "subtler" (for subtle-remote) that is supposed to work like wmctrl + subtle-specific extensions.

AFAIU, that tool would even work with other EWMH/NetWM compliant WMs...

HTH, Andreas

finferflu · 2008-02-11 21:06:21

phrakture wrote:

My needs are simple: give me a window, and put it right there. I think window chrome is dumb, so that's out. ratpoison is, in a sense, my ideal WM, with a few caveats: I don't like the way it handles floating windows, and has no virtual desktops.

I use rapoison because I have the same needs.
However, while I agree on the floating windows issue, I think you're not aware of the virtual desktops extension, you just need to add this line to your .ratpoisonrc:

exec /usr/bin/rpws init 6 -k

It will give you 6 workspaces. You can access them with Alt + F1 - F6. That should do it for you, if your needs are that simple, like mine.

Last edited by finferflu (2008-02-11 21:08:23)

phrakture · 2008-02-11 21:37:42

finferflu wrote:

However, while I agree on the floating windows issue, I think you're not aware of the virtual desktops extension, you just need to add this line to your .ratpoisonrc:
exec /usr/bin/rpws init 6 -k
It will give you 6 workspaces. You can access them with Alt + F1 - F6. That should do it for you, if your needs are that simple, like mine.

I am aware of it but it isn't "real" - it doesn't seem to work the way I expect and used to crash often. I will have to retry.

I think I may actually hack up evilwm to center windows by default, and remove some of the default keybindings.

finferflu · 2008-02-11 21:53:31

I agree that it does not provide conventional virtual desktops, and it gets a bit tricky when you want to switch one window to another workspace, yet, if you don't really plan to use it so extensively, it just does the job.
And as far as my experience goes, it never crashed.

Anyways, you might want to give a look at StumpWM, which is a rewritten (in Common Lisp) Ratpoison, with more features.

abstracity · 2008-02-11 22:38:53

phrakture, has this thread, so far, helped you with your original issues? Was the concept of dzen2 sort of what you were looking for?

phrakture · 2008-02-11 23:04:17

abstracity wrote:

phrakture, has this thread, so far, helped you with your original issues? Was the concept of dzen2 sort of what you were looking for?

Ah yes, Devil's Pie and dzen should solve my two major issues. The rest is just playing around 8)

evilwm is small enough for me to have fun while chopping at it. Maybe I might even merge in ratpoison's config handling, then I'd be pretty content. Heh

PJ · 2008-02-11 23:36:16

phrakture wrote:

evilwm is small enough for me to have fun while chopping at it. Maybe I might even merge in ratpoison's config handling, then I'd be pretty content. Heh

You can always call it: evilpoison.
Damn, that name seems to be taken by some kind of similar project.
I don't know if it works but I guess I could mention it anyway.

Shaika-Dzari · 2008-02-11 23:59:27

You could use fvwm.
You can set position/geometry/desktop of any program you start...

phrakture · 2008-02-12 05:16:38

PJ wrote:

phrakture wrote:
evilwm is small enough for me to have fun while chopping at it. Maybe I might even merge in ratpoison's config handling, then I'd be pretty content. Heh
You can always call it: evilpoison.
Damn, that name seems to be taken by some kind of similar project.
I don't know if it works but I guess I could mention it anyway.

Woah it's weird what merging names will get you.

Agent69 · 2008-02-12 15:32:17

Shaika-Dzari wrote:

You could use fvwm.
You can set position/geometry/desktop of any program you start...

EvilWM does allow for this too with the -app, -g, and -v switches.

I had to learn about this because when starting X on my computer with Evilwm as the window manager, pseudo-transparancy in urxvt wouldn't be in effect until I moved its window (it would start with a black groundground). Using the -app and -g switches of Evilwm, I was able to fix this. Here is how I call Evilwm in my .xinitrc:

exec evilwm -nosoliddrag -bw 2 -fg black -bg black -term urxvt -app urxvt -g +15+15

EDIT: I set the height and width of urxvt by my .Xdefaults, which is why that portition of standard X geometry is not included on the above evilwm command.

Last edited by Agent69 (2008-02-12 15:39:35)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-02-08 21:38:08

Dear evilwm users

#2 2008-02-09 00:15:51

Re: Dear evilwm users

#3 2008-02-09 03:06:33

Re: Dear evilwm users

#4 2008-02-10 16:42:33

Re: Dear evilwm users

#5 2008-02-10 19:19:29

Re: Dear evilwm users

#6 2008-02-10 19:34:19

Re: Dear evilwm users

#7 2008-02-10 20:01:41

Re: Dear evilwm users

#8 2008-02-10 20:56:30

Re: Dear evilwm users

#9 2008-02-10 21:00:50

Re: Dear evilwm users

#10 2008-02-11 17:41:32

Re: Dear evilwm users

#11 2008-02-11 17:57:42

Re: Dear evilwm users

#12 2008-02-11 18:09:10

Re: Dear evilwm users

#13 2008-02-11 19:13:02

Re: Dear evilwm users

#14 2008-02-11 20:10:13

Re: Dear evilwm users

#15 2008-02-11 20:22:01

Re: Dear evilwm users

#16 2008-02-11 20:57:32

Re: Dear evilwm users

#17 2008-02-11 21:06:21

Re: Dear evilwm users

#18 2008-02-11 21:37:42

Re: Dear evilwm users

#19 2008-02-11 21:53:31

Re: Dear evilwm users

#20 2008-02-11 22:38:53

Re: Dear evilwm users

#21 2008-02-11 23:04:17

Re: Dear evilwm users

#22 2008-02-11 23:36:16

Re: Dear evilwm users

#23 2008-02-11 23:59:27

Re: Dear evilwm users

#24 2008-02-12 05:16:38

Re: Dear evilwm users

#25 2008-02-12 15:32:17

Re: Dear evilwm users

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