What do you value in a window manager?

moljac024 · 2008-05-06 20:14:24

davvil wrote:

For me it's important that a WM is
* Fully customizable
* Fast
And with the first point I really mean FULLY customizable. You want to have a keyboard oriented config, you can have it. You want eye candy, you can have it. You want to have a minimalistic approach, you can have it.
My choice then: fvwm
Personally I have a relatively minimilasitic approach (no window titles), with transparent pager, tray and some status info on the root window (somewhat of eye candy), heavily keyboard oriented (~100 keybindings defined in my config) and with some window tiling approach, but not enforced like in pure tiling window managers.

So could you post your FVWM configuration files(s) ?

cardinals_fan · 2008-05-06 23:57:19

davvil wrote:

For me it's important that a WM is
* Fully customizable
* Fast
And with the first point I really mean FULLY customizable. You want to have a keyboard oriented config, you can have it. You want eye candy, you can have it. You want to have a minimalistic approach, you can have it.
My choice then: fvwm
Personally I have a relatively minimilasitic approach (no window titles), with transparent pager, tray and some status info on the root window (somewhat of eye candy), heavily keyboard oriented (~100 keybindings defined in my config) and with some window tiling approach, but not enforced like in pure tiling window managers.

Would you mind posting a screenshot?

iBertus · 2008-05-07 00:42:16

moljac024 wrote:

davvil wrote:
For me it's important that a WM is
* Fully customizable
* Fast
And with the first point I really mean FULLY customizable. You want to have a keyboard oriented config, you can have it. You want eye candy, you can have it. You want to have a minimalistic approach, you can have it.
My choice then: fvwm
Personally I have a relatively minimilasitic approach (no window titles), with transparent pager, tray and some status info on the root window (somewhat of eye candy), heavily keyboard oriented (~100 keybindings defined in my config) and with some window tiling approach, but not enforced like in pure tiling window managers.
So could you post your FVWM configuration files(s) ?

I second the requests for config files and screenshots! I'm currently using awesome, but would consider switching to FVWM if proper window positioning were possible.

davvil · 2008-05-07 14:02:57

moljac024 wrote:

davvil wrote:
For me it's important that a WM is
* Fully customizable
* Fast
And with the first point I really mean FULLY customizable. You want to have a keyboard oriented config, you can have it. You want eye candy, you can have it. You want to have a minimalistic approach, you can have it.
My choice then: fvwm
Personally I have a relatively minimilasitic approach (no window titles), with transparent pager, tray and some status info on the root window (somewhat of eye candy), heavily keyboard oriented (~100 keybindings defined in my config) and with some window tiling approach, but not enforced like in pure tiling window managers.
So could you post your FVWM configuration files(s) ?

Here you can find my config file together with a screenshot: http://www-i6.informatik.rwth-aachen.de … other.html. I just uploaded the most recent version of my config I should probably also update the description.

A good source of very interesting configs is the fvwm forum itself: http://fvwm.lair.be/viewforum.php?f=39

cardinals_fan · 2008-05-07 23:26:55

davvil wrote:

Here you can find my config file together with a screenshot: http://www-i6.informatik.rwth-aachen.de … other.html. I just uploaded the most recent version of my config I should probably also update the description.
A good source of very interesting configs is the fvwm forum itself: http://fvwm.lair.be/viewforum.php?f=39

Very interesting. I'll put FVWM on my list of stuff to try.

pestilence · 2008-05-08 10:27:20

Speed is needed...I mean I don't want a crawling system
Quick and easy to use, while mainting usabillity...I need to writte code etc I don't need to spend a few hours configuring a window manager as well..
I like eyecandy So I like compiz...do I run it? No feels a tad slower on my system, so i have it disabled.
I used to be a KDE user for a few years, but I always felt jealous on gnome desktop screenshots...I felt something touchy was missing from KDE...so I turned to Gnome once I installed Arch and I ain't looking back anymore!
I have also openbox installed and play sometimes with it

Procyon · 2008-05-08 11:53:52

Most important feature for me is full screen mode. No bars or border or whatever, just all windows 1280x1024 pixels large.
After that is easy/fast navigation (windows/workspaces)
And another really important feature is good defaults (I don't think I'll ever be satisfied with a WM's defaults), or otherwise a simple configuration file.

Now let me match that to WMs I have used in the past.

Xmonad: fullscreen is great
navigation is great
config is an awful hell

e17: fullscreen is great (very easy to setup per window)
navigation is annoying with popups that can't go away and alt-tab that doesn't work as a single keystroke
and configuration is pretty bad (I guess the GUI makes it easier, but there is just way way too much to configure)

dwm (using currently): fullscreen is great (you can make the bar invisible on demand)
navigation is slow somehow like it causes skips in mplayer and you can see the wallpaper before the window pops up, but it's bearable
and config may be hard to setup and often changes with releases but it's only a few lines.

cardinals_fan · 2008-05-08 23:23:42

Procyon wrote:

Most important feature for me is full screen mode. No bars or border or whatever, just all windows 1280x1024 pixels large.
After that is easy/fast navigation (windows/workspaces)
And another really important feature is good defaults (I don't think I'll ever be satisfied with a WM's defaults), or otherwise a simple configuration file.

I think you would like Openbox.

Procyon · 2008-05-13 17:41:28

I tried out Openbox, but the alt-tab doesn't work with a single key, which I think is really bad.

I'm using ratpoison now. With just one "desktop" I wanted to use a panel like pypanel (I tried it in Openbox for a while and it was really nice), but that doesn't work, but setting "msgwait 0" and having the "windows" command open all the time is alright too.

Let me use my previous mini-review scheme.
Fullscreen: Having a toggleable window list is nice and it doesn't need "padding 0 0 0 16" which messes up mplayer. I don't need frames or groups or whatever, and ratpoison doesn't bother me about it.
Navigation: What I was used to: 3 Desktops, 1-2 windows, 4-5 GNU screen windows (in one desktop); I have now transformed to 3-4 windows, period. (Using dvtm too which is alright). Navigation is great! I just need a button for previous and next window.
Configuration: Very great! My ratpoisonrc is only a few lines and couldn't be simpler.

Maybe later I won't need a window list anymore, this would save all the configuration about the bar I currently have.

cardinals_fan · 2008-05-13 23:32:40

Procyon wrote:

I tried out Openbox, but the alt-tab doesn't work with a single key, which I think is really bad.

Could you explain this with a bit more detail?

Abelian · 2008-05-14 07:08:08

I think he is saying that you cant change the default keybinding for switching windows (alt-tab) to just a single key.

I imagine that would be possible if you modified the source of the program where that is located? Or there may be some way in X itself of setting it so alt-tab is mapped to, for example, mod4 withthut going through openbox

Barrucadu · 2008-05-14 08:09:50

Of course, you could just open ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml in a text editor, find the Alt-Tab shortcut, and change it to something else.

Procyon · 2008-05-14 10:07:43

It's the same thing with e17. They expect you to press modifier+key, and you get a dialog window which stays up as long as modifier is held.
Bind it to just a single key and the dialog window stays up indefinitely. (or till esc/enter)

I tried messing around with xmodmap to make a single key both a modifier and a key, but I couldn't get that done with regular keys.

Bison · 2008-05-14 11:33:04

keyboard support + lightweight => ratpoison

skymt · 2008-05-14 11:59:34

Openbox allows you to combine actions, so you can emulate single-key window switching.

<keybind key="F12">
  <action name="Lower"/>
  <action name="FocusToBottom"/>
  <action name="Unfocus"/>
</keybind>

Procyon · 2008-05-14 14:44:21

Nice solution, but it wouldn't be complete without a previous window replacement, do you think that is possible?

skymt · 2008-05-14 14:58:30

Procyon wrote:

Nice solution, but it wouldn't be complete without a previous window replacement, do you think that is possible?

Something like this might work:

<keybind key="F12">
  <action name="Lower"/>
  <action name="Unfocus"/>
</keybind>

The downside is that after two presses the two topmost windows in the focus ring will be at the bottom of the z-axis. You could eliminate the "Lower" action, but that would also often result in focusing a hidden window. Adding "Raise" after "Unfocus" also fails: all actions in a keybinding are applied to the same window, even after an "Unfocus" action.

fuscia · 2008-05-15 07:52:02

i'm very concerned about look, but the look i like the best is a minimal one. i really don't like window decorations and almost every panel i've ever seen looks pretty silly to me (except pypanel, with icons turned off). i used to love openbox until i started using tiling wm's. after i got used to tiling, tossing every newly opened app on top of the rest of the heap started to seem retarded to me. the only problem with tiling wm's is that i can't really see my wallpaper (i'm a wallpaper junky). along comes screen and evilwm and with them, a newly found love for tiled wallpapers. well, evilwm is not really configurable, so now, i find myself in awesome in float mode, with the status bar hidden, using screen in xterm and i'm happy.

Procyon · 2008-05-16 01:04:49

skymt wrote:

The downside is that after two presses the two topmost windows in the focus ring will be at the bottom of the z-axis. You could eliminate the "Lower" action, but that would also often result in focusing a hidden window. Adding "Raise" after "Unfocus" also fails: all actions in a keybinding are applied to the same window, even after an "Unfocus" action.

I haven't experimented with this, but your nextwindow replacement works nice, thanks.

I just got a better idea that may make quick navigating easier and that is binding a key to a frequent window with wmctrl. For instance, your first window is probably URxvt, so let's have a key bound to "wmctrl -a URxvt", and your second window is probably firefox, then URxvt key + Nextwindow key always gives you firefox. That sounds pretty good to me. And maybe a key for the last/most recent window, if "URxvt key" + "your prevwindow replacement" doesn't work.

It's something I'll have to try out later, I'm pretty comfortable with ratpoison right now.

Arch Linux

#51 2008-05-06 20:14:24

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#52 2008-05-06 23:57:19

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#53 2008-05-07 00:42:16

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#54 2008-05-07 14:02:57

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#55 2008-05-07 23:26:55

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#56 2008-05-08 10:27:20

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#57 2008-05-08 11:53:52

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#58 2008-05-08 23:23:42

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#59 2008-05-13 17:41:28

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#60 2008-05-13 23:32:40

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#61 2008-05-14 07:08:08

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#62 2008-05-14 08:09:50

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#63 2008-05-14 10:07:43

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#64 2008-05-14 11:33:04

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#65 2008-05-14 11:59:34

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#66 2008-05-14 14:44:21

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#67 2008-05-14 14:58:30

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#68 2008-05-15 07:52:02

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

#69 2008-05-16 01:04:49

Re: What do you value in a window manager?

Board footer