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As a writer, my ideal / perfect WM would support complete keybindings for all its features. This also means the WM needs to organise my workspace in such a way that I don't need the mouse to easily find and switch open document windows. Tiling window managers with tabs/frames support seem to work best for me; if there's an easy way to have some applications in non-frame mode (say, the Gimp), the better.
I tried Ion (version 2) last night... I like it. What annoys me about it is the menu, which requires clicking in order to open up submenus. There has to be a way to change that...
You know, what would be neat is the ability to cycle through windows in a workspace using the scroll wheel or keystrokes...
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You know, what would be neat is the ability to cycle through windows in a workspace using the scroll wheel or keystrokes...
fvwm and fluxbox do this and im sure other wms do it too.
It sounds like a cool idea with the base +modules +themes maybe a fvwmform scripted to change themes and modules or something.
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Fluxbox cycles workspaces using the scrollwheel... I don't think it does windows, but I'm not really sure.
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Off-topic, but ...
I tried Ion (version 2) last night... I like it. What annoys me about it is the menu, which requires clicking in order to open up submenus. There has to be a way to change that...
You know, what would be neat is the ability to cycle through windows in a workspace using the scroll wheel or keystrokes...
You can open submenus by hitting Space in the menu.
EDIT: hitting Enter. Not space. My bad.
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I like the idea of an archWMbase -and then user contributing packages...:D
http://www.linuxportalen.com -> Linux Help portal for Linux and ArchLinux (in swedish)
Dell Inspiron 8500
Kernel 2.6.14-archck1 (selfcompiled)
Enlightenment 17
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I like the idea of an archWMbase -and then user contributing packages...:D
Lets see if it works:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=13398
Markku
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My first window manager was of course, KDE. It was okay to start out. But it was so bloated. Then I tried Gnome. Same problem. I went through every window manager I could find, unitl I found XFCE. (Did I mention that I went in alphabetical order?). At first it seemed a little boring. But I got drop shadows and transparency working, did some custom icons in Inkscape, made a GTK theme, etc. It was great. I just kept wishing I could have my VirtualDesktops in two columns docked on the sidebar, similar to E16. I would just do E16, but it hasn't really been updated in years. Then I found E17 (Enlightenment DR17). I was blown away. Dropshadows, eye candy, docks, widgets, extremely customizeable. There isn't anything that you can't change. It comes with some great tools, sush as elicit, entrance, entice, etc... It isn't even in beta yet, it's still considered to be in alpha. It works great though. I just update it regularly from CVS and wrote a script to recompile everything.
The developers have started an entire new window manager theory. The dropshadows are built in, no transparency yet, etc. It is extremely fast. I suggest that you read up on http://enlightenment.org. Even if you don't use it, it's a great read.
So if you use XFCE, give E17 a whirl. Just remember, it's still in alpha. ;-)
PS. I'm in XFCE now because I updated CVS at a bad time. ;-)
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Designing an usable GUI is not an easy task and designing a whole "perfect" WM is far more difficult.
I like the idea of http://www.symphonyos.com/.
They have taken FVWM and turned it into Mezzo WM based on laws of GUI design http://www.symphonyos.com/laws.html.
Also see the scripting framework http://www.symphonyos.com/orchestra.html
~ Aha ~
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is it possible to download that wm (mezzo) and try it out??
http://www.linuxportalen.com -> Linux Help portal for Linux and ArchLinux (in swedish)
Dell Inspiron 8500
Kernel 2.6.14-archck1 (selfcompiled)
Enlightenment 17
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Mezzo seems really interesting. Hope it works as smooth as it looks. Till then, I'll stick to e17 .
Writing stories for a machine.
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Here is a flash movie of E17 in action that I made: (~4mb)
http://linuxinit.net/site/downloads/tut … index.html
Here are some screenshots of varios apps running on E17:
http://linuxinit.net/site/images/uploads/e17/
I'll have to try Mezzo soon... ;-)
You can download a bleeding edge release from the CVS. If you don't know what CVS is, you may want to just wait till they come out with a stable release. I've actually screwed it up a few times by downloading the latest snapshot and it not working. It's not even in beta yet. :-)
Have a look here:
http://www.get-e.org/
Here is a script that you can run and it should download and install the latest version from CVS:
http://linuxinit.net/site/downloads/linux/e17_install
Run that and if you're lucky, it will work with no flaws. ;-)
It should download/update, compile, and install E17.
If that doesn't work, you can try the livecd:
http://livecd.debianitas.net/
You may also want to try here if you don't know how to use CVS:
http://enlightenment.freedesktop.org/
It's very late for me. Sorry for any typos or anything that makes no sense. I'm going to bed now. :-)
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As the thread starter said - perfection = customisability. Just like arch itself.
In fact, the best way would probably be to build an insanely cut down, bare bones base setup, and then allow the user to build up from there, just like arch.
Would that level of modularity ruin efficiency though? You can get well upwards of 10 processes in some distros for the main DEs, so maybe not.
Side note: something I really hate when WMs do is to break simple rules of UI design. Things like putting Xs (as in for closing a window) within 1 or 2 pixels of the corner, and then sacrificing the opportunity for infinite space for the sake of having a crappy curved edge box around it. Even windows is working away from this now (look at the green start button in xp), and yet most linux WMs (and themes on freshmeat are especially guilty of this stuff - seems most people make themes for the sake of breathtaking screenshots) are stuck in stupid-land (CDE).
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Re Mezzo: interesting ideas, but I find that work most efficiently using *box WMs. Clicking on the desktop to open things up just seems natural to me for some reason. Different people work best with different WMs.
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ide note: something I really hate when WMs do is to break simple rules of UI design. Things like putting Xs (as in for closing a window) within 1 or 2 pixels of the corner, and then sacrificing the opportunity for infinite space for the sake of having a crappy curved edge box around it. Even windows is working away from this now (look at the green start button in xp), and yet most linux WMs (and themes on freshmeat are especially guilty of this stuff - seems most people make themes for the sake of breathtaking screenshots) are stuck in stupid-land (CDE).
That's not really the WMs fault, it's the themers fault. And the way I see it is, it's their desktop, let them do whatever they like. Who cares if you don't like their theme or screenshot? Don't use it. Make a theme that you like...
I'm not saying this just to you, I'm saying it to everybody that complains about how something looks on Linux. That's the whole point... You can change it to look like pretty much anything you want...
-lin
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Re Mezzo: interesting ideas, but I find that work most efficiently using *box WMs. Clicking on the desktop to open things up just seems natural to me for some reason. Different people work best with different WMs.
I agree. I use different WMs for different things:
Sometimes when I'm coding and don't want to be bothered, I use Fluxbox.
If I'm just browing the web or chatting with friends, screwing around in GIMP, etc... I use XFCE or E17.
Sometimes, <gasp!>I use CLI!
IMHO, there no single perfect WM, each has its strong points.
-lin
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holy crap was that my first post? and i resurrected an old thread? damnit. I thought I checked the date too...
anyway, yeah I know what you're saying. It's the reason I use enlightenment actually - theming is easy (don't worry I'm not the "I want somebody to tailor it to my taste" type - if I was I wouldn't be using arch!). my point about themers was kinda OT - what I meant was that the majority of stock WM themes are like that (that's the point I started the paragraph with and then drifted off to themers in a more freshmeat.net context).
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....i resurrected an old thread? damnit. I thought I checked the date too...
If you are interested to read/try the result of this thread, check here:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=15368
Markku
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