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#1 2005-09-04 04:04:13

Euphoric Nightmare
Member
From: Kentucky
Registered: 2005-05-02
Posts: 283

In search of some new WM's (to me)

I'm looking for a WM that provides really good keyboard support.  I've found that I spend too much time prettying up my environment, when i should be getting work done.  That being said...using the keyboard to control everything would greatly improve my productivity.

So far I have tried ratpoison, and I greatly enjoyed it. 

What are some other WM's with good keyboard support?

P.S.  Quick question about ratpoison.  In the manpage it mentions two different config files for ratpoison.  One in home, and one in /etc/.  I can't find either of them?  Where are they?, or do i have to create them...

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#2 2005-09-04 05:28:52

beniro
Member
From: St. Petersburg, FL, USA
Registered: 2002-12-31
Posts: 313

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

Blackbox with bbkeys is good.  It isn't as keyboard-centric as ratpoison, but it covers all the bases.  And blackbox is relaly nice.

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#3 2005-09-04 09:48:52

cmp
Member
Registered: 2005-01-03
Posts: 350

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

try ion, it's like ratpoision, with ion you can do anything you like with the keyboard.
but the problem is, that some programms missbehave (for example firefox with multiple windows - which seems to be a gtk bug, but other window managers handle this).

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#4 2005-09-04 11:37:31

oscar
Member
From: Kiruna, Sweden
Registered: 2004-08-13
Posts: 457

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

Euphoric Nightmare wrote:

P.S.  Quick question about ratpoison.  In the manpage it mentions two different config files for ratpoison.  One in home, and one in /etc/.  I can't find either of them?  Where are they?, or do i have to create them...

The file in /etc is considered system-wide, while the file in your home directory is user specific.
If you can't find it, it's probably availible in a manpage, or in the docs (/usr/share/doc/ or so) smile


To err is human... to really foul up requires the root password.

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#5 2005-09-04 14:26:37

ozar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2005-02-18
Posts: 1,686

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

In search of some new WM's (to me)

Looking for new ones to you?  Can you tell us what WMs you have already tried so we won't be recommending them?

I've tried most all of them (or at least it seems and feels that way) and find something irritating about all of them.  Of course, they all have good points, too, making it really difficult to decide which WM is best for me.  Some have so many configuration options it makes me dizzy just looking through all of them.  Some seem slow and unresponsive, while many have too many dependencies or rely much too heavily on other applications.

In the interim, I keep going back to fluxbox, as it seems to have most of the features I'm looking for.  It's likely, however, that my search will continue as new releases of each WM come out.

Still looking long and hard for the "perfect window manager"...  sad

ozar


oz

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#6 2005-09-04 15:44:29

agilyben
Member
Registered: 2005-08-22
Posts: 31

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

I keep going back to fluxbox also.  My wife uses KDE (but I keep her on it - mostly to save me the hassle)....   ;-)

Fluxbox has been my WM of choice for quite some time now.  I've tried them all, and I still keep trying them (I have archwm, openbox, icewm, kde, gnome, and some of the basics like ion, ratpoison, screen, etc....) that I constantly piddle with.  But something keeps me coming back to flux, just like trying all the other distros.....I keep coming back to Arch...  Although I'm now keeping my wife on PCLinuxOS..  :-)

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#7 2005-09-04 16:21:52

Euphoric Nightmare
Member
From: Kentucky
Registered: 2005-05-02
Posts: 283

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

oscar wrote:
Euphoric Nightmare wrote:

P.S.  Quick question about ratpoison.  In the manpage it mentions two different config files for ratpoison.  One in home, and one in /etc/.  I can't find either of them?  Where are they?, or do i have to create them...

The file in /etc is considered system-wide, while the file in your home directory is user specific.
If you can't find it, it's probably availible in a manpage, or in the docs (/usr/share/doc/ or so) smile

The config files it mentions in the manpages are nowhere to be found.

I believe they were $HOME/.ratpoisonrc and /etc/.ratpoisonrc

but they are not there.

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#8 2005-09-04 18:19:18

wiremore
Member
Registered: 2005-08-23
Posts: 43

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

you have to create them. the syntax is really simple, and is described in the ratpoison wiki or in the info page (but arch deletes those). just make a ~/.ratpoisonrc

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#9 2005-09-04 18:21:09

Gullible Jones
Member
Registered: 2004-12-29
Posts: 4,863

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

Openbox has good keybindings support.

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#10 2005-09-04 19:06:41

oscar
Member
From: Kiruna, Sweden
Registered: 2004-08-13
Posts: 457

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

fvwm is really funny, once you get to know it a bit.
You can almost do _anything_ with it... smile
And it's fast, and cheap on resources (I think my config draws somewhere  around 1-2% memory, ie 5-10 MBytes of ram. last time I ran openbox, I think it ate 3-5% of my precious ram), and you can do some really cool stuff smile


To err is human... to really foul up requires the root password.

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#11 2005-09-04 20:05:13

Euphoric Nightmare
Member
From: Kentucky
Registered: 2005-05-02
Posts: 283

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

I will try some of these as soon as i get a chance.  After I learn ratpoison config files, of course.  Thanks for all of your advice, I appreciate it mucho.

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#12 2005-09-04 22:55:57

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

I refrained from mentioning wmii because I thought somebody else would do it. And last time I mentioned it I got called a zealot, and that just sucks. So try wmii, but don't take my word for it... the keybinding support is great.

Dusty

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#13 2005-09-05 00:05:27

ozar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2005-02-18
Posts: 1,686

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

Dusty wrote:

So try wmii, but don't take my word for it... the keybinding support is great.

Dusty

Zealot!  wink

Yeah, wmii-2 is really very nice, and it's my favorite of the "keyboard oriented" WMs.  I switch back and forth between it and fluxbox quite often.     8)


oz

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#14 2005-09-05 02:00:08

Euphoric Nightmare
Member
From: Kentucky
Registered: 2005-05-02
Posts: 283

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

i previously tried wmi, but it didn't really strike my attention...

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#15 2005-09-05 03:25:54

ozar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2005-02-18
Posts: 1,686

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

Yeah, wmii-2 is quite different from the older wmi, but of course that doesn't mean you'll like it.  It takes a few days of playing with it to start appreciating its beauty and power, and if you like a traditional placement of windows, you can set it up to do a "float" layout.

In case you are interested, the wmii-2 package is in AUR, and it's nice.


oz

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#16 2005-09-05 07:24:34

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

Euphoric Nightmare wrote:

So far I have tried ratpoison, and I greatly enjoyed it. 

What are some other WM's with good keyboard support?

P.S.  Quick question about ratpoison.  In the manpage it mentions two different config files for ratpoison.  One in home, and one in /etc/.  I can't find either of them?  Where are they?, or do i have to create them...

Hah! I love it.  For me, something just clicks with ratpoison... dunno why.  I started off flipping 50/50 with ratpoison and wmii, but am now at almost 100% ratpoison.  I haven't touched wmii in a real long time...

ratpoisonrc needs to be created by you - there isn't one in /etc because theres no default as far as I know.  If you get a chance, upgrade to 1.4.0beta as it's much better than the one in the repos (I flagged it out of date, but got denied)

here's my config - the "swap" bindings are probably of interest... all the keymaps are a partial attempt to make swappable keymaps (vim style modes), but I haven't completed it yet... I'll probably need to make some code changes....

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#17 2005-09-05 21:17:29

Euphoric Nightmare
Member
From: Kentucky
Registered: 2005-05-02
Posts: 283

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

Wow phrak.  Thats a serious config file.  Mine is like 5 lines right now.

Speaking of which...you don't have a pkgbuild for the newer beta do you??

I'm really loving ratpoison right now...I don't know if I'll ever switch to anything else.  Although I will try out wmii-2 tonight...I found it in AUR last night.

EDIT:  checking out your config...i have no idea what dedicate does...can't find it anywhere.

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#18 2005-09-05 22:35:08

pomj
Member
Registered: 2005-05-06
Posts: 10

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

Euphoric Nightmare wrote:

I'm really loving ratpoison right now...I don't know if I'll ever switch to anything else.  Although I will try out wmii-2 tonight...I found it in AUR last night.

If you get darc you can test the upcoming wmii with 'darcs get --partial http://wmi.modprobe.de/repos/wmii' It is *very* nice.

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#19 2005-09-05 23:29:13

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

Yeah, one thing about wmi, they update it frequently, and the updates always include major changes. I haven't tried the latest version, but I'm expecting wmii-3 to be a lot better than wmii-2.

Dusty

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#20 2005-09-06 01:45:54

SleepyDog
Member
Registered: 2004-10-15
Posts: 114

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

I'm just glad wmii is configured in rc (similar to bash). It was very easy to make a button in the taskbar that controlled mpd (left click prev, middle click pause/play, right click next, scroll wheel volume). Being a long time ion user, it's a relief to not have to learn something new to exploit the power of your window manager. Plus, I really like where wmii is going in terms of the ideas behind the code and the goals. wmii-4 will be a sight to behold.

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#21 2005-09-06 04:05:37

dk
Member
Registered: 2004-04-20
Posts: 106

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

Here is the PKGBUILD I used. Works fine for me. Maybe phrakture will post his.

I had been switching back and forth between Ion3 and ratpoison. I always end up back with ratpoison. All the ion lua config and trying to remember some mod_query.query{("I_just_freaking_did_it")}.toggle. Who knows maybe I'll give wmii another shot once they settle in.

pkgname=ratpoison
pkgver=1.4.0
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="A simple keystroke-driven window manager"
depends=('x-server' 'bash' 'perl')
url="http://ratpoison.sourceforge.net/"
source=(http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/$pkgname/$pkgname-$pkgver-beta4.tar.gz $pkgname.desktop)
md5sums=('fe319e5072fb42fa944ad904dfec6ff8' '29c3cb9be59758e39d8471391231a74a')

build() {
  cd $startdir/src/${pkgname}-${pkgver}-beta4
  /bin/mkdir -p $startdir/pkg/etc/X11/sessions
  ./configure --prefix=/usr
  /usr/bin/make || return 1
  /usr/bin/make DESTDIR=$startdir/pkg install
  /bin/cp $startdir/$pkgname.desktop $startdir/pkg/etc/X11/sessions
}
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Ratpoison
Comment=The ratpoison window manager
Exec=ratpoison
# no icon yet, only the top three are currently used
Icon=
Type=Application

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#22 2005-09-06 04:28:02

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

i just upped the version on the PKGBUILD in abs....

and "dedicate" is a newer feature - it basically means "I don't care what I do, this window does not move from this frame"

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#23 2005-09-09 22:45:11

bosewicht
Member
From: Honolulu, HI
Registered: 2004-05-29
Posts: 67

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

the cli can force you to be very productive and works very nicely with the keyboard  smile


X Window Emacs Manager
http://www.nongnu.org/xwem/


<b>There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary
and those who don't.</b>

<b>I'm Steve and I'm a Super Villian</b>
http://www.rofl.name/flash/switchlinux4

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#24 2005-09-09 23:32:59

MrCoul
Member
From: Alabama
Registered: 2005-09-09
Posts: 10

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

If you're really into using the keyboard ( as indeed I am ), then I would suggest any window manager that has a "alt-tab" (windows) or similar binding to switch apps, and the ablity to run a dockbar or slit.

I'm a keyboard junky myself. Openbox is failry light weight in resources, I can have a little dockbar on the right hand edge to launch GUI things I need ( work related, email and stuff mostly ). As much screen, RAM and CPU resources are dedicated to terminals which I can keystroke swap between.

It works fine for me. Half a dozen Xterms running VI and GCC/Make stuff, alt-tab to switch betweeen, and almost all of my screen is the things I'm running, not bloody taskbars, menus and eye-candy.

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#25 2005-09-10 06:23:45

tbroderick
Member
Registered: 2005-05-06
Posts: 45

Re: In search of some new WM's (to me)

MrCoul wrote:

If you're really into using the keyboard ( as indeed I am ), then I would suggest any window manager that has a "alt-tab" (windows) or similar binding to switch apps, and the ablity to run a dockbar or slit.

I'm a keyboard junky myself. Openbox is failry light weight in resources, I can have a little dockbar on the right hand edge to launch GUI things I need ( work related, email and stuff mostly ). As much screen, RAM and CPU resources are dedicated to terminals which I can keystroke swap between.

It works fine for me. Half a dozen Xterms running VI and GCC/Make stuff, alt-tab to switch betweeen, and almost all of my screen is the things I'm running, not bloody taskbars, menus and eye-candy.

I can't stand dockbar/slits.  Wmii is the way to go.

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