The wmii thread

finferflu · 2007-08-20 20:49:57

Ok, I'm gonna bring this back to life

I have just installed wmii, and as a first impression I think we're gonna be very good friends.
Now, I have a couple of issues.

First of all, how do I retrieve any plugins for the new 3.5 version? All I can see around is the ruby-wmii stuff, which is only for the 3.1 version, as far as I know...

Secondly, is there any way to use fonts such as Arial in wmii? I have tried with xfontsel, but I had a very limited list of fonts...

Thirdly, how do I set the percentage a window occupies on my current view? So far I can see that the space is distributed evenly according to colums and rows, but what if I want a window to be bigger?

Lastly, is there any place where I can get themes (if any)?

Thanks a lot!

Last edited by finferflu (2007-08-20 21:08:41)

Celti · 2007-08-20 23:06:44

wmii 3.5 is not recommended. It's less stable, slower, and missing many features that are in the snapshot. Hence my packages above, which I will admit I haven't updated lately, as I've switched to using xmonad. They should work just fine if you update the version number; if not, let me know and I'll take a swing.

There are no 'plugins', exactly, for wmii. Some people have created scripts for added functionality, these can be found at http://suckless.org/wiki/wmii/scripts/, and are only meant for the snapshot version of wmii.

Are you sure you have many fonts installed? Arial shows up in xfontsel for me.
"-*-arial-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
The '12' is the font size, alter it as you wish.

Resizing can only be done with the mouse at the moment; either by holding the modkey and right-dragging the window, or (in the latest snapshot) by dragging the resize arrows each window has.

Themes are easy enough to write; just define your colours in the config file. Some can be found at http://www.suckless.org/wiki/wmii/tips/themes

upsidaisium · 2007-08-20 23:13:35

regarding the fonts: make sure the directory the fonts are in is listed in the "Files" section of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. you'll probably need to add the line:

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"

then restart x and see what else you can choose from in xfontsel.

i'm not sure if arial (which is assume is in the ms fonts package?) is installed into the TTF directory -- just a guess. you may have to look around a bit more.

Last edited by upsidaisium (2007-08-20 23:14:55)

finferflu · 2007-08-20 23:36:42

Thanks Celti, I guess you're referring to the following post:

Celti wrote:

Haha! I have done it!

The new, improved, working, package-creating wmii-snapshot package!

And ben, rc.wmii is only if you have 9base/plan9port installed. Otherwise it's still wmiirc.
Also, if you're using rc.wmii, you should be using rc.wmii.local for config changes anyway.

...now updated with the 08-May-2007 snapshot.

pkgname=wmii-snap
pkgver=20070508
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Next generation WMI (Window Manager Improved 2)"
url="http://suckless.org/wiki/wmii"
license=('MIT')
arch=('i686')
depends=('glibc' 'libx11' 'dmenu')
conflicts=('libixp' 'wmii')
provides=('libixp' 'wmii')
source=(http://www.suckless.org/snaps/wmii+ixp-20070508.tgz config.mk)

build()
{
  cd $startdir/src/wmii+ixp-20070508
  
  cp -f ../config.mk .
  sed -i "s#%CFLAGS%#$CFLAGS#g" config.mk
  sed -i "s#%LDFLAGS%#$LDFLAGS#g" config.mk

  make || return 1

  mkdir -p $startdir/pkg/{usr/{lib/,bin/,man/},etc/wmii-3.5}

  install -D -m 644 libixp/libixp.a $startdir/pkg/usr/lib/libixp.a
  install -D -m 644 libixp/ixp_fcall.h $startdir/pkg/usr/lib/ixp_fcall.h
  install -D -m 755 cmd/wmii9menu.O $startdir/pkg/usr/bin/wmii9menu
  install -D -m 755 cmd/wmii9rc.O $startdir/pkg/usr/bin/wmii9rc
  install -D -m 755 cmd/wmiiloop.O $startdir/pkg/usr/bin/wmiiloop
  install -D -m 755 cmd/wmiir.O $startdir/pkg/usr/bin/wmiir
  install -D -m 755 cmd/wmiistartrc.O $startdir/pkg/usr/bin/wmiistartrc
  install -D -m 755 cmd/wmii/wmii.O $startdir/pkg/usr/bin/wmii
  install -D -m 755 rc/rc.wmii.O $startdir/pkg/etc/wmii-3.5/rc.wmii
  install -D -m 755 rc/wmiirc.O $startdir/pkg/etc/wmii-3.5/wmiirc
  install -D -m 755 rc/welcome.O $startdir/pkg/etc/wmii-3.5/welcome
  install -D -m 644 man/wmii.1 $startdir/pkg/usr/man/man1/wmii.1
  install -D -m 644 man/wmiiloop.1 $startdir/pkg/usr/man/man1/wmiiloop.1
  install -D -m 644 man/wmiir.1 $startdir/pkg/usr/man/man1/wmiir.1
  install -D -m 644 man/wmiiwm.1 $startdir/pkg/usr/man/man1/wmiiwm.1

  install -D LICENSE $startdir/pkg/usr/share/licenses/$pkgname/COPYING
}

# Customised for Arch Linux

PREFIX = /usr
BIN = ${PREFIX}/bin
MAN = ${PREFIX}/share/man
ETC = /etc
LIBDIR = ${PREFIX}/lib
INCLUDE = ${PREFIX}/include

P9PATHS = /usr/local/plan9 /usr/local/9 /opt/plan9 /opt/9 /usr/plan9 /usr/9

INCX11 = -I/usr/include/X11
LIBX11 = -lX11
LIBIXP = ${ROOT}/libixp/libixp.a

INCS = -I. -I${ROOT}/include -I${INCLUDE} -I/usr/include
LIBS = -L/usr/lib -lc

include ${ROOT}/mk/gcc.mk
CFLAGS += -g -Wall ${INCS} -DVERSION=\"${VERSION}\" %CFLAGS%
LDFLAGS += -g ${LIBS} %LDFLAGS%
STATIC = -static

CC = cc -c
LD = cc
AR = ar crs

Now, I have to confess I'm quite new to Arch, so while I know what to do with the PKGBUILD, I don't even know what the second part means the "Customized for Arch Linux" one. Any help is very appreciated, as I'm trying to learn as much as possible.

@ upsidaisium

Thanks, I think that's the problem, I'll look into that

Celti · 2007-08-20 23:59:44

The second part doesn't need any changes - that's wmii's build configuration, customized for Arch. Save it to the same directory as the PKGBUILD as config.mk
For the PKGBUILD, just change the version to 20070516, and the url in the sources array to: http://www.suckless.org/snaps/wmii+ixp-20070516.tgz

finferflu · 2007-08-21 00:37:53

Ok, thanks, I've upgraded wmii, and I also managed to get Arial working (the TTF folder was in fact missing on the xorg.conf FontPath line).

By the way, Celti, I have also noticed there is the same vesion of wmii in AUR as well: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?d … hans=&SeB=

what do you think about it?

Edit:
I've just noticed the clock has disappeared from the panel with this new version... how do I get it back?

Last edited by finferflu (2007-08-21 00:53:43)

Celti · 2007-08-21 01:42:46

Well, their PKGBUILD is somewhat better than mine, but I laboured more over the config.mk, making it pay attention to stuff like the CFLAGS makepkg sets. I'm obviously biased, but I think mine's better.

As for the clock issue... I've no clue. Did you install plan9port?

upsidaisium · 2007-08-21 02:07:18

finferflu wrote:

Edit:
I've just noticed the clock has disappeared from the panel with this new version... how do I get it back?

what does the statusbar section of your wmiirc file look like?

there should be a date command output by default, but it might be worth a check..

Last edited by upsidaisium (2007-08-21 02:07:57)

finferflu · 2007-08-21 12:58:56

Ok, thanks guy, I had some inspiration, and I deleted the old wmiirc file from my .wmiirc-3.5 folder and replaced it with rc.wmii (which is the only one that I can get working).
Now the clock is back, but I can't set the font to Arial in my rc.wmii. I have only this:

WMII_FONT='fixed'

and if I set it to Arial wmii doesn't start properly. I have already added /usr/share/fonts/TTF to the xorg.conf's FontPath...

Sorry for bringing up so many issues...

upsidaisium · 2007-08-21 23:18:52

i'm not sure what to say about that -- when i used wmii i only ever used the wmiirc file, as i didn't bother to install plan9port or 9base.

hopefully somebody else can give you some help.

finferflu · 2007-08-22 01:51:55

Ah, perhaps that's the problem... since you told me to instal plan9port to solve the clock issue, I have installed it, and perhaps that messed up something... the fact now is that if I put wmiirc in my .wmiirc-3.5 folder, wmii doesn't even start properly if rc.wmii is not there as well, and even if I edit wmiirc, nothing changes, the only changes happen when I edit rc.wmii. Very odd...

finferflu · 2007-08-24 13:38:34

Ok, after trying wmii for some days, here is my small review:

It's a fantastic windows manager, able to speed up your work, especially if you like using the keyboard a lot, however what gets in the way is the need to use the mouse to resize and move the windows (when you need them floating), which is a pain. One should be able to control everything with the keyboard. Especially when you have a messenger open, and a window pops up while you're doing something else, you have to manually resize it. Therefore the heavy dependence on keyboard is "broken" by the little dependence on the mouse (which is still a dependence), since you can't decide to use either one or the other, whereas on other WM you can work extensively with the mouse AND with the keyboard, and not half and half.
I like the tagging philosophy, it's very quick and clever. I can see the development from the older to the newer version, therefore I think I'm gonna wait for the next release to give it another shot.

If you think my judgment is wrong, please tell me, since I like wmii quite a lot.

shining · 2007-08-24 14:07:04

finferflu wrote:

It's a fantastic windows manager, able to speed up your work, especially if you like using the keyboard a lot, however what gets in the way is the need to use the mouse to resize and move the windows (when you need them floating), which is a pain. One should be able to control everything with the keyboard. Especially when you have a messenger open, and a window pops up while you're doing something else, you have to manually resize it. Therefore the heavy dependence on keyboard is "broken" by the little dependence on the mouse (which is still a dependence), since you can't decide to use either one or the other, whereas on other WM you can work extensively with the mouse AND with the keyboard, and not half and half.

quick fix : replace all your broken applications (at least as many as you can) by either console apps, or at least graphical but wmii friendly ones
Maybe have a look at these pages :
http://www.suckless.org/wiki/wmii/tips/broken_apps
http://www.suckless.org/wiki/wmii/tips/cool_apps

finferflu · 2007-09-03 14:27:08

Ok, after a bit of tinkering with dwm, I am afraid I'll have to come back to wmii, since there are some key features I can't live without and I can't program in C. For example when I resize the master area on one "workspace" it gets resized on all "workspaces", so I think it's a bit pointless and it doesn't improve my productivity at all.

I can't remember whether this happens on wmii too, but I hope not. The point is that I have a very nasty problem with it. My keyboard freezes, while everything keeps working, mouse included, so I can't interact with my machine and I am forced to shut down manually. That's something I don't do with joy, so after the third time in a row I had experienced that, I decided to leave wmii. But now I'm looking for a solution: has anybody had a similar issue? I have this problem only with wmii, everything else works fine.

Thanks for your time.

shining · 2007-09-03 15:52:50

finferflu wrote:

Ok, after a bit of tinkering with dwm, I am afraid I'll have to come back to wmii, since there are some key features I can't live without and I can't program in C. For example when I resize the master area on one "workspace" it gets resized on all "workspaces", so I think it's a bit pointless and it doesn't improve my productivity at all.

Are you sure there isn't a patch for that?
If the patch applies cleanly, you don't even have to know how to program in C.

azerty · 2007-09-03 16:27:50

Could you guys give a dwm user some answers about why you prefer using wmii instead of xmonad or dwm?
What is the advantage you get by using wmii? And what on earth is the benefit from having a virtual file system with remote control stuff? Isn't this just bloat?

Thanks in advance.

upsidaisium · 2007-09-03 16:27:57

for the keyboard freezing problem in wmii: does it occur randomly? i know there have been times before where i've hit control+s accidentally in a terminal, which kinda locks it up (control+q remedies that, i've since learned ). you might want to browse through the wmii mailing list archives to see if anybody has had similar problems.

shining · 2007-09-03 16:55:37

azerty wrote:

Could you guys give a dwm user some answers about why you prefer using wmii instead of xmonad or dwm?
What is the advantage you get by using wmii? And what on earth is the benefit from having a virtual file system with remote control stuff? Isn't this just bloat?

That virtual file system with remote control stuff is probably wmii's main advantage. So if you don't see any benefit from it, then wmii is probably not for you.
It allows you to control the wm from any programming languages.
And in particular, it allows you to update wmii status bar without polling.
dwm requires something like this :

while true
do
echo `date` `uptime | sed 's/.*,//'`
sleep 1
done | dwm

While with wmii, any applications can update the status bar at any time. Of course, that's just a very limited set of what it allows you to do.

That said, I don't really have the need for that either, and had various problems with wmii last times I tried.
I'm mostly pissed off by the confusing configurations, the existence of 2 systems (one using rc, the other using sh), and a lack of good examples of configs to start with.
I was told the sh script (wmiirc) was deprecated a few months ago, so I switched to rc back then and it worked fine. But I didn't really learn its syntax which looked a bit odd. I think I tried out dwm after that.
I tried wmii back a few weeks ago, and it didn't work anymore, only the sh wmiirc script works now.

Anyway, I'm a happy dwm camper

upsidaisium · 2007-09-03 21:52:21

shining wrote:

I'm mostly pissed off by the confusing configurations, the existence of 2 systems (one using rc, the other using sh), and a lack of good examples of configs to start with.

that's always mystified me. i stuck with sh configuration file, as i wasn't interested in installing p9p stuff (which i would, otherwise, not use at all).

i can't comment on xmonad, though, since i haven't tried it out. which reminds me: i'd like to read up on it a bit. off to googling!

F · 2007-09-07 21:30:10

does anyone here have a problem exiting wmii? I'm using the latest snapshot but whenever I try to Alt-F1 or Alt-a -> quit, wmii crashes. My mouse freezes up. No key combos work. I have to reboot my machine. The only way I can exit wmii is if I Alt-F2, Alt-F1, Ctrl-C, to quit wmii and X simultaneously. A nasty hack.

gunnarbot · 2007-09-09 16:23:45

Never had that problem myself and it sounds pretty weird. Look into ~/.wmii-3.5/ and see what the file "quit" in there actually does.
I don't have access to a WMII installation myself right now, but I guess "quit" is an executable or a shell script.
If it gives you any error messages you should be able to save it to a file with
$./quit >> ~/quit_error
or something equalient to run it

If you're running a login manager(XDM,GDM, SLiM etc), then you should be able to press CTRL+ALT+Backspace to "logout" and exit the current session

finferflu · 2007-09-09 17:44:39

Ctrl-Alt-Backspace works for me even without a login manager.

I have a question actually. After trying the PKGBUILD in AUR, my problems have disappeared. So there must have been something dodgy in the PKGBUILD I got from this thread...
Anyways, what I am missing the most in wmii now is the conky-cli output displayed on the panel, which I have in dwm. Does anyone know how to have the same on wmii?

Thanks!

upsidaisium · 2007-09-09 20:43:46

in yer wmiirc file, find the statusbar section. i think by default it runs two commands to display the date and uptime, but you can put whatever you want there.

finferflu · 2007-09-09 20:54:49

upsidaisium wrote:

in yer wmiirc file, find the statusbar section. i think by default it runs two commands to display the date and uptime, but you can put whatever you want there.

Yes, I know about that section, but I just don't know what I need to enter there in order to display the conky-cli output...

Thanks.

gunnarbot · 2007-09-09 21:33:25

Edit: You could just change your .conkyrc to display the info you want in one line, then simply run it from the statusbar config..

<less clever, more fun version>
This is what I would do. Write a shell script for it

In the script:
- Run conky-cli
- "grep" the info you're looking for
- use sed 's/what to remove//' to remove excessive stuff from it

then put it in my home dir as something like .conky2statusbar, make it executable and then add `~\.conky2statusbar` in the statusbar config.
If you have no idea on how to make that shell script, I could try making one for you another day.
</less cleverness>

Last edited by gunnarbot (2007-09-09 21:38:50)

Arch Linux

#176 2007-08-20 20:49:57

Re: The wmii thread

#177 2007-08-20 23:06:44

Re: The wmii thread

#178 2007-08-20 23:13:35

Re: The wmii thread

#179 2007-08-20 23:36:42

Re: The wmii thread

#180 2007-08-20 23:59:44

Re: The wmii thread

#181 2007-08-21 00:37:53

Re: The wmii thread

#182 2007-08-21 01:42:46

Re: The wmii thread

#183 2007-08-21 02:07:18

Re: The wmii thread

#184 2007-08-21 12:58:56

Re: The wmii thread

#185 2007-08-21 23:18:52

Re: The wmii thread

#186 2007-08-22 01:51:55

Re: The wmii thread

#187 2007-08-24 13:38:34

Re: The wmii thread

#188 2007-08-24 14:07:04

Re: The wmii thread

#189 2007-09-03 14:27:08

Re: The wmii thread

#190 2007-09-03 15:52:50

Re: The wmii thread

#191 2007-09-03 16:27:50

Re: The wmii thread

#192 2007-09-03 16:27:57

Re: The wmii thread

#193 2007-09-03 16:55:37

Re: The wmii thread

#194 2007-09-03 21:52:21

Re: The wmii thread

#195 2007-09-07 21:30:10

Re: The wmii thread

#196 2007-09-09 16:23:45

Re: The wmii thread

#197 2007-09-09 17:44:39

Re: The wmii thread

#198 2007-09-09 20:43:46

Re: The wmii thread

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Re: The wmii thread

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