WMI for newbies

skoal · 2005-02-03 20:26:59

I like this WM, but this newbie is frustrated. Just a few questions:

1. I "hooked" firefox to a Workspace, but I cannot unhook it from that particular workspace. Everytime I close it out and fire it back up, it goes straight back to that same workspace. The "unhook-client" action does not show up at all. How do I remedy this?

2. I would like to start an xterm with my specific font and other characteristics. The only way to launch anything is by the "exec" action. Do I have to write a shell script with my specific xterm options, and exec that instead?

3. Every time I "restart" WMI to see my changes take effect, it reapplies the window borders to those clients I already turned them off for. How do I keep this from happening?

A special thanks goes out to Phrakture and Dusty for getting me hooked on this frustrating WM. It's bad enough I spend too much time on the computer while flies hover over the kitchen trashcan. Since the online documentation is rather scarce, I beg you to help a brother out, so I can take out the trash.

P.S. I don't mind my house stinking so much. WMI is a breath of fresh air...

phrakture · 2005-02-03 22:48:04

skoal wrote:

1. I "hooked" firefox to a Workspace, but I cannot unhook it from that particular workspace. Everytime I close it out and fire it back up, it goes straight back to that same workspace. The "unhook-client" action does not show up at all. How do I remedy this?

hmmm, try Alt+D (to detach) then switch to another workspace and Alt+A (attach)... the attach/detach works on a push/pop mechanism, so if you detach a,b, then c attach then attaches c, b, then a... I can't recall if I have unhook-client available to me... if you want, you can grab wmizer from my repo (for configuration) just to see if it's listed there...

skoal wrote:

2. I would like to start an xterm with my specific font and other characteristics. The only way to launch anything is by the "exec" action. Do I have to write a shell script with my specific xterm options, and exec that instead?

if you want all the xterms to have a certain look and feel, you can do it in .Xdefaults (like I did) but other than that, I think that's the only way... however if you have fluxbox installed, I think fbrun will work he he he
you can also define custom actions for it in actions.conf...

extern.myxterm.cmd="xterm -fa 'Bitstream Vera Sans Mono'"
extern.myxterm.keys=<you keychain here>

skoal wrote:

3. Every time I "restart" WMI to see my changes take effect, it reapplies the window borders to those clients I already turned them off for. How do I keep this from happening?

No clue... I have my borders set to 1 and don't touch them... is it possible WMI can't write to it's ~/.wmi/*.session files to save the state?

skoal · 2005-02-04 04:48:15

I'll try out those detach/attack shortcuts you mention, and pay attention to the order which I implement them.

For the xterm problem, I was trying to avoid writing something in ".Xdefaults" if I could. The only reason, I'm used to running 2 custom (and different) looking terminals for development or admin related stuff. That's easy for a WM/DE with a configurable menu. I don't know how to do that in an ".Xdefaults" file. If I could figure out how to change the "xterm" properties in the top left menu button (the one with "quit" and "restart"), I'd be set.

It's funny you mention the "writable" state of my "~/.wmi/" directory. Apparently, I didn't even have that directory at first. I think I killed the first WMI session I had, restarted, and then it appeared. That was hell on me. On my first use of WMI, I was reading their docs and it mentioned that directory, but I didn't have one. I parsed the "pacman -Ql wmi" filelist and couldn't find any of those "default" files they talked about in /etc or anywhere. So, I made one and started creating all those files in "vi". Sheesh. I blew away that whole directory and started from scratch. I have that session file now. Maybe I just need to apply the "save-settings" action before I restart.

I'm still trying to grasp some of their terminology as I parse their online documentation, so I can better understand the WMI "actions". This WM really grows on you. I can't stand window decorations at all, and WMI allows me to turn it all off. Man, I love it. The simplistic and minimalistic aesthetics of WMI reminds me a lot of the first WM I used and enjoyed, Sawfish, with a twist of "vi" style operation. Pfft. Who needs menus...

SleepyDog · 2005-02-04 05:30:20

Run a search for wmizer. It's written with PyGTK and makes configuring most of wmi pretty straightforward. There's a PKGBUILD hanging around these forums somewhere.

skoal · 2005-02-04 11:46:15

Hey, thanks for the tip sleepydog. I couldn't find "wmizer" in the TUR's, but I did find dp's post with a PKGBUILD. I changed it up a little, moved the "wmizer" folder to '/usr/share', and modified the python script appropriately. I wonder if that's why I can't save my theme using "wmizer". Maybe it's missing some component. I don't see any error messages. I spent about a half an hour customizing stuff, then went to save and couldn't get a GTK button for it. As Johnny Carson would say, "that's some weird wild stuff...yes!"

I'm using the 3.0 version with WMI version 10. That's a really nice GUI tool to have. For the most part, I kinda prefer modd'ing configure scripts directly, but I still use "wmizer" to learn what all the options are for. That's a nice tool. Thanks for the tip.

Now, if I could just figure out how to change the GTK application window fonts in one of those config files, I'd be set. I bet it's customizable in a "theme.conf" file since it appeared in the "wmizer" theme settings and had that option. If not, I guess I'll write a ".gtkrc-2.0" file for them.

phrakture · 2005-02-04 15:17:11

phrakture wrote:

if you want, you can grab wmizer from my repo (for configuration) just to see if it's listed there...

he he he

yeah I usually edit the raw files, but wmizer helps for looking for options (and for binding keys... just hit "Grab")

skoal · 2005-02-04 15:38:46

Man, I love this WMI. However, I'm getting a little frustrated by the strange glyphs which appear at the frame edges for an xterm. It's hard to explain, but with or without borders, I occasionally see some broken dots on the frame borders.

The only thing missing from my setup now, is turning off that "bar" at the top of my screen. I don't know what it's called, but I have no use for it. I can't seem to find any mention of it in the docs or config files either. I know you can hide the status bar, but I want that top thing gone. If I could do that, I think I'd be sold on WMI.

oops...I just found one other caveat to being sold on this thing. I was just trying to italicize "sold" on that last line, and when I hit "alt-i", I get the WMI "actions" menu. Now I gotta find an alternate key binding for that too. Just one more thing on my "WMI to do list"...

phrakture · 2005-02-04 16:02:13

hmmm good point - I never use the BBCode hotkeys...

can ya post a screenshot of these xterm glyphs?

skoal · 2005-02-04 20:56:34

phrakture wrote:

can ya post a screenshot of these xterm glyphs?

No problemo. I even highlited them with a big juicy red arrow. This occurs with or without bars or borders, but on split frames only it seems. I think it may have something to do with my font I'm using. I use Andale 12 pt @1024x768.

Example 1:

Example 2:

Although you can't tell it from those 2 screenies, when text wraps around to the next line, sometimes the last letter is barely visible.

* If it is my font that's causing the problem, I'm not about to quit using Andale for WMI. That's my bread and butter. I wouldn't know how to program without it.

By the way, WMI isn't very Gimp friendly. While trying to crop and cut stuff from these screenshots, my cursor wasn't visible as it usually was. I don't think I updated Gimp recently, and I use it almost daily. There's some funky stuff going on around here. Maybe my XFCE mistress is getting a little "spiteful" since I haven't been giving her some loving lately.

phrakture · 2005-02-04 22:12:55

hmmm that may have to do with split windows... not sure... does a "clear" get rid of it?

skoal · 2005-02-05 08:15:17

phrakture wrote:

hmmm that may have to do with split windows... not sure... does a "clear" get rid of it?

Yes, sir. It only occurs in split frames. I'm not sure what a "clear" is, but I can get rid of that effect by simpling changing workspaces, then changing right back. But then it just shows up again the next time old text scrolls off the window for the newer.

It's a minor inconvenience. Maybe I'll jump on over to their #irc channel and haller at their developers. I tried going to their "mailing list" archives for an answer, but they want me to accept a "certificate". I don't see the reason for it, but I don't see a lot of things...

Dusty · 2005-02-05 15:39:56

I used to have this problem with wim... I think it was this problem. If I had two vim windows split horizontally, the command line on the top window was only half visible.

The way I fixed it was to move the split down one increment, then both windows showed full lines. I'm not sure why...

So resizing the split slightly might help.

Dusty

skoal · 2005-02-05 20:56:32

Dusty wrote:

[...]So resizing the split slightly might help.[...]

Well, you're right. I've tried all the possible resizings that I know. I've used "grow-right", "grow-left", "shrink-right", and "shrink-left". However, it makes the split a 60-40 percentage, and not the 50-50 I prefer. I can live with that. Maybe if I just {in|de}crease the window border size, I can keep the 50-50 split and remove the glyphs. I hide my borders anyway, so there will just be a bigger or smaller invisible line between them.

It may have something to do with the resolution I'm working with, 1024. I'll try other resoultions and see if the 50-50 split generates those same glyphs.

Thanks for the tip.

If anyone stumbles across some more documentation for WMI, please post back with the link. I want to remove or hide that top menubar so bad I can taste it.

phrakture · 2005-02-08 16:18:43

I haven't been able to remove the menu bar at all - oh and also you should check out "szs2nd" from the WMI site - it's basically some sysmon type tools for the status bar... I have laptop battery and other things there...

Anyway, the documentation for WMI sucks... only place you can find any info is on their site and the source code... perhaps we can start something up in the wiki here.... I dunno..

And yeah, not that Dusty mentions it, I've had that glyph problem in other WMs before... because the terminals work in "lines and columns" and resizing works in pixels... things get goofed because the geometry doesn't match (i.e. 500x500 pixels may match to like 43.2 lines X 230.7 columns - which won't work - whole numbers are needed)...

phrakture · 2005-03-03 03:00:28

phrakture wrote:

I haven't been able to remove the menu bar at all

drudging up an old topic, maybe dusty will appretiate it (or laugh at me for not knowing)

toggle-clientbar will remove the annoying bar at the top...

is there a way to include non-tiled windows in an alt-tab motion?

skoal · 2005-03-03 16:14:29

phrakture wrote:

toggle-clientbar will remove the annoying bar at the top...

That does the trick. I coulda sworn I had used that before to no effect...

oh well, thanks "trick" daddy...

phrakture · 2005-03-03 16:37:17

skoal wrote:

phrakture wrote:
toggle-clientbar will remove the annoying bar at the top...
That does the trick. I coulda sworn I had used that before to no effect...
oh well, thanks "trick" daddy...

heh, no problem - it doesn't persist though... so I changed my startup chain to include it

droog · 2005-03-07 12:15:45

This is kind of offtopic but when i ran across this i thought it would be a good file manager for wmi. http://vifm.sourceforge.net/

I downloaded it but havent tried it yet

Arch Linux

#1 2005-02-03 20:26:59

WMI for newbies

#2 2005-02-03 22:48:04

Re: WMI for newbies

#3 2005-02-04 04:48:15

Re: WMI for newbies

#4 2005-02-04 05:30:20

Re: WMI for newbies

#5 2005-02-04 11:46:15

Re: WMI for newbies

#6 2005-02-04 15:17:11

Re: WMI for newbies

#7 2005-02-04 15:38:46

Re: WMI for newbies

#8 2005-02-04 16:02:13

Re: WMI for newbies

#9 2005-02-04 20:56:34

Re: WMI for newbies

#10 2005-02-04 22:12:55

Re: WMI for newbies

#11 2005-02-05 08:15:17

Re: WMI for newbies

#12 2005-02-05 15:39:56

Re: WMI for newbies

#13 2005-02-05 20:56:32

Re: WMI for newbies

#14 2005-02-08 16:18:43

Re: WMI for newbies

#15 2005-03-03 03:00:28

Re: WMI for newbies

#16 2005-03-03 16:14:29

Re: WMI for newbies

#17 2005-03-03 16:37:17

Re: WMI for newbies

#18 2005-03-07 12:15:45

Re: WMI for newbies

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