Dear FVWM users

archdaemon · 2005-06-27 01:44:06

droog wrote:

archdaemon wrote:
IconMan/Box. Yeah. My suggestion.
Last i read the fvwm developers recommended not using either of those, but using an fvwmbuttons swallowing the fvwmtaskbar. they said they were outdated and had some problems. not sure what though.
edit:
I understand what you're saying about themes, I feel the same way, but thats the way i feel and shouldnt be imposed on people that dont have the time or want to make their own. I think themes in general would be a good idea for people that want to set up their config the way they want it, but don't want to spend the time dealing with the graphic aspect.

I hadn't heard about them being deprecated. I've encountered no problems although I switched off IconMan and only use one Box swallowed in Buttons.

And no, I definitely didn't mean themes should be banned or anything. Just saying how it struck me - I liked blowing out everything but the builtins, then overwriting most of those and having a blank slate to work on. But it does seem to me that, if you are pressed for time, you might be happier with some other wm - I suspect even with some theme you'd be tweaking it more than you might have to for another wm. And as far as the graphic aspect, don't get my wrong - my graphics ability is zero. I did steal tril's titlebar/button pixmaps, though I had to edit a couple of things as best I could. I meant more the functional aspects. The config files themselves. Doing those by hand.

Dusty wrote:

Ok... when I iconify a window in my current setup, it becomes a neat little icon on the 'desktop' that I can drag around. I like this very much.
Problem is, I can't figure out how to configure where on the desktop the icons go by default. What's the magic command to set this? :-D
Dusty

I have desktop icons turned off so I'm not sure but the IconGrid or IconBox (like droog said) Styles or the like are probably what you want.

Just to clarify: IconBox as a Style and a Module are distinct.

Dusty wrote:

Now, my next question... can I possibly invoke an arbitrary action in FvwmButtons when the mouse moves over the button (ie: it is activated) as well as, or instead of when it is clicked?
I did browse through the man page for this and it didn't seem possible..
Thanks again,
Dusty

I don't think it is but I could be wrong. And there may be a way to write a function to do it but I'm not sure about that, either. (I'm still pretty new to fvwm.)

mdirolf · 2005-06-27 01:45:14

IconBox 10 10 -10 -10, IconGrid 3 3, IconFill top left

This is the section from my config. The IconBox sets up a box on the desktop to be filled with icons (the arguments are left limit, top limit, right limit, and bottom limit.) Icon Grid sets up the vertical and horizontal spacing between icons. IconFill specifies the order that icons will be filled in. (fill from top first, then move one row to the left)

As far as the buttons issue, i can't find an example of that in my config, although I could help you with arbitrary actions on click, and with an icon change on mouseover. I have never tried an arbitrary action on mouseover:

*Buttons: (13x13, Icon playsimple.png, ActiveIcon playsimplered.png, ActionOnPress,  
    Action(Mouse 1) `Exec exec mpc play`, 
    Action(Mouse 2) `Exec exec gmpc`, 
    Action(Mouse 4) `Exec exec mpc volume +3`, 
    Action(Mouse 5) `Exec exec mpc volume -3`)

This code snippet shows both (its part of an mpd control setup). The ActiveIcon sets the icon to be used on mouseover, whereas the rest of the code sets up the functions of each mouse button.

droog · 2005-06-27 01:59:32

there is one more besides icon and activeicon that gives a mouseover effect, i cant remember right now and dont have access to my computer. I know legout and stonecrest could answer but they dont seem to be around. i noticed their configs the other day over at http://www.guistyles.com/ along with some others, maybe you could check them out.

Dusty · 2005-06-27 02:28:15

Here's my first attempt at an Arch theme... I'm quite proud of it, as the graphics are quite a bit more 'professional' than anything I've done before... they could use work though.

The menu is torn off; it looks better without the borders. I found myself interested in the hidden buttons on the arch logo at lower right. You can see what happens if you mouseover one of these with the terminal button.

As I said before, I'm not much of a themer at all, but if somebody would like to take this config and run with it, I can post it somewhere.

The background is done basically from scratch, but the colours are borrowed from ArchBlue at art.archlinux.org.

Thanks for the link to guistyles. I think I could probably hack on some of those. I don't mind hacking a theme, I just like to have something to start with. In my litestep days, I had standard Menu and Wharf configurations that I would plop into somebody else's theme, which I would then hack until it was unrecognizeable... the key was to use their GUI elements, cause I can't paint worth a damn!

Dusty

sweiss · 2005-06-27 07:30:33

Some people just like to configure everything... Doesn't it somehow get in your way of doing some real work?

cactus · 2005-06-27 07:49:56

I always felt that way. I would tweak a desktop for a little bit, until I got it to a workable state. Then I would end up not changing it for long periods of time. Seems that there are plenty of other things to play with, instead of working on adding eye candy to some obscure window manager (or non obscure one, depending on the one being used I guess).
But, to each their own.

dtw · 2005-06-27 08:04:40

well, if there are that many people that are into it then I really will have another try

sweiss · 2005-06-27 08:50:35

I just copied kubuntu's layout for my KDE. I must admit that their choice of the desktop design is superb. Simple and effective.

EDIT: On topic, I really think FVWM should be a really last resort. Only if you really can't stand any other existing window managers or DEs. I might give FVWM a go myself in future, if and when I have the time to do so, as the concept of a completely configurable WM does sound interesting.

Dusty · 2005-06-27 14:44:38

I'm not recommending it to anybody... its just something to do. ;-) Problem is, I spent the whole weekend creating a config, and now I have to wonder... do I like it? ;-)

I'm starting to think maybe window management just isn't as important as we think. I get by with XP all right at work, and that's the worst window manager around!

Dusty

phrakture · 2005-06-27 15:13:39

yeah, I'm still not convinced to give fvwm a shot... ratpoison is a beauty to me, considering it fits my general work paradigm (they guys at linuxtag were kinda confused by it too, as alot of them, suprisingly, used DEs - xfce, gnome, and I think a kde in there).

Dusty · 2005-06-27 15:50:23

phrakture wrote:

yeah, I'm still not convinced to give fvwm a shot...

I'm surprised by this, as you are the guy that was going to develop a litestep-like window manager. I was actually hoping you'd use Fvwm and hack the FvwmPartition code to be a little more ratpoison like (I just don't like ratpoison, maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance...). I'm still having trouble compiling it.

Dusty

phrakture · 2005-06-27 15:56:19

Yes, but I tried fvwm and looked at the config files - it's just a big fat flaming mess... while my stuff takes ideas from litestep (and probably fvwm too), I'm going to try and focus on arch-style KISS.... hard to explain I guess.

Dusty · 2005-06-27 16:09:26

No, it makes sense to me. Enlightenment was originally based on Fvwm, and look at how configurable, yet easy to use it is.

Dusty

archdaemon · 2005-06-27 23:06:16

sweiss wrote:

...I really think FVWM should be a really last resort. Only if you really can't stand any other existing window managers or DEs. I might give FVWM a go myself in future, if and when I have the time to do so, as the concept of a completely configurable WM does sound interesting.

That's an excellent point. It took two go-rounds for me to use fvwm because I hated it the first time and the second go-round came after experimenting with just how usable I could get twm and then a period of playing with ctwm - both of which are much easier to configure than fvwm, yet give you some familiarity with fvwm's mindset. And, of course, my main wm's during all this were blackbox/fluxbox/icewm - things that are much more usable out of the box. It's only after getting dissatisfied with everything else (and picking up all the good ideas you like in them) that fvwm could really be worthwhile and, if you find something that *does* satisfy before fvwm, then that's a lot easier and better for you. So I completely agree.

phrakture wrote:

Yes, but I tried fvwm and looked at the config files - it's just a big fat flaming mess...

Do you mean the files themselves or the syntax? Because that's what I was saying about the blank slate - fvwm can load without any config files and falls back to a buttonless black/gray window decor, a couple of built-in funcs, and a tiny menu. So the config files aren't anything at all in that sense. If you mean the syntax, though, I'd agree that fvwm does not have a very logical or elegant syntax. There's a lot of perl in fvwm and I think it permeates the wm - 'The language is intended to be practical (easy to use, efficient, complete) rather than beautiful (tiny, elegant, minimal).' - except it doesn't quite pull off the 'easy to use' and 'efficient' parts.

Gullible Jones · 2005-06-27 23:11:06

archdaemon wrote:

fvwm can load without any config files and falls back to a buttonless black/gray window decor

*Ahem* Uh, don't you mean grey and pink window decor?

archdaemon · 2005-06-27 23:14:22

Gullible Jones wrote:

archdaemon wrote:
fvwm can load without any config files and falls back to a buttonless black/gray window decor
*Ahem* Uh, don't you mean grey and pink window decor?

Argh! No. You must be picking up a system.fvwm2rc file somewhere or something. That's a default generated config. It's amazing - you run the 'setup' option from the builtin menu and get something *worse* when you thought it couldn't *get* any worse. But, yeah, the pink (hot pink! and fat!) borders are part of the minimal generated config beyond the configless setup.

Gullible Jones · 2005-06-27 23:22:52

Now that is just stupid. I don't care how cool FVWM can be, having the configuration app give you pink window borders fatter than potbellied pigs is just stupid.

archdaemon · 2005-06-27 23:27:17

No arguments there.

iphitus · 2005-06-27 23:44:01

Well the idea of it is that you make your own config, not use a silly config app.

Dusty: I know for me, window management is as important as we think, after using ion, I find gnome, xfce and XP frustrating to use.

Slow, and I have to resize and move windows myself, can you believe that??

droog · 2005-06-27 23:47:42

Maybe the pink and grey theme is to scare people off that think the wm should do the customizing for you.

Gullible Jones · 2005-06-27 23:50:19

Well, it is the nature of Windows XP to be slow. Each new version of Windows must be slower and more bloated than the last, so that Windows users are forced to buy new hardware every few years...

Dusty · 2005-06-28 03:16:56

Gullible Jones wrote:

Well, it is the nature of Windows XP to be slow. Each new version of Windows must be slower and more bloated than the last, so that Windows users are forced to buy new hardware every few years...

That doesn't make sense, because Microsoft doesn't sell (much) hardware, so how do they profit from it?

Iphitus: I suppose I should try Ion3, I haven't used it since Ion2... I liked that, but not as much as WMI and Lua just... I don't enjoy it...

Dusty

droog · 2005-06-28 04:01:36

Dusty wrote:

Here's my first attempt at an Arch theme...

was there a link somewhere i missed, i assumed you were going to show a screenshot or something

iphitus · 2005-06-28 05:17:33

Dusty wrote:

and Lua just... I don't enjoy it...
Dusty

you get used to it 8)

Dusty · 2005-06-28 14:42:49

droog wrote:

was there a link somewhere i missed, i assumed you were going to show a screenshot or something

I... :oops:

http://www.buchuki.com/images/ss/fvwmss.png

iphitus: I used ion and lua for somewhere between four and six months, and I never got used to it. I kept cursing whatever idiot chose lua over Python. After that I started looking for a wm that had python scripting, but it seems the people that do python scripted managers never stick to their work.

Ion was my favourite wm for quite some time until I found wmi, but I just can't tolerate the lua code anymore. Having said that, maybe I should consider hacking it to use Python instead... but no, I'd rather work on Ensmer.

Dusty

Arch Linux

#26 2005-06-27 01:44:06

Re: Dear FVWM users

#27 2005-06-27 01:45:14

Re: Dear FVWM users

#28 2005-06-27 01:59:32

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#29 2005-06-27 02:28:15

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#30 2005-06-27 07:30:33

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#38 2005-06-27 16:09:26

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#39 2005-06-27 23:06:16

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