30 Window Managers in 30 days

h8uthemost · 2012-03-12 00:08:03

That was a nice review, 2many. I almost missed it since it wasn't linked to in your original post(I always check back there to see if a new one is up). I now want to try evilwm. I love these barebones minimal wm's now. That's what I love about ratpoison. You log in and there's nothing but a black screen. But admittedly I'm getting a bit tired of hit two keys to initiate a keybind(c-t). I'm so used to hitting Mod+ to get where I need to go. So I think evilwm will be better suited for me. Just wish it was a tiler. Hopefully I'll come across a tiler that's barebones and doesn't use the c-t type of setup.

Thanks for keeping this going for us.

2ManyDogs · 2012-03-12 00:54:59

Thanks h8u. I'll add the link in the first post now. I wonder if the xbindkeys technique (check the Debian group or the Gentoo wiki I linked to see how this is done) would work with ratpoison, or if there's any other way to modify the keybindings. I have not yet used ratpoison for more than an hour or so, so I don't know, but I would not be surprised if someone has figured out a way to make the mod key work...

h8uthemost · 2012-03-12 03:55:02

That's a good idea. Because really that's the only thing holding the wm back from being used constantly by me.

Thanks for the tip. I'll search around and see if I can find anything.

kri5 · 2012-03-12 07:51:18

Packrat wrote:

@kri5 - try using the default setup of openbox without a panel etc ... I actually tried that and a near-default set up of fvwm to train myself to use key bindings more. Very beneficial for ne.

How do you know what apps you have open if you have no taskbar?

el_koraco · 2012-03-12 08:15:37

kri5 wrote:

How do you know what apps you have open if you have no taskbar?

In openbox, you middle click on the desktop.

kri5 · 2012-03-12 08:29:00

^ Thanks, I'm using a laptop with only two mouse buttons, I presume a 'middle click' would be pressing both left and right at the same time? Sorry for asking what may appear to be a dumb question as I'm not actually on my PC at present.

SabreWolfy · 2012-03-12 08:32:50

^ Just test it smile But yes, pressing both buttons together simulates a middle click. This doesn't always work in vanilla Debian, but it does work in #!.

kbmonkey · 2012-03-12 09:06:36

Liking what you're doing @2manydogs. Subscribed big_smile

@kri5, [Super-Tab] in Openbox for a list switcher.

Last edited by kbmonkey (2012-03-12 09:09:03)

kri5 · 2012-03-12 09:31:15

SabreWolfy wrote:

^ Just test it But yes, pressing both buttons together simulates a middle click. This doesn't always work in vanilla Debian, but it does work in #!.

Sorry, I wasn't being lazy, as I said I'm not on my PC I'm actually at work for the next 10 hours. sad
I only asked as I'm not the most patient person and wanted to know now rather than wait. lol

EDIT: @Kbmonkey.. almost forgot, thanks for that. smile

Last edited by kri5 (2012-03-12 09:33:13)

SabreWolfy · 2012-03-12 09:35:36

[^ Haha, I was wondering because I saw you said that you weren't at your PC smile I remembering fiddling around trying to get both buttons to work as a middle-click in a version of something (Debian or Ubuntu?) a few months ago and didn't have success. I was delighted when it "just worked" in #!. Having said that, it may depend on the hardware. I think "synclient" may be useful. I know in vanilla Debian, tapping the touchpad to click is not enabled by default, but !# calls "synclient" in the autostart script. We are going off topic here though ...]

gensym · 2012-03-12 10:38:31

^{1,2} Clicking my mouses scroll button stimulates a middle click.

Also if you are using a touch pad something like

synclient TapButton2=2

assigns two finger tap to a middle click.

dkeg · 2012-03-12 12:07:29

^

super + tab

I keep my taskbar but hid all open and active apps, leaving just the system tray.

I then put my horizontal conkey in that unused space w/in tint2 so windows would not overlap my conky.

maybe I'm missing something, but couldn't figure out how to solve that. Tried setting conky as dock or panel, still no luck. either way this is good. I don't need to see what open apps I have in a panel, jUst as easy to use the above or alt-tab.

@2ManyDogs.....this is a great thread. Subscribed....Everyday is like Christmas waiting for the next write up

kri5 · 2012-03-12 12:34:22

@dkeg.. You can stop your apps from overlapping your Conky by changing the margins of your desktop, thats's what i did. I just changed the top margin to leave a gap for my Conky which runs along the top.

@2ManyDogs great thread. looking forward to the Tilers. Sorry if it keeps getting hijacked. big_smile

Forthy · 2012-03-12 13:32:04

I've just realised that I can't get the full size images in this thread (or any other) where people are using postimage.org - Just getting a 'could not connect' page.

Same if I try and go to the website itself - as though it does not exist.

This makes me sad sad

SabreWolfy · 2012-03-12 13:35:16

^ I see a thumbnail in the thread and when I click it, a new page opens with a larger image. When I click that, a larger version is shown.

Is something blocking postimage.org? Maybe a plug-in/add-on/extension or script/ad blocker? Or your /etc/hosts file?

Last edited by SabreWolfy (2012-03-12 13:36:07)

Forthy · 2012-03-12 13:37:25

^ I see the thumbnails, but when I click I get an error page hmm

As I say - also happens if I try to go direct to postimage - It's like they've vanished off of my internets!

Weird as hell.

- re the second bit - shouldn't be - I'll look...

Last edited by Forthy (2012-03-12 13:38:10)

Forthy · 2012-03-12 13:46:33

Nope - and it's not browser specific either - This is what I get in chrome and Iceweasel when I click the thumbnail in dkeg's post at 13:27 today...

dkeg · 2012-03-12 13:52:23

kri5 wrote:

@dkeg.. You can stop your apps from overlapping your Conky by changing the margins of your desktop, thats's what i did. I just changed the top margin to leave a gap for my Conky which runs along the top.
@2ManyDogs great thread. looking forward to the Tilers. Sorry if it keeps getting hijacked.

@kri5...good one. I'll give that a shot.

Sometimes you search so hard for a solution when its sitting there right in front of you. I guess its sometimes in our nature to make things harder than they need to be.

SabreWolfy · 2012-03-12 13:55:27

^ If it's not browser-specific...

$ grep -i postimage /etc/hosts

Last edited by SabreWolfy (2012-03-12 13:58:24)

CBizgreat! · 2012-03-12 14:01:53

Random babbling about image site thing ...

Clicked image to confirm it works here, whatever is going on there is weird imo too. Could see what dns servers you're using ?

cat /etc/resolv.conf

Or try switching them, as per this post. Am still happy using google public dns servers, did give a speed boost. Maybe your isp has it blocked/banned kinda thing ?

Forthy · 2012-03-12 14:05:54

It's ISP by the looks, if I go on 3G on my phone it works fine, on wifi same error. Reported to ISP.

/threadjack :-)

CBizgreat! · 2012-03-12 14:25:52

Ha ... well ya uncovered the culprit, so step in the right direction. Good dealio. wink

2ManyDogs · 2012-03-12 17:13:57

Day eight. Another quirky little stacker today, WindowLab.

WindowLab is in the repos, and it creates its own .desktop file, so it should appear in your GDM sessions as soon as you install it. I'll warn you to make sure you have xterm installed before you start it -- you'll see why in a minute.

When you start WindowLab, you get a blank screen. Depending on your monitor you may notice that a little bit at the top is a little blacker than the rest. Left click on the desktop (also known as the "root window") does nothing. There are no default keyboard shortcuts. Right click on the desktop produces a linear menu across the top of the screen, with defaults for starting The Gimp and Xterm (don't ask me why The Gimp is on there), and About, Reload, and Quit options. You slide the pointer across the menu while holding the right button down, and release it to select an item. If you don't have xterm installed it will not appear on the menu, and you will be sad, because you will have to exit the window manager and install xterm or edit the menu. If you have xterm installed, after you start it WindowLab looks like this (first shot without the menu active, second I have activated the menu and selected the "About" option):

The menu space turns into a taskbar when you have active windows on the workspace, and changes back to a menu when you right-click. The active window title bars and the task bar are yellow. Very yellow. Windows have three buttons; in order they minimize the window, move the window to the front of the stack if it's in the back, or to the back if it's at the front (but the moved window keeps the focus), and close the window. Single left click on the titlebar gives the window focus, but does not move it in the stack. Double left click brings gives the window focus and brings it to the top, as does clicking the window's name on the taskbar.

Left-click and hold on the titlebar allows you to move a window. Resizing is a little different -- you hold down alt and hold left click, and then "push" on the edge of the window you want to move. If you are inside the window, the window edge grows outward (the window gets bigger). To make the window smaller, you "push" on the appropriate edge from outside the window.

You get four keyboard shortcuts: alt-tab cycles through the window stack in one direction, alt-q cycles back the other way (this can be handy if you have a lot of windows open and you alt-tab too far and want to go back one). Alt-F11 toggles full-screen mode for the active window (but maximized windows do not cover the menu bar) and alt-F12 does the same thing as clicking the center titlebar button (toggles the window's position in the stack).

Configuration

You can't change much. The default menu is at /etc/X11/windowlab/windowlab.menurc, and to edit it you should copy it to ~/.windowlab/windowlab.menurc. It's a plain text file, one entry per line, like this:

terminal:sakura
web:iceweasel
files:thunar
editor:geany

Pretty simple. There are no config options in this file, and no other config files.

There are also only a few command-line options. You can set the titlebar font, the color of the active and inactive titlebar (these colors are also used for the taskbar), the menu, the selected menu item, and the empty part of the screen (if you don't use wallpaper). You can print "about" information, and set the X display number.

Luckily, WindowLab also works with xbindkeys, so all the keyboard shortcuts I set up for evilwm also work with WindowLab, including keys that start gmrun and dmenu. This makes WindowLab much more usable, at least for me.

Conky works, but WindowLab ignores conky's request to run in the background and simply starts it in its own window. The window is in the right place, buit it's got a titlebar, it shows up on the taskbar, and it's in the window stack. The panels (fbpanel and tint2) do not work at all.

(edit update) conky works if you set own_window to "no" and own_window_type to "override" -- thanks packrat.

After I changed the colors a little, edited the menu, and added a background, it looked like this:

What I Liked About It

It's simple and geeky. It uses very little memory. At idle with only xterm running it was using 51 MB. Even after I opened iceweasel, thunar, and a terminal it was still only using 115 MB. It easily handled opaque window movement, even on my Celeron test box; something other window managers have a difficult time with.

What I Didn't Like About It

It's not very configurable. It's a little ugly. It doesn't work well with conky. (edit-- see update above to make conky work with WindowLab).

Links

"man windowlab" -- it's all in there
WindowLab home page
evilwm in the gentoo wiki (describes how to use xbindkeys)

tomorrow: lwm and wm2
back to the top

Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2012-03-27 16:19:36)

ivanovnegro · 2012-03-12 17:33:32

^ What? WindowLab. That was a nice one, never heard about it. smile

kri5 · 2012-03-12 17:46:20

A good one for the extreme minimalist out there. hmm

CrunchBang Linux

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#176 2012-03-12 00:08:03

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#177 2012-03-12 00:54:59

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#178 2012-03-12 03:55:02

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#179 2012-03-12 07:51:18

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#180 2012-03-12 08:15:37

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#181 2012-03-12 08:29:00

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#182 2012-03-12 08:32:50

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#183 2012-03-12 09:06:36

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#184 2012-03-12 09:31:15

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#185 2012-03-12 09:35:36

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#186 2012-03-12 10:38:31

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#187 2012-03-12 12:07:29

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#188 2012-03-12 12:34:22

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#189 2012-03-12 13:32:04

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#190 2012-03-12 13:35:16

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#191 2012-03-12 13:37:25

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#192 2012-03-12 13:46:33

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#193 2012-03-12 13:52:23

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#194 2012-03-12 13:55:27

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#195 2012-03-12 14:01:53

Re: 30 Window Managers in 30 days

#196 2012-03-12 14:05:54

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#197 2012-03-12 14:25:52

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#198 2012-03-12 17:13:57

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#199 2012-03-12 17:33:32

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