Window Maker 0.80 Released

An anonymous submitter points out that Window Maker, the window manager behind GNUStep, is now up to version 0.80. There is NEWS which describes some of the recent changes, as well as a Changelog.

Improvements

[Gryftir]

Maybe it's just me, and if so I apologize, but I have yet to see anything all that new from windowmaker.

Re:Improvements

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, but it's not a Windowmaker lack; if one needs tons of features there are KDE ang Gnome. I strongly hope that WMaker will never become fat and slow like these ones. Wmaker is a great wm, and definitely rocks once completed with the ultra-fast desktop manager ROX. [sourceforge.net]

Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way)

[Bronster]

Now that I've put all the flamebait in the title...

I'm quite impressed with KDE for general use, but damn is it slow to start and a little clunky to use. Even on a PIII/866 (current home box) with 512Mb memory, it's really not quick. There's also heaps of background tasks running providing 'services' to all those windows.

The end result is a slick user experience (once you're logged in), but also a more Windows feel - cutesy icons everywhere, preferences almost-all-in-one-place-but-don't-try-anything-tri cky. Widgets that just don't fit right if you resize or change your fonts (I blame this on bad coding - both in Windows Apps and in KDE Apps). A help system that looks nice, but pops up half off the screen if you're on an 800x600 laptop.

Enough about the off-topic stuff though, to Windowmaker.

I started using Windowmaker all of a couple of years ago (boo, hiss - before that amiwm a lot (reminded me of the Amiga, and was good over networked X sessions because it's so light weight - looked good on grey dumb-terminals too) - also twm and fvwm on VNC sessions, and on my Sony NWS-3410 which sort of worked, just, as an X terminal on good days.

Anyway, I've always been impressed with the simplicity of Windowmaker - dock apps have enough room to really show useful information (two wmbiff docks gives the 10 most commonly used mailboxes, mix in some fetchmail or isync and custom mutt command lines for each, and it's a one click mail solution). Back when I was using Linux as my primary desktop on the laptop, and Windows was just a VMware that got booted up for the occasional Word.doc, Windowmaker was a massive productivity boost over the others.

I still think that if I was using a Linux desktop for work rather than experimentation and games (ksame here I come!), Windowmaker would plain let me get more work done - KDE has too much kruft. With a desktop menu with 3 options:

rxvt

* exit

* save

- yep, that's it, and a docked netscape (now Opera or Mozilla) launcher, what more does one need? Not much for programming, mail (the wmbiffs above) and web. Any other tools can be launched from a handy shell quicker than navigating those menus. Sure it costs in time to learn, but it pays off bigtime in productivity, and the speed and simplicity of the WM means it's never in your way.

The improvement in Windowmaker I've enjoyed recently is that windows now automatically appear over blank bits of screen rather than over other windows. I really like that.

P.S - my config has everything in the top right corner, docks going down, minimised icons going across - 4 virtual screens (Main,Work,Net(Web),Personal) - Netscape/Opera auto-launches on Screen3, Email on Screen2 or Screen4 depending on Mailbox, rxvt's on current screen. All is happy.

Re:Linux needs a standard window manager

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Sigh. The best thing about Linux is CHOICES! I agree having a standard window manager may be seen as something that's needed, but I don't really think it is. I have yet to see a window manager that doesn't act similarly to another window manager. GNOME is similar to KDE(Ok I know they aren't window managers but to newbies they seem like it....so think sawfish to kwin) in the way it works and Window Maker is similar to Afterstep and so on and so on. Nothing is so different from one window manager to another that makes them totaly unusable. The only exception to this may be twm (who want's to use THAT ugly thing?). So, since they are all pretty similar one can deduce that a standard is not needed. So what if it takes a user 3 weeks to learn how to change the background? As long as they can use it to do real work, I have yet to see a window manager that would totally baffle a windows user to the point that they can't do work.

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the TERMINAL!

[Pegasus]

GNUStep, all nice and shiny, but one most missing feature fron {Open|Next}Step is the terminal with the search capability! When are we going to get it?