Window Maker 0.80 Released 189
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.
"If there isn't a population problem, why is the government putting cancer in the cigarettes?" -- the elder Steptoe, c. 1970
Improvements (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Improvements (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Improvements (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Improvements (Score:2, Informative)
Now, GNOME2 can be pretty sluggish. However, Sawfish itself seems to be reasonably fast (and low CPU usage) on my P2-200. I doubt that I would feel the same way about sawfish on a 486 (which I typically use WindowMaker or blackbox on for speed). The whole construction of sawfish fasinates me (it is basically written in lisp), and I keep wanting to find a way to integrate it with emacs and my other lisp programs). However, I haven't yet had the time to investigate making sawfish behave in a more WindowMaker like maner. It should be possible though.
Well... (Score:1)
I still prefer enlightenment (Score:1)
All of these slim WMs are good for 486s, but on a 1ghz CPU, or even my 400mhz cpu, speed really isnt the issue because its fast enough. Then it comes down to which interface has the most features, and is the easiest to use.
Re:I still prefer enlightenment (Score:2)
i agree about ease-of-use, but not most-features. i've used various incarnations and combinations of gnome/enlightenment/sawfish/kde and liked them just fine, but always found myself coming back to afterstep/windowmaker/blackbox (the latter has been my wm of choice for about six months) no matter what machine i was running. i suspect it's because most-features and ease-of-use tend to work against each other.
it's also probably related to how i work - the only thing i need is a window manager. i work in multiple terminal windows most times, and don't really care if i can create a link to a file on my desktop. most features like that i don't find useful, and they only offend my aesthetic sensibilities. i want root menus, window shading and multiple workspaces. anything else just gets in my way.
so, i don't agree that the only thing keeping so many of us in wms (as opposed to environments) is how buff our machine is. good thing we've got choices.
Re:I still prefer enlightenment (Score:2)
WindowMaker is easy enough, and I have quick access to all my favorite applications. By eschewing the feature-encrusted "desktop environments" I free up a heck of a lot of RAM and CPU cycles I can use for extra Mozilla windows, editor sessions, or for playing FlightGear.
umm (Score:2, Redundant)
great to put the headline on the front page, but it's only
at
Re:umm (Score:1)
Many of us have been using WM for quite some time (years). Just because it hasn't reached a trivial number revision doesn't mean it's not news worthy.
Re:umm (Score:3, Insightful)
And for all of you out there, who have also never tried windowmaker. Go, and take it out for a spin. Use it on your productivity desktop for a week. It's diferent, it takes time to get used to, but it pays. It never, ever stands in your way. You don't realise it's there, until you start something else by mistake and you miss yer'ol wm. That's the signature of good things!
Re:umm (Score:5, Informative)
Damn you, Alfredo Kojima! Damn you to hell!
If You like DFM.... (Score:2)
Rox [sourceforge.net]
Re:umm (Score:2)
Why do people think something magic happens when a "1.0" gets slapped on some software? To the point where Evolution gets a story for its 0.99 release [slashdot.org] and another a month later for the 1.0 release [slashdot.org]? Like something magic happened with that extra 0.01.
And like Khazunga said, WindowMaker is very stingy with version numbers. The 0.5 release was far more stable and complete than most 1.0 software, commercial or hobbyist.
Re:umm (Score:2)
Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:5, Interesting)
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-tr
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:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:1)
I was once flamed to high hell for even using KDE and windows in the same sentence. I also am a WM junkie and agree wholeheartedly with your post.
Good job.
Re:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:2)
I was once flamed to high hell for even using KDE and windows in the same sentence
Don't worry, I have thick skin, and the whole point of KDE (that I can see) is to create an environment that people who like Windows will be happy in - an integrated environment where everything works with everything else, and looks the same (while themeable of course).
I think that's a great goal, and I know lots of people who enjoy using it already, and will enjoy it even more when there is more consistent support. Heck, I'll probably have a KDE boot on my machine for when I want that sort of thing, but WM or similar (blackbox looks nice too) are the way to go for seriously productive VI work.
Oh shit, now the Emacs crowd will be flaming me too. Oops.
you forgot to mention the coolest part (Score:1, Informative)
Re:you forgot to mention the coolest part (Score:1)
WMMon+SMP (Score:1)
Hear hear (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not going elsewhere anytime soon. WM is fast, easily configurable and almost as pretty as E without chewing half the CPU. And to echo the sentiments of Bronster, it doesn't get in your way.
Re:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:3, Informative)
(That's something that some people fail to grasp about KDE - it just defaults to looking vaguely ms-windows-like)
Regarding the fonts, my fonts look lovely with KDE once I switched to using the antialiased ones - Qt and KDE can use the new XRENDER/Xft font subsystem of XFree86 these days.
Another problem a lot of people have is that they are running their X Server at 75dpi, when in fact many modern displays are closer to 100-120dpi (mine's 120dpi...) - I've yet to see a distro configure this properly (for a quick fix, start X with the command line -dpi option set to something approximating your display, or configure it in your XF86Config file). Since correct font rendering depends on knowing the physical size of your display, most people end up with really tiny looking fonts, since their X server thinks the display has a lower DPI than it really has.
Regarding the load time of KDE - one major problem has been traced to the inefficient way the standard dynamic linker loads C++ shared library files - a new release of the linker will fix that, and produces a huge improvement in C++-on-linux application startup times in general (this is not just a KDE problem). Coupled with the slowly-stabilising-to-de-facto-standard C++ ABI given to use by gcc 3.x, this should make linux C++ development easier and much less painful than it has been historically.
Personally, I'm not all that fond of C++, but lots of people are, and lots of commercial/niche applications on Win32 and commercial proprietary unix are in C++, so making C++ on linux work better is definitely worthwhile.
Re:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:1)
Debian Testing gives you an option for that when you're setting up the X server, IIRC. I think Potato did too, but I'm not sure. Its been a long time since I installed Potato. Load time with the 2.2.2 Debian KDE packages has also dropped way down, even from 2.2.1. I think they may be using nonstandard compile options, but it runs very nicely. Even on "only" a P3/600 with 256 megs RAM. The fonts look nice, even without anti-aliasing.
I find it far nicer than WM ever was. I can configure key bindings for just about everything. The config tool actually lets me configure everything about the environment, not a just few things (and for everything else, go to the config file).
One thing that's always puzzled me about "Unix" style windowmanagers. If they're written for programmers, then why do they require you to remove your hands from the keyboard to do just about everything? Windows lets you use keyboard shortcuts for almost anything, and so does KDE. So why does everyone else require you to use the mouse?
Re:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:2)
If I wanted nice large fonts, I'd run at 640x480 or 800x600. I think a lot of people use 75dpi fonts not because their display is 75dpi, but because they run high resolutions so they can get more on the screen.
Re:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:1, Informative)
Basically, you're _much_ better off running at the highest pixel resolution that's available, and correctly setting your DPI so that you can use points (or even millimeters) to specify font sizes. - that way, if you want larger fonts, you set the font size to "16 points", and if you want smaller fonts, you set it to "6 points". On a 1600x1200 120 DPI display with antialiasing, a 6 point font is perfectly legible, and a 16 point font is absolutely beautiful. The "point" is a measure of the font's physical, real-world size, so correctly setting the DPI to a higher value on high DPI screens simply means that the font is the correct height on screen, but more legible.
Basically, increasing the pixel resolution and correctly setting the DPI should increase the level-of-detail on-screen, while allowing a "10 point" font to be the same height, as measured with a ruler held up to your screen. In 640x480, you won't see the serifs clearly on "Times", but at 1600x1200, it'll be almost like reading a newspaper.
People seem to screw this up a lot, but it is incredibly important for desktop publishing. I can hold a printed A4 sheet up to the screen on my system, and set the zoom factor in the word processor or in ghostscript to "natural size"/100%, and the sheet will be exactly the same size as it's on-screen representation.
Windows used to screw this up, X Window System was designed not to screw it up, but then application coders got at it, Mac OS X (via display pdf/quartz) and NextSTEP (via display postscript) got it right.
Re:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:2)
Re:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:2)
Once I got the xfs-xtt server working in Debian and talking to the X server ( not the most fun thing in itself ), I discovered that Konsole is absolutely horrific under antialiasing - font corruption leaves little bits of pixel-dust all over the screen, it's nearly unreadable, very jerky. Unfortunately, without switching back to rxvt for all terminal stuff, there's no easy way to avoid this that I can see.
Yes, the antialised fonts look pretty, apart from the previously mentioned font-size and widget size problems that lead to things looking wrong (fonts running over the edges of their widgets and looking really messy). I guess this is either slack programming (it's a 12 point font, so give it n pixels rather than measuring the size of the text in the current font), or the font-rendering layer is reporting the wrong values for antialised text.
Anyway, I'm sure I could be using KDE more sensibly - and indeed I could have chosen the 'look more like Windowmaker' choice - but if I wanted that, why not just use Windowmaker in the first place? KDE apps will still start their DCOP server and chat to each other just fine, and I have all the nice bits of Windowmaker like wmbiff (see my previous post about how useful that was).
Re:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:2)
Yes, and I was following a KDE Anti-Aliased Fonts that I found online somewhere.
I'll have to say that XFree's documentation (at least as installed with Debian leaves a _lot_ to be desired. While trying to work out how to use my wheel-mouse's scrolling features, I was continually told use 'xxxPS' drivers, but nowhere (and this is with a zgrep of all the files in the docs directory) was there any list of these drivers. Certainly nothing in the man page lists all the options.
Not so friendly if even a slightly experienced person can't find the documentation on an option - and XFree is not happy about a wrong-named option in the XF86Config-4 file - it just dies, doesn't print a list of possible options on STDERR or anything helpful.
Guess I'd better go look for the (probably also not well documented XRENDER thingy then, and see if it helps my KDE at all).
Yep - google isn't turning up any handy hits. zgrep -i xrender in
Gosh, no mention in the XF86Config man page on xfree86.org. That makes me happy, oh yes. Helpful we are, oh Xfree86 community. Ahh, the xfree86.org site has no search function.
*sigh* - by this time 90% of people have gone back to Windows...
The Enlightened way. (Score:1)
KDE isnt all that quick thats why i dont use it.
But enlightenment, has tons of good features, Its very fast, its very stable, Its my favorite.
WMaker has nice features too, but when it comes to usability thats a completely diffrent story. Dont forget the ability to totally customize your interface, nothing compares to E. E even supports the latest features of Xrender, really I think E is cool.
KDE is ok but its too much like Windows.
Gnome is another Windows clone, just not as fancy as KDE.
Re:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:1)
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.
I hear you. My window manager nirvana has come in the form of Blackbox, which is even more minimalistic than Windowmaker. It replaces icons with blazing quick dynamic menus--an elegant solution once you get used to it. It also supports WM dock apps.
Re:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:2)
I quite enjoyed it the couple of times I've played with it (when my laptop's hard disk was failing, and the KDE install was corrupted, but I couldn't be bothered cleaning it out - blackbox was the only other window manager that still worked
I'll have a play with it on the new SCSI 10,000rpm drive that's arriving later today - oh what fun.
Re:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:2)
KDE is a desktop and Windowmaker is a window manager. There is a big difference between the two. I know several people that use KDE on top of Windowmaker.
Of all the window managers available, Windowmaker is one of the best (I would rank Blackbox slightly higher). But that's all it is, a window manager. It that's all you want, great! But some of us like a desktop. An integrated file manager is just damned useful (and a part of the original NeXTstep that Windowmaker/GNUstep copies). File associations are useful when done right (KDE gets them mostly right). Applications that work together are awesome.
rxvt
* exit
* save
- yep, that's it, and a docked netscape (now Opera or Mozilla) launcher, what more does one need?
If that's all you need, go for it. Many days that's all I need. But sometimes I want more. To assume that what you want is what everyone else needs is the height of hubris.
Re:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:2)
Indeed - which is why I didn't ever say, or assume, that that's all that everyone needs. What I was saying is that compared to a KDE (complete managed desktop thingy) session, a Windowmaker sessions is lightweight, and doesn't get in my way.
I can see that Blackbox has serious support too, and will certainly be evaluating it once I get my system back into multi-OS mode (would you believe I managed to wipe all my Windows partitions by having the wrong hard-disk plugged in when I format c:;format d:'d it. F$#&*(ing grr. Anyway, it's all coming back together now - not that anyone cares (or should) - my stupid mistake. Doh!
File associations are difficult because it relys on
Re:Windowmaker (the UNIX way) vs KDE (Windows way) (Score:2)
Yeah - it's always hard to hack in a decent meta-data system later, very sad. It's a real pity that Microsoft's
Correction... (Score:1)
Actually, that's GNUS. After all, we mustn't ignore the 15 years of hard work by the GNU Project, which has made all existence possible.
and if you spend too much time playing with it (Score:1, Redundant)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Easter Eggs (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
More Easter Eggs (Score:2)
Re:Easter Eggs (Score:1)
plain english changelog (Score:2, Insightful)
the TERMINAL! (Score:2, Interesting)
i18n and font(fontset) (Score:1)
Do we still need wsetfont, a small utility to configure fonts for various languages?
Since font specification of Window Maker is based on Latin-1 and not internationalized, non-Latin-1 people need to invoke wsetfont to display our native language on the window titles.
I tried to write a patch, like I wrote a patch for TWM, Sawfish, IceWM, and so on. (Thus, all we need to do is to set locale [i.e., LANG, LC_CTYPE, or LC_ALL variable] for these window managers to handle i18n characters.) However, it was difficult to write a patch because Window Maker is made from two parts of core and widgets. I had no idea how to communicate the mode (XFontStruct mode or XFontSet mode) between the core and widgets. Are there anyone who are willing to try this problem?
(I wonder how many non-Latin-1 people live in the Slashdot community.)
debian packages (Score:2, Informative)
unstable
GNUStep is the future (Score:1)
Re:GNUStep is the future (Score:1)
Now that was real programming.
(OK, I confess, I've still haven't actually used it, since Symbolics machines are still worth quite a bit of money, and I can't afford the mid range machines, and the low end ones take more space/electricity than I can supply).
Re:GNUStep is the future (Score:1)
Let them eat cake.
What I like in wm (Score:1)
after using kde eversince, i shifted to windowmaker about an year ago! and it has grown on me. the shift was particularly because of the speed of kde, and me getting more comfortable with the bash prompt. and i havn't regretted the move at all.
what i like in wm is 1. speed, 2. use of very minimum resources 3. minimalistic approach. you get just as much as you would require in a normal session. nothing more nothing less!
Re: WindowMaker 0.80.0 (Score:1, Insightful)
The only thing I miss when running WM, is a decent filemanager. For diskoperations, etc. I'm happily running MC in a terminal, but when I want to browse through a CD and open up photo's or mp3's "on the fly" I'm rather stuck. Konqueror and Nautilus are too heavy for me. Has anyone got a lighter alternative?
Re: WindowMaker 0.80.0 (Score:2, Informative)
Very cool, has most of the features I liked of Nautilus/Konqueror, but makes my AMDK6-2 400 work *so* much faster..... Give it a try, really great project.
filemanager sugestion: (Score:2, Informative)
The day i fell in love with Windowmaker... (Score:2)
That is the most graceful crash handling i have ever encountered. Beautiful! I've been a loyal user ever since.
Re:The day i fell in love with Windowmaker... (Score:2)
"General protection fault in module BLAHBLAH.DLL at address 0xFECA1234. Press Enter to terminate the application. Press Esc to return to the application. Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart Windows"
Hell, the only one of those options that'll get any useful result is the restart one...
Re:The day i fell in love with Windowmaker... (Score:2)
Crashes in Window Maker (which are damn infrequent) make me wonder why they even bother to tell you that WM has crashed. A Window Maker crash has never scared me or caused me to lose more than 1 mouse click's productivity.
-Peter
GTK vs Windowmaker vs AfterStep (Score:2)
For maximum compatability with current software, I have been using Gnome, Enlightenment with an OpenStep Theme, and a GTK OpenStep theme. All of that bloat really eats the resources. It would be nice to run a lighter WM and only call Gnome and KDE into memory as needed.
I have a question for people using AfterStep or WM nowdays - how do you stay compatable with KDE and Gnome based software?
Re:GTK vs Windowmaker vs AfterStep (Score:5, Informative)
AfterStep began as a hack to FVWM 1.0 (originally, the dotfile format was almost identical) and thus is much more similar in terms of the way it behaves for the user to any other of the "old-school" window managers, with a dotfile to control behavior and little in the way of dynamic configuration or application management once you're in.
Re:GTK vs Windowmaker vs AfterStep (Score:2)
> software?
As another poster remarked, the Qt & Gtk libraries run just fine under AfterStep, so at most all I have to do is type something like ``gcalc &" to run a given application. (The only Gtk app I still use is Electric Eyes, which I configured to launch from Wharf.)
As for using some of the benefits Gnome offers behind the scenes, AS has a ``Gnome" module that handles all of that.
Geoff
honest question about WMs... (Score:1)
I'll admit to being a newbie to WMs. Most of my Linux work has been shell access only. But I'm trying to put together a experimental desktop system out of some spare parts and would like to have more than a single console available.
I'd like to find a feature comparison of various popular WMs. I want to find which is the best WM for me. Does anyone know where I could find such a thing?
I don't want to start a flamewar. This is an honest question. "Best" is a highly subjective term. But I'd like to find one that's best for me, because that's what matters.
Some will probably answer with the question "Well what are you looking for in a WM?" so that they can make a recommendation. I don't know. That's why I'd like to find a good comparison. I might see a feature listed that I hadn't thought of. There are just too many WMs out there to do all the research myself. If push comes to shove I'll probably just pick one, install it, and use it. I'd prefer to make an informed decision.
Re:honest question about WMs... (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.plig.org/xwinman/index.html [plig.org]
There are them all.
Re:honest question about WMs... (Score:1)
Easter (Christmas?) Egg (Score:3, Informative)
I only tested this with version 0.70 but I think it works with 0.80 too.
Re:Easter (Christmas?) Egg (Score:1)
Windowmaker is the salvation of old hardware (Score:1)
Besides the small memory footprint Windowmaker also features icon sized programs that sit at the bottom of your screen, called "docapps" which are usually monitoring programs. They take up very little space, and can provide tons of operational information at a glance. If you run windowmaker check out WMMon, WMCalClock, WMNet and WMApm (if you have a laptop).
building a nice workstation (with windowmaker..) (Score:1)
windowmaker banners! + guide! (Score:1)
WindowMaker one of the best (Score:2)
It makes you realise what a pig KDE is in terms of resources. GNOME is faster than KDE but isn't anywhere near to KDE as far as 'Desktop Environment' functionality goes.
WindowMaker needs a fair bit of work put in before all the icons/miniwindows for your apps behave as you want them .
It is not immediately clear how to suppress multiple application icons for apps like xmms, or to override application icons supplied by the apps themselves like NEdit. Nor is it obvious how to actually dock an app like WMClock
Once you figure this out (and i think 0.8 has some extra features in this department), i find WindowMaker to be the most useful desktop environment available on Linux.
Currently, i use OS X primarily, and Window Maker absolutely blitzes it for speed, even on a lower-specced machine (P3-500 vs. G4-550) I also run Window Maker on XDarwin for X apps on the Powerbook.
I don't quite know why a minor upgrade to this package warrants a Slashdot story, but i might as well take this opportunity to thank the WindowMaker team for making my computing life easier.
Where is my Xinerama ? (Score:2)
Today, most of the videocards come with dual monitor support. It's easy to put the old 14-15" next to the shiny new 17-19" one. But using WM in this setup is a pain
I want my Xinerama (and I don't have enough coding capabilities to add it myself and contribute the patch
Experiences with WM + KDE (Score:1)
A missing feature (Score:2)
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:1)
as a server+desktop+whatever already. the only thing that should have been standardized was the gui toolkit since it's a waste of memory to load both gtk and qt (i usually have konqueror and Evolution open all the time)
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree with you, but I would still like to see linux gain around 10% in the desktop arena. From a web developers perspective I'd see this as about the only way the web will stay 'free'. Just so that people (other web developers) begin to realize that there are more browsers than MSIE. And so that web pages stop using proprietary fonts and such.
What is KDE for? (Score:1)
It HAS a standard WM. KDE.If people want to use Gnome, as long as its enough like Windows, its standard. Windows is standard, copy Windows and you have a standard WM. If you want a standard WM, use Gnome or KDE. There you go.
Theres no reason why there can only be ONE standard WM. 2 is better because they compete. 2 is not going to confuse people, because people once had the choice to pick from IE or Netscape.
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:1)
The OS with the best grammer and spelling checker.
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:1, Funny)
>The OS with the best grammer and spelling checker.
Obviously you weren't using one with either.
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:1)
Remeber, the original usage (aside from playing games) for Unix was as an industrial strength word processor for AT&T's legal department.
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:2, Insightful)
You obviously are a little confused. All of the improvements you mention relate to desktop environments rather than window managers. IMO there are a number of perfectly capable Linux window managers - Sawfish, kwin, and Enlightenment, among others. The desktop environments are a whole other thing, though and I think your comments in that direction are good ones.
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:1)
Infact, WM was able to do useful things with DnD when GNOME and KDE were both still in their infancy.
WM is an application like any other. It benefits from being able to "play well with others" as much as a word processor or spreadsheet.
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:2)
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:1)
I would suggest that this, at least, is already happening.
However standardizaion needs to occur and one window manager needs development to the point of having all the niceties that microsoft but without the bugs and secutriy holes.
This is certainly a recurring argument. But we don't seem to have a solution so far. Since no one desktop seems to clearly be best-of-breed for this particular market, perhaps the big distros ought to agree on one, say KDE (toss a coin !), and put their weight behind it.
Clearly one desktop environment isn't going to suit everyone, but there should at least be some sort of common standardised default choice for new users. More experienced users are free to change this as they wish.
Zeshan
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:1)
On the other hand there really does need to be some standardization in the guts of the desktop enviornment. Looking at what all these WMs and you see that about the only thing they have in common is X (which to me seems like a pile of crap, but works extremely well). In my opinion, the thing that needs to happen is that X needs to have more extended, standardized functionality. It would probably require a re-write, but I think X could use a re-write anyway to dump a lot of legacy code for those 15 people who might still be using some of that extremely obscure hardware. The core needs to be the same, but what the desktop enviornment does with it at the end should be up to the enviornment. Of course as long as I can use Gnome apps on KDE and the other way around, I really can't complain too much.
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Choices and the job market. (Score:3, Insightful)
No one is saying to take away choices - you can go keep running sawfish all you want. But having a pronounced 'standard' will help encourage people to learn and support that standard more. The more users, the more demand for my services. If Linux, which I've invested a lot of time in learning, always remains a 'niche' player, future job prospects will be less than optimal. Let all the newbies in - that's more work for us later. Look at how many 'newbie' type Windows users there are that know just enough about a system to screw it up, then call for help. Who do they call? People that know and support Windows, not Linux. If more people are encouraged to try Linux on the desktop (because of a default - and usable - 'standard') then the more secure the job market will be for people with solid Linux skills.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:1)
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:2)
This whole idea of "Linux should standardize..." is silly. Linux is not a corporation. It is a technology. So apply this silliness to other technologies: "Plastics should standardize. They shouldn't let themselves be molded and extruded and pressed and fabricated into so many monitor housings, motorcycle fairings, forks, wire insulation and garbage bags! It's too confusing for the consumer! How will the consumer decide which piece of plastic to buy when they're all different?"
Well, Linux is just as malleable as plastic. Suitable for everything from PDA's (barely) to compute clusters. I think the "standardizers" see Linux as solely a replacement for Windows. That is silly. If a true replacement for Windows arises, it may or may not use a Linux kernel. Either way, the kernel will not be the hard part.
Re:Linux needs a standard window manager (Score:2)
No, if anything, Linux could use a centralized standard for window manager assets, and Linux could use a portable mechanism for extensions like docked applets, etc.
Most distributions have their own system for generating menus for Window managers that support application launching menus, their own location for shared icons, etc. Normalizing this would help make the multitude of window managers more usable. It's silly that so much work is being repeated from one Linux distribution to the next, and that the smaller ones go without.
As an example of portable extensions, many window managers support little plugins, either as docked applications, or extensions to their tool/launcher bars. There should be a standard library interface which let you use your talky fish hack as a docked WM applet, a KDE tool tray item, or a Gnome launcher bar applet with just one set of code. This would keep the choice of nifty hacks and such from funneling people into just a few choices, and would leverage the kind of modularity that makes unices so damned useful in the first place. Any other extensions should be like this. If there's not a damned good reason to make something KDE-centric, GNOME-centric, WMaker-centric, etc - then don't!
Re:I guess if you're Gates... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hooray! (Score:1)
It's only good that they don't add too much bloat + unnecessary features. I like it the way it is - simple, fast, light-weight, and really good-looking if you select a nice theme.
Nowadays I prefer the latest KDE on my main machine, but with older computers (say 500MHz or so...) wmaker really kicks ass.
Re:Hooray! (Score:1)
/Janne
Re:Hooray! (Score:2, Informative)
What's this major obsession over 1.0 releases?
I would hardly call WindowMaker "feature-depleted". You know, before I used WM, I used fvwm2. Yes, FVWM 2.x. And much to my surprise, this 0.5x (which it was at the time) was much cooler and better window manager than FVWM2. (No uebercustomizable outlook, but it was simple, just as fast, and at least the configuration was about million times easier, plus theme support was *much* more mature...)
I don't care about the program's version number, as long as it works. =)
Re:Hooray! (Score:2)
Re:Hooray! (Score:1)
It's nice. I alternate between KDE, BlackBox, and WM, depending on mood and the phase of moon.
Re:Is this meant to be funny or just stupid? (Score:2)
This thing is -just- a window manager. Which is to say that its primary purpose in life is just managing windows.
It is absurd that the above statement is not obvious to some. Those who would spend nearly half a decade adding complexity to such a simple application really need to stop, think about what they're doing, fix whatever bugs remain, and release it as 1.0.
I used Window Maker for a year or two, before I got sick of choosing between persistant bugs in older versions, or senseless bloat and new bugs in newer versions.
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Getting rid of silly icons (Score:2, Informative)
This has bugged me for years.
Re:Blackbox!! (Score:2)
Re:SW release? (Score:1)
News related to the window manager favored by slashdot crew stand above everything else, and deserve special attention of working masses
Just try searching news archive and you'll see
that E and WM received order of magnitude more news items than any other wm.