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Enlightenment GUI

Enlightenment 0.15 241

Posted by CmdrTaco from the where-are-the-flying-pigs? dept.
It's official: After approximately 17 years of delay and hype, Raster has released Enlightenment DR 0.15. Get it and check out tigert's new theme. Look at the ripples. Play with all the little gizmos. Waste clock cycles and memory with reckless abandon. Its fun.
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Enlightenment 0.15 More

Enlightenment 0.15

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  • There are debs for wm compiled with kde in potato. apt-get install wmaker-kde
    Kpager.. you'll have to compile that yourself.. Can't be that hard.
  • Yes but... WM with Kde support has no root menus!
  • Get GNOME. Run panel. Use gnome-pager.
    --
    David Coulson (TechNoir)
    technoir@themes.org
  • I tried E once. After dowloading what seemed like 7 different libraries to get it to run, I fled in horror when I realized it couldn't minimize windows yet.

    However, when a .deb comes out, if it does minimize windows, I'm willing to give it another shot. But with a simple, clean looking theme.

    ---

  • wm2 and wmx are pretty cool. These are what I use on my 486/50 laptop. They look sharp, and give me all I need.

    My desktop is Window Maker, however. The dock apps rule!

    ---

  • I've never liked fvwm. I think the Motif look is disgusting. Hell, I even prefer Windows 95's look.

    With `simple, clean looking' I was thinking of Windowmaker, wm2, or icewm. These are window managers I like. Or even olwm, were it not for the weird way its menus work, mouse-button-wise.

    ---

  • http://www.debian.org/~bma/enlightenment [debian.org]
    apt line:
    deb http://www.debian.org/~bma enlightenment/
    --
    Debian GNU/Linux - http://www.debian.org/
  • I just throw everything on the desktop, since it's the easiest way of keeping track of things. I agree that gnome crashes all the time, completely unusable. I installed KDE again today on another computer in 15 minutes, and it's solid as a rock. Gotta love it :)
  • I've used Linux for 3 years, and do all my programming in it. I'm definitely not a newbie, and know the system pretty well. But damn, I use KDE. I think people need to stop labelling and generalizing about people who use KDE/Red Hat. I use both because they work, and I can change what I want.
  • Run 'dox' and there should be (there was before anyway) some info on hotkeys. I agree though, one of the things I love about WM is the alt+1,2 etc, it makes SO much difference while I'm working. I hope E+gnome brings the same level of efficiency as well as nice looks.

    Alan

  • ack (Score:1)

    by drwiii ( 434 )
    Look at the ripples.

    "Ripples"? Damn, coulda sworn that said something else.

    linuxonline.org [linuxonline.org]

  • So it's okay for *you* to go ahead and download from rasterman.com, but everyone *else* should wait for a mirror.

    Practice what you preach, AC!
    --
  • E 0.14 couldn't minimise. E 15 can. It also has root menu support.
    I've had to ... allow for a couple more functions that I thought were ANSI but turned out to be Microsoft specific.
  • so what's coli stand for ;)

    E is actually a pseudonym for the real name, Enlightenment - but I'm sure you knew that already, just informing the masses ;)
    I've had to ... allow for a couple more functions that I thought were ANSI but turned out to be Microsoft specific.

  • hm. If it's not about the uptime, then what is it about?
    I've had to ... allow for a couple more functions that I thought were ANSI but turned out to be Microsoft specific.
  • Posted by ladicius:

    Changes to E are committed to the cvs dev tree almost every single day, this guy works his ass off on enlightenment.
  • Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    ...the next total rewrite.
  • Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    Only for those people that watch Xena instead of taking showers.
  • Posted by Bevin:

    For those who want to get it now try : http://thunderstorms.org/enlightenment-0.15.0.tar. gz. Be nice !

    G. Bevin
    gbevin@thunderstorms.org [mailto]

  • Posted by Bevin:

    For those who want to get it now try :
    http://thunderstorms.org/enlig htenment-0.15.0.tar.gz [thunderstorms.org]. Be nice !

    G. Bevin
    gbevin@thunderstorms.org [mailto]

  • Of course, this is also possible with WM + gnome support.
  • i found it annoying to try to use the gimp under
    9wm, otherwise it did fit my whimsey for those
    few days...
  • more wannabe bosses than hackers
    ^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~ ^~
  • Thanks, Raster - some awesome groove you got goin' on. Thanks also to the poster of the above message. Cut the guy some slack people - if you don't like E, don't use it. I don't, yet (but might use 15) but I think it is incredible.

  • Hmmm. (Score:1)

    by Iggy ( 1156 )
    Yes it now does iconification. It also does window shading, and it has a couple of small, clean although IMHO slightly boring looking themes provided in the distro as well. Its fast, stable, configurable, what more could you want.... :)

    By the way, i'm a *tad* biased as i love E to death. :-))

    Iggy

  • Kids selling shoes for a living are putting out graphics programs, sound programs, and video programs like gang busters and this guy who works 14 hours a day at a real job on his program can't get but 1 release out in a year? People with jobs know how to get jobs. People without jobs know how to code.
  • I love these things..been runnin the CVS ver for a while now, and they are the funnest waste of cpu...they're just cute :)

    -----
    If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
  • I had a simmilar experience. Since finding the nograd (hand of god) theme a year or so ago, I switched from AfterStep to E (0.13). I then switched to 0.14 (much more stable) until I started using CVS 0.15. Anyway, a week or so ago I decided that I should give Window Maker another try, since it seems to be pretty popular. I'm sorry to say that:

    a) opaque moves are SLOW
    b) no opaque resize
    c) I couldn't turn the root menus off to use gmc
    d) desktop switching refreshes are slower too
    e) no titlebars-on-the-side for terminals

    Big deal, right? I dunno, these things fit my current usage style.

    So it was back to E for me.

  • Hmmm. (Score:1)

    by Daniel ( 1678 )
    Debs of CVS snapshots have been out for a while..I think there's a link from e.themes.org, the latest one is just a few days old and so it should be almost 0.15 ;-) Anyway, I use it all the time and it's almost perfectly stable (not to mention being smaller and faster than wmaker! That was the one thing really keeping me from switching..)

    I assume there'll be a "real" 0.15 in a day or two.

    Daniel
  • I have a P166, 48 MB of RAM, and (I believe) 4 MB of video RAM. E is still among the fastest WMs, and it feels like it uses less memory as well. (E-Mac theme, incredibly lightweight and pretty)

    The only thing I miss from WindowMaker is the ability to hold down Alt, click anywhere on a window, and drag it around. (and a lot of other things, but that's the big one. :-) )

    Oh, and does anyone know whether Raster's ever going to [Guile] put a [Guile] scripting language in E? It would [Guile] make it about [Guile] five times more extensive and [Guile] not much slower (except maybe at startup). Of course, I [Guile] don't have any [Guile] preference as to which [Guile] interpreter he should use. [Guile Guile Guile]

    Daniel
  • Hmm. Funny, I have a P166 with 48 MB of RAM and E is easily one of the most responsive WMs on the system.

    And as for design..E doesn't _have_ any UI design. That's..um..the whole point...
    UI design is the fault of the person who makes the theme you use.

    The one thing that really needs to be fixed is the Gnome 'integration'. Raster? Do you hear me? ;-) Actually, there are three things that E needs:

    (a) Better Gnome integration
    (b) Better handling of decorations and menus (let themes create multiple menus and open them anywhere, let themes open window menus)
    (c) GIVE IT A SCRIPTING LANGUAGE! This is maybe the most important; as I understand it, the theming commands are already halfway there but a _real_ scripting language would be a godsend. Manipulating E menus as Scheme lists would be excellent.

    Daniel
  • Well, I don't have an Amiga..could you describe it please? :-) (or post a screenshot I suppose..)

    [ looks at screen ]. Funny. I can read all my text. And I'm using a theme. Weird...

    Daniel
  • And they are bundling both in 6.0
  • ... you appreciate specially the paintings with the pretty frames.

    If you didn't notice, E only works outside of the windows, in the frames.

    Beauty of an application must be something deeper :-P
  • 1) Get latest WM
    2) Build it with KDE support
    3) Use KPager.

    You need run no other piece of KDE, no panel, no kfm, no nothing, and you get a extremely functional and pretty pager.

    Enjoy!
  • If I downloaded KDE over the phone, counting phone fee+provider fee it would cost me about $35.

    Thanks Shiva I don't! :-)
  • I was thinking, "I havn't checked /. in a bit... time to check it out!"
    and I found E! COOL!

  • Is what we actually need. Hey rob -- run squid!

    --

  • I got the screen real state, I got the memory, I got the CPU, I'll be fucked if I'm NOT going to put gargoyles in my Eterms. Got a problem? :-P

    And I can't even remember being 14... In fact I can't even remember being 24.
  • I run a 3x2 screen desktop, *without* a pager. (yeah, it's one massive desktop as opposed to many virtual desktops, but it does the same job). Pagers are a waste of screen space. I just bound a hotkey to flip pages, and that's it.

    If you don't like pretty, definitely KDE is for you, because it's the damn ugliest thing I've seen since Win95. I'll be running E as soon as I can get the sucker to compile.
  • Well... Ok, in that case, I guess you are right. I suppose I just wouldn't have the brains for a job that would require me to keep track of 50+ windows... :)


  • *shrug*... I never cared much for drag-and-drop or any kind of desktop inter-application fancyness, but if you are a fan of that, I understand that E does work that way with GNOME... Not that I have the smarts to get GNOME to work on my SGI. I'll be lucky to get E alone running. :)

  • You can get the OS/2 version of Enlightenment from http://r350.ee.nt u.edu.tw/~hcchu/os2/ports/xfree86/#enlightenment [ntu.edu.tw]

    --
    Timur Tabi
    Remove "nospam_" from email address

  • Freakin' gargoyles on an e-term? I suppose we were all 14 at one point.

    If you don't like it, you can change it. That's sort of the point.

    Jim Cape
    http://www.jcinteractive.com [jcinteractive.com]

  • I tried E once. After dowloading what seemed like 7 different libraries to get it to run, I fled in horror when I realized it couldn't minimize windows yet.

    However, when a .deb comes out, if it does minimize windows, I'm willing to give it another shot. But with a simple, clean looking theme.

    There is BrushedMetal-TigerT, Clean, and ShinyMetal, all of which are pretty basic/clean. Check e.themes.org [themes.org] for more. :-)

    Jim Cape
    http://www.jcinteractive.com [jcinteractive.com]
  • I guess you're right. At least he knows that his code is too bad to release. I remember when I was learning to program, I had to rewrite things back then too.



    So how many window managers and graphics libraries have you written?

    Jim Cape
    http://www.jcinteractive.com [jcinteractive.com]
  • Yeah, really, all you GNOME/KDE users ought to quit flaming one another over silly useless things like GNOME and KDE. All they do is eat up more horsepower anyways...

    So there. thppppppp!

    Note: all flames go to /dev/null, because I figure you *HAVE* to have something better to do than to continue flamewars and backbiting about GNOME and KDE, and which one is
    better/more free/better looking/better license etc...
  • There were already enlightenment 0.14 debs, and
    Jules Bean has been making CVS E 0.15 debs that
    work just fine. I believe they're at http://www.debian.org/~jules/ [debian.org]
    --
    Kevin Doherty
    kdoherty+slashdot@jurai.net

  • *sigh* (Score:1)

    by wo0zy ( 2396 )
    Its really quite an odd phenomenon, I often wonder if it s just a bunch of teenagers going through some bragging right of passage. At the moment I am using use a combo of e, gnome, and kde, and am
    very happy with the results. The one thing that turned me on to Linux 3 years ago was the absolute freedom that one has to endlessly tweak and customize many window managers. As far as e
    goes, my jaw dropped the first I saw it (which around dr 11 or 12) as it does today with the addition of gtk themes. Keep up the great work.
  • Especially since E has become rock solid lately. I have run AfterStep or WindowMaker until a month ago when I converted to E with tigert's BrushedMetal theme, its great!

    The current FTP site is dead... anyone have a mirror?

  • POS (Score:1)

    by Panix ( 2408 )
    Wow, this comes from someone who has likely never run E15. With the BrushedMetal, SimplE, or AbsoluteE themes, your desktop will look extremely usable. OR you could try out one of the two MacOS themes, since you seem to like the UI so much.

    Think before you judge. E can be made as simple or as complicated as you like.
  • Hmm, strange. GNOME is pretty damn solid for me. Yes, it does crash sometimes, but it hasn't been in development as long as KDE. Plus, it is open source in the purest sense of the term. Who could ask for more? Give GNOME another few months to bug squash, and it will be nearly perfect.

    On the subject of KDE. I find it grossly ugly, in every sense of the word. It looks like win95, even with its ugly themes turned on. QT is also C++ only. GTK/GNOME allow for much more flexibility and a more advanced architecture.

    KDE has its place though. On the desktop of a Linux newbie. But even that place can easily be taken by GNOME given a little more development. GNOME is currently the desktop of the more advanced user.
  • im suprised.. this version of E is working quite nicely, contrary to what others may say. it compiled fine(except for sound, which i dont care about), and has been running quite well. now im just messing around with gnome, but no real complaints on this release. i used them all up on the daily-snaps. :)
    --
    scott miga
  • Enlightenment 15 has been avaible for a rather long time via the Gnome mirrors. I'm pretty sure it's NOT the offical version.
  • In order to configure E so that Alt-N switches to the N-th virtual desktop (which, in my mind, is highly desirable behavior), you need to download the separate package called enlightenment-conf and run e-conf. e-conf is highly flexible and lets you configure all manner of keyboard shortcuts.
  • sakura.aracnet.com/enlightenment-0.15.0.tar.gz

    Be gentle.


    --
    As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
  • This version won't work with Imlib 1.9.4, it wants '1.8.2 or higher.'

    WTF???


    --
    As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
  • A disease-based theme...
    What a fantastic idea!
    I'll start on it now!


    --
    As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
  • I tried E last night, and it was an absolute disaster. E itself worked alright, but I found it missing many functional aspects which Afterstep has. So I tried Gnome, and it crashed on me left and right. That meant no pager. What's thet point of virtual desktops without pagers? Talk about resource consumption. Eterm and Enlightenment took twice as much memory as Aterm and Afterstep, respectively. What a bunch of hype. I'll stick with Afterstep and KDE (who really needs desktop icons, anyway?) I want my desktop to work, not be pretty.
  • run a 3x2 screen desktop, *without* a pager. (yeah, it's one massive desktop as opposed to many virtual
    desktops, but it does the same job). Pagers are a waste of screen space. I just bound a hotkey to flip pages, and
    that's it.

    Hmm...no pager may not be inconvenient for a 3x2 desktop, but what about 4 3x3 desktops? When I'm working, I typically end up with anywhere from 50+ windows open. It's nice to remember where each of them are and be able to drag & drop any window one desktop to another (especially when they're often more than 8 desktops away from one another). So, I call it a necessity.
  • I have to admit Axel, I'm with you. Qt is a very nice, well designed toolkit - the documentation is absolutely outstanding. Now for all the folks who are just about wetting their pants to post back and say "Qt sucks" I feel obliged to point out that I will be happy to entertain such rants so long as you fill in the following sentence: "Qt sucks - I know this because I have written [X] lines of code using it". My prediction? [X] will be zero for all Qt flamers to follow.
  • e is super sexy.. just because it causes machines that have uptimes of 200 days to have uptimes of 200 minutes.. its worth it =)

  • the "real" scripting language being scheme would be a nightmare. let's try something a little more realistic like letting you use any language.
    sounds better to me. I hate scheme, I'll always hate scheme, raster will always hate scheme, so don't count on a scheme-implementation :)
    As far as letting you script, with 0.16 you should be able to completely control everything via IPC, which should satisfy everyone's desire to script things.
    --
    Geoff Harrison (Mandrake) - http://mandrake.net
  • I thought that's what I was implying by stating that you will be able to control everything via IPC? you can use whatever programming language you want to for scripting for that.
    As far as full integration with gnome - I don't want to ever force someone to run GNOME to run E. There are too many requirements as is for us to do that...
    As far as CORBA is concerned - *shrug* right now we're using x messages to do all the IPC which means we already gain secure connections (ssh encrypted sessions anyone?) and authentication (if your x server is unlocked you're already dead, we don't really open you up any more than you already are *grin*). We're not forcing you to have any more libraries than xlib installed for the IPC.
    --
    Geoff Harrison (Mandrake) - http://mandrake.net
  • Actually, I should have noticed the date thing.
    especially since I have the date plastered all the hell all over my screen on all my prompts, and every time I do a CVS commit I use "date" to tag the ChangeLog :)
    --
    Geoff Harrison (Mandrake) - http://mandrake.net
  • actually, all the releases that redhat put out with the gnome release was pre-release quality stuff of enlightenment
    --
    Geoff Harrison (Mandrake) - http://mandrake.net
  • no offense, but 0.14 wasn't the version you were
    supposed to run with GNOME. as far as uptime problems, if you can give me a backtrace of whatever it is on your system (do you have your libraries installed properly) that is causing things to drop all the time, I'd be more than willing to fix it. As far as 0.12 goes, there isn't any code from before 0.14 still remaining in enlightenment, it was all written from scratch for that release. Please get your facts straight before you post next time (but then you are an anonymous coward so I suppose you're not embarassing yourself)
    --
    Geoff Harrison (Mandrake) - http://mandrake.net

  • *sigh* (Score:3)

    by Mandrake ( 3939 ) <mandrake@mandrake.net> on Friday March 12, 1999 @08:13PM (#1982893) Homepage Journal
    First off, I can't believe that I actually have to post a message like this out there. But I'll basically put it out there plain and simple: If you don't like E, don't use it. There's tons of FUD out there about enlightenment, people like to bash on enlightenment, etc. No better than people liking to bash on KDE or GNOME or what-have-you. But let's be honest here people - who cares? You don't like it, use something else. You're not going to hurt my feelings. I hardly think anyone should resort to the insult-level about it, though. I read a few select replies to this message through here about different things -
    "just eyecandy, no features" is something that's very common up there. Granted, there are a lot of things that are still missing from enlightenment - obviously there are, or it wouldn't have a "0" as the major revision number, eh? *grin* However a lot of people say there are no features without knowing what's really there. Enlightenment isn't all just eye-candy. that's just what it's known best for. There are a lot of features in the 0.15 release.
    "bloat bloat bloat" is another fairly well repeated comment that I see people tossing out there - my response to that is if we give you the mechanism to toss tons of graphics in their, it's your job not to abuse it. I'm not in the business of keeping you from over-decorating your desktop to obscenity, but don't blame me for those 12 1600x1200 24bpp background images you want to have on each of your desktops :) Do the math - wondering why your X server jumps up in memory? 1600x1200x3 bytes of memory PER BACKGROUND. turn on shm in imlib and E and share the same background on a bunch of desktops. use tiled backgrounds, etc... otherwise you're asking for the trouble :)
    I read another ocmment about how there was 9 months inbetween releases of enlightenment. First off I'd like to point out that up to this point no one has been paid to spend all their time working on enlightenment. and even then on top of that, there are almost-daily snapshots that have been being released of enlightenment for lord knows how long. if a release every other day isn't enough I suppose you can always use cvs updating to get a little more current. if you think that by complaining you can rush out buggier versions that no one working on them is comfortable releasing as a supported version of enlightenment, then guess again. Full releases of enlightenment are fairly sparse because no one wants to put crap out there. I know at least personally I have spent the last week or more ironing out bugs in various things, trying my damnedest to break things so that it wouldn't break on someone else. Raster has, too. Contrary to popular belief these days there's a little concern into what goes out to the public.

    Anyways, I'm going to step off the soapbox for a bit. Back to my original point, if you don't like enlightenment, that's cool. there are tons of great alternatives to it out there. run windowmaker (raster and I sat met alfredo last week at LinuxWorld and he's a pretty cool guy, if not a bit quiet) - it's pretty slick if that's what you like. Anyways... I expect to get flamed for this by both enlightenment folks and non-enlightenment folks -- but I just felt like speaking my mind about this for a bit :)
    --
    Geoff Harrison (Mandrake) - http://mandrake.net
  • ... that Redhat wants to pitch Linux to the world using E as their WM! I think GNOME is a great choice for their desktop, but E is just an awful WM for people that want to get into Linux. Rasterman is paying more attention to nifty eye-candy than FUNCTIONALITY.

    I really think it would be in Redhat's interests to bundle GNOME with a (brand new?) WM based on FUNCTIONALITY, not EYE-CANDY. E is just a goofy WM for people that think their desktop should be an "adventure" full of transparent xterms, gargoyles, and ripples. Think about it: do you seriously think that the suits will buy into Linux if this wacky WM is the first thing they encounter? E is NOT the kind of WM you can imagine seeing on a workstation.

    Please Redhat, think about finding a new default GNOME WM.

  • What do you need to do this? I can't get it to work.

  • i did not know that :)
    i could have sworn it was March 12th
    but what do i know? i just came through one of those quantum portals that my da works on in his spare time in the basement. God alone knows what universe i am in now.
  • I think the post got criticized not only because it lacked constructive criticism, but because it was an unnecessary personal insult to the developer(s), whether or not what was said was true.

    There are much better ways to handle your disappointment, in my opinion, than to simply knock people down for what they worked on very hard.
  • http://e.themes.org/Enlightenment/progs/enlightenm ent-0.15.0.tar.gz

  • Shrug.. (Score:1)

    by edgy ( 5399 )
    I like the other girl more, I forget her name, but she's been her sidekick in a few shows.

    Shrug. :-)
  • It takes a really big man to post something like that anonymously.

    *Sarcasm mode off*
  • Instead of worrying about embedding a scripting language, how about just exposing some of E's internals via CORBA? That lets people like me:
    * Actually integrate E with the rest of GNOME, which seems like a good idea seeing as the GNOME team gets wood every time E is mentioned and may or may not be aware that other window managers actually exist :)
    * Let me use whatever scripting language I want -- Perl, guile/scheme/lisp/fill-in-variant-here, hell, even C or Java. Writing an E configuration applet would be fun. I sure as hell don't want to be tied into someone else's idea of the One True Language, and I thought flexibility was what E was all about.
    * Keep the overhead in the E binary down (assuming the scripting language was statically linked), not to mention keeping the library requirements down (who wants to install Foo Bar Guile Lib or whatever when they already have ORBit installed as part of gnome?)

    You all can feel it. It's just The Right Thing To Do. If this isn't being done already, it really needs to be done. If this is being done, it needs to be published :) I dunno what IPC mechanism you're talking about but I pray it's CORBA :)
  • Yet everyone forgets how Win98 crashed on Billy-boy. It seems MS-MindWipe98 is working.

  • Make sure caps/numlock are both off and just do alt + desk(x). Or use ctrl + alt + left or right arrow to scroll between desktops. You can use the dragbar at the top to expose an underlying desktop and drag applications to other desktops. Remember, E supports up to 32 desktops, but possibly only 1 is enabled by default (run e-conf to set that stuff up and more). Also there is a pretty nice help system that explains all the crazy things that E does. Also use e-conf to tune down some of the eye candy if your system cant handle it.

  • Hmmm. (Score:1)

    by GypC ( 7592 )
    Hey!
    I thought I was the only one who liked wm2!
    Nothing like having to recompile to change your preferences, heheheh.
    I think themes.org should have a wm2 section... instead of themes we could use diff patches ;^)
    wmx is kinda cool too, with the root menu made up the contents of a directory instead of a text file... one thing I DO like about MSWindows.
    .
  • COCAINE!

    mmm, those tasty white granules have no power over
    the insane high from E0.15

    E, is your computer on crack!!

    roll it up, light it up, hack it up.
  • Apart from the redraw problems, the sloppy interface design, the godawful ergonomics, the slow response times on a PII/400, the counterintuitive bundled widgets and the poor "integration" with GNOME, E sure is coming along.

    I want to like it, I really do. I want GNOME and E to be a better high-usability desktop than KDE because Qt dependence is Wrong and GPL widget libraries are Right.

    But it's Just Not Usable. Stability will come. Speed probably will, too. But someone should have shooed a few cooks out of the kitchen when it came to design, because it's a mess in there.

    KDE is bland. KDE is Bad for Free Software. KDE is breathtakingly, unambiguously, seamlessly usable in a way that no Unix GUI has ever been. Not NeXT, not CDE, not nothing.
  • What versions of E & gnome were you using? I have been using gnome-1.0 + E 0.15 snapshots for a while, and it has been pretty stable.

    It does use some memory, but that could have more to do with the themes I am using...

  • Gabrielle... and she's always been the sidekick.

    And you can't have her, cause she's mine.

    ;-)
    ----------------------

  • Here's my solution:
    I'm right-handed, so to be able to keep my hand on the mouse and navigate desktops easily, I bound left-handed hotkeys-- ALT-` to switch desktops left and ALT-1 to switch right. ALT-Q and ALT-TAB cycle through windows, ALT-A gives me the apps menu and ALT-W gives me the windows menu.

    Once you become accustomed to them, it's a very efficient system. Not to mention that when you enable sloppy focus on the mouse, you get to watch windroids stare totally helplessly at the screen, having no idea how to do anything. It's very amusing. :)

    "Ack! Where did the window go??!! Where's the menu? What do I do with all these big squares on the right??!" Hehehehehe
    ----------------------

  • Hrm.. I just wonder how many of you have actually
    tried to use E past the 'hey this key doesnt work! suck!' -phase? It is not your afterstep. it is not windowmaker. it is not fvwm2. I have used all of those, and I have enjoyed most of them.

    I recently switched to use Gnome and Enlightenment. Try the E-mac theme from e.themes.org, it is very nice and clean. also make sure you install e-conf so you can configure your familiar keyboard shortcuts to work in E.

    I am surprized, since E is not that bloat anymore.
    The amount of bloat is very nuch dependendt of the theme used.

    I mean it has been much slower and it crashed quite often before. But I have used it for about one and a half weeks in _real work_ stuff and it hasnt crashed. (No, I dont restart X every morning)

    Also, I think E and icewm have the most gnome support implemented so I can really drag urls from my netscape to the desktop and thus save bookmarks.. whee!

    Like someone mentioned above, we need to remember E is raster's freetime project. He is paid by redhat to work on gnome, but E is his private game.

    Since you bothered to read this far, check out my screenshot [gimp.org] too. :)

    My $1..
  • You need to be running the filemanager (gmc) so there is something that accepts those drags

  • I am not saying that making your screen look like Quake increases productivity or is 'cool' but I just wonder _if_ nobody cares for themes, why do places like themes.org [themes.org] and winamp skin stuff get so much hits? :) Why are we always drooling for screenshots when there is a new app in town?

    I guess it is something like you want to show you can control the computer and thus make it look different. "This is my computer and I can do what I want" - maybe it is the same freedom that makes people use open-source software. Like "nobody is gonna tell ME what my desktop shall look like"..

    Of course this has nothing to do with 'good' or 'bad' interface, there are good themes (I use the E-mac theme for E - it is pretty clean and nice - which is, again, my opinion), and there are always not that good themes - like with all things in this world.

    Basically themes are not a 'gui'. They are just pretty wrapping over the real interface - it is more like if the application has weird interface you cant make it more intuitive with themes - or the opposite. The gui dont change - it still has the same widgets and layout - it just may look different. (Ok, some mp3 players have themable GUI too, but IMHO that is a bit different thing - if we are talking of word processors and such things - in general you dont change the gui with themes)

    ..and as always, this is just my view from my sandbox ;)

  • 'OK' sets everything you just did in the dialogue box, and closes it.

    'Apply' sets everything you just did, but doesn't close the box. (Non-modal dialogue boxes.)

    'Close' closes the box without setting anything.

    The best system is like this...

    [ Apply ] [ Revert ]
    [ OK ] [ Cancel ]

    I believe the concepts involved originated on NeXT, not Windows, and they were copied.

    Despite what many people think, it isn't necessary to have animated toolbars, high-resolution, full-colour bitmaps for everything, illegible 'themes'... A good user interface is logical, friendly, simple but powerful. Contrast Papyrus (Atari word-processor) with Microsoft Word.

    Ford Prefect
  • User interface design does not mean pretty graphics. A good user interface can look very basic, but if it is designed properly that is irrelevant. KDE has the best user interface under Linux I've found so far - it's all arranged fairly logically, and reading a manual isn't really necessary. I don't want two or three 'panels' taking up valuable screen estate with all their icons and dockable applets, I want to start programs. I don't want pretty little icons on the menus, I want standardised keypresses and functioning drag and drop. I don't want memory-consuming, network-choking themes, I want usable applications.

    I dislike almost all these 'themes' available (for E, Gnome, KDE, Win95...) - text generally becomes illegible, and often almost painful to read. Some themes (such as the BrushedMetal one for Gnome and E) look extremely nice, but still aren't too comfortable on the eyes. If you really think a system is usable, try producing a large, complex document or program without the pretty pictures driving you to distraction.

    Does Linus use themes?

    Ford Prefect
  • Maybe I was a bit harsh at first. A couple of the themes I've seen for Gnome and E look wonderful, while a lot of them really would cause eyestrain. But again, the flashy graphics are irrelevant unless the underlying user interface design is sound. Of course, if the user interface and the graphics are good, then you've got a pretty good program.

    A possible killer-application addition to Gnome might be the ability to redesign user interfaces without fiddling with the source code. I don't know how it might be done, or if it would be practical, but it would be amazing if it were possible. Don't like the arrangement of buttons in a dialogue box? Change them! Want a different menu bar? Toolbar? Want to translate the program to another language, but have little programming experience*?

    Ford Prefect

    * I haven't really used Gnome much (I'm waiting for stability to improve a little, as I did with Linux 2.2) so this feature may already be available. I think KDE has something like it.
  • Pivo's first rule for backing up an arguement:

    condescending remarks.

    When I was in high school, I would have torn someone apart if they debated like that. It proves that the person who made the comments had no fortitude behind the arguement.
  • um.... you do realize that it's still MARCH, right?

  • Wow, I just noticed after reading your post that you can drag URLs from netscape, that is freaking cool.

    PS. You rock tigert I love your artwork.
  • Can someone give a little more details about what E is missing than "Functionality"? I use E as my windowmanager and it does just about everything. I can use dockable apps, iconify, shade, have multiple desktops. It even moves the windows the best I've seen, stopping for an amount of pixels before going over another window. I also think that pagers can be implimented by the theme makers too, I dont know why you would want one though.

    Considering E could probably clone the look and feel of any window manager I dont know what you are talking about. All I can think of is you havent even tried it and just need something to bitch at. That has to be the lamest excuse though.

    If you actually have a real problem with missing functionality and say what it is I`ll STFU.
  • Right click on the titlebar go: Window Size > Size > Available Max Size Toggle.

    Should work, explore the other things in there too.
  • The "clean" theme that shipped with E certainly wouldn't give any suits any more pause than any other WM out there. Someone recently commented that the fvwm95 that shipped with Red Hat a release or two back was a terrible idea because the attempt to look Win95-ish was more jarring on a strange subliminal level than something 180 degrees off of the Explorer interface. My housemate ... a luddite... likes E better than she liked fvwm95, but seemed happiest with Window Maker, which, courtesy of a bad theme and aterm, can be made to look pretty lurid.

    That aside, having looked at my own work habits I agree that E probably ought not be the "banner bearing" wm.

    Initially (the 0.13, 0.20 releases, anyhow) it looked like they'd go with FVWM2. I was cool with that. They even provided a nice theme to show what you could do with something I'd previously associated with a bad Win Explorer knock-off.

    In the end it doesn't matter: GNOME dox are perfectly up front about being able to change wm's, state that GNOME is (conceptually) wm agnostic, and a menu is provided to change wm's once GNOME is brought up the first time.

    I think the Linux-on-the-desktop issue is going to be resolved in part by the efforts of workplace advocates, not solely shrinkwrapped packages. We're just going to have to earn our advocacy spurs by ensuring that if Linux desktop machines are implemented in our workplaces, our coworkers get good guidance on all the choices they have. And we'll have to save the gargoyles and flaming wallpaper for lunch break.

    Sorry. That was a real digression from the original point. I don't get near the GNOME/window manager discussions too often, so I've got a lot pent up.


    ----------
    mphall@cstone.nospam.net

  • I'm not positive (haven't used it for a while), but I believe it was CTRL+ALT+F* (F1, F2, etc.).

    If I remember right, CTRL+ALT+INSERT launched an E-Term. There were quite a few nice default key bindings. They were all listed in the included Help.
  • You're right, that would be rather stupid. Sorry 'bout that. It's near the end of the day. I'm tired. It is ALT+F*.

    I swear, using NT kills brain cells. Dulls the senses. Synapses lapse.

    Maybe it'll all come back to me after I get back home in front of my own box. :)
  • Been keeping an eye on E and using it from time to time for a long time now. It was actually the first thing I downloaded on my first linux box almost 2 years ago, about 10 minutes after I finally got it to boot. :)

    It's come a long way. Regardless of what some may be saying about speed, stability, or whatever... I don't think they've tried it. I'm impressed. It can be loads of eye candy for those that want it, or stripped down to bare minimum for max functionality. And configured however the hell we want. I love it. Keep it up.

    Also... that date on your page. Today is Friday, March 12, not 11. I should know, it's my birthday. :) Thanks for the present!

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