I've done my best to address your requirements.
*I have dual monitors, and I can't drag anything between monitors.* This will definitely not be an issue, if you hold the Mod4 key (usually windows key) you can drag windows around in the "grid" of the screen and between screens. *I hate trying to configure things using those stupid pop up dialogue boxes. I'd like text configuration files that I can edit, save, backup and restore.* You will not be configuring anything in dialog boxes with awesome. *It would be nice if it worked sensibly out of the box.* It works, but is pretty ugly. Take a look at awesome-copycats which someone else mentioned for better look. *I don't need fancy effects.* You won't find any of these in awesome. *I want windows on screens that I can resize, maximize, minimize, etc. **Nice if they snap to borders to avoid wasted space.* Maximizing windows is not really a concept used in tiling wm land. You don't arbitrarily move around windows with your mouse, instead you have a few layout rules, which define how the windows are located and sized on the screen. All the default rules place the windows in a way such that the entire screen is completely filled with windows, and no windows overlap. You can make specific windows floating which means they are not part of the layout rule and you can arbitrarily move the windows around like you're used to. *Xfce gives normally six or so desktops than you can change to, that's good.* In awesome you have a thing called tags, they're basically like your desktops in xfce but you can put a window on several tags, and you can show several tags at the time. *The mouse has to work.* The mouse moves around when you move your physical mouse around, and clicks on things when you press the physical button on the mouse. I'm not sure what kind of answer you're expecting here. *I need custom keyboard shortcuts.* In the configuration file you have a list of keyboard commands, so you can just add your own. They can perform arbitrary lua code. *Basically nothing strange.* Awesome is a tiling wm and that may be strange to you, however that does not make it a bad thing, and you should definitely give tiling a try. *I don't want to have to spend six months learning Lua.* Lua is a pretty simple language. *I want a simple, predictable, * If you read the code of the configuration file, you will definitely be able to predict what's going to happen. *configurable* Since you can program it, there are no other more configurable options. *WM that is usable** but doesn't bother me with bells and whistles* You will not find any bells or whistles beside the ones you program youself. tir. 8. sep. 2015 kl. 20.23 skrev Bruno Ferreira <[email protected]>: > @ray I like the configurations that get installed with Manjaro Awesome > respin (https://github.com/Culinax/manjaro-awesome-respin). The initial > configuration may be too minimal. I don't know if you need to install > packages besides awesome to use this config. use the virtual machine first. > > @alexander try searching for "awesome wm" instead of just "awesome" > > Cumprimentos, > Bruno Ferreira > > 2015-09-08 19:14 GMT+01:00 Alexander Tsepkov <[email protected]>: > >> Not sure what you want to hear. If you've expecting to hear a sales pitch >> on awesome, I don't think there is a need, you're installing a free wm, not >> buying a car, just test it in virtualbox first if you're worried. If you're >> asking about specific features of a modern wm, they're all there - some not >> through vm itself (for example I installed awesome on top of xfce and use >> thunar file manager, and several xfce widgets). It's been a while since I >> installed awesome, I didn't like the idea of tiling wms at first, but now >> got so used to it I installed hammerspoon on my OSX to emulate it. >> >> Awesome works fine out of the box, I don't remember if I had to do >> anything to get my dual-monitors working but xrandr drives that and I >> mapped windows+P to switch between display setups via bash script. One >> thing to note is that keyboard shortcuts weren't intuitive to me right away >> so I switched some around. The default theme is also pretty ugly, but >> replacing it with one of preset ones from github is pretty easy ( >> https://github.com/copycat-killer/awesome-copycats). It also doesn't >> come with a compositor at first (so no shadows or transparent windows you >> may be used to), but that's a good thing since it gives you more >> flexibility. I use compton as my compositor and really like it. Unless you >> plan to customize your look and feel, you don't really need much lua. There >> are available widgets like volume, networking, etc. you can plug in (and >> will need to do if your theme doesn't already come with them). My only pet >> peeve with awesome is it's name, try googling for anything regarding >> awesome and see how often the first page contains a relevant result. >> >> On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Ray Andrews <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> Gentlemen, >>> >>> I use xfce, it's fine, but I want something lighter. All I really want >>> is the xfwm part of it, and even that window manager has its defects. I >>> have dual monitors, and I can't drag anything between monitors. I hate >>> trying to configure things using those stupid pop up dialogue boxes. >>> I'd like text configuration files that I can edit, save, backup and >>> restore. >>> >>> Awesome seems well spoken of. What can you guys tell me? I can't >>> think what to specifically ask. It would be nice if it worked sensibly >>> out of the box. I don't need fancy effects. I want windows on screens >>> that I can resize, maximize, minimize, etc. Nice if they snap to >>> borders to avoid wasted space. Xfce gives normally six or so desktops >>> than you can change to, that's good. The mouse has to work. I need >>> custom keyboard shortcuts. Basically nothing strange. I don't want to >>> have to spend six months learning Lua. I want a simple, predictable, >>> configurable WM that is usable but doesn't bother me with bells and >>> whistles. >>> >>> Advice? >>> >> >> >
