On Wed, Sep 03, 2014 at 10:42:38PM +0100, Michael Treibton wrote: > On 3 September 2014 22:27, Dominik Vogt <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Wed, Sep 03, 2014 at 10:01:37PM +0100, Michael Treibton wrote: > >> Here's some of the things I'd like: > >> > >> - no more motif borders (horrible) > > > > With fvwm you can more or less configure every border style you > > want. Have you tried the themes package? Theming could be better > > integrated into the distribution, though. > > fvwm-themes? Seems old and didn't work well for me last time. is it > still developed?
It isn't developed in earnest anymore. AFAIK, I was the last one to touch the CVS repository on Sourceforge, but those efforts weren't released. I updated some of the configuration syntax to bring it inline with changes to the stable releases, etc. But really, there's not a lot else to do to it. It's stable in its approach to how it sets out themes, etc., and since that point there's been other projects to mimick that, notably fvwm-crystal and fvwm-nightshade. > >> - fluxbox style window borders > > > > Borders in fluxbox are also very configurable. Do you have a > > screenshot of what you mean? > > Here is one: http://files.samhart.net/img/misc/flux-tab-example.png - > look at the bottom border. Not possible without a patch. I think I recall one from years ago, but I wasn't going to apply it as I seem to recall it was invasive in its approach, and hard-coded a number of assumptions. > >> - diff. border colors for each side > > > > Can already be done with pixmap borders. > > but why must i make pixmaps for each color that i want? i have > colorsets for this, don't i? You do have colorsets. The problem there is that the graphics context and pixmap used to render the window frame is one rectangle; fvwm doesn't draw individual pixmaps for each side of the border, nor for its handles, either. I patched this years ago to support this, but it was just a toy, and the patch likely wouldn't apply now anyway. Note that decors in general is targetted for lots of change anyway, eventually. Maybe this will be possible as a side-effect, who knows? > > Could you please elaborate on what you think fvwm is missing in > > terms of scripting flexibility? (Other than fvwm's scripting > > language can be awkward - we're working on that.) > > That, and i don't like perl? Everything is using dedicating embedded > things like lua from the outset, so why can't this wm? Sure. $LANGUAGE_DU_JOUR notwithstanding, right? I don't like fvwm's emulation either, but some parts of fvwm's approach are so specific to itself that you couldn't represent that flexibility through lua or some other language anyway (c.f. All/Next/Prev, etc.) This isn't a new topic you're being up here. My first look at fvwm recalls my reading of a possible merger between fvwm and scwm from way back (amusingly even then in circa 1998 this was referred to as 'fvwm3'). But you have to be __really__ careful. You can't just "slap" a scripting language in and expect it to cure all problems---because having an interpreter suddenly becomes integral to how the window manager performs. By that point, I no longer recognise fvwm as extensible by that language, I consider the language to interact with fvwm, and those two concepts are very different. What we need to do is consider more closely how a module interface exposes itself, and for it to be easier for people to use some language of their choice to achieve their aims. This is already on the TODO list. > > Note that mvwm is not going to be a brand new window manager that > > does everything from scratch. It will be a very much improved fvwm > > with maybe a few antique things removed. Regarding window > > handling and window decorations it won't change much for now. > > i think i understand that, yes. But i don't always see if this > approach is good or not - why not write it from scratch? wasn't that > the original intent? No, absolutely not. I wasn't about to suggest throwing away fvwm when I kicked this clean-up project off. Not ever. There's too much specialist knowledge and code in fvwm in terms of window management that you won't find anywhere else. You can't start something from scratch and hope to get that right. -- Thomas Adam -- "Deep in my heart I wish I was wrong. But deep in my heart I know I am not." -- Morrissey ("Girl Least Likely To" -- off of Viva Hate.)
