Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop
On Sat 11 Jul 2020 at 11:20:58 -0500, Matthew D. Fuller wrote: > Yeah, qbzr hasn't seen any work in a long time. It's never been > updated to QT5, never mind catching up to py3 etc, and I'm sure even > with old QT and py2 it's broken with breezy anyway :| I have opened this bug on qbrz. https://bugs.launchpad.net/qbrz/+bug/1850054 I attempted to get qbrz updated to python 3 and Qt5, but I got stuck on Qt5. I made the patches available but it seems nobody has picked it up to finish. Meanwhile I found what I needed to install additionally for qbzr so at least there I'm fine again. -Olaf. -- Olaf 'Rhialto' Seibert -- rhialto at falu dot nl ___ Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on \X/ no account be allowed to do the job. --Douglas Adams, "THGTTG" signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop THANKS
There have been several responses to my query about this which mention processing of fonts related to buttons added to the title bar. I don't think I ever reported that I tried removing all title-bar buttons except the two built in items at top left (iconize) and top right (resize), neither of which can be removed without removing the whole titlebar. Removing all the user-specified buttons made no difference to the height of titlebar: it remained taller than it used to be until the height mysteriously increased a few weeks ago, though only on my laptop. Do the two built in left and right buttons depend on font processing? Ctwm on my PC does not have this problem. Neither did laptops using ctwm for many years. Anyhow, having tried living without titlebars on the laptop's small screen I no longer miss them. The alternative functionality provided by menus and mouse-button actions works well enough, and I've gained a small amount of useful screen space in various windows. That does not get rid of my curiosity about what caused the thicker title bars. They suddenly arrived in the middle of a long process of reinstalling my old linux functionality after being forced to reinstall following a failed attempt to shrink windows 10 -- which stopped everything working. After I had reinstalled windows 10 from a usb stick, followed by reinstalling fedora 31 from a usb stick, I had to gradually build up the collection of rpms I previously had on the laptop, using an old list of installed packages as a guide. At first I had ctwm working as previously, with small title bar and my old buttons. But after installing a lot more missing packages I suddenly found ctwm title bars had grown taller, and nothing I tried could undo that. Perhaps that summary will suggest something I did wrong, though it's purely an academic question for me now that I've been converted to ctwm without title bars on the laptop. A remote possibility is that one of the several fedora 31 updates that have occurred in the past few weeks is responsible. I may later get rid of titlebars on my desktop PC, after the new one I've ordered arrives -- on which I'll install F31. I'll first try running with titlebars for a while to see if I can replicate the problem that's on the laptop running F31. Despite these problems I remain grateful for ctwm. It's more easily configurable than any other window manager I have tried and it seems to be very light-weight, always using a tiny fraction of memory and cpu time as shown by top or htop. Aaron.
Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop
On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 01:26:53PM -0400 I heard the voice of Stefan Monnier, and lo! it spake thus: > > The problem Tadziu describes seems to indicate that either my hack > isn't working any more, or that some other problem is at play (maybe > the height of each char is itself wrong?). Yeah, my best guess for Aaron's issue is that it's just a matter of what fonts are available/chosen. Some weird stuff can happen down in the X libs when picking a font for a given XLFD. > `bzr` itself has been moribund for quite some years now :-( Indeed. I'm using brz for most day to day stuff, but I do still have to step back to bzr for a few plugins like bookmarks that aren't ported over (I keep bugging the devs ;) -- Matthew Fuller (MF4839) | fulle...@over-yonder.net Systems/Network Administrator | http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/ On the Internet, nobody can hear you scream.
Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop
>> I think there was even some code change somewhere in ctwm to compensate >> for this, but I'm now trying very hard to remember where that was... > I believe that was in with some of the stuff from Stefan you merged > just after 3.8.2 (r298), so it'll be in everything 4.x. Indeed, I had made some changes so the height is not taken directly from the font (which tends to give the worst-case height over the whole font), but is (supposed to be) based on the average of the height of each displayed char. The problem Tadziu describes seems to indicate that either my hack isn't working any more, or that some other problem is at play (maybe the height of each char is itself wrong?). >> (and currently `bzr qlog` has broken on my system... claiming it >> can't find a module named sip, even though I have sip for both >> python 2.7 and 3.7...) > > Yeah, qbzr hasn't seen any work in a long time. It's never been > updated to QT5, never mind catching up to py3 etc, and I'm sure even > with old QT and py2 it's broken with breezy anyway :| `bzr` itself has been moribund for quite some years now :-( Stefan
Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop THANKS
On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 12:30:07AM +0100 I heard the voice of
Aaron Sloman, and lo! it spake thus:
>
> I later decided that just a function key is is too risky, e.g. if I hit F4
> instead of F3 by mistake, ...
>
> So "delete window" now requires a modifier key + F3.
I double up to Ctrl-Shift:
"F5"= c|s : title|window|iconmgr : f.delete
"F6"= c|s : title|window|iconmgr : f.destroy
> The modifier is CTRL for now, partly because there are CTRL buttons on
> both sides of the keyboard -- though I always swap the left CTRL with
> CapsLock, which is used much less often.
As a sensible person, I also do the same. Well, I don't _swap_, I
just _add_. I can just set something heavy on the shift key if I ever
need capslock for something. Actually, I recently (-ish) went a step
further, and starting using xcape to let it be both Esc and Ctrl. Not
without some negatives, but works pretty well for me.
On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 02:59:18PM +0200 I heard the voice of
Rhialto, and lo! it spake thus:
>
> The solution I found is that my shortcut key opens a pop-up menu with
> just one entry, and I have to select that option before it really
> deletes the window.
>
> "w" = HRDWNDWMETA : window|title|icon : f.menu "closemenu"
>
> menu "closemenu" {
> "Close Window (W)" ("white":"red") f.delete
> }
Think it's come up before, but I do similar things with f.quit in my
menus. Including a nop line to make me have to move the mouse, as
extra buffer against accidents. Totally not because I accidentally
hit it twice one day, no sir.
[... some menu ...]
"Exit "f.menu "exit"
menu "exit"
{
"Exit? "f.title
" "f.nop
"Yes, dammit"f.quit
}
--
Matthew Fuller (MF4839) | fulle...@over-yonder.net
Systems/Network Administrator | http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/
On the Internet, nobody can hear you scream.
Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop
On Thu, Jul 09, 2020 at 09:19:41PM +0200 I heard the voice of Rhialto, and lo! it spake thus: > > I think there was even some code change somewhere in ctwm to compensate > for this, but I'm now trying very hard to remember where that was... I believe that was in with some of the stuff from Stefan you merged just after 3.8.2 (r298), so it'll be in everything 4.x. > (and currently `bzr qlog` has broken on my system... claiming it > can't find a module named sip, even though I have sip for both > python 2.7 and 3.7...) Yeah, qbzr hasn't seen any work in a long time. It's never been updated to QT5, never mind catching up to py3 etc, and I'm sure even with old QT and py2 it's broken with breezy anyway :| -- Matthew Fuller (MF4839) | fulle...@over-yonder.net Systems/Network Administrator | http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/ On the Internet, nobody can hear you scream.
Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop THANKS
On Fri 10 Jul 2020 at 00:30:07 +0100, Aaron Sloman wrote:
> As reported previously, I've compensated for lack of title bars by
> providing more function key actions. One decision I previously reported was
> using F10 (now changed to F4 because of an unnoticed clash) to delete the
> current window.
>
> I later decided that just a function key is is too risky, e.g. if I hit F4
> instead of F3 by mistake, ...
>
> So "delete window" now requires a modifier key + F3.
The solution I found is that my shortcut key opens a pop-up menu with
just one entry, and I have to select that option before it really
deletes the window.
"w" = HRDWNDWMETA : window|title|icon : f.menu "closemenu"
menu "closemenu" {
"Close Window (W)" ("white":"red") f.delete
}
-Olaf.
--
Olaf 'Rhialto' Seibert -- rhialto at falu dot nl
___ Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on
\X/ no account be allowed to do the job. --Douglas Adams, "THGTTG"
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop THANKS
On Fri, 10 Jul 2020 00:30:07 +0100 Aaron Sloman wrote: > I had also tried the suggestion of recompiling ctwm from source on the > laptop, but it made no difference to the size of titlebars. Interesting, thanks for reporting back! -- Carl Svensson
Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop THANKS
Thanks to the people who have continued commenting on this, possibly
because they had not yet got to my message saying I had by-passed the
problem by abandoning title-bars in ctwm, and adding extra functionaliy
using function keys.
That decision now works well on a relatively small laptop screen
(resolution 1366x768) and gives me more space for useful items.
Tina wrote:
> I've found that adding a BorderColor for the active window also helps
> with identifying them:
>
> Color {
> BorderColor "#ff" {
>"WorkSpaceManager" "#00"
>"TWM Icon Manager" "#00"
> }
> }
Regarding the above tip to highlight borders of the active window: I had
already found before abandoning window titles that setting different
BorderColor and BorderTileBackground achieves that, and I agree that it's
useful! It also highights the name of the current window in the
Icon manager.
Perhaps I've misunderstood the proposal.
As reported previously, I've compensated for lack of title bars by
providing more function key actions. One decision I previously reported was
using F10 (now changed to F4 because of an unnoticed clash) to delete the
current window.
I later decided that just a function key is is too risky, e.g. if I hit F4
instead of F3 by mistake, ...
So "delete window" now requires a modifier key + F3.
The modifier is CTRL for now, partly because there are CTRL buttons on
both sides of the keyboard -- though I always swap the left CTRL with
CapsLock, which is used much less often.
[I grew up with CTRL in the middle (next to "A") on Sun Workstations... and
other keyboards designed before IBM PCs, or whatever, screwed things up by
putting CTRL in the wrong place. Presumably they thought the majority of
users would be using computers as text processors and would need upper case
more often than CTRL.]
I had also tried the suggestion of recompiling ctwm from source on the
laptop, but it made no difference to the size of titlebars.
Likewise, copying the ctwm executable from my desktop PC, where I don't
have expanded titlebars, did not help.
The new Ctwm configuration without title bars seems to work well though
bits of my brain controlling my finger-tips need some re-programming, which
will take a little while.
One unexpected consequence is: on the laptop firefox now detects the lack
of a title bar and conveniently adds three new symbols on top right on the
laptop:
underscore -> minimise (has to be retrieved from iconmanager)
box-> toggle between maximise and minimise.
(Symbol becomes smaller when window is maximised,)
cross -> delete window
Opera tries to do something similar, but doesn't show its name in the
iocnmanager.
I may later try living without title bars also on my desktop screen (1920x1080).
Thanks again to all...
Aaron
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs
Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop
On Thu, 9 Jul 2020 21:19:41 +0200 Rhialto wrote: > On Thu 09 Jul 2020 at 18:29:15 +0200, Tadziu Hoffmann wrote: > > Or maybe using Latin-1 (LC_CTYPE=en_US.ISO8859-1)? > > Mainly because the UTF-8 > fonts contain so many more characters I've suspected the same. However, the problem persists even if I specifically request the iso8859-1 registry and encoding in the font selection string. It's not as noticable as in the screenshot posted by Aaron Sloman earlier and it's also curious how it only affects some versions of some window managers. I suspect discrepancies between headers used to compile wm binaries in distro repos in conjunction with specific versions of Xorg, since the behavior changes if I compile the wm:s myself. I've not yet tried compiling fvwm2 from source, perhaps I should do that and examine the result. (As noted earlier, my personal problem is not with CTWM). -- Carl Svensson
Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop
On Thu 09 Jul 2020 at 18:29:15 +0200, Tadziu Hoffmann wrote: > Could it perhaps be related to your locale, in that CTWM > chooses the font in some particular encoding that has > different metrics? What happens if you start CTWM > explicitly using the "C" locale, as in > > LANG=C LANGUAGE=C LC_ALL=C ctwm & > > (and whatever else needs to be (un)set)? > Or maybe using Latin-1 (LC_CTYPE=en_US.ISO8859-1)? I was about to suggest the same thing. I think I had some UTF-8 font related changes at some point in the past. Mainly because the UTF-8 fonts contain so many more characters, the maximum ascenders and descenders are a lot bigger than with more limited Latin-1 character sets. I think there was even some code change somewhere in ctwm to compensate for this, but I'm now trying very hard to remember where that was... (and currently `bzr qlog` has broken on my system... claiming it can't find a module named sip, even though I have sip for both python 2.7 and 3.7...) -Olaf. -- Olaf 'Rhialto' Seibert -- rhialto at falu dot nl ___ Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on \X/ no account be allowed to do the job. --Douglas Adams, "THGTTG" signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop
> > But now the title bars on the laptop are about twice the > > desired height. > It seems to be some kind of combination of font, Xorg version > and window manager version causing it and I've noticed it in > TWM, too - but not yet in CTWM. Compiling TWM from source > gives different results than when using the TWM package > supplied with my distribution. Could it perhaps be related to your locale, in that CTWM chooses the font in some particular encoding that has different metrics? What happens if you start CTWM explicitly using the "C" locale, as in LANG=C LANGUAGE=C LC_ALL=C ctwm & (and whatever else needs to be (un)set)? Or maybe using Latin-1 (LC_CTYPE=en_US.ISO8859-1)?
Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop
On Mon, 6 Jul 2020 19:16:41 +0100 Aaron Sloman wrote: > > I then had to do a complete reinstall of both windows and linux > > But now the title bars on the laptop are about twice the desired > height. > I haven't delved deeper into the issue, but I've noticed strange goings on with bitmap font handling in Xorg. FVWM is particularly affected on my system, producing much too tall window titles with a completely normal bitmap font like Helvetica. It seems to be some kind of combination of font, Xorg version and window manager version causing it and I've noticed it in TWM, too - but not yet in CTWM. Compiling TWM from source gives different results than when using the TWM package supplied with my distribution. If you haven't already, I suggest you try to compile the latest version of CTWM from source on your machine. Perhaps that will resolve the issue. Best regards Carl -- Carl Svensson
Re: Title bars much too tall after reinstalling linux on laptop
Hi, It is probably due to the font used in title. The matched font is not the same between the 2 versions of your system, or perhaps it changed a little. Regards, Max. On 06/07/2020 20:16, Aaron Sloman wrote: I recently screwed up my stonebook mini laptop running fedora 31 while trying to reduce the space taken by Windows 10. I then had to do a complete reinstall of both windows and linux, with a great deal of hassle, partly because I had not done a recent backup of some of my files on the linx partition! Anyhow it is now working with the reduced windows partition and more linux space, but I seem to have done something to make ctwm use much taller title-bars than previously, and I cannot find anything in .ctwmrc that controls that. I used to have title-bars that were about 5mm tall, as they are on my desktop PC still running fedora 29 (ancient machine soon to be replaced). But now the title bars on the laptop are about twice the desired height. This may be because some of the menu-button icons in the title bar are bigger, forcing the ctwm to use thicker title bars. But searching through .ctwmrc I can't find anything that obviously controls the icon sizes. I've been using the same laptop configuration for many years and now can't recall what I had to do to set it up! I hope someone on this list will instantly recognize what I've done wrong! Thanks. Aaron
