Re: FVWM: Is there a way to ignore other windows when placing one?

[lee]

Lucio Chiappetti <lu...@lambrate.inaf.it> writes:

> On Mon, 20 Jun 2016, lee wrote:
>
>> Interesting :)  It seems very confusing, though.  How do you remember
>> what is where?  I have a plain setup with just 6x6 pages and many times
>> have to flip between them to find the particular page I want to go to.
>
> Well, after a long time working with 2 desktops each 2x2 pages, a
> while ago I junked the idea of separate desktops and pages. Now I have
> only 7
> desktops each of 1 page (well, I have buttons to switch them to 2x1
> 1x2 and 2x2 but I'd never used them).

Is there a difference between having N desktops and having N pages which
matters for practical use?

> I have the pager almost invariably exposed, and know which desk I am
> in because it is highlighted in the pager in a different colour.

I have the pager always covered up by some window.  It just takes away
so much screen space that it's only visible on empty, or almost empty,
desks.

> Three of the desks are named Mail Web and Net, the other are ABCD. I
> know in which desk I am also by a label in the bottom right corner,
> and by the background colour of the root window.

So you actually see the root window :)

I have my windows mostly tiled, with some exceptions, either two side by
side, or four, as in 2x2.  Sometimes I use (1)+(2+2).  So I don't need
to manage the windows and let fvwm do it instead.

Fvwm even does a great job with tiling, IMO better than a tiling
WM. That's because tiling WMs insist too much on tiling.  With fvwm, I
have all the advantages of both tiling and floating window managers at
the same time.

So I usually don't see the root window or a pager window but the windows
I'm actually using.

> Although I have root menu entries and keyboard accelerators to switch
> desktops, I almost invariably do it clicking on the pager,
>
> To know which application is in which desk, I usually rely on habits
> (mail is in Mail, browser is in Web, virtual machines if any are in
> Net etc.) and on the miniicons in the pager,

Hm.  That makes me think that my trouble with remembering is something
you don't really have because you use the pager so much, which shows you
where you are and how to get to where you want to go.

What if you basically never saw the pager?  Would you get confused?

> In the rare case I forgot what is where (e.g. for the xclipboard, or
> because the window is hidden), I use MB2 bound to FvwmWinList, which
> lists all my windows by title, so I can switch there easily,

That's like a last resort for me.  The list can get so long that it's
not easy to find what I'm looking for in it.

> I do use a lot the "sticky" mode of the window menu, to move a window
> across desktops (I make it sticky so it appears on all, switch to the
> final desktop, and unstick it), however I have also functions in the
> window menu to move the window to a specific desktop and I use them
> sometimes.

I simply move them with the mouse when I need to.  But I guess that
might no be so easy when using desks /and/ pages, unless each desk is
only one page.

> You can get a flavour of the old and new approaches (and the configs) in
> http://sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/WWW/Opinions/window.html

Thanky, I'll take a look at it when I can:

My internet is out atm.  We're having an unusually heavy thunderstorm,
and I guess it must have destroyed (some of) the DSL equipment they very
recently deployed around here.  I'm not surprised it didn't even survive
the first thunderstorm, considering my experiences with this ISP.

A lot of the neighbours will probably be looking for new routers
tomorrow because they bought the crap they were recommended by the ISP,
which is a model known to be overly sensitive to all thunderstorms (and
generally sucks anyway).  I'll have see if the industrial quality I got
held up better ...  I'd be quite disappointed if it didn't.


-- 
After using i3 for a while, I totally realized that it is the job of
the window manger to mange the windows, literally.  It is, by all
means, /not/ the job of the user.  Once you realized this, you can see
the irony of calling an operating system "Windows", and you even have
to say they did a good job with that.

Re: FVWM: Recommend Config for Fluxbox user

[lee]

"Thomas Funk"  writes:


> [...]
>
> Another possibility is to install Fvwm-Crystal or Fvwm-Nightshade to
> get a full featured configuration of Fvwm.

Fvwm-crystal is very overwhelming for someone starting out with
fvwm, and the same is probably true for nightshade.


If the OP wants to have something fully functional, they are good
choices; if he wants to learn how to configure fvwm himself,
fvwm-crystal might be easier to start with.

A configuration created with the hopes of being somewhat helpful for
users wanting to learn how to configure fvwm can be obtained like this:


git clone git://dawn.adminart.net/fvwm.git


It currently isn't up to date because I recently made some changes when
switching to another keyboard.  It's working, though.  If you'd like to
know when I make another commit, you can send me an email and I'll let
you know.


-- 
After using i3 for a while, I totally realized that it is the job of
the window manger to mange the windows, literally.  It is, by all
means, /not/ the job of the user.  Once you realized this, you can see
the irony of calling an operating system "Windows", and you even have
to say they did a good job with that.

Re: How to remember what is where [Re: FVWM: Is there a way to ...]

[lee]

Michael Großer <michael.gros...@gmx.de> writes:

> Lucio Chiappetti wrote:
>> On Mon, 20 Jun 2016, lee wrote:
>> 
>>> Interesting :)  It seems very confusing, though.  How do you remember
>>> what is where?  I have a plain setup with just 6x6 pages and many times
>>> have to flip between them to find the particular page I want to go to.
>> 
>> Well, after a long time working with 2 desktops each 2x2 pages, a while
>> ago I junked the idea of separate desktops and pages. Now I have only 7
>> desktops each of 1 page (well, I have buttons to switch them to 2x1 1x2
>> and 2x2 but I'd never used them).
>> 
>> I have the pager almost invariably exposed, and know which desk I am in
>> because it is highlighted in the pager in a different colour.
>> 
>> Three of the desks are named Mail Web and Net, the other are ABCD. I
>> know in which desk I am also by a label in the bottom right corner, and
>> by the background colour of the root window.
>> 
>> Although I have root menu entries and keyboard accelerators to switch
>> desktops, I almost invariably do it clicking on the pager,
>> 
>> To know which application is in which desk, I usually rely on habits
>> (mail is in Mail, browser is in Web, virtual machines if any are in Net
>> etc.) and on the miniicons in the pager,
>> 
>> In the rare case I forgot what is where (e.g. for the xclipboard, or
>> because the window is hidden), I use MB2 bound to FvwmWinList, which
>> lists all my windows by title, so I can switch there easily,
>> 
>> I do use a lot the "sticky" mode of the window menu, to move a window
>> across desktops (I make it sticky so it appears on all, switch to the
>> final desktop, and unstick it), however I have also functions in the
>> window menu to move the window to a specific desktop and I use them
>> sometimes.
>> 
>> 
>> You can get a flavour of the old and new approaches (and the configs) in
>> http://sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/WWW/Opinions/window.html
>
> My approach to remember where I am is similar: I have habits. Each
> special application and each topic gets the same place every time.

That's what I'm trying, too.

I'm starting to think that my confusion comes from changing the window
size: Perhaps I unconsciously remember where I am from what the page
looks like (i. e. applications, and the arrangement of their windows).
When I switch a window from half-size to full size, the other windows on
that page become invisible, and the arrangement of windows I'm looking
at is something I don't remember because it was different when I
switched to that page.  I still remember from which page I came and how
I would get back, but I just don't know where I am because it all looks
different.

Apparently, the way-finding information gets stored when I switch to a
page, and it isn't updated while I remain there --- why would it?  It
doesn't make sense to update way-finding information while one remains
in place.

When I want to go to another page and recall the information stored when
I arrived on the current page, it doesn't match what I'm looking at, so
the information is automatically discarded because it's obviously not
right --- and difficult to update.  So I start switching between pages
to figure out where I am.  MOTT, I switch to the wrong page first, and I
think I abort the attempt to recall the information about that page, and
to figure out in which direction I need to switch from here, because
that's also difficult, and it seems easier and faster to keep switching.

It then annoys me that I can't figure out any straight way that takes me
to the page I want to go to, and that I switch between them like crazy,
because I always think I should be able to remember.

Perhaps knowing this can help me to remember.  I need to try that out.

> At work, where I deal with many different applications and topics,
> my habits involve:
>
> - Desktop cluster 1, desk 3, page 4:

Cluster?

>   --> Thunderbird (Icedove)
>
> - Desktop cluster 1, desk 9, page 1
>   --> Lotus Notes (32bit app running via chroot)
>
> - Desktop cluster 1, desk 9, page 2, 6 and 10:
>   --> Some SSH sessions on the Xen server to monitor the
>server (free -m -t, top, xentop_wide)

tmux works great for this

Ironically, you also need to either remember which buffer is what, or
switch between them to figure it out.  I'm finding that much easier than
with pages, though.  And tmux keeps running.

> - Desktop cluster 3, desk 12:
>   - Language tools, usually:
> - page 3, 7 and 11 are dict.cc
> - page 4, 8 and 12 are dict.leo.org
> - page 2, 6 and 10 for the German thesaurus of dict.tu-chemnitz.de
> - page 1 and 5 for Google and Bing (for Grammar

Re: FVWM: Is there a way to ignore other windows when placing one?

[lee]

Thomas Adam <tho...@fvwm.org> writes:

> On 10 October 2015 at 11:53, lee <l...@yagibdah.de> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> the subject pretty much says it:
>>
>> Can I somehow make it so that fvwm ignores particular windows when
>> figuring out where to place a new one?
>
> Adding a style to ignore windows from placements is the way to go.
> I'll do this later on.  Would be useful with MinoverlapPlacement, for
> instance.

Oh, that would be awesome!

How do you think about the idea of possibly giving each window a
stacking priority?  It might allow for a more fine-grained control
across all windows than a style could provide.


-- 
After using i3 for a while, I totally realized that it is the job of
the window manger to mange the windows, literally.  It is, by all
means, /not/ the job of the user.  Once you realized this, you can see
the irony of calling an operating system "Windows", and you even have
to say they did a good job with that.

Re: FVWM: Is there a way to ignore other windows when placing one?

[lee]

Lucio Chiappetti <lu...@lambrate.inaf.it> writes:

> On Sat, 17 Oct 2015, lee wrote:
>
>> I haven't figured out how to use multiple desks, though.  I tried
>> that once and apparently got multiple desks just by naming some, but
>> no way to switch between them.
>
> As other said, people usually use the pager to move among multiple
> desks (or multiple pages of one desk, or multiple pages of multiple
> desks),

I use the pager only to display an overview so I can see on which page I
am if I need to.  To switch pages, I move the mouse over the edge of the
screen, or, most of the time, use key bindings.

> but one can implement other ways ... menus in the root menu,
> buttons in a bar or widget, keyboard accelerators, menus in the window
> menu (to move a window to occupy a given desk or page). I have
> implemented most of those in my .fvwmrc although I do not use all of
> them with the same frequency (see
> http://sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/WWW/Opinions/window.html for
> screenshots and links to examples)

That page doesn't seem to exist anymore.

Re: FVWM: suspending a process on Iconify

[lee]

Dominik Vogt dominik.v...@gmx.de writes:

 Isn't

   $ killall -STOP seamonkey-bin

 and

   $ killall -CONT seamonkey-bin

 an option?  If you're not working as root this should be fine.

Hm, yes, that looks like a good approach.  I could use 'killall -u ...'.


-- 
Knowledge is volatile and fluid.  Software is power.

Re: FVWM: suspending a process on Iconify

[lee]

Bastian bastian-fvwm-org-20121...@t6l.de writes:

 On 02Jun14 01:44 +0200, lee wrote:
 des...@verizon.net (Dan.Espen) writes:
 
  lee l...@yun.yagibdah.de writes:
 
  Hi,
 
  I would like to make a function that suspends the corresponding process
  when I iconify a window and unsuspends it when I uniconify the window.
 
  Particularly, I want to (un-)suspend seamonkey with this (because it
  uses ridiculous amounts of CPU time and memory the latter of which might
  be swapped out more easily when the process is suspended than when it is
  not).

 Have you thought about this process is behaving mad? buggy? memory
 leaking? 

It`s seamonkey, and I haven`t found a good replacement for it yet.
Other than needing resources like every other comparable web browser,
it`s working remarkably well.

 I would assume STOPPING STARTING is _not_ a solution to this kind of
 problem.

It`s a nice workaround.  Do you have a solution?

 Btw, try to find an overall load on your machine which does _not_
 require memory swapping. 

That would require to not use some applications I`m using the most, and
it won`t solve the problem of wasting CPU time.

  The kill command works nicely for it, i. e. 'kill -STOP PID of
  process' and 'kill -CONT PID of process' work fine.
 
  I googled for a solution and found some suggestions as to obtain the
  process ID, yet none of them seemed to work.  Since seamonkey is usually
  started through fvwm with a starter function, I might be able to obtain
  the PID when starting it and use that.  However, this approach would be
  somewhat limited.
 
  X windows don't have an associated PID, after all, the window might be
  from a remote system.
 
  For your case, pgrep might give you the PID.

 To increase the probability to chose the correct PID to SIGSTOP, try to
 run xprop on the window ID. This will give you among others:

   WM_CLIENT_MACHINE(STRING) = ${YOUR_HOSTNAME}
   WM_COMMAND(STRING) = { xlogo, -rv }

 Here you can see the window id is attached to a process running on
 YOUR_HOSTNAME and this process was started with the command (in the
 above example)  $(xlogo -rv).

That`s nice for verification, thanks.  What I`m having trouble with is
how to use things like this with fvwm.  It`s easy to get very unexpected
results and very difficult to debug.

 Hm, it would be better to remember the PID when starting the application
 and then use it to suspend it.  I`m not sure yet how to do that, though
 ...

 Setting and remembering the PID when starting seamonkey, could be solved
 by using an environment variable.  But this requires that seamonkey is
 startet via a fvwm function which in turn sets this variable.
 Starting seamonkey from e.g. a console would by-pass this mechanism.

It`s already started from a function, so that would work.


-- 
Knowledge is volatile and fluid.  Software is power.

FVWM: suspending a process on Iconify

[lee]

Hi,

I would like to make a function that suspends the corresponding process
when I iconify a window and unsuspends it when I uniconify the window.

Particularly, I want to (un-)suspend seamonkey with this (because it
uses ridiculous amounts of CPU time and memory the latter of which might
be swapped out more easily when the process is suspended than when it is
not).

The kill command works nicely for it, i. e. 'kill -STOP PID of
process' and 'kill -CONT PID of process' work fine.

I googled for a solution and found some suggestions as to obtain the
process ID, yet none of them seemed to work.  Since seamonkey is usually
started through fvwm with a starter function, I might be able to obtain
the PID when starting it and use that.  However, this approach would be
somewhat limited.

What might be the best way to make a general function to suspend and
unsuspend processes when their windows are iconified and uniconified,
respectively?


-- 
Knowledge is volatile and fluid.  Software is power.

Re: FVWM: fvwm and mvwm? How is fvwm?

[lee]

lee l...@yun.yagibdah.de writes:

 Thomas Adam tho...@fvwm.org writes:

 So I don't want idle speculation or wonder to permeate the work I'm doing,
 the only thing FVWM will benefit from this will be bug-fixes, and I've
 already identified a few memory leaks.  It's nice for FVWM in a way, it's
 being audited for free as a result of this work.

 Is the code currently in the repo on github useful?  Useful would
 mean that one could compile it and use it instead of fvwm.

So I cloned and compiled it, and it works --- even seems to be a lot
faster than the fvwm version in Fedora.

However, I have

   FvwmRearrange -tile -a -mn 2 -noraise 0 0 100 100

in a menu, and it doesn`t work anymore in that it doesn`t seem to do
anything.  Is this feature disabled/removed in mvwm?


-- 
Knowledge is volatile and fluid.  Software is power.

FVWM: reading a split configuration file

[lee]

Hi,

what would be the best way to read configuration file snippets from a
directory or from various directories?

Currently I have ~/.fvwm/.fvwm2rc to start with and statements in it
like


,
| [...]
| Read fvwm-colours.fvwm
| Read fvwm-desks.fvwm
| Read fvwm-menustyle.fvwm
| [...]
`


What I'm trying to do is create a directory like ~/.fvwm/conf.d/ and use
a statement in .fvwm2rc like 'Read conf.d/*.fvwm' which would pull in
all the *.fvwm files residing in conf.d in alphabetical order.

I tried


,
| PipeRead 'for i in /bin/ls $HOME/.fvwm/*.fvwm; do echo Read $i; done'
`


which seemed to read the contents of an executable file and tried to
execute whatever it read as commands.  That appears to be way too
dangerous to use.


-- 
Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error No error here)
  signal(error (No error here))
  error(No %s here error)

Re: FVWM: xterm with FvwmIconBox on Fedora

[lee]

Thomas Adam tho...@fvwm.org writes:

 On 18 July 2013 12:31, lee l...@yun.yagibdah.de wrote:
 Hi,

 when starting FvwmIconBox with fvwm and then starting xterm, output to the
 xterm window does not work, i. e. the window is blank until resized or
 when the workspace is switched.

 It's such a shame that you chose to use FvwmIconBox.  It's one of
 those modules which is dead and hasn't been touched by anyone in more
 years than I can recall.  Don't use it.  This is why we have
 FvwmIconMan as its replacement.

I didn't know that it has been replaced with FvwmIconMan.  Is
FvwmIconBox now deprecated and only available for compatibility?  There
wouldn't be anything to keep me from switching, I guess.

 When (re-)starting fvwm without the FvwmIconBox module, xterm works
 fine.  Please see [1] for a more detailed reference.

 You haven't told us what your FVWM version is---what is it?

It's 2.6.5 as is currently in Fedora 19:


,
| [~] rpm -qi fvwm
| Name: fvwm
| Version : 2.6.5
| Release : 4.fc19
| Architecture: x86_64
| Install Date: Sat 13 Jul 2013 13:20:15 CEST
| Group   : User Interface/X
| Size: 7255461
| License : GPLv2+
| Signature   : RSA/SHA256, Fri 15 Mar 2013 15:27:27 CET, Key ID 
07477e65fb4b18e6
| Source RPM  : fvwm-2.6.5-4.fc19.src.rpm
| Build Date  : Thu 14 Feb 2013 19:50:52 CET
| Build Host  : buildvm-17.phx2.fedoraproject.org
| Relocations : (not relocatable)
| Packager: Fedora Project
| Vendor  : Fedora Project
| URL : http://www.fvwm.org/
| Summary : Highly configurable multiple virtual desktop window manager
| Description :
| Fvwm is a window manager for X11. It is designed to
| minimize memory consumption, provide a 3D look to window frames,
| and implement a virtual desktop.
| [~] 
`


  Note that
 I doubt this is FVWM's fault, since I can't reproduce your problem at
 all.  Also:

 X Error of failed request:  BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
   Major opcode of failed request:  18 (X_ChangeProperty)
   Resource id in failed request:  0x0

 Says that XTerm fucked up to me.  I'll entertain this for one minute.

It is very well possible that the problem is with xterm --- or somewhere
else entirely.

 If you can get the window to be blank, can you please attach the
 output from xprop, and then whilst it's still blank, run in another
 window xprop -spy and unblank the window?  Then put the log from
 that together with the other one and send it to me.

Sure, I'll send them to you.  Thank you for looking into this.


-- 
Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error C-c C-c can do nothing useful at
this location)

FVWM: xterm with FvwmIconBox on Fedora

[lee]

Hi,

when starting FvwmIconBox with fvwm and then starting xterm, output to the
xterm window does not work, i. e. the window is blank until resized or
when the workspace is switched.

When (re-)starting fvwm without the FvwmIconBox module, xterm works
fine.  Please see [1] for a more detailed reference.

The FvwmIconBox is configured as follows:


DestroyModuleConfig FvwmIconBox: *

# Note that icons are shown in the module
#ONLY if NoIcon commnand is applied.
Style *  NoIcon
# 

*FvwmIconBox: IconifiedTitleInvertedRelief
*FvwmIconBox: IconifiedTitleRelief 4
*FvwmIconBox: UseSkipList
*FvwmIconBox: IconBackblack
*FvwmIconBox: IconForedarkgreen
*FvwmIconBox: IconHiFore  green
*FvwmIconBox: IconHiBack  black
*FvwmIconBox: BackDarkSlateGray
*FvwmIconBox: Foregreen
*FvwmIconBox: Geometry4x4+5+915
*FvwmIconBox: MaxIconSize 64x38
*FvwmIconBox: Fontxft:Liberation:pixelsize=10:Medium
*FvwmIconBox: SortIcons   IconName
*FvwmIconBox: Padding 4
*FvwmIconBox: Lines   4
*FvwmIconBox: SBWidth 11
*FvwmIconBox: Placement   Left Top
*FvwmIconBox: HideSC Horizontal
*FvwmIconBox: SetWMIconSize
*FvwmIconBox: HilightFocusWin
*FvwmIconBox: Mouse   1   Click   RaiseLower
*FvwmIconBox: Mouse   1   DoubleClick Iconify
*FvwmIconBox: Mouse   2   Click   Iconify -1, Focus
*FvwmIconBox: Mouse   3   Click   Module FvwmIdent


Is there anything in there that breaks xterm?  Can someone verify this
problem?


[1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=875305

-- 
Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error C-c C-c can do nothing useful at
this location)

Re: FVWM: placing a window on startup

[lee]

Viktor Griph vik...@griph.se writes:

 2012/9/9 lee l...@yun.yagibdah.de:
 Hi,

 is there a way to specify the position on the screen for a window to
 appear when a program is started? In this case, I want to appear conky
 at a particular position on the screen, and conky seems not to know the
 -geometry option.

 Have a look at the PositionPlacement style option.

Thanks :)

This is wonderful, I didn't realise these placement options are actually
styles. That must be something I remember to be a global option from
fvwm1 ...

PositionPlacement -0 +0 does what I want very elegantly :)


Another question:

Is it possible to make a particular window pop up under the pointer
upon pressing a key? Particular window means that I usually have an
rxvt open with a screen session. I don't want this window to be
sticky. When I move to another page of the desktop, I might want to move
this window to the page I'm on and place it on top of other windows
under the pointer by pressing a key.

Moving and raising the window is probably easy. The problem is how to
let fvwm know which window I want to move to the pointer. How could I
identify the window?


-- 
http://www.asciiribbon.org/
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855
http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html

FVWM: placing a window on startup

[lee]

Hi,

is there a way to specify the position on the screen for a window to
appear when a program is started? In this case, I want to appear conky
at a particular position on the screen, and conky seems not to know the
-geometry option.


-- 
http://www.asciiribbon.org/
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855
http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html

Re: FVWM: Some fvwm functions quitting after a bit

[Glen Lee Edwards]

Viktor Griph wrote:

2009/8/18 Glen Lee Edwards g...@holiness.ch:

Using FVWM 2.5.26 on debian lenny. �After a period of time, certian
functions/features quit working, such as the title bar buttons, the menu
won't appear when over a window but will over the root window. �Doing a
restart doesn't work, nor does quitting. �I have to do a killall fvwm to
restore functionality. �Sometimes fvwm shows up in ps as fvwm2, sometimes as
fvwm (less the '2'). �I'm not seeing anything in the log file. �Following is
my config script and log file.


See http://fvwm.org/documentation/faq/#0.1


I intentionally waited for some time to post this letter out of fear I'd 
look stupid.  I actually knew this, but somehow the connection between 
intellectual understanding and practical application disappeared.



# � for the title bar buttons:
Mouse 1 1 � � � N � � � Menu RootMenu Nop
[...]


You may want to use A modifier for functions, but define the bindings
before any bindings using modifiers on the same button and context.


Hmm ... use A (all) instead of N (none) so when I hit the num lock or 
caps lock key the window is therefore configured to maintain the same 
functionality, instead of freezing up like it has with my prior 
configuration.  Ok.



## Key Bindings
[...]

# Format: Key [key name] [context] [modifiers] [command]
Key Menu A N � �Menu RootMenu Nop
Key Menu A 3 � �Menu Window-Ops Nop
Key Menu A 4 � �Menu Window-Ops Nop
Key Menu A M � �Menu Window-Ops Nop
Key Menu A C � �WindowList
Key Menu A S � �WindowList


Here you probably want IgnoreModifiers, or create your own bindings
using different permutations of the modifiers you don't use.


I've added IgnoreModifiers L2 to my .fvwm2rc file so fvwm ignores caps 
lock and num lock.  I'm using Xorg, so I don't know if these are the 
same as in XFree, but I'll find out. :)


Thanks!

Glen