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Window Maker 0.95.8 released

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Re: Window Maker 0.95.8 released

#81

Post by wjoe »

SwellJoe wrote: post #22

The "half-maximized" feature sounds great, and one of the things that I feel like no one has right, still. Windows has actually gotten pretty good, surprisingly (drag to corners to get a quarter screen window, drag to sides to get half screen). Gnome is clumsier than I'd like. I really would love a window manager that handles tiling well, but doesn't require complete buy-in to a fully tiled concept. I doubt I'll be g…

Cinnamon has similar "drag to edge" tiling as Windows, and you can also configure keyboard shortcuts for it - I have win+arrow keys configured to move windows to the edges/corners.

Re: Window Maker 0.95.8 released

#82

Post by userbinator »

SwellJoe wrote: post #22

The "half-maximized" feature sounds great, and one of the things that I feel like no one has right, still. Windows has actually gotten pretty good, surprisingly (drag to corners to get a quarter screen window, drag to sides to get half screen). Gnome is clumsier than I'd like. I really would love a window manager that handles tiling well, but doesn't require complete buy-in to a fully tiled concept. I doubt I'll be g…

drag to corners to get a quarter screen window, drag to sides to get half screen

Incidentally, that behaviour was one of the first things I had to figure out how to turn off in Windows, because I just wanted to move the window there; I did NOT want to resize it. I found it quite annoying.

Re: Window Maker 0.95.8 released

#83

Post by to3m »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #38
wernercd wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows has actually gotten pretty good, surprisingly (drag to corners to get a quarter screen window, drag to sides to get half screen) Holy shit on a shingle... how did I not know about this magic incantation!

Even better then: try the Win key + arrow keys.

I'm going to plug my dispswitch program (https://github.com/tom-seddon/dispswitch - Windows only. You run it from a hotkey manager such as AutoHotKey). It does a better job of preserving monitor-relative size and position when you've got monitors with work rects of different sizes.

For tiling windows, try align_window3 (https://github.com/tom-seddon/align_window3 - again, it's for Windows, and use AutoHotKey). It gives you more portrait-friendly options than the Windows default stuff.

Re: Window Maker 0.95.8 released

#84

Post by onli »

dredmorbius wrote: post #56
Zardoz84 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what does WM that is special with virtual desktops?

Typically thy're arranged in a flat space, think of them extending left and right, logically, of your monitor(s). The Windowlist shows all open windows. You can pin it, then walk through the list if you've lost track of something. Windows can be pinned to all desktops. Nothing I've seen in 30 years comes close.

Sounds to me exactly like functionality IceWM offers.

Re: Window Maker 0.95.8 released

#86

Post by dredmorbius »

onli wrote: post #84
dredmorbius wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically thy're arranged in a flat space, think of them extending left and right, logically, of your monitor(s). The Windowlist shows all open windows. You can pin it, then walk through the list if you've lost track of something. Windows can be pinned to all desktops. Nothing I've seen in 30 years comes close.

Sounds to me exactly like functionality IceWM offers.

A number of the older WMs are not entirely dissimilar. Some aren't, though. FVWM for example has a grid rather than flat layout, which I find confusing (you might go left/right, you might go up/down). The boxes generally struck me as pretty good -- Blackbox I think most especially.

KDE comes close to WindowMaker in functionality (I've been watching/using that occasionally since ~1999), but never quite seems to get it right. KDE's windowlist, for example, isn't pinnable, and if you're walking that, you have to re-open, and re-acquire your current working spot, for each window you're traversing. That extra bit of friction rubs me raw every damned time.

The crazy thing about WindowMaker, for me, is how for such a ... not particulalry beautiful* desktop (though I find its asthetics completely acceptable), it's so damned useful. It's either exceptionally well designed ... or I've just got it cold-welded to my muscle memory. I couldn't honestly tell you which.

(Though I think its design is particularly good, with its design stability a major part of that.)

Re: Window Maker 0.95.8 released

#88

Post by lillesvin »

dredmorbius wrote: post #56
Zardoz84 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what does WM that is special with virtual desktops?

Typically thy're arranged in a flat space, think of them extending left and right, logically, of your monitor(s). The Windowlist shows all open windows. You can pin it, then walk through the list if you've lost track of something. Windows can be pinned to all desktops. Nothing I've seen in 30 years comes close.

I must be misunderstanding something because from what you describe it sounds like how Gnome, i3 and EvilWM and many others handle virtual desktops.

Re: Window Maker 0.95.8 released

#89

Post by ktRolster »

notalaser wrote: post #75
ktRolster wrote: post #71

There used to be a ton of amazing WindowMaker themes. They seem to have disappeared with freshmeat.org

Some of them can still be found if you look around on Google. Unfortunately, they haven't aged well -- their wallpapers are mostly for 4:3 monitors and low resolutions, the textures are for low-res screens etc.. box-look.org has a few more recent ones.

Yeah, you're right. Back in 2001-2002 people would walk by my computer screen and be impressed, ask, "What OS is that??" Now the other OSes have caught up in appearance.

Thanks.

Re: Window Maker 0.95.8 released

#90

Post by badsectoracula »

zeotroph wrote: post #41
pjmlp wrote: post #6

Nice to know they still keep developing it. Window Maker became my favourite window manager around 1997, after trying out the majority of them since I installed Slackware 2.0 for the first time. I kept on using it until around 2006, when I switched back to Windows as my main desktop. Back the in day I had a nice collection of mini apples, pity that GNUStep never came to be fully integrated with it. Nowadays my GNU/Li…

As someone still using Window Maker, these mini-DockApps are a a reason why I keep using it. The dock is on the left or right, so it does not take the more precious vertical screenspace. And dockapps are reasonably sized (64x64 pixels by default) and thus can show useful information. I am especially fond of one showing CPU activity like blobs in a lava lamp (wmforkplop). I also got very used to the way WM does virtua…

A unique feature to Window Maker's virtual desktops is the clip. The clip basically allows you to create a kind of separate dock per virtual desktop so if you have a separate VD per type of task (e.g. web, chat, code, art, media, games, etc) you can put the relevant launchers on the clip instead of the dock and leave only the global stuff (like docklets and utilities like a terminal, notepad, file browser, etc) in the dock.

I actually ignored that for years, until i decided to try it out and found it much easier to work with since i could create many more launchers than if i had to fit everything in the regular dock (of course i could also use drawers - which sadly are not yet supported by the clip - but i think having the launchers per virtual desktop is better).

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