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Mwm – The smallest usable X11 window manager

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Re: Mwm – The smallest usable X11 window manager

#81

Post by p_l »

1718627440 wrote: post #79
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably for building appliance/kiosk systems, though it's handy for anything where you just want to run a single application fullscreen.

If you want a single application fullscreen, you can just not start a window manager though.

In practice multiple applications get confused, and some don't support -geometry or equivalent.

One specific case I dealt with was Chrome/Chromium that provided all sorts of annoyances until we dropped in a minimal WM (back then it was awesomewm, I didn't know about cage or it didn't exist yet)

Re: Mwm – The smallest usable X11 window manager

#82

Post by blueflow »

theodric wrote: post #63
fmbb wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copy&paste between apps should work just fine using this window manager. I have not tried mwm but use my own 100 line C window manager and I can copy and paste without issue. Wayland will take 20 more years before it can dethrone X11. And even then we will mostly run X11 apps on XWayland.

> Wayland will take 20 more years before it can dethrone X11. And even then we will mostly run X11 apps on XWayland. And yet RedHat/Fedora and Ubuntu, as well as GNOME, are leading the charge to drop X support in the next release; KDE as of V7. It may take 20 years for Wayland to match X's capabilities, but it looks like the guillotine has already been rolled out. A more conspiratorial person than I could be led to t…

> because they're helping the cause by forcing all resources to be focused on one target

This might work for company-backed projects but not for OSS enthusiasts and power users - they will leave for greener pastures. For example, Linux Mint lives off the manpower that GNOME 3 drove away, Void and Alpine Linux live off the manpower that systemd drove away. There will be some ecosystem that will live off the manpower that Wayland drives away.

Re: Mwm – The smallest usable X11 window manager

#83

Post by anthk »

zshrc wrote: post #48
chasil wrote: post #46

This name conflicts with the original Motif Window Manager, part of OSF Motif. I don't know if mwm is found in modern Motif binary packages. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motif_Window_Manager The dtvwm eclipsed this in CDE.

MWM is included in modern Motif binary packages.

I think EMWM it's a better MWM. It even has options to make the menu sticky, a la Window Maker.

https://fastestcode.org/emwm.html

It's not CDE, but close. And some author wrote a tool to pin WindowMaker dockapps in a window, perfectly usable in a corner.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250105005119/https://luke8086....

I wouldn't mind using it on my n270 netbook, but a customized OpenBSD base's FVWM it's close enough to EMWM, minus the XFT fonts.

Re: Mwm – The smallest usable X11 window manager

#84

Post by anthk »

userbinator wrote: post #64

The very essential things a window manager should let me do are: Launch applications (which might create new windows). Switch between windows. Close windows. That sounds like the people who grew up using nothing but a smartphone all their lives. I find that there's an entire new generation of developers (and likely users) who don't understand basic window management at all --- all they have on their huge monitors all…

My cwm setup with a keyboard it's like that, but with a far better approach.

~/.cwmrc:

https://termbin.com/3jrl

It has a border (2px/4px dep. on the mood), you can execute programs with autocomplete (win+a), search between open windows (win+s), resize/move them, close (win+q), move them to virtual tags (desktops) shift+win+1-4, and go to each of these tags (win+1-4).

Minimal but actually usable. And fast as hell. I don't even need a mouse, and my RSI plumetted once I came from Emacs for a experiment (yes, I always had Ctrl and CapsLock switched over), even with CWM.

Re: Mwm – The smallest usable X11 window manager

#86

Post by c-hendricks »

supportengineer wrote: post #36
trollied wrote: post #28

I wish things were as easy as they were with X11. Being able to ssh into a box and “export DISPLAY=192.168.0.7:0.0” then start an app and have it show up locally is just magical.

We had a bright future in the past.

Something tells me modern remote access tools that use video codecs are much more performant than SSH + X forwarding when dealing with resolutions and desktop effects we use today.

Re: Mwm – The smallest usable X11 window manager

#87

Post by userbinator »

blueflow wrote: post #74
userbinator wrote: post #64

The very essential things a window manager should let me do are: Launch applications (which might create new windows). Switch between windows. Close windows. That sounds like the people who grew up using nothing but a smartphone all their lives. I find that there's an entire new generation of developers (and likely users) who don't understand basic window management at all --- all they have on their huge monitors all…

When you have scanning eyes, any window on-screen that you are currently not scanning is a waste of pixels. These pixels could display data from your focused window instead.

I don't need the "focused" window to be 32" big.

Re: Mwm – The smallest usable X11 window manager

#88

Post by l-albertovich »

teo_zero wrote: post #66
l-albertovich wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for fun I reformatted it minimally in the conservative way I write code that is intended to be easy to read and understand to improve the odds of future contributors (or future me) introducing a bug in it due to misunderstanding it. It's painfully verbose but I think it's worth it considering that we're in 2025 and we're not limited to one character variable names. https://gist.github.com/leonardo-albertovich/98…

Sorry but you didn't just reformatted it, you added new variables and return statements that were not in the original code (and even introduced bugs like row 41). As of short variable names, I'd argue that they are actually more readable than long ones when they're the iterator of a loop: while... XNextEvent(... &e) What else can "e" stand for in the body of this loop? Longer lifetimes and not-as-obvious scopes do de…

Oh no, I accidentally duplicated a function call while quickly rewriting the code for fun, what a terrible sin! (as a side note, I didn't even compile the code but I after quick check I don't see any notes on the man page that suggest that the accidental spurious repeated call could cause a problem)

I understand that you might not like that style but I think you're comming a bit too strong on this, especially considering how carefully I worded my message in terms of not hurting any feeling and being clear about this being MY preference.

I guess I shouldn't probably even answer but it saddens me and makes me a bit angry to get a reminder of why I don't usually participate in social media.

Re: Mwm – The smallest usable X11 window manager

#89

Post by ajross »

convolvatron wrote: post #21
ajross wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beware! That's the DSL trap. It works here so well because it's limited to 20 lines and each macro does exactly what it needs to for the problem at hand. Take that DSL and use it over a year to write a bunch of code to do normal things as your app grows into its problem domain and spills over into a few more, and it melts. New developers will show up to onboard to your and be like "WTF is this 'on()' thing I'm lookin…

there really isn't a fundamental difference between DSLs and libraries for the points that you brought up. where it really starts to get sketchy is when you do really funny things with the base syntax (looking at you lisp and rust). if not well thought out they can be fragile, confusing, and a real burden for new contributors. I guess here's a question - do you consider regex libraries to be DSLs?

Interestingly I'd say a regular expression is absolutely not a DSL. It's sort of the opposite. A DSL is a tightly crafted interface for the configuration needed to support solutions to one somewhat unique problem. And the "trap" above is that the fact that the problem area is narrow means that only experts will really understand the DSL.

A regex is a tool implementing a solution (albeit a tightly crafted one) to an extremely broad set of problem areas. I mean, sure, in some sense it's a "DSL for string matching", but that doesn't really capture the essence of the DSL trap mentioned above. I mean, almost everyone needs string matching. So there's no trap: basically everyone knows regex syntax, even if they like to complain about it.

Re: Mwm – The smallest usable X11 window manager

#90

Post by teo_zero »

l-albertovich wrote: post #88
teo_zero wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but you didn't just reformatted it, you added new variables and return statements that were not in the original code (and even introduced bugs like row 41). As of short variable names, I'd argue that they are actually more readable than long ones when they're the iterator of a loop: while... XNextEvent(... &e) What else can "e" stand for in the body of this loop? Longer lifetimes and not-as-obvious scopes do de…

Oh no, I accidentally duplicated a function call while quickly rewriting the code for fun, what a terrible sin! (as a side note, I didn't even compile the code but I after quick check I don't see any notes on the man page that suggest that the accidental spurious repeated call could cause a problem) I understand that you might not like that style but I think you're comming a bit too strong on this, especially conside…

It was not my intention to make you sad or angry. I assure you that I have nothing against who uses a different coding style than mine. But consider that, just like you, I too have the right to tell the world what my preference is. Should I have softened my post with more "IMHO", "I feel", "my taste"? Probably, and I apologize.

Please don't stop participating in social media just because a halfwit like me hasn't agree with you once!

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