Re: Window managers

[Michiel Toneman <toneman phil uu nl>]

On Tue, 27 Apr 1999, Paul Warren wrote:

pdw> There is one thing that really bugs me about gnome - the fact that it
pdw> doesn't have its own window manager, by which I mean, there is no Window
pdw> Manager with the gnome/gtk look and feel.
pdw> 

snip..........

pdw> E has some very
pdw> strong opposition, certainly where I am.  I don't personally know anyone
pdw> who likes it or finds in a usable wm. Clearly lots of people do, but it
pdw> indicates that it is very important not to push people into using a single
pdw> WM.
pdw> 
pdw> Any comments?

I used to feel the same way about E, till I tried it in its latest 
incarnation as an RPM with Gnome 1.0 (i.e. 0.15.3).
There are still some things that bug me, but I'm now using E over 
Window Maker with Gnome support. The reason?

When properly set up E can be very "minimalistic". I like that ;-)
I use it with the BeOS theme, with the silly BeOS desktop menu hacked
out of it. It is similar in style to the Clean theme, but better looking.

Advantages:

- Fairly low on memory (No Pixmaps)
- Fast (No Pixmaps and E is quite fast without the bells and whistles)
- Clean looking (almost corporate, but not boring)
- Modern 
  - virtual desktops
  - best Gnome support (a.o. doesn't capture right mouse button which is 
                        used by gmc, best desktop icon support)
  - themes
- Good key-bindings
- Configurable by a simple graphical configuration tool 
- No desktop clutter (no icons/pagers/launchers/docks etc...)

Disadvantages:

- Not as lean as fvwm
- Virtual Screens AND Separate Desktops suck. Make the desktops function
  like the Workspaces of Window Maker and drop the Virtual Screen idea. I
  now use 1 Desktop and 3x2 Virtual Screens to get approximately the same 
  behaviour.
- The Flip Workspace behaviour of Window Maker is awesome. E lags behind. 
  I want to be able to drag a window from one desktop to another, but not
  have me flip desktop evey time I move my mouse to the edge of the screen.
  It is also not very smooth with E.
- The Gnome Pager could be better.
- Cycling through windows is badly implemented (Alt-Tab). It doesn't work
  properly (misses windows), and shaded windows don't get activated, so I
  can't unshade them with a keyboard shortcut.

Conclusion:

I doubt anyone can write a better WM than E from scratch. When configured
like mine, E is VERY useable. With all the bells and whistles and a nasty
theme, it is the WM from hell (sorry Raster, I never liked the Amiga),
it's up to you. My point is that E can be made to look and act any way
you choose. In that respect it is a sort of "Generalised Window Manager"
(hey GWM cool! ;-).

Window Maker is way too messy on the desktop in its current form. Huge 
icons/docks/wharfs make it a poor match with Gnome. It is too much 
GNU/Next/OpenStep, which conflicts with the panel idea. Also, I think its 
resizing windows behaviour is pretty primitive compared to E.

Raster, good job on E, Imlib and GTK themes. It's pretty awesome! TigerT,
thanks for the awesome artwork. Gnome always beats the crap out of KDE when
it comes to looks ;-)

Greetings,

Michiel

-- 
Rule of thumb--every time Microsoft use the word "smart," 
        be on the lookout for something dumb.

     http://www.fourmilab.ch/webtools/demoroniser/