Re: metacity, vte

[Alan <alan ufies org>]

On Sun, Sep 22, 2002 at 06:01:51AM -0500, John J. Boyer wrote:
> Hello,
> I would favor giving the user a choice of window managers. One manager 
> could be the default. Perhaps a list of window managers could be 
> displayed during startup, and when startup is finished the user could 
> change to the one s/he likes best. Then save the ssion and continue.

I disagree with this a bit.  If gnome is going to be a simple/everyday
os, I'd vote for using a default WM on install, but sticking the option
in a capplet in the advanced section.  Personally I find metacity a bit
thing for what I want, and lacking in the configurability to do the
things I do with sawfish.  Before anyone asks/flames: dealing with
sticky correctly (xmms) nicer alt-tab ability (ie: ot bringing each app
to the foreground when I alt tab through my apps), customizable
keybindings that actually work (I couldn't get alt-rmb to map to resize
window and alt-lmb to map to move window like in sawfish, I just got
gconf errors about invalid strings), and a few others. 

Now that said, I think that metacity is great at what it does, I prefer
sawfish however, and the point of OSS is that I have the choice to use
that, and I think that you have to give users that choice as well, and
not tell them the equivelant of "go into the registry editor and edit
foo/bar/baz".  Just give them a simple little settings capplet so that
if they decide to explore the interface, they can be plesantly surprised
that 'hey, I can switch window managers here'.

My $0.02

/me returns to lurk mode


-- 
Alan "Arcterex" <alan ufies org>   -=][=-   http://arcterex.net
"I used to herd dairy cows. Now I herd lusers. Apart from the isolation, I
think I preferred the cows. They were better conversation, easier to milk, and
if they annoyed me enough, I could shoot them and eat them." -Rodger Donaldson