Re: Some WM observations (Sawmill).

[Paul Warren <pdw ferret lmh ox ac uk>]

On Mon, 20 Mar 2000, George Farris wrote:

> Kudos on the Sawmill work.  I have found a few things that are 
> highly annoying with Sawmill.

These questions will probably recieve a more helpful and accurate response
on the Sawmill list.

> 1) If I have a panel running, specially a menu panel on the top of 
> the screen, I should be able to configure Sawmill to NEVER go over a 
> panel.  Window Maker does this with it's dock and icons at the 
> bottom of the screen and it is heaven.  Window Maker will never 
> cover up either it's dock or the the icons.

What version of sawmill are you running?  Unless you specifically ask for
a window to be above the panel (by changing its depth), it should never
put one there, but I do vaguely remember this being broken in one version.

> 2)  Cascading window placement.  If I open up a new window in 
> Sawmill, I never know where it's going to be placed and find myself 
> moving all over the screen.  In Window Maker (ya I know) it can be 
> set for cascading style of placement and it works very well.  Now I 
> realize there are different placement settings in Sawmill but none 
> of them really give me the cascading style which for some reason 
> just seem to work well.

The default mode is best-fit, which is where it tries to place windows
where they will cover the least other windows.  eg. if you bind a key to
open terminal windows, press that key four times and it'll stick one in
each corner.

If none of the other placement modes tickle your fancy, then get your LISP
fingers out and write it yourself - I'm sure that it can't be too tricky -
ask on the Sawmill list for some pointers.

> 3)  Clicking on a minimized app in the menu of Window Maker, 
> maximizes that app and switches to the desktop that its on, very 
> nice.

See above :-)

> 4) An easy way to set an app to start only on workspace N.

You'll want the "matched windows" option.

> 5) A Window Manager should never map a window part way off the 
> screen unless you say it's ok.  It's the biggest piss off in the 
> world having a dialog box come up but having to move it before you 
> can hit the "OK" button.

You want configure-auto-gravity from the advanced move/resize
customisation dialog, in Sawmill >= 0.25, I think.

yours,

Paul