Re: To sawfish from metacity?

[Dale Huckeby <spock evansville net>]

On Sat, 27 Mar 2010, Teika Kazura wrote:

> On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:12:08 -0500 (CDT), Dale Huckeby wrote:
> > when I click on <Windows> in the <Preferences> menu I get this:
> >
> > Cannot start the preferences application for your window manager
> >
> > Window manager "Sawfish" has not registered a configuration tool
>
> I don't know Gnome, but you can run the configurator by middle-clicking
> the root window = background. Or, you can run from the command line
> "sawfish-config" or "sawfish-ui". (Recently we changed the name from
> the latter to the former.)

Thanks for responding. I found out about middle-clicking and also ran
sawfish-ui (for 1.5.2) in a terminal window, but not all the categories
would respond to input. Eventually, after deleting some gnome config
files in my home directory as well as, I think, .sawfish/custom, one or
all of the above, including <Windows> in the <Preferences> menu, started
working and suddenly all my windows, including child windows (is that
the correct term?) not only had my favorite frame decoration (iron) but
behaved as I wanted, remembering where they were and what size they
were, unlike metacity (spit, curse). For the better part of a day all
was well, but at some point when I needed to reboot and restarted gnome
from run-level 3, everything went to hell. I heard two loud beeps (uh oh)
as the desktop was coming up, and a moment later all the pre-sawfish
frames and title bars were back, with a bizarre addition. The panel was 
framed, with a (non-sawfish) title bar running its entire length. It was 
actually in its own window.

After several hours of fruitless effort I finally decided to reinstall.
At first I went too minimalist, trying to avoid a gazillion post-install
updates, and had to reinstall yet again. Then fetchmail wouldn't work
(got the mail but port 25 refused the connection) and after a few hours
more I reinstalled once again into an LXDE desktop. I thought maybe if
I installed sawfish before gnome it might work out better. (While I was
up all night with this I forgot about the water running in the bathtub,
flooded my basement and killed my water hearer. Sigh.)

> > And when I change window borders it works only for the window whose
> > title bar I've just right-clocked on, and reverts to the previous
> > window border if I close and then re-open that app.
>
> Use the configurator I mentioned above. It can change *all*
> frames. (It may be better to restart Sawfish after you change the
> frame.) What you said opens the menu for *operations on that window*,
> like maximization, toggling stickiness, etc.

Yes, it did change all the frames until something went horribly wrong
and everything went to hell. Right now I have 1.6.2, unpacked into its
own directory in /usr, and have been reading the docs and working up
my nerve to try again. Now I'm wondering if doing sawfish before gnome
is as good an idea as I thought it was. Would it be better to compile
sawfish with gnome already installed? Is sawfish-config part of the base
sawfish package? Would it be better to compile librep and rep-gtk than
install rpms if I'm going to compile the sawfish package? Thanks for
taking the time to respond.

Dale Huckeby