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taviso
Retired Dev
Joined: 15 Apr 2003
Posts: 261
Location: United Kingdom
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 Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2003 2:28 pm Post subject: The F? Virtual Window Manager |
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Okay, i admit it, im an fvwm zealot 
fvwm is incredible, every tiny detail is configurable and any feature or behaviour of any other window manager you have seen or have imagined can be repliacted, tweaked, refined and added to fvwm.
Whats more, fvwm is fast, very fast. The fvwm developers are craftsmen, the code is well written and clean, very efficient and requires very little resources, with no bloat. The developers have prevented the huge range of features from bloating the code by designing a module interface, that means any optional features such as taskbars, pagers, animations, etc, are written as modules that are entirely optional and never have to be loaded unless required.
Fvwm is also mature, the project is now over 10 years old and is still in active development. Its totally bombproof, even the development branch (which contains lots of cool new features, including more eye-candy), and there is an active community and lots of example functions and rc files to play with.
So why isnt everybody using it?
I really dont know why everybody isnt using it, you can replicate the appearance and behaviour of almost any function or feature in any other window manager, and because of the high quality codebase, you will end up with a faster, less resource hungry, more stable envirnoment. And will also be abe to extend and customise it to a far greater degree, even mixing the features and behaviour of all your favourite window managers together.
Maybe you like the blackbox look?
How about Afterstep?
What about OSX, QNX or Windows-xp!
[img:a287a6e118]http://fvwm-themes.sourceforge.net/windowdecors/decor-27.jpg[/img:a287a6e118]
[img:a287a6e118]http://fvwm-themes.sourceforge.net/windowdecors/decor-28.jpg[/img:a287a6e118] [img:a287a6e118]http://fvwm-themes.sourceforge.net/windowdecors/decor-25.jpg[/img:a287a6e118]
Or strange mixtures from different places, or entirely original creations?
And of course, it can integrate with the gnome/kde desktops,
http://fvwm-ewmh.sourceforge.net/screenshots/gnome2.png
There are more screenshots here, here, here, here, and one of mine here.
fluxbox users can get tabs in fvwm by loading the FvwmTabs module. And you can make almost everything transparent in fvwm, with the latest version in portage you can even get translucent menus
[imghttp://dev.gentoo.org/~taviso/menu1.png][/img]
[update:03/09/03]: Another really cool feature is Mouse Gestures, if youve ever tried these in Opera or Mozilla you'll know how useful these can be when you get used to them, with fvwm you can describe any gesture and bind them to any function, such as draw an I to "Iconify all" or draw an M and have fvwm "Launch Mozilla" or anything! just emerge fvwm with USE="stroke" to try it out.
The bindings in fvwm are extremely configurable, you can set up fvwm so you never have to use the mouse, or set up Emacs-like key bindings, or anything you can think of.
Any behaviour can also be described in Fvwm, using simple functions, you can even code your own modules in C or Perl to extend it even further. For example, a friend of mine recently decided to give Fvwm a try after using sawfish for some time, he asked if it was possible to "Pack windows", move them in some direction until they hit something, eg another window or the edge of the screen, I experimented for a while and came up with this
| Code: | DestroyFunc PackWindowUp
AddToFunc PackWindowUp
+ I SetEnv low_w 0
+ I WindowId $3 Raise
+ I All (CurrentPage !Iconic AcceptsFocus \
!Shaded Visible) PipeRead "test `expr $[w.y] + $[w.height]` -gt $[low_w] \
-a `expr $[w.y] + $[w.height]` -lt $0 \
-a \\( \\( $[w.x] -gt $1 -a $[w.x] -lt `expr $1 + $2` \\) \
-o \\( $1 -gt $[w.x] -a $1 -lt `expr $[w.x] + $[w.width]` \\) \
-o \\( $1 -le $[w.x] -a `expr $1 + $2` -ge `expr $[w.x] + $[w.width]` \\) \
-o \\( $[w.x] -lt $1 -a `expr $[w.x] + $[w.width]` -gt `expr $1 + $2` \\) \
\\) \
&& echo SetEnv low_w `expr $[w.y] + $[w.height]` \
|| echo Nop"
+ I WindowId $3 AnimatedMove keep $[low_w]p
#+ I WindowId $3 RefreshWindow
AddToFunc PackWrapperUp I NoWindow PackWindowUp $[w.y] $[w.x] $[w.width] $[w.id]
Key Up W SM PackWrapperUp
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Anything is possible.
Okay, there is no fancy gui for configuration, and the default configuration isnt pretty, which may turn a few users away, but the man page is well written and easy to get started with. There is even an fvwm-themes system in portage that will let you mix and match pre-written configurations together, which is easy and fun to use until you get comfortable enough to start working on your own configuration.
I've also spent a lot of time perfecting the fvwm ebuilds, the fvwm-2.5.7-r2 ebuild in portage allows all compile time features to be toggled with USE flags, and will install the FvwmTabs module if you have tcltk and perl set in your USE flags.
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Last edited by taviso on Sun Jan 04, 2004 1:37 pm; edited 6 times in total |
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Ox-
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Joined: 19 Jun 2003
Posts: 305
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2003 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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| fluxbox is what made me finally start using X instead of console, but I like some of those screenshots enough to give it a try. I especially like having a real horizontal rule on the menus instead of "-----------" dashes :0 |
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Toth
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 23 Feb 2003
Posts: 133
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2003 3:33 pm Post subject: Re: The F? Virtual Window Manager |
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| taviso wrote: | | So why isnt everybody using it? |
For exactly the reasons you mentioned. The default theme is ugly and it's not exactly the simplest program to configure. Alot of people want a good looking desktop with a minimal amount of effort. Gnome and KDE provide that. Even fluxbox is easier to configure.
Also, most of the screenshots look pretty ugly to me, though some look interesting.
I might give it a try to mess around with it. I may even end up liking it and using it, though I don't forsee that happening. |
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hook
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Joined: 23 Oct 2002
Posts: 1398
Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2003 3:45 pm Post subject: |
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aaah, the good old fvwm days ...i was a complete noobie then, and fvwm was considered a noobie/ex-win.user wm, and *box and kde were considered completely anti-m$ ...and look at me now ...i use kde and fluxbox. now that kde is considered noobie-ish, and fvwm is considered old-school ...man i should feel stupid 
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taviso
Retired Dev
Joined: 15 Apr 2003
Posts: 261
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2003 6:37 pm Post subject: Re: The F? Virtual Window Manager |
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| Toth wrote: | | The default theme is ugly and it's not exactly the simplest program to configure. Alot of people want a good looking desktop with a minimal amount of effort. |
Very true, you do have to put a bit of effort in to get the most out of it, but it is definitely worth it. After all, I bet there are plenty of applications you wonder how you lived without now that you have got to know well, i know thats true of plenty of applications for me (screen, gdb, vim, etc!)
| Quote: | | Also, most of the screenshots look pretty ugly to me, though some look interesting. I might give it a try to mess around with it. I may even end up liking it and using it, though I don't forsee that happening. |
Dont be so sure!, you sound like the kind of user who would really enjoy fvwm, being able to craft the your desktop to your exact (demanding?) specifications...
You sound like you know exactly what you like, and fvwm can make that happen..fluxbox,kde,etc may be easier to configure, but they are far too rigid for people who know what they are looking for in a desktop.
oops, i forgot to mention Mouse Gesture support (really really cool), i'll edit my original post.
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Unne
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Joined: 21 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2003 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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Most of those screenshots do look very ugly, I think. Not sure what there is about it. The window decorations look pretty nice, on par with any other skinable DE I guess. Maybe it's the huge hideous blocky fonts everyone seems to be using, or the weird 3D-ness of everything, but it looks big and kludgy and random. It doesn't look at all graceful.
Honestly I don't think most people know exactly what they want out of a desktop to the point where they want to program the whole thing themselves. I know I don't. If I wanted to set up something to work and look exactly like fluxbox, I'd just use fluxbox. In fact I do. flux is as configurable as I'd ever want anything to be. |
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taviso
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Joined: 15 Apr 2003
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Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2003 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Unne wrote: | | Most of those screenshots do look very ugly, I think. Not sure what there is about it. The window decorations look pretty nice, on par with any other skinable DE I guess. Maybe it's the huge hideous blocky fonts everyone seems to be using, or the weird 3D-ness of everything, but it looks big and kludgy and random. It doesn't look at all graceful. |
Well, the fonts are of course totally configurable. And there is full Xft anti-alias font support (USE=truetype). I was trying to link to totally different screenshots to show how configurable it is, rather than show the one desktop you would find beautiful. Of course, fvwm is infinitely configurable, if i were to show you 100,000 desktops you might only find 0.01% beautiful. The point i was trying to make is that you can create that one desktop that works exactly how you expect and looks exactly how you want!
| Quote: | | Honestly I don't think most people know exactly what they want out of a desktop to the point where they want to program the whole thing themselves. I know I don't. If I wanted to set up something to work and look exactly like fluxbox, I'd just use fluxbox. In fact I do. flux is as configurable as I'd ever want anything to be. |
Oh for sure, some people like to be told what to use, or dont have the time to configure a desktop for themselves (although imho configuring fvwm will increase their productivity, as they can make it work exactly as they expect rather than having to learn how somebody else thinks it should work), and fvwm isnt for them, and the more limited fluxbox may suit them better
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Wedge_
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2003 8:29 pm Post subject: |
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I've been using fluxbox for a long time, but fvwm looks tempting. After playing with it for an hour I can see it's going to take a while to set up the way I want it, but I guess that's the price you pay for so much configurability
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Toth
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 23 Feb 2003
Posts: 133
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2003 10:52 pm Post subject: Re: The F? Virtual Window Manager |
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| taviso wrote: | | You sound like you know exactly what you like, and fvwm can make that happen..fluxbox,kde,etc may be easier to configure, but they are far too rigid for people who know what they are looking for in a desktop. |
The tweaker in me loves the possibilities that FVWM present. The most appealing thing about it is that in general, no two FVWM desktops are going to be alike, and many will be drastically different than each other. Much different than my somewhat generic Gnome2 and XFce4 desktops.
But a part of me loves simplicity (more than configurability). And when it comes to WMs/DEs, that's why I appreciate, and love projects like Gnome, XFce, and [Black|Open]box (I hate Fluxbox). |
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shm
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Joined: 09 Dec 2002
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Location: Atlanta, Universe
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2003 11:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | So why isnt everybody using it? |
I've actually tried again recently.. I used to use fvwm(2) back in 1997 when I first tinkered with X. However, I wanted to use it recently with kde-cvs, and there are bugs between the two (not sure in which side it is)
Also, being able to graphically configure everything would be nice. I actually haven't touched any text config files in a while, and don't plan to. This is why fvwm forks like E became so popular in a hurry even though they were not as configurable as fvwm.
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sa
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Posts: 450
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:38 am Post subject: |
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watch out! another fvwm zealot coming through.
Another reason to like it:
You can configure your intellimouse w/ 5 buttons, so you can use your extra 4th and 5th buttons to move and resize windows. so you never have to move a window by its titlebar again. (careful its addicting)
Ive been using fvwm since before kde1 was released,I remember thinking back in the day, that when I got a more powerful machine I could switch to a different wm. but every time i try a different wm I allways come back to fvwm, not sure why...
my screencapture:
[img:827c6ebfd0]http://www.xmission.com/~sa/fvwm.png[/img:827c6ebfd0]
[/url] |
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Wedge_
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Location: Scotland
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2003 10:44 am Post subject: |
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Like I said above, I've been using fluxbox for ages, but I spent all day yesterday tinkering with fvwm, and I'm really starting to like it. I've done exactly what you suggested with my Intellimouse buttons I've got the mousewheel to switch between desktops like fluxbox can (2 extra lines in the config file), I've got my usual dockapps running in FvwmButtons, I've got borderless aterms with no trouble at all, I've got some nice window decorations, icons in menus, and windows shading when I double click the titlebar. There's so much to configure it's rather bewildering at first, but once you understand the layout of the config files and read the man pages, it becomes a lot clearer 
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Toth
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 23 Feb 2003
Posts: 133
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2003 12:55 pm Post subject: |
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Despite my love of simplicity you zealots keep tempting me to tinker with Fvwm. Now I'm reading the manpage.  |
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taviso
Retired Dev
Joined: 15 Apr 2003
Posts: 261
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2003 2:37 pm Post subject: |
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| sa wrote: | | you can use your extra 4th and 5th buttons to move and resize windows. so you never have to move a window by its titlebar again. (careful its addicting) |
Awesome! I like it
ive configured it so that when i hold down shift and roll the wheel the window shrinks or grows, it works really well...Thanks!
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Wedge_
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2003 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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I got transparent menus to work Little screenshot:
[img:dbd95f0c9f]http://wedge.xwlegacy.net/fvwm.jpg[/img:dbd95f0c9f]
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hook
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Joined: 23 Oct 2002
Posts: 1398
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| Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2003 7:03 am Post subject: |
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| Wedge_ wrote: | I got transparent menus to work Little screenshot:
[img:f5f45196c4]http://wedge.xwlegacy.net/fvwm.jpg[/img:f5f45196c4] |
neat
btw: isn't it right: per ASPERA ad astra? ...well, it has a similar meaning on the whole, so i guess it's also right :]
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RedBeard0531
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| Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2003 10:53 am Post subject: |
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Is there a good place to pick up good configs? I dont feel like mucking around to get started. It is just tooo Fugly in the default. How long did you spend getten yours to look like that, they purdy.
btw- i a fluxer running mainly kde apps.
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lurid
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| Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2003 12:39 pm Post subject: |
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Holy crap I forgot all about fvwm! I can't believe its still around. Lord, I remember using fvwm95 back in the day. Ugh. I'm sort of in a transition period right now with what I want from my desktop. I love Gnome. I love then entire angle they're comming from.. simplistic on the surface, but extremely powerful when you start digging (gconf). The problem is that its a total resource hog. I've got a 1.1ghz Duron, but only 128 megs of RAM. I don't play many games, but I notice that Gnome just eats my computer up. I find I have to restart X at least twice a day to keep things moving smoothly. And while thats preferable to rebooting the entire machine (if I were a Windows user) I still find restarting X annoying.
So I've gone back to Fluxbox. I use Gnome for awhile, get irritated and end up back at Fluxbox. Everything I try, I eventually come back to it. Maybe fvwm is what I'm looking for. Fluxbox is nice, and the new version is even nicer.. but there are only so many ways to configure it. I've stopped looking at Fluxbox screenshots because they all look the same. If fvwm can give me endless tinker potential, plus the ability to customize every aspect.. it might keep me away from Flux. Not to say there is anything wrong with Flux, its just that its so drab.
So what the hey! I'll give fvwm a shot (again) and see what I can do.
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Wedge_
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| Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2003 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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| RedBeard0531 wrote: | | Is there a good place to pick up good configs? I dont feel like mucking around to get started. It is just tooo Fugly in the default. How long did you spend getten yours to look like that, they purdy. |
If you Google around for ".fvwm2rc" you should find some configs. There are also some good sites in the "Links" section on fvwm.org. If you emerge fvwm-themes, it'll install some preconfigured themes so you don't have to try making your own at first. Also spend some time reading the manpages (you can view them in HTML on fvwm.org). The fvwm manpage is huge, but contains lots of useful information. It only took a couple of hours to get things the way I wanted them. After that I spent ages tinkering with it 
| hook wrote: | | btw: isn't it right: per ASPERA ad astra? ...well, it has a similar meaning on the whole, so i guess it's also right :] |
"Per Ardua Ad Astra" is the motto of the Royal Air Force, which is where I saw it. You're right though, it is pretty similar in meaning to "Per Aspera Ad Astra".
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Mongrol
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Joined: 14 Sep 2002
Posts: 376
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| Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 5:32 pm Post subject: Re: The F? Virtual Window Manager |
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| taviso wrote: | Okay, i admit it, im an fvwm zealot
Anything is possible.
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Almost. After trying every WM under the sun and failing to like any of them your post has got my interest in FVWM back again. Last time I tried this WM was around 1996 on Debian 1.1 . What I'd like to do is make a little Aqua/CDE/XFCE type panel. I`ve seen a very good example in the fvwm-themes package but it doesn't autohide. I`ve seen the fvwm-taskbar does autohide but for some reason is restricted to full width of the screen.
FVWM-buttonbar looks an excellent quality tool. Can shove buttons in it, dockapps, taskmanagement. It's such a shame there's no autohide for it, the lack of this feature forces alot of real estate to be used up if you want a busy panel. |
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taviso
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Posts: 261
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 7:25 pm Post subject: Re: The F? Virtual Window Manager |
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| Mongrol wrote: | | Almost. After trying every WM under the sun and failing to like any of them your post has got my interest in FVWM back again. Last time I tried this WM was around 1996 on Debian 1.1 . What I'd like to do is make a little Aqua/CDE/XFCE type panel. I`ve seen a very good example in the fvwm-themes package but it doesn't autohide. |
Your right, that would be a nice feature, but thats not to say it isnt posible already . Do not try and bend the spoon, that's impossible, instead use FvwmEvent to look for focus changes (focus_change) with PassId, you can use something like this in your function, after it has checked if its the buttons that have come into focus
| Code: | # Where $0 is the windowid of the ButtonBar passed to the function from FvwmEvent
WindowId $0 AnimatedMove Keep w-10p |
Which would make it slide up 10 pixels, and the opposite to make it slide back down when it loses focus, keeping it out of the current viewport when not in focus, and of course you can vary how much it slides up (or if you dont like the sliding, you can use Move instead), how much is displayed when its hidden, or anything else
Another simpler option would be to have a Hide button, that when pressed would toggle its state, moving it in or out of view. I'm sure there are other ways as well
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Mongrol
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| Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 8:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Excellent stuff. This beast impresses me more and more already. I`m very surprised there isn`t a fairly large repository of fvwm themes/functions/hacks etc. Kind of like a themes.org site, or a section on freshmeat choc full of the great things people have made this WM do. It's a valuable undiscovered unix gem. |
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Wedge_
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| Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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Mongrol, there's an entry in the fvwm FAQ that may help you: link
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The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but we cannot live forever in a cradle - Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky
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signal11
n00b
Joined: 16 Mar 2003
Posts: 46
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| Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2003 7:52 pm Post subject: Your fvwm config |
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I have been using fvwm for quite some time, but I am still on the 2.4.X series. Can you provide your fvwm config that I can use ?
Thanks |
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hrnick
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Posts: 428
Location: Sweden
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| Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2003 11:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Code: | | emerge fluxbox commonbox-styles commonbox-utils -C |
I guess you convinced me
But seriously, fvwm is great! I'm one of those people who never bothered to try it because of all those ugly screenshots, but now when I've spent some afternoons and evenings setting up fvwm I've got my desktop to look (more or less) just the way I want...
I really liked the Styles-thing in fvwm - in fluxbox I had to make tvtime sticky, on-top and without title everytime I started it (the remember-stuff didn't work that well) - in fvwm the following works perfectly:
| Code: | | Style tvtime Notitle, Sticky, CirculateSkip, WindowListSkip, StaysOnTop |
Great post taviso! |
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Desktop Environments
