my nightmare that was Fvwm

[hudson]

Man...I had such great hopes for Fvwm...pager that rocked, everything super customizable. I spent two weeks awash in a sea of documentation and config files. The tip-off should of been that this was big in the Linux world circa 2002. I didn't really mind the motif look...it was kind of old-school. I got the colors all set up nice. One thing super great was I could finally set my file manager window titles right "/usr/share/doc - File Manager" instead of just "doc", which I hate.

I really did like a lot about Fvwm. It has some great ideas. But, while researching it, I found some comment to the effect that "although I love Fvwm, I decided to switch to Fluxbox so that I don't spend all my time configuring my wm and get some real work done" and damn, was that head on!

Coming up next: "my nightmare that was writing a Gtk theme"

[VastOne]

Nice hudson, thanks for the share and insight

[hudson]

there were some good things about Fvwm:

- great pager
- love the xterm icon - can type in commands (not only Fvwm)
- really liked the window list...no need for taskbar
- great control over window titles

I actually went to Fluxbox's IRC channel to find a similar windows list...they have a ClientMenu keybinding which is nice, but not the same as sticking it to your desktop.

This here is just downright crazy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdSgf-IykIo

[PackRat]

I've used that tiling layout - pretty cool.

FvwmPiazza module is even better - and you get to sharpen your CPAN skills while you're at it.

I don't spend all my time configuring my wm and get some real work done

An overused complaint. Once the basic environment is set up - focus policy etc ... - usually you just end up changing your color scheme.

FvwmWinList is handy, but FvwmIconManager and Icon styles are much more flexible - i.e you can have an icon manager for terminals, and icon manager for all your other apps. Got to love the modularity of Fvwm.

There is also the FvwmTabs module for tabbed windows.

Don't give up on fvwm - one of the most awesome window managers ever.

[hudson]

True, maybe that comment is a bit overused. The other comment I heard all the time was "the only wm that did exactly what I wanted was Fvwm." Now I'm feeling a bit guilty about the title of this thread

I think I got halfway there and if I made the other half, I would of had an excellent desktop I could of use for years without ever thinking about. Thanks for the info. I had high hopes for Fvwm and think it has lots of great ideas you don't find anywhere else.

[Snap]

I guess I should give it another chance. I had it on vsido for a short while along with fluxbox and didn't liked it too much. But what DE oe WM appears to be any good on it's defaults or thereabouts? fvwm will be my next stop whenever i consider my new-old toy (openbox) tweaked enough.

[hudson]

highly recommended you check it out, but make sure you put aside 2-3 weeks with nothing to do before you venture down that rabbit hole

[Snap]

I guess so. That's the impression I had when I started to tweak it.

[PackRat]

Start with this if you're new[ish] to fvwm

[hudson]

Knuth has his config file with lots of notes online:

http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/programs/.fvwm2rc
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/screen.jpeg

and four icons bottom of this page:
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/programs.html

[Snap]

Thanks guys. I think I will start sooner than expected. I have OpenBox almost done.

[hudson]

well, just to throw a quote of yours (from another thread) back at you:

We'll be waiting for it to happen. You know that, don't you?

[Snap]

   Working a bit on clappsmenu right now. Next stop fvwm.