5:23 p.m.
So I've been going around upgrading users from various older RedHat
versions and the number one issue that that bring up seems to be
"metacity won't do what I want it to".
It's been trying to insist that things are better when seemingly simple
GUI functionality isn't there. I understand that there's a desire to
keep the default setting simple in order to avoid the bad old days of
nightmarishly complex configuration files, but are there any plans to
add back some of the functionality that people (especially people who
got used to sawfish) now expect from their window manager?
I'm considering bugzilla-ing a feature request or two in the right
place, but I seem to remember that there may be some artificial or
political restrictions on this issue.
Some of the commonly missed functionality people have bemoaned to me:
* click-to-raise on windows (NOT auto-raise)
* maximize-vertical
* always-on-top for a particular window/app
* scroll to next desktop with mouse motion
* the ability to easily choose an alternate window manager
5:48 p.m.
Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
Some of the commonly missed functionality people have bemoaned to me:
* click-to-raise on windows (NOT auto-raise)
What exactly is this? I thought metacity *did* click to raise.
* maximize-vertical
Might be nice.
* always-on-top for a particular window/app
Nice feature. Wish metacity had it.
* scroll to next desktop with mouse motion
If you are talking 'active borders' here, it has got to be the most
obnoxious, confusing, guaranteed to make a Linux-Hater out of any newbie
"feature" that I have ever encountered.
* the ability to easily choose an alternate window manager
switchdesk->KDE? ,'-)
5:54 p.m.
Steve Bergman wrote:
> * click-to-raise on windows (NOT auto-raise)
What exactly is this? I thought metacity *did* click to raise.
It seems to require that you click on the menubar.
Clicking in a terminal or other window does nothing that I can tell.
You can choose to click-to-focus, but I hate that sooooo much.
If you are talking 'active borders' here, it has got to be
the most
obnoxious, confusing, guaranteed to make a Linux-Hater out of any newbie
"feature" that I have ever encountered.
It never bothered me in fvwm, although there have been some lousy
implementations.
> * the ability to easily choose an alternate window manager
>
switchdesk->KDE? ,'-)
Isn't that almost like suggesting switching to another OS?
6:26 p.m.
Perhaps it was a poor implementation. Enlightenment? Sawmill? Can't
remember which, I just remember a lot of bouncing back and forth and
back and forth and back and forth between desktops without meaning to
switch desktops at all. As I recall, if you hit the right hand border
it would kick you to the next window and if you did not imediately move
the mouse to the right it would blink you back, and then if you did not
immediately move the mouse to the left, it would kick you back to the
right and and then you didn't know which way to move the mouse at any
given instant and... and... and... Norman! Coordinate!
The switchdesk comment was a joke. However, KDE does have at least
some of the features you are asking for. I love the simplified Gnome
2.4, but Meaticty could probably do with a few more features. Always on
top really would be nice at times.
6:28 p.m.
On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 03:54:38PM -0800, Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
Steve Bergman wrote:
>>* click-to-raise on windows (NOT auto-raise)
>What exactly is this? I thought metacity *did* click to raise.
It seems to require that you click on the menubar.
Clicking in a terminal or other window does nothing that I can tell.
If I recall correctly, pressing ALT while cliking on the window (anywhere)
will raise it.
Regards,
Luciano Rocha
7:07 p.m.
Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha wrote:
> If I recall correctly, pressing ALT while cliking on the window
> (anywhere)
> will raise it.
Testing.... nope.
It works for me, Bevan. I used left ALT, then clicked smack dab in the
center of the window. Bang! Popped to the top.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer rstevens(a)vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc. http://www.vitalstream.com -
- -
- Death is nature's way of dropping carrier -
----------------------------------------------------------------------
12:47 p.m.
Rick Stevens wrote:
Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
> Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha wrote:
>
>> If I recall correctly, pressing ALT while cliking on the window
>> (anywhere)
>> will raise it.
> Testing.... nope.
It works for me, Bevan. I used left ALT, then clicked smack dab in the
center of the window. Bang! Popped to the top.
Aha! You're activating the "move window" shortcut from 'Window
Preferences". I'd changed mine from the default Alt to the otherwise
pointless windows logo key, which is why it wasn't working.
Excellent... this is probably an acceptable workaround for the users.
6:50 p.m.
On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 23:23, Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
* click-to-raise on windows (NOT auto-raise)
Other options: hold the Alt key and click the window. Click the
window's thumbnail in the pager. Program keyboard shortcuts.
Search the mailing lists and you'll find a very detailed explanation (I
think from Havoc) why this is the way it is.
* maximize-vertical
Main Menu -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts
* always-on-top for a particular window/app
Metacity has a wonderful Kiosk mode (Toggle Full Screen) if you program
the keyboard shortcut for it. Focus a window, hit the keyboard
shortcut, and that window is given the entire screen. Yes, I know,
that's probably not what you want.
* scroll to next desktop with mouse motion
For moving Windows between workspaces you can drag and drop windows
between workspaces in the pager. There are also keyboard shortcuts to
switch to desktops, move focused windows between desktops, show windows
on all desktops, etc.
* the ability to easily choose an alternate window manager
Main Menu -> Preferences -> (More Preferences ->) Sessions
Select the Current Session tab. Highlight metacity and click the remove
button. Click the Apply button. Main Menu -> Run and type whatever
command starts the window manager you prefer. Once its running select
it in the Session manager, change Style to Restart, and click the apply
button.
--
David Norris
http://www.webaugur.com/dave/
ICQ - 412039
12:56 p.m.
David L Norris wrote:
On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 23:23, Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
>* click-to-raise on windows (NOT auto-raise)
Other options: hold the Alt key and click the window. Click the
window's thumbnail in the pager. Program keyboard shortcuts.
Clicking in concert with the 'Windows Move" key is acceptable.
The other options were not considered acceptable by the end users ("my
mouse is over the window I want now - I don't want to go mouse elsewhere
or let go to type something").
>* maximize-vertical
Main Menu -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts
No such option exists in that menu.
I got that user to be reasonably happy by setting his default
gnome-terminal size to be full-height, reducing the need to perform said
maximization.
>* always-on-top for a particular window/app
Metacity has a wonderful Kiosk mode (Toggle Full Screen) if you program
the keyboard shortcut for it. Focus a window, hit the keyboard
shortcut, and that window is given the entire screen. Yes, I know,
that's probably not what you want.
That's handy to know, though. Especially for presentations.
>* the ability to easily choose an alternate window manager
Main Menu -> Preferences -> (More Preferences ->) Sessions
Select the Current Session tab. Highlight metacity and click the remove
button. Click the Apply button. Main Menu -> Run and type whatever
command starts the window manager you prefer. Once its running select
it in the Session manager, change Style to Restart, and click the apply
button.
Have you actually tried this? I tried to switch someone to sawfish in
this manner.
First problem: you have to set metacity to not be automatically
restarted when it dies (the default) or it just comes back.
Next problem: Windows would not-quite-randomly move around
(occassionally of the edge of the screen) when switching between desktops.
That's not a metacity problem, I know.
All in all, things aren't looking as bad as I thought... I'll start
writing up a local 'metacity tips' page.
3:38 p.m.
On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 12:56, Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
David L Norris wrote:
> Main Menu -> Preferences -> (More Preferences ->) Sessions
>
> Select the Current Session tab. Highlight metacity and click the
remove
> button. Click the Apply button. Main Menu -> Run and type whatever
> command starts the window manager you prefer. Once its running
select
> it in the Session manager, change Style to Restart, and click the
apply
> button.
Have you actually tried this? I tried to switch someone to sawfish in
this manner.
First problem: you have to set metacity to not be automatically
restarted when it dies (the default) or it just comes back.
To go to sawfish, you should be able to open a terminal window and use:
killall metacity; sawfish &
then
gnome-session-save
That worked for me when I was experimenting with using a different WM
under GNOME due to the discussed Metacity issues. You can of course
replace the 'sawfish &' with whatever WM command you wish.
I did not like sawfish, so then I tried XFWM4. However there are issues
with gnome-panel positioning using that. The bugs are known and in
Bugzilla. It was a strut issue as I recall.
Thus, I made the full transition to XFCE4 and Rox, which I like and have
stayed with. In fact in just the past few days, I stopped using the Rox
pinboard (for desktop icons) and used MenuMaker to create an XML
'right-click' xfdesktop menu structure. I now have a clean desktop, with
a single XFCE main panel and am using the XFCE iconbox (rather than the
XFCE taskbar). This can also be set to only show minimized apps and from
all or only the current desktop.
It all works well and is fast.
For those curious, I uploaded two screen captures, the first my 'clean'
XFCE4 desktop, the second with a few windows open. The open windows show
the WM theme, the GTK2 theme, the XFCE settings manager and a Rox filer
window using the latest Crystal SVG MIME theme icons (manually
configured via Rox) and of course the iconbox in the LR corner. BTW, the
wallpaper is from kde-look.org.
A different "look" for FC1.
If anyone has any questions, let me know. These are 1600 x 1200 (UXGA)
images:
1. http://www.medanalytics.com/Screenshot-1.png
2. http://www.medanalytics.com/Screenshot-2.png
I'll leave these up for a while.
HTH,
Marc Schwartz
3:45 p.m.
Marc Schwartz wrote:
To go to sawfish, you should be able to open a terminal window and
use:
killall metacity; sawfish &
then
gnome-session-save
The first three times I tried that it failed because metacity restarted
before sawfish started.
The fourth time it worked.
Apparantly, however, my troubled user went and put in their own private
installation of IceWM (which I haven't tried or seen personally) which
allegedly is playing nicer with Gnome than sawfish was, and does all the
little things he wanted. *sigh* He understands that he's now officially
unsupported and on his own.
I've decided I like the alt+click to raise a window better than the
'original' click-to-raise, because it doesn't pass the click through to
the underlying application (which often caused trouble).
4:09 p.m.
On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 15:45, Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
Marc Schwartz wrote:
> To go to sawfish, you should be able to open a terminal window and use:
>
> killall metacity; sawfish &
>
> then
>
> gnome-session-save
The first three times I tried that it failed because metacity restarted
before sawfish started.
The fourth time it worked.
I have seen variations on the above command with a 'sleep 10;' command
prior to the 'sawfish &', but I do not know if that makes a big
difference. I never had a problem with MC restarting....could just be me
though...
Apparantly, however, my troubled user went and put in their own
private
installation of IceWM (which I haven't tried or seen personally) which
allegedly is playing nicer with Gnome than sawfish was, and does all the
little things he wanted. *sigh* He understands that he's now officially
unsupported and on his own.
There were some virtual desktop issues with Sawfish as I recall, which
were moderately frustrating.
LOL. Life would be boring (if not easier) if folks actually followed
support policy....
;-)
I've decided I like the alt+click to raise a window better than
the
'original' click-to-raise, because it doesn't pass the click through to
the underlying application (which often caused trouble).
I like the focus follows mouse functionality (but not raise), which fits
with the way I tend to work on a desktop. However, the change in
Metacity behavior to force one to have to click on the window
decorations to raise the window was frustrating, especially if you tend
to use a "thin" WM theme. Having to press yet another key, for me, adds
to the work flow.
That is (one of the reasons) why I went to XFWM4. It can be configured
in a variety of ways. For more info on the WM settings, you can review
the XFWM4 online documentation here:
http://members.home.nl/xfce4/documentation/xfwm4.html
The good news in all of this is that we have choices...
HTH,
Marc
6:09 p.m.
Marc Schwartz wrote:
That is (one of the reasons) why I went to XFWM4. It can be
configured
in a variety of ways. For more info on the WM settings, you can review
the XFWM4 online documentation here:
http://members.home.nl/xfce4/documentation/xfwm4.html
The good news in all of this is that we have choices...
My preferred alternate WM, by the way, is fvwm. I've used it off and on
ever since it came out.
4:19 p.m.
On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 21:45, Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
> killall metacity; sawfish &
That's exactly the way you don't want to do it because metacity will
keep restarting.
I've decided I like the alt+click to raise a window better than
the
'original' click-to-raise, because it doesn't pass the click through to
the underlying application (which often caused trouble).
Exactly. And you can do useful things like use the selection buffer
without raising the source window.
--
David Norris
http://www.webaugur.com/dave/
ICQ - 412039
4:07 p.m.
On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 18:56, Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
>>* maximize-vertical
> Main Menu -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts
No such option exists in that menu.
It should look like this when Metacity is running:
http://webaugur.com/bibliotheca/linux/gnome-keybinding-properties.png
> Select the Current Session tab. Highlight metacity and click
the remove
> button. Click the Apply button. Main Menu -> Run and type whatever
> command starts the window manager you prefer. Once its running select
> it in the Session manager, change Style to Restart, and click the apply
> button.
Have you actually tried this? I tried to switch someone to sawfish in
this manner.
Yes.
First problem: you have to set metacity to not be automatically
restarted
It won't restart if you highlight metacity, click remove, click apply.
Metacity is removed from session management and killed. Then run
sawfish. sawfish will appear in the session management listing.
Highlight sawfish, change the style to Restart, and click apply. I just
switched between Metacity and Sawfish 3 times like I described to make
sure its consistent. I also killed sawfish to make sure it restarts.
The main annoyance is that the run dialog won't always get focus without
a window manager running. This prevents you from typing the "sawfish"
command. (You can click the "Run with file" button and navigate to
/usr/bin/sawfish or /usr/bin/metacity.) I suppose you could start the
run dialog first, type the command, remove the window manager, then
click OK on the run dialog.
Also, gnome-session only works with window managers that support session
management. For example, you can't swap out metacity for kwin or twm
using this method. (But you can remove metacity and start kwin or twm
on the startup tab. I just did this with kwin to see if it would
work.) I just discovered that switching twm turns out to be a horrible
mistake when running GNOME. ;-)
--
David Norris
http://www.webaugur.com/dave/
ICQ - 412039
6:07 p.m.
David L Norris wrote:
On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 18:56, Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
>>>* maximize-vertical
>>
>>Main Menu -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts
>
>No such option exists in that menu.
It should look like this when Metacity is running:
http://webaugur.com/bibliotheca/linux/gnome-keybinding-properties.png
So it does... I must have looked through that menu a dozen times,
looking specifically for that option, and missed it every time.
I obviously need more sleep.
1:03 p.m.
David L Norris wrote:
On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 23:23, Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
>* the ability to easily choose an alternate window manager
Main Menu -> Preferences -> (More Preferences ->) Sessions
Select the Current Session tab. Highlight metacity and click the remove
button. Click the Apply button. Main Menu -> Run and type whatever
command starts the window manager you prefer. Once its running select
it in the Session manager, change Style to Restart, and click the apply
button.
Yes, but Bevan said "easily". :)
--
Matt
Matthew Zimmerman
Interdisciplinary Biophysics, University of Virginia
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~mdz4c/
4:13 p.m.
On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 19:03, Matthew Zimmerman wrote:
Yes, but Bevan said "easily". :)
Well, "easily" is relative. Normal people don't know that a window
manager exists let alone care which one they are using. My mother would
totally freak out and hide the computer under her bed if the look of her
windows were to be changed. Having "window manager" as an option in
some easily found preference would probably be far worse than the
inconvenience of having to learn how to properly use the session
manager.
--
David Norris
http://www.webaugur.com/dave/
ICQ - 412039
5:03 p.m.
David L Norris wrote:
On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 19:03, Matthew Zimmerman wrote:
>Yes, but Bevan said "easily". :)
Well, "easily" is relative. Normal people don't know that a window
manager exists let alone care which one they are using. My mother would
totally freak out and hide the computer under her bed if the look of her
windows were to be changed. Having "window manager" as an option in
some easily found preference would probably be far worse than the
inconvenience of having to learn how to properly use the session
manager.
Certainly it is relative, and certainly, changing window managers is
something that only `power' (and not `normal') users will want to do. I
agree with you on that.
I am a little concerned, though, that the solution the GNOME folks have
chosen lay dangerously close to the ``weld the hood shut'' mentality. I
don't know about you, but if I want to change the window manager and I
didn't know how to go about doing it, the first thought that comes to
mind is not the session manager. I'd look through the preferences menu,
or poke about in .gnome2/, or maybe look through the GConf database.
But no. The real solution is ``kill the old window manager and hope that
you get the new one started before GNOME realizes you've killed it and
tries to restart nautilus, and *only* nautilus, since it's hard-coded
somewhere into the system''. That seems incredibly hacky to me. I've had
problems doing this, not to mention problems with sessions getting
broken or corrupted and having to do it all over again.
I understand the logic of wanting to keep desktop configuration simple.
But this sort of thing doesn't have to have a pretty little GUI. If they
would just put a key into GConf ('default_window_manager' =
'/usr/bin/metacity', or something), that would be worlds better (IMHO).
Your mom doesn't use gconf-editor much, does she?
--
Matt
Matthew Zimmerman
Interdisciplinary Biophysics, University of Virginia
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~mdz4c/
6:55 p.m.
On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 19:23, Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
So I've been going around upgrading users from various older
RedHat
versions and the number one issue that that bring up seems to be
"metacity won't do what I want it to".
I started down the "let's make Metacity more configurable road" and
finally decided, "hey, you know what? GNOME doesn't *force* me to use
Metacity!" So I don't. I switched to xfwm4 (the XFCE window manager),
and I'm totally happy[*].
[*]OK, not *totally* happy. I don't like the way xfwm4's alt-tab works
(it cycles through the panel windows, and it appears to block audio and
visual events while it's cycling (e.g., hold down alt-tab too long and
xmms stops playing), and I can't get it to remember how many workspaces
I have). Other than those two minor things, I'm *totally* happy. :-)
Ben
--
Ben Steeves _ bcs(a)metacon.ca
The ASCII ribbon campaign ( ) ben.steeves(a)unb.ca
against HTML e-mail X GPG ID: 0xB3EBF1D9
http://www.metacon.ca/ascii / \ Yahoo Messenger: ben_steeves
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20 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
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Ben Steeves -
Bevan C. Bennett -
David L Norris -
Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha -
Marc Schwartz -
Matthew Zimmerman -
Rick Stevens -
Steve Bergman