Re: FVWM: Timeoutable activeplacement?

From: eyal elad <elad_at_CS.bgu.ac.il>
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 22:17:21 +0300 (IDT)

Good morning,

> This should be relatively easy to implement. Could even steal some code
> from the autoraise module...

<Gulp>? On what grounds? I mean, they both need timing, but what can there
be common to both? (OTOH, I hardly looked at the sources, and I know
almost nothing about X programming, so...)

> Which raises the question, Should there be a
> placement module? Can there be, if the server is grabbed during
> placement? Hmmmmm....

I have no idea regarding the second question... But here's a sad point
about all this modules stuff: The strongest AIZ that I can find at work
starts "No more proccesses"ing me after very few clients. I run
FvwmTaskBar (oh, yeah, didn't I mention it? I use fvwm95 20.42a) so it
comes to a point I start killing xbiffs and so one by one. This is one
disadvantage I see for using modules. Another thing is that starting a
module is still relatively slow. Often it takes 3 to 7 seconds for
FvwmIdentify to fire up. (This is on a range of machines: Pentium/Linux,
RS6000/AIX, SGIs/irix, Suns Sparcs & Ultras running SunOS and Solaris).

> > PS: Apparantly, ActivePlacemnt is not as smart as ctwm's? In ctwm you
> > can resize the window while placing it. Now _this_ is a productivity tool
> > IMO.

> This is a moldy oldie. It was first implemented (I believe), in uwm, the
> original window manager that was dropped starting X11R3. It is in twm and
> all derivatives, mwm, and a couple of others. Even xmag uses the same
> logic. Personally, I never used it, found it useless. However, to each
> his own....

Yap, even xmag. I was not around for X11R3. In fact, for quite some time
I thought "R5" was just a part of the name, and not a revision number...
At times it can be very useful, for example, when you spawn a new netscape
window with button-2, you can resize it to not hide your current reading
matirial. I also thought about (long ago) a combo move/resize module,
which will allow one to draw a rectangle on the screen (like you draw a
rectangle in a drawing program), and this changes a window's geometry at
once. Much quicker than moving-then-sizing when you want to take an
annoying window out of the way.

> Draw up a table of the mouse buttons, and the behavior that you expect for
> each. Might not be so hard.

Hmm, now that you mentioned xmag, I never quite got the grip of its button
selections. I would use:

- mouse movement = window movement

- button-1 down = nop

- button-1 release = accept geometry, show window

- button-2 drag = change window size. This moves a point which
is the original bottom-left corner, although you can make it any
other corner by dragging it to the right (ahem, left) place.

- button-3 click = I don't care where you put the window. Places the
window randomally or smartly out of the way.

- button-3 click while button-1 or -2 are down = toggle a flag,
which will cause the window to iconify as soon as we decide where we want
it.

I think it's a good set: Whatever you want to do with this window, it's
at most just one drag and one click away. Plus it let's you change your
mind, something that xmag, I think, won't let you do.

Yours,

 _
(_ / _ / ( E-mail pigeons nest in binary trees )
(__/__(/\_(/ http://www.cs.bgu.ac.il/~elad


--
Visit the official FVWM web page at <URL:http://www.hpc.uh.edu/fvwm/>.
To unsubscribe from the list, send "unsubscribe fvwm" in the body of a
message to majordomo_at_hpc.uh.edu.
To report problems, send mail to fvwm-owner_at_hpc.uh.edu.
Received on Sun Aug 10 1997 - 14:17:56 BST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Mon Aug 29 2016 - 19:38:00 BST