Subject: StartsOnPage patch - update

From: Bob Woodside <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 00:17:03 -0400 (EDT)

The latest version of the StartsOnPage patch has been running
smoothly on my system for about a week now, so I think it's ready for
general consumption. It includes the PlacementIsAlwaysWickedSmart 
feature: now all of the placement routines -- Smart, Dumb, Clever, 
Indifferent -- can handle placement on a target page that may not
be the currently mapped viewport, so that StartsOnPage works 
intelligently with SkipMapping. 

        At this point, I believe it is functionally complete. Possibly
more than complete, as I imagine some of the GlobalOpts options could
stand to be removed. I foresee no further changes other than cosmetic
code cleanup - unless Chuck (or anyone testing it) has any suggestions.

        As usual, the current version of the patch can be fetched from

    http://www.pcnet.com/~proteus/Fvwm/FvwmPatches.html

        Cheers,
        Bob

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---

From: Steve Robbins <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 10:27:29 -0400 (EDT)

Hi,

I've been happily using fvwm for a couple of years now.  

Quite a while ago, while installing, I saw this note: "In theory, this
stuff can be replaced with GNU Autoconf"; and thought to myself, "good,
next time I install, I won't have to wade through configure.h to see what
needs to be changed".

The next time I installed, the note was still there, but a configure
script wasn't. 

Recently, I became a part-time sysadmin again.  The lab has about a
jillion different OSes, each with their own window manager; meaning that I
have to switch modes each time I sit down at the computer, even though I'm
using the same tools.  Not to mention the annoyance in keeping all the
various configurations in synch.  I figured I'd just install fvwm on each,
for a more uniform setup. 

Then I discovered that autoconf still hasn't made it to fvwm.  So I
thought, "why spend a few minutes editing the config files for each OS,
when I can spend hours and hours making fvwm auto-configurable?" :-)

I checked the list archives and see that autoconf comes up on the list
once in a while.  However, the lack of configuration scripts would suggest
that the real hackers are busy with other, more interesting, things.  

So, I've joined the list to sound out the prospects of making fvwm
autoconfigurable.  I will also be happy to help out.

I have tried a couple times before to retrofit existing packages into the
automake/autoconf scheme. My experience has been that maintainers
typically have other priorities, and learning how to use autoconf falls
rather low on the list.  

Ultimately, whether or not fvwm adopts GNU autoconfigure depends on the
maintainers.  So, a dialogue is needed to find out whether there is
support or opposition to the scheme.  Probably that will depend on how
much work is involved for them.  :)  

If nobody else has done it yet, I'm quite willing to do a bunch of the
grunt work: generating configure.in, and the makefile stuff.  However, it
needs to be tested, etc, and eventually the maintainers will have to be
comfortable with editing the Makefile.am's (akin to Imakefiles).

So: what is the state of autoconfigure for fvwm?  If someone has done the
work, I'll be happy to test it at my lab :).  If not:  I hacked on it for
a couple hours last night.  However, it's not done yet, and even when it
is, it will be very rough; hence it will need brave souls to test. :)

---

From: Greg Badros <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 Sep 1997 09:29:09 -0700

The fvwm95 folks have an autoconf version.  That would be a good
starting place (look at the diffs between the autoconf and the xmkmf
versions that they distribute, and reapply [probably by hand] to fvwm2).

I think it's a worthwhile goal.  See 
http://www.terraware.net/ftp/pub/Mirrors/FVWM95/fvwm95.html
for the fvwm95 versions.

Greg J. Badros
[email-masked]
Seattle, WA  USA
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/gjb