Subject: FVWM: opaque/rubber moving compared to mwm

From: John Smith <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 02:38:05 -0800

Okay, so now that I'm using 2.4.6, I definitely see opaque/rubber band window
moving faster than the previous release.  As a user with a cluttered desktop,
sometimes opaque window moving slows down quite a bit (but still a lot better
than other WMs I must say).  However, the fastest opaque moving I have seen
from any window manager is by far in mwm.

I took a bit of time and wanted to try opaque window moving, and I was
surprised.  I had like 30 different applications open on one screen (like
xdaliclock, xclock, xbiff, xterm, xmessage etc), and moving windows with lots
of graphics over top of all these other programs showed no signs of slowing
down the movement.  The same testing done on fvwm2 showed noticeable slow
down.  Maybe since openmotif is open sourced, you guys could borrow some of
their code if anyone cares.  This is just a thought anyhow.  Unfortunately,
I'm short of programming skills.  I don't understand how all these different
window managers can be so different with moving around a window, but I'll
leave my ignorance about X for you guys to answer :-)

And if you don't believe me, try mwm, and set this in Xresources:

mwm*moveOpaque: true

and do the testing

Btw, their non-opaque window moving is nice as well.  What do you think if
there would be a configurable way of telling fvwm how to draw non-opaquely,
but defaulting to the traditional rubber-band method.  Maybe this could be a
separate module.  So instead of a box with bands crossing each other, you
could have a rectangle with lines of configurable thickness like in mwm.
Maybe there's other ways you could handle the moving of a window as well.  I'm
sure it's possible you could add an extra configuration for such a thing while
maintaining compatability and defaulting to the old rubber band movement stuff
if you wouldn't do it in a separate module.

If anyone takes this seriously, please respond and tell me what you think.  I
realize you guys only do development on this WM as a side thing when you have
free time and that it's voluntary.  If I took up more programming with X, I
would do it myself.  I'm only telling this from a user's standpoint though,
and I hope fvwm2 only becomes a better WM.

PS: I am not bashing fvwm2, because I really do like it.  It is now more than
ever my favorite WM and you guys are wonderful.

Thanks

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---

From: Marcus Lundblad <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 12:50:15 +0100 (CET)

My guess is that this (at least in part) is because Fvwm is more complex
and thus thus has more code that is run during move.

//Marcus

---

From: John Smith <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 15:02:05 -0800

On Sun, Mar 17, 2002 at 07:02:43PM +0100, Dominik Vogt wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 17, 2002 at 02:38:05AM -0800, John Smith wrote:
> In general, mwm will probably always be faster because it has
> almost no features.  Consider what fvwm does when moving a window:
> 
>  - Move the window
>  - Handle keyboard events.
>  - Handle lots of funny modifier key combinations.
>  - Use the SnapGrid
>  - Uses SnapAttraction
>  - Uses EdgeResistance
>  - Handles paging
> 
> Some of this requires communication with the X server which is the
> main time consuming factor (even on a local machine).  On the
> other hand, as far as I know, mwm does this:
> 
>  - Move the window
> 
> That's not an excuse, but it partially explains things.
> 
> > down.
> Fvwm does extensive redrawing of the window frames (unless you
> enable the SaveUnder style that is).  This is exactly what I'm
> working at right now.  When I'm done, opaque motion will be
> lightning fast (at least as far as fvwm is concerned - I can't do
> anything about applications that redraw a lot).
> 

Ok, I understand that.  Applications do their own redrawing.  But are you
saying that redrawing the window borders is the *ONLY* bottleneck that fvwm
has with opaque window moving?

> > Maybe since openmotif is open sourced, you guys could borrow some of
> > their code if anyone cares.
> 
> Not unless we want to go back to the window manager stoneage ;-)
> There isn't much in the window motion code that can be optimised
> anymore (at least since I fixed that brain dead bug that slowed it
> down so badly).  The improvements have to be made in a different
> area: drawing the window borders.
> 
> > This is just a thought anyhow.  Unfortunately,
> The list above may explain it a bit.  Also, not every WM
> programmer cares much about the performance.
> 

I agree, useability would likely come before anything else.

> > if you wouldn't do it in a separate module.

Okay, maybe it was a silly idea, but I've seen some other WM's which have 3 or
4 different ways of doing non-opaque window moving, which might bloat fvwm2 a
little bit (which is why I thought of a module).  But I think one other method
for non-opaque in fvwm2 itself would be good.  Anyways, just for the record, I
compiled xmms 1.2.7, and it works perfect, no crashes on restarting fvwm2
the 20 or so times I tried restarting.  So if anyone else complains about it...

> 
> I'm not sure why one would need that in a module.  The code to
> talk with the module would be far more complicated that doing it
> in fvwm.  I'm not against it, but on my personal to-do list
> (sorted by importance) it would get number 387 ;-)
> 
> Bye
> 
> Dominik ^_^  ^_^
> 
>  --
> Dominik Vogt, [email-masked]
> Reply-To: [email-masked]

---

From: Andrew Haninger <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 17:27:36 -0500

> moving faster than the previous release.

After reading this last night, I decided to go ahead and try 2.4.6. I
was thinking "Oh, yeah, sure, it'll be faster...pfft! FVWM2 will always
be slow and choppy, and yet I will continue to love it and hate it."

So, I downloaded it... and configured it... and make'ed it... and
installed it... and tried it... and... WOAH! It really *IS* faster! Now
I can't stop wiggling the windows around! Someone pinch me!!!
Weeeheeheeheeee!!!

*ahem*

Yup, it's faster. And I like it. Thanks Dominik!

> ever my favorite WM and you guys are wonderful.

Yes, thank you for allowing me to use my computer at home (Celeron 600 -
Radeon VE), wishing it had the "performance" of my slower Win2000 box
(PII-400 - ATI Rage 3D) at work.

I think I may now actually see some performance increase from the
preemtibility patches for Linux.

Again, thanks Dominik and all the rest of the FVWM developers.

Andy

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 19:02:43 +0100

- Move the window

 - Move the window

Bye

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 21:46:42 +0100

> Yup, it's faster. And I like it. Thanks Dominik!

Also if we can't always help - we do take *every* complaint
seriously.  Sometimes things do not work out as smoothly as they
should, but that does not means we are ignoring them.

Bye

Dominik ^_^  ^_^