Subject: FVWM: bugs / suggestions (feedback welcome)

From: [email-masked] (Benedikt Heinen)
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 14:15:03 +0200 (MET DST)

Hi there,

I'd definately like SOME feedback about those ideas. How do others think about
them? Are there already people at work implementing at least some of those
ideas?

If I somehow find enough time, then I'll start with work on the Smartplacement
things myself - but that will definately take a while... [I've to do lots of
overhours at the moment].

FVWM bugs?

 * From time to time when a window closes the mouse cursor becomes round
   shaped and I need to press a mouse button to transfrom the cursor back
   to normal and to become able to continue to work.
	Happens on	Linux 1.2.13, 1.3.70, 1.3.81  (all ELF)
			+ XFree 3.1.2

	and on		AIX 4.1.1

	with		fvwm2.0.40 & 2.0.41

 * When I use maximize on AIX from time to time the window-to-be-maximzed
   at first does so but then immediately kills the whole application...
   (happens with different applications, most of which ought to be able
    to cope with that resizing, i.e. Netscape, xterm, ...)
   Oh - this bug only occurs if Maximize should only maximze one dimension
   (Maximize vertical -- 'Maximize 0 100')...

 * Bug or change in a feature. In fvwm1 if I have autoraise enabled and 
   enter AND leave a window beofre auto-raise tkaes effect, then the window
   where I moved through kep focus (SloppyFocus), but it was not raised, 
   since I already left the window. fvwm2 raises the window anyway if it
   doesn't lose it's focus before auto-raise comes into effect.
   (Personally I'd like the old way much better, but if other people think
    of that differently, at least make that configurable!)

FVWM Wishlist:

 * Improve Smartplacement (I have several ideas for possible improvements):

   - if there is not enough room to place a window somewhere where it doesn't
     obstruct anything, then at least use as much free space for the new 
     window as possible and only partly (as little as possible) overlap with
     other windows.

   - I'd like a configuration option that allows for certain windows to be
     ignored with regards to Smartplacement (I do not mean that those should
     not be Smartplaced, but rather that the Smartplacing algorithm ignores
     the presence of those windows while finding free space on the desktop).
     For instance, I'd like the pager to be left out - the pager is pretty
     small and on the top right of the screen (the only window automatically
     placed there), and since it is pretty small and configured StaysOnTop,
     I'd like that window's presence to be ignored with the Smartplacement
     as it will not pose a serious problem there, as it will only overlap 
     the Maximize/Iconify buttons in the window border...

   - I'd like to have Smartplacement look for various places on the screen
     and find the best one out of those (it occured several times that the
     Smartplacement placed a window in a way that it cut the available free 
     space virtually in half, where it would have been possible to place 
     the window in a way, so that it only left one huge block of free space
     on the desktop rather than two smaller ones...

   - I'd need to really try it, but at least I'd like to see Smartplacement
     also taking into account free space on other virtual screens, so that
     it it doesn't have enough space on one screen, that it just places the
     window on another one that has enough space left. I think this could 
     also be nuisant that if for instance netscape opens a popup box, then
     that one ought to stay on the same screen rather than to switch to 
     another one, so this suggestion is mainly directed at new applications
     opening their first window.

   - (this also goes for Randomplacement) Would it be possible to mark an
     area of the screen that is automatically left out for window placement
     as long as possible (as long as possible means, that this area will 
     of course be used if a window is maximized or a window is too big
     to fit on the rest of the screen). This would mainly be interesting 
     to keep the IconBox free...

 * I'd like to give different configurations for edge resistance, i.e. I
   like an easy movement over to other screens, but then the edge resistance
   is far too little when it comes to resizing a window, which I want to
   resize so that it just goes to the screen border - if I don't do that 
   quickly enough the pointer will then immdiately flip over to the
   neighbouring screen.

 * Keep track of window focussing on the different screens (maybe even the
   mouse pointer position if I leave/enter a screen with a key-combination
   instead of moving the mouse out of the screen area.

Otherwise, keep up the good work and apart from that auto-raise change I like
fvwm2 a great deal better than fvwm1...

yours,
	Benedikt

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