Subject: FVWM: FVWM Form for restarting?

From: John Palmieri <[email-masked]>
Date: 16 Oct 1996 11:45:44 -0400

I have a question about FvwmForm.  I want to write a form for
restarting using another window manager--I want a window to pop up,
with little boxes I can check labeled "fvwm2", "twm", "olwm",
whatever, and then when I check one off, I want to restart using the
appropriate window manager.  

I tried writing such a form, which I called RestartWM.  It has lines
like

  *RestartWMSelection	WM	single
  *RestartWMChoice	WM	fvwm2	on "fvwm2"
  *RestartWMChoice	WM	twm	off "twm"
  *RestartWMChoice	WM	uwm	off "uwm"

and

  *RestartWMButton       quit "Restart"  ^M
  *RestartWMCommand 	Restart $(WM) $(Custom?$(WMOther))

But this last line doesn't work; no matter what I do, I always end up
with fvwm2 running.  I suspect the problem is explained by the second
paragraph in the following passage from the Fwvm man page:

     Restart  WindowManagerName
          Causes fvwm to restart itself if  WindowManagerName  is
          "fvwm2", or to switch to an alternate window manager if
          WindowManagerName is other than "fvwm2".  If the window
          manager  is  not  in your default search path, then you
          should use the full path name for WindowManagerName.

          This command should not have a  trailing  ampersand  or
          any  command  line arguments and should not make use of
          any environmental variables.  Of  the  following  exam-
          ples,  the  first two are sure losers, but the third is
          OK:

               Key F1 R N Restart fvwm &
               Key F1 R N Restart $(HOME)/bin/fvwm
               Key F1 R N Restart /home/nation/bin/fvwm

So, is there a way to write this FvwmForm thing to get around this
difficulty?

-------------------------------------------------------------
John H. Palmieri
Department of Mathematics, M.I.T.
[email-masked]

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---

From: Richard Lister <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 10:42:15 +0100

On 16 Oct 1996 11:45:44 -0400
John Palmieri <[email-masked]> 
> appropriate window manager.  

Don't know about your FvwmForm problem, but you could try using the
xsession program instead (available from your local X mirror). You run
it as the last client in .xinitrc or .xsession, or whatever X startup
file you use, and it starts a window manager and manages your session:
e.g.
  xsession -defaultWM fvwm2
is the last line in my .xsession.

It then provides a pulldown menu of window managers you can switch between.

Another big advantage of using xsession is not using the WM itself to
manage the session. This means when you make an erroneous change to
your .fvwm2rc and fvwm2 won't start, you still get X running and can
select another WM while you debug the problem.

Ric

Richard J. Lister, Research Assistant    
Neural Computing Research Group, Aston University
[email-masked] 
http://www.ncrg.aston.ac.uk/~listerrj/ 
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To unsubscribe from the list, send "unsubscribe fvwm" in the body of a
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To report problems, send mail to [email-masked].