Subject: FVWM: fvwm2: Please don't shoot (offensive win95 subject matter)

From: Michael Corrieri <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 May 1998 07:40:57 -0600

< Warning: Contains highly objectionable subject matter (win95)! >

Hmmm.

I just had to use my JBuilder again. I started mucking with the
configuration options in Win95. When you do this you can easily
understand why the public swallowed it whole.

a) Anybody (even a complete novice) can configure their Win95 machine.
Granted it is not as configurable as fvwm2, but it sure is easy.
b) Their menu system consists of a file manager window, referencing an
actual directory that represents the menu system. Simple drag and drop
stuff.
c) There are wysiwygs and gui tools for every thing in the system.
d) The registry is the "database" that contains info about everything,
system wide.

My wife is scared to death of my Intel Solaris at work.  At home, she
thinks linux is a great idea, but is clueless on how to use it. She
liked the fvwm2 when I made it look like a Mac. She was frustrated that
she could not figure out how to modify it.

A couple of years ago, when I installed Win95 for her, the very first
time she sat down she made the system look like a mac. All by herself,
day one. Pretty intuitive stuff. Not that I think the OS should look
like a Mac, but it kinda makes a point.

Just an observation.

--
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 [email-masked].
To report problems, send mail to [email-masked].

---

From: Brian Sayatovic <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 May 1998 10:48:29 -0400

I agree with the points you have made.  I hope the current group of people who
are pondering an overhaul of FVWM take this into consideration.  Perhaps if Fvwm
could gain a larger crowd it could reap more benefits of a larger crowd (more
development, perhaps money, etc.)  I know most Fvwm users are anti-Microsoft,
but you can't deny MS's success.

a) I too like Win95 because it is very easy to configure.  Yet, if you knwo what
you are doing, you can still alter the look fo it in advanced ways.  I remember
even in Windows 3.1, there was a third party application that would replace the
standard GUI buttons with custom ones you could edit.  Surely this is still
possible.  But the idea of an easily configurable OS is what will make it
popular.  Perhaps even simple plug-in schemes designed by the gurus that people
can tweak.

b) the mnenu system is great.  I tried to mimick this with Fvwm.  I created a
directory tree unfe rmy Fvwm configuration directory called menu.  In their, Is
tarted by making links to the programs or scripts I would execute, or making
simple sccript wwrappers in place.  I had an perl script that was read in
through FvwmPipe that travereded this directory making a menu tree as it went. 
It worked fairly well until I wanted to add custom mini icons, and created a
small etxt foile for each one.  It last its cleanliness then.

c) I've seen people try to do this for unix, but fail miserably.  These are more
than just wrappers to shell commands.

d) The registry is a good idea in some cases, and bad in others.  Primarily.,
thoguh, it is good because everything uses the same config format.  Just a few
simple data types properly arranged and do so much (kinda like DNA.) 
Unfortuneately, it makes it harder to go and rmeove a program by hand, and the
uninstall programs that supposedly do are not up to parf in my opinion.

Brian.

-- 
 ___________________________________________________________
|                                                           |
|  Brian Sayatovic                 (mailto:[email-masked])  |
|  International TechneGroup, Inc. (http://www.iti-oh.com)  |
|___________________________________________________________|
--
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 [email-masked].
To report problems, send mail to [email-masked].

---

From: [email-masked] (Paul D. Smith)
Date: 05 May 1998 12:06:08 -0400

%% Brian Sayatovic <[email-masked]> writes:

  bs> I agree with the points you have made.

The problem is that the features you're alluding to often work across
application boundaries and areas of responsibility in UNIX and X
windows.  This, I think, is a Good Thing, but it can make the seems look
more rough.

Things are really starting to come together with the advent of Gnome and
(although I don't like it on philosophical terms) KDE.  Spurred by Linux
development and groups like Debian and RedHat, I think you'll see a big
push towards full GUI configurability for many basic tools very soon.

Heck, RedHat 5 already has many GUI tools for doing standard sysadmin
stuff; I configured my printer, including solving the infamous
"stair-stepping output" problem, with a very easy-to-use little GUI app
and a few mouse clicks.

Someone posted a graphical tool for modifying window manager
configurations, that supported fvwm2.  You couldn't do everything, of
course, but you could do a reasonable amount of stuff.  I haven't used
it and I forget the name, but you might consider that.

Also, you can go look at tkgoodstuff which is an alternative to
FvwmButtons writtine in tcl/tk that is completely GUI-configurable: you
create buttons and popup menus, etc. and move them with drag-n-drop,
etc. etc.  Pretty simple to use, although FvwmButtons is more powerful.

  bs> b) the mnenu system is great.  I tried to mimick this with Fvwm.
  bs> I created a directory tree unfe rmy Fvwm configuration directory
  bs> called menu.  In their, Is tarted by making links to the programs
  bs> or scripts I would execute, or making simple sccript wwrappers in
  bs> place.  I had an perl script that was read in through FvwmPipe
  bs> that travereded this directory making a menu tree as it went.  It
  bs> worked fairly well until I wanted to add custom mini icons, and
  bs> created a small etxt foile for each one.  It last its cleanliness
  bs> then.

You should go look at wmconfig, created by someone at RedHat.  This tool
reads config files and generates menu output for various window
managers.  The idea is that tools ship with a wmconfig file and install
it when you install them, then the tools automatically appear on your
popup window (if you configure your WM to invoke wmconfig).  It allows
for mini-icons, etc. and is pretty nice--the next version will be even
better :).

Many of the RedHat RPM's come with these config files.

Anyway, I don't think most of this is correctly discussed in the fvwm
mailing lists; the right place to solve them isn't by adding more code
to fvwm, but creating tools which more seemlessly integrate existing
apps--this is a "desktop" concept.  I think you should go look at Gnome
and/or KDE, and see what they're up to.

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Paul D. Smith <[email-masked]>         Network Management Development
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     These are my opinions--Bay Networks takes no responsibility for them.
--
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 [email-masked].
To report problems, send mail to [email-masked].

---

From: brian moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 10:16:18 -0700

> it and I forget the name, but you might consider that.

The Dotfile Generator?  There's also FvwmConf.  The first is in Tcl/Tk,
the second in Perl/Tk.

> and/or KDE, and see what they're up to.

Well, the discussion here should be 'what is lacking from the module
interface to allow this', I think.  I'm reading over the X11::Fvwm
docs and can't think of anything offhand that would stop .fvwm2rc from
being just:

AddToFunc InitFunction		"I"	Module	FvwmPerlConfig
AddToFunc RestartFunction   "I" Module	FvwmPerlConfig

(or fvwmpython, or whatever....)

The Fvwm-insert-language-here-Config can build the menus, shove in
modules, retrieve a (hopefully cached :)) list of programs that it
wants to add to your menus, etc.

I think the main thing that needs to be done is a demonstration of
that, hopefully done in a portable way so that people can swap configs
of 'Looks' without having to install a ton of software and have menus
that reflect the software installed on their system.

In playing with Fvwm2 and AfterStep, the main things I'd like to see
for Fvwm2 would be 'nameable' Buttons, so that you could define a
button named 'Shade-Me' and have it be tied to Button4 on one config
and then move it to Button3 on another without having to run everything
through M4 or cpp.

Other than that, it's quite cool what you can do with the 'Read' command
and some standard functions like 'CleanUp' that delete all the special
things from a given config.  (I like AfterStep's "Look" and "Feel"
sets of menus and wanted to do something similar, but have it be more
complete: including moving buttons around, not just changing their
appearance.)

Oh, yeah, and maybe allow 'DestroyStyle *' to nuke all the styles. :)

-- 
Brian Moore                             Kill A Spammer For Jesus
Sysadmin, C/Perl Hacker, Usenet Vandal 
--
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 [email-masked].
To report problems, send mail to [email-masked].