Subject: FVWM: FvwmTaskBar and Desktops

From: Bob van der Poel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 11:41:14 -0700

Hi. Just converted over to 2.2 after using fvwm95 for a few years. I'm
impressed by some of the neat options, etc.

One thing I've not been able to figure out is this. Using the fvwm95
task bar I set

	*FvwmTaskBarDeskOnly
	
However, this doesn't appear to work with the fvwm2 taskbar. I copied
the old fvwm95 taskbar module to my fvwm2 directory and this seems to be
okay. But I don't like to use modules from one wm for another...

Is there something I'm missing in the docs for the taskbar to get this
to work?

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  /  )      /         Bob van der Poel
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From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 20:57:04 +0200

> Is there something I'm missing in the docs for the taskbar to get this

Yes, you're reading the wrong docs ;-) The fvwm2 taskbar simply doesn't
have this option. The fvwm95 taskbar has some features the fvwm2 version
doesn't have. Probabply because the taskbar is much more important in a
Windoze clone. If anybody volunteers to merge the two taskbars I'll
happily put the new version into the fvwm sources.

Bye

Dominik ^_^

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Dominik Vogt, [email-masked]
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From: Bob van der Poel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 17:14:01 -0700

> Yes, you're reading the wrong docs ;-) The fvwm2 taskbar simply doesn't

Nope. Reading the right docs...and it isn't there. Just in my fvwm95rc
file.

> doesn't have. Probabply because the taskbar is much more important in a

Oh? I'm not sure. I use the task bar all the time (and have icons turned
off). I like the clean background screen with xearth running. What I
like is to have three or four pages all running separate xterms. Then,
for development I just click the task bar to switch between editors,
etc. Ummm, if you don't use a task bar, how do you do this? Surely
bringing up the window list is much slower. And keeping all the windows
on one page is just messy. I'm certainly not a windows guy, so that's
not the reason I'm doing it this way....

> happily put the new version into the fvwm sources.

I will have a look at the differences between the two sources and see if
I can make sense of anything....no promises. If someone else wants to do
this, no problems.

I've been running the 95 taskbar for a few days and it appears to be
find.

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 05:49:50 +0200

> not the reason I'm doing it this way....

First of all you assume that everybody makes extensive uas of the mouse.
I do 90% of the work with the keyboard. The one exception is changing
the focus and raising windows. I switch pages with Alt-Fn like Linux's
virtual consoles. On all but the first pages I have nearly screen filling
applications, so the mouse is almost always in the right window. If not
I have to move the mouse a bit (using SloppyFocus helps a lot) and definitely
less that if I'd move to the taskbar first. On the first page I run several
shells, an X console window and xemacs. Nothing I can't handle with a bit
of move-and-click. And if the window is obsured there's still my
FvwmIconMan in my FvwmButtons. Much smaller that a taskbar.

Anyway, I'm currently working on an easy solution to create sigle-key
shortcuts to all kinds of objects handled by a window manager (windows,
menus, functions). This should reduce mouse usage by another 80% or so.

> I can make sense of anything....no promises. If someone else wants to do

Great! Most of the time the biggest problem of such things getting done
is not *who* will do it but *when*.

> I've been running the 95 taskbar for a few days and it appears to be

There have been some changes to fvwm's module interface for some
advanced feature of the fvwm95 taskbar. In the best case they simply
won't work with fvwm2.

Bye

Dominik ^_^

-- 
Dominik Vogt, Hewlett-Packard GmbH, Dept. BVS
Herrenberger Str.130, 71034 Boeblingen, Germany
phone: 07031/14-4596, fax: 07031/14-3883, [email-masked]
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From: Hevard Fosseng <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 Mar 1999 07:12:08 +0200

> menus, functions). This should reduce mouse usage by another 80% or so.

Would you object to giving the list a sneak preview of the general ideas
involved? (You have made at least me curious. :-)) Invoking menus and
functions with key strokes is described in the man page, and windows are
also fairly staightforward:

AddToFunc Warp		I Next ($0) Iconify -1
+			I Next ($0) Raise
+			I Next ($0) Focus

Key d	A  4	Warp	XDvi
Key g	A  4	Warp	ghostview

- Håvard Fosseng

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 07:50:31 +0200

> also fairly staightforward:

The basic idea is to make it dynamic. For example you assign keys
F9 - F12 to be 'shortcut keys'. At first they are unbound (or
perhaps preloaded with a default). When you press shift-Fn the
currently focussed window is bound to Fn. Whenever you press
Fn now the viewport is switched to the page/desk with the window,
the window is raised, deiconified, unshaded and focused and the
pointer is moved into it. Something similar can be done with
menus, menu items and functions.

This is just a description of the basic ideas. Much of this can
be configured.

Bye

Dominik ^_^

---

From: Jim Nicholson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 09:16:09 -0500 (EST)

Bob,

I spent some time looking into the TaskBar module, and I've done some
work to replicate the functionality using FvwmButtons and
FvwmIconMan. See my web page (http://osiris.kosmic.org/~jim/) for a
screen shot and config file samples.

The only thing keeping my "taskbar" from being generic is that I need
to specify geometry to get it working on my screen, so as it stands
it's set up to be 1152 pixels wide. I imagine that could be overcome
with some M4 or cpp macros; I never run at any other resolution, so
I've never tackled it.

- Jim