[Thread Prev][Thread Next]   >Date Index >Thread Index

[wmx] Why I use wmx (was: Resize-thingy-bug)

Lasse Rasinen - Tue Apr 20 18:50:08 1999

Jason Smith <jason@artcomp-design.com> writes:

<about developing wmx>
> it seems not a great many of us here are :)

For background info, I like to occasionally hack wmx source for learning
purposes and for the sheer hell of it.

> My attraction to wmx is that is so noninvasive... I dont want a
> filemanager on my desktop, I can easily launch one when I need it and
> don't find the need that often. I also dont care for elaborate menus. I
> only use 3 or 4 things often enough to warrant easy access... everything
> else is worth the extra effort of having to actually type the name in an
> xterm. menu launch folders in a wm are silly. (IMHO) 

Agreed. My situation is quite similar. I use the middle-button root menu
mainly as a quick bookmark list, ie. it launches up browsers to selected
few sites. Then I pop up new xterms.

As for managing windows, I like to 1) move them around, 2) hide them, and
3) resize them. I hardly ever use channels, even if they are convinient.
(I usually realize, after the work is done, that using another channel for
task 1 and another channel for task 2 might have been more successful in
battling against chaos ;)

The reason I chose wmx and not some other wm might lie in configurability.
That's right, I prefer having all my options in one file without needing
to read miles of docs. With wmx there is only a limited number of options
(with reasonable defaults, the most important thing in any program) and
well, it just works.

I don't use dynamic config either, since I don't see a reason to change
my well working configs, but that's just me.

Part of the reason I was so squeamish when wmx-5 first came out with was
the reason it had some Sun-only things which I taught would lead to chaos
and having n+1 defines for different features in the source. Well, they
didn't and they don't bug me, so there.

> I'm sure you could emulate most of wmx in enlightenment and someone prolly
> already has written a theme to do it(?). Where does it leave wm(x)? with
> the challenge of offering more performance/less memory and something
> different enough to warrant it.

The source is small and nice. I taught myself lot of nice X tricks reading
and modifying the source. Most of the time the hacks didn't work, but
that's another learning experience. There's still a lot I don't
understand, so wmx will continue to be useful in the days to come.

Why do you others use wmx, then? Because of small memory footprint, the
coolness factor, usability or ...?


Next: