Olly Stephens:
> It's easy to see what benefit this would have to people adopting this style
> of layout.
That's what I think as well. I tried it for a day or two, and it can
be nice, but, personally, I use too many windows of varying sizes
(xterms, xcalc, exmh, editors, file managers, xconsole, xv, games;
I've all these open at this moment) for it to be comfortable. In
my experience, this style was suitable best when there were a lot of
independently used windows (i.e., there is no need to have many visible
at the same time).
My own solution is to use several virtual desktops (I have six: one for
system administration, one for mail/news/other comms, three for my three
most important projects, and one extra), and a per-desktop FvwmIconMan
(which I wish was included in the standard distribution). The FvwmIconMan
is really nice for finding a window among many. That and automatic
raising of the focused window are about the most important work boosters
from Fvwm (fiddling around with my .fvwm2rc is not :-). Oh, the built-in
window list is also nice, since it allows me to go directly to a window
on another desktop.
I'm not really a power user (I prefer "wannabe hacker"), so at the moment,
after two nights of using mostly e-mail, I only have 22 windows spread
on my desktops (one of them is completely empty). I can easily have more
than three times that, but usually I avoid it since the built-in window
list no longer fits on my screen (I usually close all editor windows
for one project when I stop working it for the day).
My work habits tend to encourage many windows -- I have xfm configured so
that it starts an editor when a file is double clicked, and a typical
project has a dozen or two files, most of which are edited or viewed
at the same time. Also my editor (my own; one of my projects :-) makes
it trivial to `clone' a window, i.e., to open a new window with the same
file and the same location as the old one (the cloning is done by a single
click -- no menus or anything). After trying many alternatives, this is
what I've landed on.
It could be improved. I'd like a Windows-like Alt-Tab and Alt-Shift-Tab
that circulate among windows, but re-order the list (or stack) so that the
new window is always brought to the top. This'd make it easier to
navigate without a mouse. Oh, and an optional status window would
probably be preferable than directly jumping to the window; I don't know.
(I don't like Windows as a whole, but it has some nice points in its
user interface.)
> 2. Don't you think it may look a little silly with fvwm's mwm-style 3d
> borders.
Personally, I prefer
Style "*" BorderWidth 1, HandleWidth 2, NoHandles
I used the borders only when resizing, and that's not common enough an
operation for me that I can't go select it from a menu.
> Content-Description: squeeze-window.gif
A-ha! A fellow exmh user. :-)
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Received on Wed Feb 07 1996 - 16:08:09 GMT