On Thu, 18 Jul 1996, Mark Crimmins wrote:
>
> Todd Fries writes:
> > You know, if you really wanted to make tkgoodstuff irresistible and live
> > up to it's name, someone should implement a configuration dialog for
> > fvwm itself, so we could configure fvwm on the fly and then save it to an
> > rc when we liked what we saw.
>
> > That would be killer!
>
> Ok, go for it! ;-)
This has been a goal of a lot of people and it is a difficult task.
Is it ?
Some recent features of fvwm has shown a new way (and better way) of
handling fvwm configuration. Since we can load/reload part of fvwm
configuration separatly, it is now much more practical to define a set of
configuration utility which each is much more easier to built and much
more useful.
We have to turn this problem upside down. What does a new and existing
user manipulate often in fvwm and at which moment.
Here is how I would split the task
1-Menu configurator
Currently, it is possible to reconfigure menu on demand. With the new
PipeRead command for example, one can define a utility to edit/configure
a menu and can also define a small utility to read it and update if needed
fvwm.
All my menus look like this
title
------
opt
opt
opt
------
Config
When you click on "Config", this trigger the configurator for this menu.
Whenever you save the new menu configuration, it becomes immediatly
effective the next time you activate this menu. Currently my "Config"
option just load a text editor showing this menu. This is already better
than browsing the filesystem looking for a .fvwmrc and then browsing the
kit.
(Those who are interested in my config files and my fvwmreadmenu utility
(which was send to the maintainer for inclusion in the contrib part of
fvwm), just email).
2-FvwmButtons configurator
It is now possible to kill/reload the fvwmbutton configuration since
2.0.43. Again doing a configurator for such a thing is not that much
difficult (more than doing a menu configurator however).
3-General setup of fvwm
This contain few (not all really) other feature. One utility (fvwmconfig
I think) was already a good start allowing one to switch some key feature
such as focus).
3-Style editor
A fairly simple dialog allowing to activate some key feature
application per application. I would hook this editor right in the
application menu (left menu of each application window). This would
configure the style for the running window/class.
Achieving 1 2 and 4 is not a big job and would satisfy most users giving
them a straight way to modify most of the important things of fvwm.
I really don't think a big "config" utility is the key.
Anyone interested to help me with this ?
--------------------------------------------------------
Jacques Gelinas (jacques_at_solucorp.qc.ca)
Linuxconf: The ultimate administration system for Linux.
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/system/Admin/linuxconf-...
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Received on Thu Jul 18 1996 - 20:21:18 BST