%% Studdert <jks1_at_wisdom.ucc.ie> writes:
s> But to the point of my posting - I'd just like to add a quick
s> question about this kind of visual config - is there any config
s> manager for that kind of thing, like Linuxconf for the system
s> config?
Go to the links page off of
http://www.fvwm.org and find links to the
Dotfile Generator, which has a FVWM config module, and the FvwmConf
tool.
The next version of FVWM (2.4) will have some graphical dialogues for
very basic configuration of some of the modules.
There's also a link to tkgoodstuff which is an alternative to the
FvwmButtons module; the nice thing about this is you can completely
configure the buttonbar with graphical setup dialogues: make new
buttons, change colors, fonts, etc. etc.
There are also some other peoples' configurations, for hints.
Finally, though, it's important to realize that FVWM is just a window
manager. It's _not_ a desktop environment. If you're coming from the
MS-Windows or Macintosh world this can be a tricky mental transition.
X, in some ways at least, follows the UNIX tradition of having lots of
smaller tools that work together, rather than one huge tool that does
everything (there are several obvious exceptions :).
The disadvantage to this is you sometimes have to poke around to find
what you want. The advantage is flexibility: you can combine these in
really new and unusual ways, or switch to a different one whenever you
want, etc.
Thus, one crucial tool for your desktop is a window manager--but a
window manager isn't a complete desktop. The WM deals with
placing/moving/resizing/iconifying windows, and it controls which window
has the input focus. That's _fundamentally_ all it does. WM's like
FVWM have lots of fancy ways to do the above, but it's still the same.
The other common thing WM's do is control what happens when the root
window has focus, like providing popup menus, etc.
Thinks like screensavers, file managers, wallpaper managers, even task
bars (although some WMs build in the latter) are really not strictly the
purview of a window manager.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul D. Smith <psmith_at_baynetworks.com> Network Management Development
"Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.
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Received on Mon Jun 28 1999 - 12:41:35 BST