I’d like to announce my new project, flush. Flush is a shell with a difference, you’ll be able to execute simple commands like mv and rm, but there will be no support for scripting constructs, pipelines, globbing or substitution.
Introduction
I’m sure many of you were thinking what an absurd idea flush would be, don’t worry, I wasn’t being serious. However, you probably put up with these limitations in your window manager every day, think about the different operations you perform in your window manager, and how it compares to working with files in your shell.
You can probably do little more than Move, Resize and Close windows, how different is this to my hypothetical flush? This may work well for some people, but if you’re like me these limitations would be an unacceptable productivity roadblock. Consider file globbing, a simple feature that probably saves you hundreds of keystrokes daily, if you don’t recognise the term, file globbing is simply matching multiple files with a single pattern. You might use globbing like this:
bash$ rm *.txt
This simple glob matches all the files with the extension .txt.
How would this command look in flush, my hypothetical shell that doesnt support globbing? Probably something like this:
flush$ ls
<br>article.txt lists.txt diagram.txt
<br>file.txt email.txt usenet.txt image.gif
<br>flush$ rm article.txt lists.txt diagram.txt file.txt email.txt usenet.txt
You would have to identify all the text files manually, then enter each one as an argument to the rm command.
Compare this to how your window manager works, if you wanted to close all of your open xterms, you would browse every open application looking for xterms, then Close each one in turn. This probably sounds like a lot of work, a monotonous and repetitive task that computers should excel at, so why are users so happy to accept it?
The F(?) Virtual Window Manager
Allow me to introduce fvwm, a powerful, mature and highly configurable window manager which has been in active development for over a decade. fvwm is different, some of the features we take for granted on the command line could apply equally well to window management, and you can find many of these in fvwm.
How would I go about closing all xterms in fvwm? I’d use a command like this
All (XTerm) Close
Don’t be put off by the word command, although I could enter that command directly into an FvwmConsole (an fvwm module that allows fvwm commands to be entered directly using readline), if I used the command regularly, I could make a key or mouse binding, a menu entry, a mouse gesture or one of the many other options available.
Here are some more example of how globbing might apply to fvwm; open a new web browser if there isn’t one already:
None (Gecko) Exec firefox
A more complex example, Minimise the last gvim I used if my web browser is maximized:
Any (Gecko, Maximized) Prev (gvim) Iconify on
Functions
Shell functions are an important shell facility, allowing you to construct new comands from sequences of other commands. You probably use shell functions everyday in your ~/.profile to make complex command sequences easily available. Let’s try an example in a standard shell
bash$ function rmoldest() {
<br>> oldest=$1; shift
<br>> for i in $@; do
<br>> if test $i -ot $oldest; then
<br>> oldest=$i
<br>> fi
<br>> done
<br>> rm -f $oldest
<br>>}
<br>bash$ rmoldest *.txt
A simple function to perform a task that would otherwise be very complex, delete the oldest file from a list. Let’s see how this might be done in flush, which doesnt support functions or complex commands.
<br>flush$ ls -l
<br>-rw-r--r-- 1 taviso users 0 Feb 15 15:54 article.txt
<br>-rw-r--r-- 1 taviso users 0 Aug 26 15:06 diagram.txt
<br>-rw-r--r-- 1 taviso users 0 Feb 10 10:28 email.txt
<br>-rw-r--r-- 1 taviso users 0 Nov 13 22:46 file.txt
<br>-rw-r--r-- 1 taviso users 0 Feb 7 11:10 lists.txt
<br>-rw-r--r-- 1 taviso users 0 Nov 4 22:43 usenet.txt
<br>flush$ rm diagram.txt
You will manually have to check each file’s timestamp, and identify the oldest one, then pass that file to rm for deletion. I doubt many of you would put up with this for long in your shell, but think about how you would close the oldest window open, or the firefox window that hadnt been in Focus for longest.
Fvwm allows you to construct functions and access them just as you would any other command, once defined they can be used in keybindings, menus, or even in other functions. This example will Minimise all the xterms on your screen, then start a new one and Maximize it.
AddToFunc NewXterm
<br>+ I All (XTerm, CurrentPage, !Iconic) Iconify on
<br>+ I Exec xterm
<br>+ I Wait XTerm
<br>+ I Next (XTerm) Maximize
Command Substitution
Using command substitution and pipelines to build commands is an integral part of using the shell, you simply take the output of one command and use it to form another. Here’s a simple example of using substitution in a standard shell, the output from one command is used to form the next.
bash$ echo This is $(hostname)
<br>This is insomniac
The same thing would not be possible in flush, you would have to do this manually:
flush$ hostname
<br>insomniac
<br>flush$ echo This is insomniac
<br>This is insomniac
Imagine closing all windows with the same name as the window that has focus in your window manager, how would you accomplish this? Most likely the same way you would in flush, manually identify all the matching windows then close them in turn. Fvwm supports substitution in several forms, expansion is perfect for this operation:
Current All ($[w.name]) Close
Fvwm expands the string $[w.name] to the name of the current window, fvwm supports many types of expansion, such as $[w.name], $[w.iconname], $[w.x], $[w.y], $[w.width], $[w.height], $[pointer.x], $[pointer.y], and dozens more. Another form of substitution that can be very useful is PipeRead, fvwm will read commands from the output of shell commands, this allows you to create complex commands using shell constructs.
Conclusion
Fvwm has so many advanced features that several tomes could be filled on the subject, yet the modular design and high quality codebase make it one of the most efficient window managers available. There is no way for me to describe all the features here, but if you’ve read this far you might be interested to know that fvwm includes a scripting language called FvwmScript for building simple graphical programs that integrate with fvwm, a powerful module for building interfaces or desktop panels called FvwmButtons, and a perl library called perllib that lets developers create fvwm modules in perl.
- You can read some more about FvwmButtons here and here
- There’s an introduction to fvwm here
- The official fvwm site is here
- The FvwmWiki is here, and the FvwmForum is here
About the author
Tavis Ormandy has been a confirmed fvwm zealot for many years, advocating it to anyone who will listen. He maintains the fvwm package for Gentoo Linux where he also helps with alpha porting and security auditing. He can be found idling on #fvwm on irc.freenode.net. You can find his fvwm2rc here.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
“…..but there will be no support for scripting constructs, pipelines, globbing or substitution.”
Been done before. They called it “DOS”.
I think you should read the article really. The ‘flush project’ is not for real, but just a rethorical expedient to compare advanced features of WMs just like you would compare different shells.
Comparison that I don’t get, btw, because I use GUIs and windows in a very different way from CLI file management. But if someone likes scripting windows management because they find it useful for their way of working, I’m glad FVWM offers such nice capabilites. I learned something new.
I fail to see why people would use the shell to close xterms or any other windows for that matter…is a mouse really that hard and such an inconvenience to use?
That said, hats off to anyone who can write a new shell – I know I can’t.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should tho…..
🙂
No, what the writer is describing is automating certain tasks using fvwm’s scripting capabilities, these commands needent be executed in a shell but can be bound to key-strokes and mouse gestures.
To be honest though I want the gui to be so simple that I dont have to think about it. In the rare occasion that I have loads of xterms that I want to quickly close I would probably just run “killall xterm” and by binding things like that to the UI it loses all its flexibility and therefore it’s power.
It sounds like all of you are bound to the roots of a gui which doesnt let you do anything other than move the mouse to control the windows.
Fvwm is powerfull in many ways, great things can be acomplished with functions, and unless you try it, you will never know about it.
…and following Tavisos metafore, you will continue to delete files by doing:
rm file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt file4.txt file5.txt
instead of rm *txt
for the rest of your life.
Now my question is:
Where is nclwm, the Norton Commander Like Window Manager?
[+] Xterm [ENTER]
[Alt][F4]
And all my XTerm’s are gone.
WindowMaker supports something like this, as you can select multiple windows at once, but selecting windows by criterium would be nice.
actually, i will be using CTRL-A, Del while you cli noobs are still typing rm *.txt 😉
seriously though, fvwm has a robust scripting environment. good for fvwm. i perfer a robust graphical environment, but to each his own i guess.
And I don’t wanna be rude… but why oh why can’t anyone focus on making a beautiful WM??? This is hardly an exception to the trend of making ugly WMs.
Please look at Apple for once and notice how valuable design is. NO don’t try to DO what apple do, just try to do something which is consistent and look good.
i use it sometimes when i get bored with xfce, blackbox, WindowMaker, i custum rebuilt .fvwmrc & the rootmenu for the applications i frequently run, sometimes use rox –bottom=PANEL, FVWM does not get much press @ OSNews but it is a really customizable desktop, (theres that word agan – desktop) x window manager (whatever)
Which will end up deleting *all* files in the current directory, not just the ones that end with .txt…
Next will come an article about Kush and KDE
By the way, is there something similar to flush (or whatever is called) and dcop on Gnome-land?
This is a nice article about the capabilities of FVWM, albeit the sensational introduction (which mislead those who did not care to read the entire article). This makes me imagine a scenario where a distro would package FVWM as a beautiful and powerful desktop with nice defaults. FVWM can look nice, but in the past it acquired a bad reputation for having ugly defaults.
actually, i will be using CTRL-A, Del while you cli noobs are still typing rm *.txt 😉
Which will end up deleting *all* files in the current directory, not just the ones that end with .txt…
what about a selection criterion?
a manu or a key combination would pop up a field, text entered in which, could be used as a wildcard or set of wildcards or extension, or set of extensions, to select all matching files in the current directory…
Comunnicating with running apps and automation is already possible in KDE via DCOP (just run kdcop to see the interface with running DCOP-enabled programs). And DBUS is the new message passing system from freedesktop.org.
I’m not sure if you can already execute actions such as Closes all Xterms or things like that with KWin, but it certainly it already has a DCOP interface, and I belive that it’s just a matter of adding that new functionality.
I think that if FVWM want that kind of features, the best way to add it would be using DBUS, because it’s a free standard that is developed exactly for that kind of interactions, so it’s the most suitable and more reasonable than doing it your own way and reimplemting the same over and over again.
Plus, you get all the bindings that DBUS already have. And you could also enhance DBUS (these DBUS people are open to suggestions) with suggestions and code.
Have a nice day!
This is a nice article about the capabilities of FVWM, albeit the sensational introduction (which mislead those who did not care to read the entire article). This makes me imagine a scenario where a distro would package FVWM as a beautiful and powerful desktop with nice defaults. FVWM can look nice, but in the past it acquired a bad reputation for having ugly defaults.
Yes. Another cool thing is that you can *completely* switch the look of your desktop from time to time, without affecting other settings (like your keybindings, menu layout) you’re used to.
I’ve been using IceWM for a long time now, but I’m considering FVWM.
@Geert
I’ve been using IceWM for a long time now, but I’m considering FVWM.
I’m the same exact way. I used to use FVWM way back when…I have IceWM loaded now, but looking at the screenshots of FVWM makes me want to load that again.
… is easy
click on “type” at the top of the type row in the file browser. mark with SHIFT-Click, SHIFT-Click
or CTRL-S for slect pattern. gives you a much better visual feedback what you delete.
Scripting the WM is nice idea, but to abstract for most people…
I agree, implementing it at the windows manager level is not a solution.
what about a selection criterion?
a manu or a key combination would pop up a field, text entered in which, could be used as a wildcard or set of wildcards or extension, or set of extensions, to select all matching files in the current directory…
IIRC, ROX-filer allows you to do that.
While all the scripting capabilities of FVWM are nice, there’s very little reason to have multiple xterms if you’re using GNU screen and very little reason to have multiple browser windows if you’re using Opera. The likes of IceWM and Fluxbox allow enough keybinding capabilities to do what needs to be done, even if you must resort to console-style glue (pipes, xclip, kill).
sorry, i just woke up when i wrote that. as has been pointed out, ctrl-A selects all. so instead of ctrl-A, i sort by type. it is still an arbitrarily easy task to perform in the gui. where the cli comes in handy is a pattern matching recursive delete, and even that will go away when the db filesystem becomes standard. not only that, but what dm will not allow you to fire up a console and type rm -R *txt? it is hardly a strength of fvwms scripting capabilities. close 50 xterms? in windows it would require right clicking on the program group and selecting close all, which most would consider more intuitive then typing a string of arcane commands.
most times that scripting is useful is because the gui makes it difficult to do something that you do frequently. this indicates a design flaw in the gui, and saying that you can program it easily to get around its limitations isnt really a solution. now, i did say most. there are times that scripting is very useful, sometimes its downright nessicary. that is why pretty much every gui offers a scripting environment. but i think this is the first time i have ever heard the claim that doing something extremely rare and situation specific (like minimizing xterm if firefox is open) sets one gui over all others.
” in windows it would require right clicking on the program group and selecting close all, which most would consider more intuitive then typing a string of arcane commands.”
RTFA, you dont have to type in a string of arcane commands, you can bind them to things. you can make a menu entry that says “close all” and have it close all. you missed the whole point of the article, you just saw the word COMMAND and knew you didnt like it.
Not everybody thinks apple is the pinnacle of UI design, apple caters perfectly for the luddite population because being asked to type in what you want to happen or having more than 2 options to deal with at once is AWESOME SCARY.
Yes, some people out there really want to do something extremely rare and specific, but end up doing it the hard way because people like you CAMPAIGN RELENTLESSLY to get options removed.
“It sounds like all of you are bound to the roots of a gui which doesnt let you do anything other than move the mouse to control the windows.
Fvwm is powerfull in many ways, great things can be acomplished with functions, and unless you try it, you will never know about it.
…and following Tavisos metafore, you will continue to delete files by doing:
rm file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt file4.txt file5.txt
instead of rm *txt
for the rest of your life.”
I find myself in the odd position of defending Windows here. And I do not do Windows anymore but I do feel the record should be set straight.
Windows, like Linux, has alternative File Managers. The one I last used had a command line built right into the file manager which allowed me to do wild card searches, deletions or just about anything else I wanted to do. Hence delete *.txt worked just fine. Essentially, you had the capabilities of DOS, which admittedly are not as powerful as UNIX but still adequate for many tasks.
Anyway, my point is that many of the things done in UNIX/Linux can also be done in Windows. And in this respect Windows and Linux are much alike in that you have to be willing to dig into both OS’s to get the most out of them. Neither one makes it easy to work with the more powerful features without some hard work learning how to do it. Windows is popular not because it is a great OS, but because MS realized the masses don’t want powerful, they want easy.
Bill
“I only care enough to say, who cares?
Bash has everything anyone would need anyway…. ”
And who would ever need more than 640K of RAM, right??? 🙂
Bill
Dude, read the article. It wasn’t about shells.
“I think that if FVWM want that kind of features, the best way to add it would be using DBUS, because it’s a free standard that is developed exactly for that kind of interactions, so it’s the most suitable and more reasonable than doing it your own way and reimplemting the same over and over again.”
Erm… FVWM has already *had* this functionality for years, and predates both KDE and GNOME.
There are a few window managers which allow scripting, either interactively or through configuration files. There are some interesting applications, like dynamic menus (eg. you can have the root menu display the time, and RSS feed, or whatever else you like), but they tend to be limited.
Why?
To begin with, most people who is seriously interested in scripting will be spending a lot of time in the shell to start with. Launching and closing applications can be done through the shell. So what about window managment? In case you haven’t noticed, thre is a whole class of tiling window managers. These can usually be controlled entirely through the keyboard, and a few will even provide a layer for non-tiled windows (for programs which won’t behave well otherwise). The need for window shuffling is virtually eliminated and since most of these window managers will remember your layout for each virtual desktop, the repetitive drudgery of setting stuff up is gone.
So while a few people may need a scriptable GUI, I do think it will remain esoteric — even in the realm of the esoteric.
I’m the same exact way. I used to use FVWM way back when…I have IceWM loaded now, but looking at the screenshots of FVWM makes me want to load that again.
Is FVWM 100% usable with keyboard only, like IceWM is? Because that is the nr 1 feature I like about IceWM.
“RTFA, you dont have to type in a string of arcane commands, you can bind them to things. you can make a menu entry that says “close all” and have it close all. you missed the whole point of the article, you just saw the word COMMAND and knew you didnt like it.”
no, i saw that, but a menu entry that closes all xterm windows is insanely specific, the only way it could be useful is typing it in on that one day you have so many windows open that it becomes worth the effort. binding it would make it useless. the way windows does it is more flexible. i used it as an example of overcomming a design issue instead of telling people to become programmers.
“Not everybody thinks apple is the pinnacle of UI design, apple caters perfectly for the luddite population because being asked to type in what you want to happen or having more than 2 options to deal with at once is AWESOME SCARY.”
no, your right, people with no knowledge whatsoever in the field of human computer interaction dont think that apple is the pinnacle of ui design 😉 seriously, virtually every book i have read on the subject will hold apple up as examples of the right way to do something.
its not that its two options to deal with. its fifteen options with the one that will be used 99.9999999% of the time being placed haphazardly in the middle of the crud that will be used by 10 people once or twice in their lives. if you truly believe that FVWM is better in a usability sense then osx, then i will have to stop arguing, because as paul graham said “Argue with an idiot, and you become an idiot.”. i could explain to you that your perceived cli effiency will be blown away by someone with half your experience doing a comparable task in a well designed gui environment, but people like you believe their perceptions are reality, and that is one of the hardest beliefs to argue with. i highly suggest learning something about a subject before you pretend you know what you are talking about.
“Yes, some people out there really want to do something extremely rare and specific, but end up doing it the hard way because people like you CAMPAIGN RELENTLESSLY to get options removed.”
ah, yet another example of a completely clueless statement. something like a scripting environment in a gui is a GOOD THING. saying that a scripting environment will overcome a particular issue for you rather then comming up with innovative ways to fix the issue in your gui is a DUMB THING. having an option that will be useful to 10% of your users is a GOOD THING. putting that option in the same place as the one that will be used 90% of the time is a DUMB THING.
> i could explain to you that your perceived cli effiency will be blown away by someone with half your experience doing a comparable task in a well designed gui environment,
It depends on the task. The CLI is also rather flexible, an area where GUIs generally fall short; even if an ideal GUI app would definately save you time, it may not exist.
I’m also yet to see a good GUI interface to regular expressions; they’re powerful enough to be timesavers fairly frequently.
“i saw that, but a menu entry that closes all xterm windows is insanely specific”
Uhh, you obviously didn’t see it, or you would have read the part about SUBSTITUTION.
“the way windows does it is more flexible.”
It’s very hard to get though to someone who is so adamantly against reading the article. We cant have a meaningful discussion, because I’ve read it and you havnt. Let me just kill this point once and for all “FVWM CAN DO THIS EXACT THING, NO COMMANDS, NO SPECIFIC WINDOWS, ***EXACTLY*** THE SAME”. Please don’t respond about typing in commands, extremely rare things or anything like that “BECAUSE FVWM CAN DO THIS, THIS WAS THE POINT OF THE ARTICLE!”.
“if you truly believe that FVWM is better in a usability sense then osx, then i will have to stop arguing, because as paul graham said “Argue with an idiot, and you become an idiot.”.”
I truly believe that you havnt read the article. Because if you had, you would know this comment is stupid. Why is it stupid I hear you ask, deperately avoiding reading the article, BECAUSE FVWM CAN BE CONFIGURED TO DO EVERYTHING THE SAME WAY AS OSX…YOU ARE COMAPRING APPLES TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATIONS. What you are really trying to get at is, you dont like fvwm because you would have to put some effort in to configure it with your “close all’s” and whatever, you would have to read your facourite ui book and put those principles into practice. I can do everything you can do with your UI one hundred times faster, because all the specific rare things that I have to do can have keybindings or menu entries.
hmm, fvwm sounds like what litestep can do on windows…
am i anywhere near?
i read the article. i read it the first time i posted. you seem to not be reading my comments, because as i said a billion times or so, you wouldnt NEED all those macros if the gui was designed well enough. you cannot do anything i can do on my gui faster, because while you use a high level macro, i will write an app that does what i want, and at the end of the day we will both have our unusual scenario taken care of, you in fvwm, me in whatever os i happen to be in.
can you have v shaped buffers on contextual menus rather then the windows style timeout? i dont think you can, not with macros. but hey, apple does that kind of thing…. i guess you CANT configure fvwm to behave the same way. that is because a macro system isnt a substitute for a well designed ui.. but we have been over this. if you are happy with fvwm, good for you. i have a few friends who swear by LFS, but not ONE of them have ever claimed that the customization outweighed the additional work and complexity for anyone but themselves.
From your comment,I assume you use Windows® or have a Macintosh.
No seriously, I’d rather have both things, a well designed GUI that works, with “works” I dont mean that when you click a button it does what it is suppose to do, but rather in the aspect that the environment is productive and flexible.
Fvwm is both, the downside is that you have to work for it.(alot)
Hell, If I ‘could’ don’t you think I’d rather use GUI apps for everything instead of using consoles ?
But the fact is that OSS GUIS have a lot to desire, I guess people do their best and work hard on the applications, but it isn’t good enought. I encounter countless restrictions when using the available GUI’s, the consoles gives me freedom, I do pay for it, with reading manuals and using nights and days configuring config files, but in the end it pays off.
Im free, I can do as I wish, the application ‘works for me’, not the other way around.
Dont take this as flames or anything bad
What a lot of work just to delete some files. I just have about two dozen pre-name queries which I select when I want to group my files to carry out an operation.
Usually I find that I want to find a type of file then select one of them to do and operation on than to delete a group of files. How does get this windowing system show you the most recently changed files? That is usually my most common search after filtering and deleting my usenet messages.
How does FVWM’s scripting compare to others, such as Applescript? What capabilities do GNUstep and various kde technologies like DCOP have which compare to this? What about extensible, lisp-based window managers?
everyone knows fvwm is only good for one thing;
becoming fvwm95…
um… … …i have done some serous customizing to my .fvwm2rc file in my home directory and it looks nothing like fvwm95, including the background it looks similar to blackbox’s artwiz theme (without the slit and taskbar), the menu looks more like sawfish, i am still in the process of testing a few more config options, of course i only work on it when i get an idea and when i feel like it…
Actually, there are some rather useful utilties for
controlling X Windows, without resorting to full-blown programming languages, or ad-hoc scripting built into window manangers.
I’m currently playing around with a combination of window and speckeysd. [1]
(Possible alternatives are wmctrl and xbindkeys [2],
I’m just partial to window/speckeysd because I use the
window manager lwm, written by the same author)
With some minor bash commands, you can emulate Alt-Tab functionality, hiding windows, evoking applications… Combine it with some tool like Xdialog [3] and you can brew up some rather sophisticated stuff without leaving a standard shell programming environment…
Granted, this will get you the equivalent of command line shell scripts, i.e. stuff that works rather roughly, no elegant pinnacles of software design. But shell scripts and spittle hold the world together…
[1]:
http://www.jessies.org/~enh/software/x11/
[2]:
http://sweb.cz/tripie/utils/wmctrl/ http://hocwp.free.fr/xbindkeys/xbindkeys.html
[3]:
http://xdialog.dyns.net/
oh no, i dont take it as bad. osx is one of the few operating systems i dont use, i use windows at work (and at home to play world of warcraft 😉 ) have a bsd web/mail/fileserver, and usually run ubuntu on my main machine. i also have a test machine with three or four operating systems on it at any given time (right now im playing with be mostly). ive got a few kicking around for nostalgia more then anything, like the mac classic II that was my first computer, and still the best experience i have had to date from an operating system.
i would consider the goal of a good os to help you perform tasks with as little work or intervention as possible. i would consider an operating system that requires you to learn a programming language to use properly to be not so great. and it isnt because im dumb or scared, im a programmer, i know quite a few languages already and alwas enjoy jumping into another one. fvwm scripting looks like fun, and something that ill probably play with some day. thats not my problem. its the self-rightous superiority complex that alot of users of needlessly complex operating systems have. making simple things require no thought, and hard things simple is a plus for anyone, no matter what their background, experience, or skillset.
…should be the goal
(didnt finish the sentance)
“Been done before. They called it “DOS”.”
Assuming that you mean MS-DOS it has scripting support (primitive), pipes (primitive – as it doesn’t support multitasking) and some forms of substitution (also limited).
Fvwm is a very fast wm.Interesting article.
//, BECAUSE FVWM CAN BE CONFIGURED TO DO EVERYTHING THE SAME WAY AS OSX.//
If you believe this you truly are delusional. I hope your parents lockup your car keys.
I’ve been using FVWM since mid 1997. Never felt the slightest urge to change, because no other WM can do all that FVWM can. While the basic layout of my desktop has been the same for over seven years now, a lot of details have changed over the years. I’ve written quite a few lines of FVWM code (if you can call it that) through the years, and every now and then I add or remove or fine tune something.
For people who live and die by the mouse and who needs their desktop to look snazzy, FVWM is probably not the best choice. For those of us who like to fine tune as much as possible (and why wouldn’t anyone who spends hours a day year in year out in front of their computer want that?) and prefer to avoid using the mouse whenever possible, FVWM is excellent.
You know, you can switch channels, mute, turn it off… boring! I am going to spend many hours in front of a TV in my lifetime, so why not script it?
Possibilities:
– Bookmark favourites
– Reorder the channels to get them -just- right. Repeat once a week.
– Zap through channels at a predetermined (configurable) interval
– Weird sound effects playing with volume control and mute
The possibilities are infinite!
Other than that, I like XFWM (Xfce’s WM). Just the right amount of abilities and USABILITY.
@dimosd, it sounds like you’re being sarcastic and trying to argue that such customization is unnecessary, but why? The options that you list for the TV would be great:
> Bookmark favourites
— Sure, why not? I watch maybe 5
out of 65 or so channels
> Reorder the channels to get them -just- right. Repeat once a week.
— Again, that’d be great.
especially to move the unused A/V
inputs out of the way so that I
don’t have to go through them!
> Zap through channels at a predetermined (configurable) interval
— My car radio does that, though I
cannot configure the delay. I use
it frequently.
Its called Digital TV via Satellite.
Damn technology…
(posting this in Osnews, I’ll probably go to hell)
One of the more informative articles I’ve read on OSnews in a while; I’ve liked some of the things I’ve seen from FVWM over the years, but the barrier to entry was a little too high: it seemed like although there are really slick looking desktops that use FVWM out there, none of the default configs I found were ever attractive enough for me to use long enough to get accustomed to it.
Can anyone comment on how these features compare to other scriptable WM’s like Kahakai? It’s an interesting system and it has its merits for its target audience; it’d be nice if we could discuss the articles as opposed to how much better OSX meets the needs of *its* target audience once in a while.
some of these screenshots come with config files?
http://www.fvwm.org/screenshots/desktops/
some of these screenshots come with config files?