AfterStep is an X window manager which started by emulating the NeXTSTEP look and feel and changed along the way. The new version fixes compilation bugs, shaped windows bugs, I18N bugs, move-resize bugs, Pager bugs, and more have been fixed. Mouse cursor changing has been reimplemented in different parts of the window. look.glass has been updated. Desktop session saving and restoring has been implemented. In other X releases, Cairo is an X11 vector graphics library with cross-device output support. Version 1.5 was released today.
AfterStep 2.00-beta2, Cairo 1.5 Released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I am having some trouble understanding how could one find this WM attractive. The screenshots look like something from the year 1992 (yes, I know they are imitating NeXT) and are ugly as all hell.
I must admit I don’t know a lot about AfterStep (X window Manager) but after seeing the website and themes
(http://www.afterstep.org/data/desktop/icons/index.html)
I feel like I’m back to the early age of the internet.
However, some people might like the simplicity of the windows manager. I guess OS X spoiled me.
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http://www.sideliners.ca
I have to agree. AfterSTEP is not only ugly, but most of all, it is unusable, it has huge usability problems. NeXT didn’t have such problems, not as much. Of course, the current AfterSTEP tried to go away from the NeXT route, but the outcome is just bad.
>However, some people might like the simplicity of the windows manager. I guess OS X spoiled me.
ironic, isn’t it? Afterstep is based on imitating the very interface of what OS X used to be…
Well it dose look kind of shity right now. The new webpage looks like crap (why replace the old one? it was nice) but then, with some nice icons and a theme that is not made for showing of features it could look nice, or not?
is cairo gonna be included in xfree any time? is it planned to be? or is it a separate api branch from the rest of xfree?
I tried hard to like Afterstep 7 years ago, seeing how it was the first wm I was able to run at all. Sadly, the configuration was too difficult for me so I moved on to Windowmaker, which is what Afterstep should have been. I haven’t used it in years but it seems to have made ZERO progress.
It might be based on OS X but it sure didn’t mature like OS X.
Jobs started NEXT Computer in 1985. NeXTSTEP was probably great at that time …even early to mid 90, but we are in the year 2003 and you would expect a little bit better then that.
The smartest thing would be to have a GUI contest like SkyOS. First of all you would get great publicity as well get some design ideas.
S.
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http://www.sideliners.ca
ok, yea, i was just joking…
but on topic again:
someone explain how cairo is supposed to be intergrated into xfree…
will cairo interfere with ksvg if it becomes part of xfree, or will just provide extra api and library instructions…
Very cool looking. The focused tab on the cairo-simple theme create shadows on the non-focused tabs.
Could you post a screenshot of it?
“Very cool looking”
WTF you smoking.. it looks the same as other themes.
I wasted an 1 hour compiling and installing this sh*t
http://maliwan.sourceforge.net/cairo-shot.jpg (~250k)
I haven’t seen this kind of bashing of a mature opensource project in a while. I’m a little shocked to see it at this site. Afterstep has outlasted a zillion opensource projects. You all are wasted on the gnome and kde windows clones I guess. I’m guessing Afterstep has been around since before most of you heard the word linux. If you don’t like it use something else or contribute to it to make it better. Don’t act like the afterstep developers owe you something. Grow up.
I’ve been using afterstep classic for 4 years at my job on Solaris and a Sun Ultra 5. If you want to get the job done, Afterstep is just fast, easy to set up and not bloated.Gnome would be far too slow on that box and it comes with many whistles and bells I would never use anyway. Remark that I’m kind of a minimalist guy – I just need a tailored launch bar and a pager(at home I use slackware+fluxbox).
Afterstep would be quite usable if it had decent configuration utilities. People in general are not willing to edit text files in order to set up a GUI inteface, it makes zero sense.
“Maturity” does not a good software project make.
I really am quite fond of afterstep, it is flexible and fast. The conf files really aren’t too hard to figure out if you try. I particularly like the “transparency” you can get with titlebars and the wharf (yes I know it’s *Faked* transparency but it still looks sweet). Well done to the Afterstep contributors.
Sure the default look and feel is a tad, on the ugly side
But it’s interface is not that far off from Window Maker. Afterstep just needs some good looking tiles and colors and it can be pretty on the eyes 
I haven’t used it in years and could have sworn that development has stopped, I am glad that it’s still going.
Eugenia wrote:
“AfterSTEP is not only ugly, but most of all, it is unusable”
Unusable for YOU, maybe. For many of us doing real work, good keybindings, low resource-using and fast responsiveness are far more important than messing around with the mouse, adding little applets everywhere.
AfterSTEP is good for GETTING REAL WORK DONE.
And “ugly”? That’s entirely dependant on theme. Presumably you wouldn’t object to someone saying “houses are ugly” or “cars are ugly” then?
G
After being around as long as Afterstep has, it is far far too late to be talking about potential. That’s like saying my grandfather has potential (he’s actually dead but that’s beside the point). It should have ‘been’ alrady. Potential is just another word for “ain’t done a damn thing”.
They’re still using those same tired, ugly icons….
I know where you are getting at, a lot has been done behind the scenes. Afterstep was completly rewritten, that took a couple of years but Sasha is now releasing his work to the public. The icons are just images, After step can use any image file that the user wants.
But the current icons are ugly
Can anyone explain why there are two NeXT clones out there? It seems to me that AfterStep should have been superceded by WindowMaker. Why was WindowMaker created and on what basis would someone want to use AfterStep instead?
They may as well call it Afterthought now. Like Enlightment other wm’s have progressed so much faster that I don’t see the point of converting to it. If I want a lean wm I’d just chose Windowmaker. I’m done complaining now.
I am done complaining too
Afterthought wouldn’t be a bad name, nice ring to it. I personally use either Window Maker or Xfce, they both suit my needs really well.
Man, this is actually quite a surprise to me! I used to use Afterstep 1.0 way back when I first started using Linux and BSD. I had to configure text files and stuff.
After the novelty of Afterstep wore off, I turned to WindowMaker probably because of it’s easy of configuration. WindowMaker was probably the first window manager with it’s own configuration program. At least the first that I can think of. Not even FVWM had it’s own configuration program at the time. And yeah, I also used FVWM back when it was 1.something or other.
It’s been a long while since I hae looked at the Afterstep homepage. Probably years. I had thought it was completely dead. It seemed like no development was going on and now I hear about that it’s at version 2.0 today.
To be honest I was surprised, but I doubt I’ll be using it any time soon. I think I completely lost my facination with Afterstep. Hell, I’ve also lost my facination with WindowMaker as well. I had some high hopes for WindowMaker when the GNUstep project was started but even that seems to be moving slowly.
Anyway, I’m not complaining or anything. I’m just commenting that’s all.