Re: GNUStep Window Manager

[Ian Jones]

Hi Nuno,

Window managers as with most software are a personal taste thing. I used windowmaker for a number of years before I even heard of GNUstep. It is true that window maker is the 'official' window manager of GNUstep but there really isn't that much more support for it in windowmaker than other windowmanagers, the only thing that has been brought to my attention in the past is that it understands levels of windows which aparently other window managers don't which helps to reduce the focus problems experienced with some other windowmanagers. Window managers that support only sloppy focus for instance are a real pain to use with GNUstep because the menu vanishes as soon as you take your mouse pointer off the application to go to the menu, the solution is to use the right click menu if you like sloppy focus. I'm currently using PWM a tabbed window manager that only supports sloppy focus, it's very minimal and I like the ability to be able to connect my windows together and switch between 
them without having a multitude of overlapping title bars.
Anyway, as far as I'm aware there isn't much development going on with window 
maker now and with regard to GNUstep I don't see its support getting any 
better. I think our real hopes and dreams lye with one of the up and comming 
window managers written specifically for GNUstep, woom, interfaceWM and today 
we saw the announcement of StepBox which I haven't tried yet.

As far as GWorkspace is concerned if you are going to run it you would be best 
sticking with the workspaces it provides and not using the windowmaker ones or 
vice-versa.

AfterStep IMHO is a god-awful thing, configuration is an absolute nitemare and 
it appears to me personally as window maker done badly. Sorry if that offends 
any pro-AfterStep ppl but it really is bad!

Currently I'll stick with PWM but it lacks a lot and I look forward to one of 
the window managers written for GNUstep supporting tabs like PWM does. If I had 
to choose a none GNUstep window manager again second to PWM I would use window 
maker, it is a mature window manager and coexists with GNUstep with the least 
problems.

Regards,

Ian

On 2003-10-21 10:35:07 +0000 Nuno Donato <tuggyX@zmail.pt> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm new to this GNUStep stuff but i'm enjoying it so far.
> I'm posting this to try to clear a doubt, Window Maker is like the "official" 
> window manager fo GNUStep, right?
> So why doesn't it integrate nicely with GWorkspace? If i run GWorkspace i get 
> separate workspaces, that is, if I change from workspace 1 to workspace 2 in 
> WindowMaker, GWorkspace completly disappears. So its like i have 4 
> workspaces(from GWorkspace) inside workspace 1 of WindowMaker :/
> Also, they both seem to draw the desktop/background.
>
> And what do you think of using AfterStep as a wm for GNUStep?
>
> thank you
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss-gnustep mailing list
> Discuss-gnustep@gnu.org
> http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnustep