[TAG] One for Ben

[Kapil Hari Paranjape]

On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 06:25:19PM +0100, Thomas Adam wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 12:31:44 -0400
> Ben Okopnik <ben at callahans.org> wrote:
> 
> > IceWM is small, fast, and lacks nothing in features that I want from a
> > WM. From Thomas' previous rantings :), I gather that FVWM is much the
> > same sort of thing. It's like having a spoon that you bought for a
> 
> Kind of. But there are a _lot_ of things Fvwm does that IceWM does not,
> and while I am not going to outline the individual merits of each, you
> cannot, for instance, in IceWM do event actions. And while I have used
> IceWm, it just doesn't have..., well, it lacks *something*. :)

Since we're onto desktop/window manager wars ... :-)

My latest "standard" for how good such a thingy is has been:

(a) Can it emulate "ratpoison"?
(b) Can it improve on "ratpoison"?
(c) Can it do the above without bringing a low-end machine to
    a screeching, grinding, *thrashing* halt?

It turns out that (in combination with GNU "screen") FVWM, ICEWM and even
(surprise) Gnome2+Metacity can do this. I haven't tried with KDE.

Some notes of explanation:

(a) in combination with "screen" what this really means is that you
    should be able to maximize a window *without* title bars, menubars,
    borders, handles and all that fluff. This is what you *really* need
    when you are doing a deep hack or writing a paper.
    
(b) means that you should be able to "switch" in and out of this
    ratpoison mode with some key combination (don't touch that mouse
    yet!). In the "real" GUI mode you should be able to use GIMP (which
    is ratpoison disabled or vice versa) and other such programs that
    require a mouse and/or graphical interface and non-mazimized
    windows.

(c) is reasonably clear---low on memory usage for (a) but could use more
    memory in (b). 

I might be able to write a little piece on how this is done but I
wouldn't be able to withstand that flamage that might result :-)
Besides my ESP-enabled fortune signature generator has something to say
about the time I've spent on doing all this configuration... (See
below).

Regards,

Kapil.
-- 
If a 'train station' is where a train stops, what's a 'workstation'?
--