[TAG] Virtual Desktops with individual folders

[Thomas Adam]

On Sat, Jul 14, 2007 at 01:01:36AM -0400, Ben Okopnik wrote:
> I have very little experience with it myself, but based on what I do
> know, FVWM can probably accomodate you. You would, however, need to
> learn to write config files for it. I have no doubt that it has some
> kind of a "DetectDesktopSwitch" function, as well as either the
> capability of hiding the icons or allowing you to script such a
> function.

OK, OK.  I'll bite.  :)  FVWM is a window manager.  It has no concept of
anything other than managing windows.  Things that fall on the periphery,
such as icons to launch programs, file managers, etc., fall outside of its
remit.

The fundamental problem is that programs such as idesk or rox-filer, etc.,
need some level of munging to work with the window manager.  Because the
icons supplied by such programs aren't individual (i.e., they're not part of
the icon you can assign individual programs to have) you can't manage any
one icon, only all of them en masse.

In the case of rox-filer though you can toggle the pinboard by simply doing:

``
rox -p=
rox -p some_name
''

There's any number of ways you can do that from within FVWM.  You might have
a shortcut for it via a key-binding:

``
Key I A CM ToggleRoxIcons
''

Which just tells FVWM that when the combination ALT-CTRL-I is pressed that
it is to run 'ToggleRoxIcons'.  What this is can only be one of three things
as FVWM is concerned (and in this order):

``
Internal command
Function
Module
''

It's not an internal command, nor is it a module.  It would be a function
which looked like this:

``
DestroyFunc ToggleRoxIcons
AddToFunc   ToggleRoxIcons
+ I PipeRead `[ -n "$(pidof rox)" ] && echo "Exec exec rox -p=" \
|| echo "Exec exec rox -p someProfile"`
''

What's happening here is that PipeRead spawns a shell, and information is
sent back to FVWM in a synchronous manner.   Thus what we're doing here is
checking to see if rox is running, and if it is, to clear the pinboard, else
if not, start it up and use the specified pinboard profile, which would then
load up the various sets of icons.

You could do something similar with idesk, but that program is just
confusing, IMO.

There is a more... FVWM-centric approach you could use, involving
FvwmButtons, the details of which are here:

http://fvwm.org/documentation/faq/#7.13


-- Thomas Adam

--
"He wants you back, he screams into the night air, like a fireman going
through a window that has no fire." -- Mike Myers, "This Poem Sucks".