rethinking the window manager [LWN.net]

rethinking the window manager

Posted Dec 19, 2006 1:49 UTC (Tue) by bluegecko (guest, #42312)
Parent article: KDE 4: the ultimate business desktop? (Computerworld)

Enhancements over version 3 will include a redesigned desktop interface

The way window managers work (user interface side, not code) hasn't really changed since the start of X windows, many eons ago. Amongst the plethora of choices, they differ only superficially: there is still a titlebar as well as the close/minimise/maximise buttons and the ability to resize windows.

How about something along the lines of a window manager which enforces a particular structure and uses the available space considerably more efficiently? e.g. a "tabbed" window manager, ala Firefox (this is more than just having a taskbar).

An example: windows would not be allowed to be moved and resized arbitrarily and the annoying pop-ups (e.g.. file-requesters, error messages) would not simply (and rudely!) cover other windows. If one has a browser/editor that takes up the entire screen, and then launches a terminal (or some other window wants to open up), the size of browser/edtior would be reduced by half and the terminal "window" would take the bottom half (or the right half) of the screen. There would be no titlebars - on a laptop, where screen space is premium, having multiple title bars amounts to wasting space. Actions for closing the windows would be done on the tabs.

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rethinking the window manager

Posted Dec 19, 2006 2:35 UTC (Tue) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link]

ion3 is fairly close to being a tabbed window-manager. And matchbox does 'one thing on the screen at a time'. Not exactly what you describe, but fairly radical window-managers do exist - they are just not terifically popular.

rethinking the window manager

Posted Dec 19, 2006 10:31 UTC (Tue) by djabsolut (guest, #12799) [Link]

It'd be nice to see KDE move beyond being a "clone" of MS Windows and into leading the user interface area. The window manager described above sounds like a neat idea. I would certainly be willing to give it a try if there was such an option within KDE.

rethinking the window manager

Posted Dec 19, 2006 13:08 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

As long as ion conforms to the ICCCM and EWMH specs, you should be able to use it with KDE already (export KDEWM= your WM of choice, or a small shell script that execs it with whatever parameters you desire, and then run startkde).

Of course, the one-window-at-a-time wms might find panels and the like rather hard to implement. (This is the major reason why I, as a one-window-at-a-time man, have never tried the one-window-at-a-time wms: because I have a couple of panels, a couple of dynamically-raisable procmeters, and a daliclock ticking away around the edges of that One Window...)

rethinking the window manager

Posted Dec 21, 2006 3:46 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

When I get tired of Gnome I'll go back to Ratpoison until I get tired of that.

I like ratpoison for my laptop. It doesn't have a very high resolution and I find trackpads abhorent so it works out nicely. Also it's nice if I want to concentrate on one task as it helps to avoid distraction.

Plus it's a Apple laptop so the look of dismay on OS X user's faces is pretty nice.

It's lightweight, but I don't use it because of that. (I start up beagle, and dbus and gnome session in the background. The thing has over a gig of ram in it and I hover at about 30% usage at full tilt in Gnome with having the browser open for days)

The solution for having the little time and monitoring is to whip up a little script to output the information you want with a key combo.

The solution to multiple window applications, like gimp, is to write a small script to launch a xnest full screen with that application running in it. Pretty simple stuff.

At one point to amuse myself I had KDE running in one window. Gnome in another, and OS X running on Mac-on-Linux in another. I was doing the 'Parrellels' thing before parrellels.

I tried looking at ion and such, but I never realy caught on. Ratpoison is easy because I use screen all the time and it's pretty much the same thing, but for X, so the concept is easy to grasp.

rethinking the window manager

Posted Dec 19, 2006 12:26 UTC (Tue) by t_norup (subscriber, #14071) [Link]

Well, no, but sometimes they are a requirement, e.g. for safety reasons. For instance, control and surveillance systems and radar systems must often have predictable window manangement. In other words, specific windows must be guaranteed to be placed at predetermined screen coordinates; the z-axis placement must be defined once and for all, etc.

To my knowledge, many such systems use ad-hoc solutions to this requirement; the availability of window managers with tighter controls - configurable in a well-structured manner - are likely to be a significant improvement of the starting point in such projects.

Unix and Linux are both very common in the radar world. I'd look thereabout for further requirements and ideas.

rethinking the window manager

Posted Dec 19, 2006 4:23 UTC (Tue) by corey_s (guest, #12510) [Link]

Check out wmii:

http://wmii.suckless.org/

http://suckless.org/contrib/guide/wmii-3/guide-en/guide_en/

rethinking the window manager

Posted Dec 19, 2006 15:24 UTC (Tue) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]

An example: windows would not be allowed to be moved and resized arbitrarily and the annoying pop-ups (e.g.. file-requesters, error messages) would not simply (and rudely!) cover other windows.

It's unfortunate, but window managers are not able to intercept popup dialogs, or applications such as Firefox that request to be raised to the top of the stacking order without user intervention.

rethinking the window manager

Posted Dec 20, 2006 0:15 UTC (Wed) by djabsolut (guest, #12799) [Link]

I do not understand why it's not possible to "intercept" popup dialogs: they are just another window after all.

rethinking the window manager

Posted Dec 20, 2006 8:54 UTC (Wed) by bsch (subscriber, #4349) [Link]

Do you know the Oberon system? I believe its window manager is very much along the lines you described:

http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/snaps/tile.jpg