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Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld)Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld)Posted May 10, 2004 22:36 UTC (Mon) by rriggs (subscriber, #11598)Parent article: Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld)
I've decided that the only way to explain the regression of GNOME over the years is that Microsoft and/or SCO moles have infiltrated the GNOME leadership in a covert effort to destroy any possibility that Linux could compete with Windows on the desktop. I could not agree more. Choice is disappearing, like having the option of a large virtual desktop (an oversized workspace) with edge flipping. Those of us used to such niceties for over a decade find them amazingly productive features. Hell, even an oversized workspace that allowed keyboard navigation would be a nice option. Wouldn't want to confuse the poor user with such advanced features. Havoc Pennington is a bright enough fellow, but I think he's got issues.
Metacity gets surprisingly few people helping out with anything useful, it's really depressing to go through bugs and see so many more people whining for buggy bloat than fixing real issues. I should let people add crack in exchange for fixing bugs. "Fix 30 good bugs and you can add the raise-on-click pref." "Fix 50 and you can add edge flipping." No wonder his WM get so little developer support. There is little there to inspire the developer to help with. The switch to Metacity by GNOME and the response to users about the edge flipping issue has been one of the more depressing episodes for me as a Linux user.
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Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld) Posted May 10, 2004 23:01 UTC (Mon) by newren (guest, #5160) [Link] even an oversized workspace that allowed keyboard navigation would be a nice option. Unless I am misunderstanding what you are referring to, Metacity has that and has had it for a long time. I use it all the time. Fix 30 good bugs and you can add the raise-on-click pref. Havoc said that? That's funny, I was pretty sure I saw him say a dozen in one bug report. Can you tell me when and where your quote appeared so that I can determine whether the number is going up or down? :-) he switch to Metacity by GNOME and the response to users about the edge flipping issue has been one of the more depressing episodes for me as a Linux user. Why? GNOME does not hardcode for Metacity at all, and in looking through the code, it is quite apparent that the mean for the window manager to be easily interchangeable and replaceable. If you don't like Metacity, why not just use Sawfish or another window manager? Also, to follow up to that, I think there's more to the story. I think few hack on Metacity because most don't feel like there's any need to. It works, so why change it? Sure, there may be those use to the more esoteric features found in various other window managers on *nix (personally, I'm one of those that likes do-not-raise-on-click in mouse focus), but since Metacity's codebase is so easy to work with and is so well written, there are a lot of patches out there that people can easily grab. It's also pretty easy to write your own (I know, because even I can do it).
Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld) Posted May 11, 2004 0:02 UTC (Tue) by djao (subscriber, #4263) [Link] If you don't like Metacity, why not just use Sawfish or another window manager?I love Sawfish, but it is so unmaintained that it is in grievous danger of becoming irrelevant. For example it is one of the few remaining GNOME components that is not UTF-8 aware. Already in Fedora 2 test 3 the sawfish package does not work at all, and there is so little developer interest in sawfish that I see no reason to hope for improvement. In what must be the height of irony, the best GNOME compliant window manager included in Fedora (and the one that I now use) is kwin from the KDE team. since Metacity's codebase is so easy to work with and is so well written, there are a lot of patches out there that people can easily grab. Two patches that I am specifically looking for are the following:
Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld) Posted May 11, 2004 1:18 UTC (Tue) by newren (guest, #5160) [Link] I love Sawfish, but it is so unmaintained that it is in grievous danger of becoming irrelevant. True. John Harper, IIRC (which I likely may not), got hired by Apple and then was unable to work on Sawfish (noncompete clauses or something like that. Since sawfish contains every possible configuration known to man, it's extremely complex which serves as a significant barrier to more people working on it. Combine that with the fact that it's written in LISP, and you've cut down the number of people who can contribute even further. *shrug* I would like to bind alt-rightclick to the raise-or-lower-window keyboard shortcut... There may be patches that do this or similar; I don't know because I haven't checked. But it sounds simple enough. And yes, it would definitely require a patch as the Alt+any-mouse-click actions are all hardcoded (on purpose). I would like to have the ability to move a window so that its titlebar is above the top edge of the monitor. Me too. The maintainers would never accept it, and I agree with them for not accepting it given their rationale and their design goals for Metacity. This feature really doesn't fit. However, that doesn't mean it is unfit for other window managers... I am aware of at least two patches to handle this. One was a hack (even the person who submitted it said so). It's a couple years old, I think. The other was fairly recent and looked more clean, though I didn't get a chance to test to see how well it worked. Don't remember the bug number off the top off my head for either one, though.
Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld) Posted May 11, 2004 15:03 UTC (Tue) by cjdewey (guest, #5128) [Link] The maintainers would never accept it, and I agree with them for not accepting it given their rationale and their design goals for Metacity. This feature really doesn't fit.Can you expand on this, or provide a link? Why would they allow windows to go off the left, right and bottom edges of the screen, but not the top? When I need to open an oversize window (bigger than my desktop), it's so much easier to drag the window around with ALT-LEFTCLICK to see the contents, than it is to manipulate two scrollbars.
Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld) Posted May 11, 2004 22:08 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] Why would they allow windows to go off the left, right and bottom edges of the screen, but not the top?Because most users move windows by dragging the titlebar on top, and if the titlebar disappears from view, they won't know what to do to move the window again? (Especially as "what to do" tends to change from one window manager to another?)
Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld) Posted May 11, 2004 23:24 UTC (Tue) by cjdewey (guest, #5128) [Link] Because most users move windows by dragging the titlebar on top, and if the titlebar disappears from view, they won't know what to do to move the window again? (Especially as "what to do" tends to change from one window manager to another?)If they only drag things around by the titlebar, they -can't- move the window past the top edge of the display. WindowMaker has this right, I think: there's some resistance "pressure" before a window can be moved beyond the top edge, so you need a "running start" at it. More than enough to protect most users from inadvertently confusing themselves by moving the titlebar out of view.
Alt-{left,right}click Posted May 13, 2004 15:55 UTC (Thu) by gwolf (subscriber, #14632) [Link] I am a WindowMaker diehard fan. In the very beginning, I used to move the windows using the titlebar, and resize it using the bottom bar. I just don't do that anymore. Alt-leftclick moves a window, using any point of the said window as the handle. Alt-rightclick resizes it, pulling or pushing the closest window edge. You simply cannot push a window beyond reach, you can always do as you wish with it... Most window managers implement this behavior, I am amazed that Gnome (or Metacity?) people just removed it. Why? Even if most users will never use it, people who _do_ use it will really get annoyed to find it gone (it has happened to me in Windows).
Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld) Posted May 11, 2004 3:42 UTC (Tue) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] In what must be the height of irony, the best GNOME compliant window manager included in Fedora (and the one that I now use) is kwin from the KDE team. Tried WindowMaker?
Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld) Posted May 11, 2004 5:32 UTC (Tue) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link] Tried WindowMaker?Yup. I live in Window Maker. Gnome 2.6 in Fedora Core 2 (test) doesn't really play nice with it, though. Oh well; goodbye, Gnome.
Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld) Posted May 11, 2004 10:45 UTC (Tue) by mbanck (subscriber, #9035) [Link] Metacity is completely unusable to me until these two problems are fixed.Well, perhaps it is time for WOM (Working Overloaded Metacity)? Just collect the patches from bugzilla, build a version, distribute it and see whether people like/use it. That's what the source is there for. If your project has gained enough popularity, maybe distributions will start to ship it as the Metacity. And even if not, you've scratched your (and probably quite a few others, from what I've read) itch. Personally, I don't have issues with Metacity, but then, I only switch to Gnome every once in a while. Michael
Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld) Posted May 11, 2004 14:56 UTC (Tue) by cjdewey (guest, #5128) [Link] <i>I would like to have the ability to move a window so that its titlebar is above the top edge of the monitor. That is, alt-leftclick followed by an upward mouse motion should not block when the titlebar hits the top edge of the screen.</i>Bingo. That, even more than spatial Nautilus, is my biggest peeve with GNOME right now.
Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld) Posted May 11, 2004 5:49 UTC (Tue) by rriggs (subscriber, #11598) [Link] If you are feeling lucky, google for 'havoc "let people add crack"'...
even an oversized workspace that allowed keyboard navigation would be a nice option.I think you are. What Metacity provides is multiple workspaces. We've had that feature since the dawn of CDE. A single large desktop is a lot more intuitive for many of us. It is certainly more flexible.
Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld) Posted May 11, 2004 15:58 UTC (Tue) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] GNOME does not hardcode for Metacity at all, and in looking through the code, it is quite apparent that the mean for the window manager to be easily interchangeable and replaceable.Well, it used to be easy, back in the GNOME 1.x days when there was a window manager option in preferences. I haven't tried 2.6 yet, but in 2.0/2.2/2.4 one has to first set the current window manager process to "normal" so that it doesn't respawn, kill it, and then start the new window manager from an xterm (don't forget to use 'nohup') or by pressing F2 for the "run program" dialog. Hardly what I would call easy, especially considering GNOME's target userbase. Although the window manager can be changed, it's fairly apparent that they really don't want that, and they go out of their way to make it difficult. If they didn't, then why was the window manager option removed from preferences?
Living Down to a Low Standard (ComputerWorld) Posted May 14, 2004 0:08 UTC (Fri) by daenzer (✭ supporter ✭, #7050) [Link] It's not Metacity's fault that other window managers aren't as standards compliant and don't provide --replace, e.g.
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