Better window management strategies?

[Paul Johnson]

On 5/29/07, Teo Fonrouge <fedora-list at windtelsoft.com> wrote:
> On Saturday 26 May 2007 11:54:21 Joe Smith wrote:
> > How do you folks manage your working windows? I find that working on a
> > standard WIMP desktop is a distracting battle of locating and arranging
> > in the needed windows. The current tools, specifically in the default
> > Fedora Gnome desktop are not working well for me, but maybe I've missed
> > something.
> >
> > Here's what I've tried:
> >
> > * Focus follows mouse
> >
I would strongly suggest you try the WindowMaker window manager.  It
has runtime adjustable options to achieve the kinds of options you
prefer.  Moreover, there are WindowMaker RPMS in the Fedora Extras
collection, and I've been using it with Gnome in Fedora since, well,
since before there was Fedora.  WindowMaker is one of the long
standing, well established window managers.  It started as an offshoot
of (effort to clean up and stabilize) the Afterstep window manager:
Learn more http://www.windowmaker.info.

If you install WindowMaker in a system that does not use Gnome or KDE,
then that makes you an old fashioned Linux user!  Making WindowMaker
"go" will be as easy as logging in, killing your current window
manager, and running the wmaker.inst program, that will create a
directory GNUstep in your home directory and you will see some default
dock apps.

If you are new-fashioned, the only hard part is making Gnome/Fedora
allow you to use WindowManager, because the system keeps wanting to
put back in the  default "metacity" window manager and that blocks
"wmaker" from starting up.  I wrote a script that fixes that, and I
have packaged it with a special RPM that we use in our computer labs.
I'm attaching a copy of it.  Basically, it does the following.  It
works the same as if you point-and-click to System/Preferences/other
preferences/session, you find "metacity" and you change it to "normal"
and then stop it, and then you can add "wmaker" as a program to run at
start time.  Then it does certain things I like, such as create 4
workspaces.

-- 
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: gnome.wmaker.inst
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 10012 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/attachments/20070529/33adf165/attachment-0001.obj>