Re: Sawfish problems

["Kevin D. Knerr, Sr." <kknerrsr ptdprolog net>]

On 12 Oct, Telsa Gwynne wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 12, 2000 at 09:37:32AM +0100 or thereabouts, Alan Patterson wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 	I just installed the latest Gnome from Helixcode last night.
>> However, sawfish does not appear to work properly. When I open an
>> application, the window appears in the top left hand corner. Gnome-
>> terminal has no frame and xemacs has a frame but it is off the screen.
>> If I move the window using the desk guide, the frame appears.
>> 
>> I have tried all the placement settings in the control centre and none
>> seem to work. Other window managers seem to work fine.
>> 
>> Any ideas ?
> 
> This has come up on #gnome and #gnome-help a _lot_. I don't use sawfish
> and I don't use Helix, so take these with a grain of salt and test them
> on a spare account first, perhaps :)
> 
> (a) Reselect your window manager theme. That should be all you need to
> do. 
> (b) If (a) fails, delete ~/.sawfishrc (urrgh!)
> 
> I think (b) sucks :)

Which is why I'm so surprised that the suggestion comes up so frequently
on both the GNOME and sawfish lists . . .

Ripping it out is the MS-way of fixing a config problem.

Renaming the config file, say ~/.sawfishrc.ori is the *nix way . . .

WRT the original poster's problem: I'm not using Helix either (I'm a
Slacker), so I don't keep all of the Helix issues in my personal
archive.

However, given the major changes resulting from the way John is
implementing modules, many lisp modules and .sawfishrc files that worked
under 0.30 break under 0.31.x.  Usually, it's a matter of simply adding
the appropriate require statements--unless you're re-defun'ing functions
that are no longer in the global namespace. That's a bit more work,
since it involves using eval-in, but not overly difficult.

In short, standard practice when a new release breaks config files
should be to backup your originals (say, by renaming them), then add
back each item, either via the user interface or by editing the config
files. In sawfish's case, these are ~/.sawfishrc & ~/.sawfish/custom.

Also, if you're using any custom sawfish routines, check the sawfish map
for updates for the new release and recompile all your site-lisp.

If there's interest, I've done up a q&d shell script that handles that
task quite nicely.

Tchuss!

Barthel
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I don't have a solution, but I do admire the problem!