GNOME Window Manager

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis users sourceforge net>]

OK, this is a rant/question dealie, just to warn you.  ~,^  If I'm totally off-track with my facts or ideas, don't be surprised.  Just smack me once or twice and I'll shut up.

A problem I see with GNOME right now is the Window Manager - Sawfish is excellent, it's what I use, I love it.  But, for the average user, the configuration of Sawfish+GNOME is a nightmare.

For starts, there is some overlapping issues.  For example, Sawfish has keybinding support to do various tasks on certain keys, and the GNOME panel also does this for the menu/run dialog.  This should be merged somewhere.  There needs to be a GNOME-wide global keybinding setup.  I was recently looking into different Window Managers, and found Oroborus - it has an optional component called 'Key Launch' that basically sits there and runs commands based on key presses.  This is complete seperation from window manager and desktop environment.  If someone made a bonobo/CORBA app like that, it could launch apps, call GNOME panels methods (like open menu), control the WM, etc.  This could make things a lot nicer as far as key-bindings go, and more uniform.  Not to mention we could have a centralized configuration capplet for key-bindings.

The second issue is one everyone is familiar with, and I believe someone else is working on: themes.  I believe it was the meta-theme project, although I haven't seen an announced update to that in a while.  There really does need to be just one 'Appearance' configuration capplet, and one alone.

The third issue I've seen is mostly just the layout of the Control Center.  The 'Sawfish Window Manager' section is rather cryptic to the average user.  Not to mention the ten-billion configuration options (which I personally enjoy, but then again, I'm not an average user at all).  In the bare-minimum, the Sawfish controls should at least be put as a sub-tree in Desktop, or Look and Feel, and have some of the sections renamed to more obvious meanings (Meta, for example, could be User Level).

All in all, Sawfish either needs to be more tightly integrated, or perhaps we need a fork/new WM that is tied very tightly to GNOME.  It should *always* be possible to use your own WM choice in GNOME, but GNOME still needs a very well supported and integrated default.  Perhaps the sawfish-gnome interface could be expanded (definitely keep it optional, for those who use Sawfish without GNOME).  Whatever is done, there just needs to be an easier to setup and use WM for GNOME that is really a part of GNOME, noe *just* GNOME-compliant.

Anyone else agree, or am I just a total raving lunatic moron?