Re: [Usability] window manager configuration

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Gregory Merchan <merchan baton phys lsu edu> writes:  
> Once this is done there may be things yet unseen that should be available
> and it might be worthwhile to find them. Window-in-window MDI applications
> provide some functions that I've not seen (by default) in any window manager,
> such as the ability lay two windows half-maximized and side-by-side and use
> a pane handle to shift the allocation. (Think of HTML frames.)

Too experimental IMO to be relevant right now. I have no idea how all
the details would work. I'm happy to see someone experiment with WM
implementation and figure it out though.
 
> I have one of the more unusual configurations I've known. I have a laptop
> with an pencil-eraser-like mouse in the middle of the keyboard, and a small
> (800x600 10.4") screen. It's hard to accidentally move the mouse and screen
> space is precious.  I use focus-follows-mouse mode and my window frames (when
> present) are a one-pixel blue border. The functions that are ordinarily
> accessed from a title bar I access through keybindings; when I need to see
> the title of the window I use the tasklist applet. For maximized windows I
> remove even that one-pixel border; I only use it so that text does not bleed
> between windows.

No-borders mode bad, IMO. It effectively disables the computer for
many users if they accidentally turn it on.

If it exists this is a "powertweak" kind of option, not in the default
control center. Of course Sawfish's current capplet gives us a free
"powertweak" tool for it without doing any work.
 
I believe the typical use-pattern a windows user would have on your
small-screen system is to always keep their windows maximized, and use
Alt+Tab or tasklist to move between them.

> I use PointerRoot. I can understand click-to-focus. I've yet to grasp why
> anyone uses sloppy focus; I'm interested to know.

Because unfocusing all windows when your mouse is over the desktop is
just pedantic and not useful.

However I believe this may be one of those not-worth-fighting points,
it's only about 3 lines of code to implement the third mode in the
window manager.

Havoc