[iPAQ] window managers for the ipaq

Dwayne,

Thank you for all of your efforts. I have been experimenting with
every window manager I could find on my desktop in a 320x240
Xnest. Here are a couple of my thoughts:

aewm
        Extremely minimal, (17k or so), but maybe about what you would
        want. It has no icons, minimized programs must be recovered
        through an external program. Comes with gtk-panel, gtk-switch,
        (and gtk-panel-menu, gtk-switch-menu), which are external
        programs to launch programs or switch to running programs. The
        gtk-* programs are intended to be launched by root mouse
        clicks. They may be useful with other window managers as well,
        (especially minimal window managers that do not include this
        functionality themselves or don't do it well).

flwm
        also quite small. I like that it puts up some resistance when
        sliding windows to the edge of the screen -- this can be handy
        on a display as small as the iPAQ's. Also, I noticed a very
        curious behavior that could be useful: I had a gtk
        file-selection dialog up that was larger than the whole screen
        and I was able to move it around by clicking on inert areas,
        (non-widgets), of the dialog window(!). This is a great
        feature that would be useful with many programs, (I did not
        see the same behavior in the actual application I was running,
        glotski). Does anyone have an idea how aewm does this? What
        exactly is triggering the behavior? Is the gtk file dialog
        doing something special to allow it? I haven't tried
        duplicating the behavior on the iPAQ yet.

        Also, flwm supports a mode in which the managed desktop size
        is specified smaller than the full-screen. This could allow a
        permanent scribble area/toolbar/program-launcher area to one
        side of the screen. This would be fun to experiment with.

Obviously, one of the most crucial features for a window manager is
the ability to specify programs which never receive focus. That way,
you can simply click on an xterm or any other window to give it focus,
then start scribbling in your character recognition program and let
the characters go where they should go.

-Carl

Dwayne Jacques Fontenot writes:
>
> hi,
>
> I'm working on putting together a page about various window managers
> for the ipaq.
>
> In the interest of releasing early and often, and reducing potential
> duplication of effort, I submit this status report.
>
> I have built the following for the ipaq:
>
> flwm
> swm
> sapphire
> icewm
>
> You can see screen shots at http://www.chron.com/spider/screens/
>
> I have put some of them up for download at http://www.chron.com/spider/apps/wm/
>
> icewm is not there yet because it requires many libraries the way I have
> built it and I just haven't had time to put together a tarball.
>
> I have included some preliminary notes and impressions at the end of this
> message.
>
> Dwayne
>
>
>
> twm
> ---
>
> focus problem(?) fixed in latest version(?)
>
> large memory footprint, especially for its limited functionality
>
> looks dated
>
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 500 244 146288 Jan 1 1970 /usr/bin/X11/twm
>
> 496 root 9 0 1564 1564 1148 S 0 0.0 5.0 0:00 twm
>
>
> swm
> ---
> oversimplified refresh behavior; windows do not refresh while dragging
>
> no shaped windows(?)
>
> very simple looking and working, but what do you expect for 17kB?
>
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 17760 Oct 3 03:18 swm
>
> 486 root 1 0 968 968 808 S 0 0.0 3.1 0:00 swm
>
>
> sapphire
> --------
>
> bad off-screen menu behavior
>
> strange box at screen bottom
>
> theme switching not working right (may be user error)
>
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 125616 Oct 4 00:54 sapphire
>
> 474 root 9 0 1164 1164 936 S 0 0.0 3.7 0:39 sapphire
>
> flwm
> ----
>
> good offscreen menu behavior; menus auto-slide into full view
>
> strange sideways title bar
>
> no shaped windows(?)
>
> relies on fltk (maybe a good thing?)
>
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 59164 Jan 2 1970 flwm
>
> 494 root 9 0 1012 1012 868 S 0 0.0 3.2 0:00 flwm
>
> icewm
> -----
>
> cool themes
>
> strange rendering on bottom panel (bad config?)
>
> bad offscreen menu behavior
>
> large memory footprint
>
> large binary size
>
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 303600 Oct 6 03:24 icewm
>
> 679 root 8 0 1568 1568 1264 S 0 0.0 5.0 0:04 icewm
>
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Received on Fri Oct 6 10:02:37 2000