Hello, On Sun, 24 Apr 2011, Lew Wolfgang wrote: [..] Cross-check with WindowMaker ...
Here are the big points:
Multiple desktops (20), each with their own wallpaper.
Check.
Easily remapping of the caps lock key to an additional control key. (Kerrigan, Richie and God placed the control key to the left of the "A" key! Who were those IBM engineers to think they could remap control to caps-lock on the IBM AT keyboard?)
Nothing at all dependent on KDE. I have Escape on the "Caps" key left of 'A', and my lower row is: Control Mode_switch Alt Space Alt Mode_switch Meta Control. (Mode_switch aka AltGr aka ISO_Level3_Switch). A simple ~/.Xmodmap does the trick (in my case a bit more). The _hard_ thing is to keep those "nice" DEs, namely KDE (and Gnome) from remapping. But AFAIK it suffices to put a 'xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap'-"script" into their autostart stuff to overwrite their limitations again. So: Check.
Window placement behavior. I prefer "Focus Follows Mouse" and being able to type in a window without it being raised to the top.
Check.
This allows you to overlap multiple windows just the way you want and to read from the one on top while entering into a sliver of one on the bottom. Focus raising windows and not being able to turn it off is probably the biggest sin of Microsoft Windows, IMHO.
I actually hate "Focus follows mouse", as I like to move the mouse-pointer out of the way, that's just me. With WMaker, "FFM" is easily configurable with WPrefs (or even default, dunno). So, you might want to have a(nother) look at WindowMaker yourself ;) There's e.g. one of the "killer" features of WMaker for me: you can "rip off" menues to make them normal windows, you can open the menues (Windows, Apps) on any pixel of "non-App-Space" (i.e. "Background" or "Desktop")... Consider: Right-Click -> Appearence -> Themes, Move "Themes" Titlebar to rip it off (and optionally close the menu itself by right-clicking anywhere on the "Desktop"), and then you have the still open "Themes" menu, you can click any entry without the menu disappearing. With e.g. KDE/Gnome, you have some extra "Config-App" showing some "Preview" of the theme, you'd always have to click "Apply" to really see effects etc. Talk about usability, eh? WMaker is _efficient_.
One of my very smart friends doesn't like either Gnome or KDE. Too much cruft. He uses FVWM-2 and Emacs. That's what the UNIX paradigm is all about: choice!
Full ACK. Me: WindowMaker, XEmacs, a dozen xterms, and a bit of fluff (xclock[1], gkrellm, often seamonkey for web stuff, xawtv for TV) ... ;) -dnh [1] yeah, there's a clock in gkrellm, there's even an analog clock available, but that's not "read at a glance". This is: /usr/bin/xclock -norender -update 1 -rv -bg black -fg white \ -hd white -hl grey80 -geometry 100x100 -padding 4 The "Volume Plugin" for gkrellm though is very useful and efficient. -- "Airplane travel is nature's way of making you look like your passport photo." -- Al Gore -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org