98 lines
4.2 KiB
HTML
98 lines
4.2 KiB
HTML
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<title>Yet Another Window Manager Issue 21</title>
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</HEAD>
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<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#0020F0"
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ALINK="#FF0000">
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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</H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<center>
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<H2>Yet Another Window Manager</H2>
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<H4>By Larry Ayers,
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<a href="mailto:layers@marktwain.net">layers@marktwain.net</a></H4>
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</center>
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<P><HR><P>
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<center><h3>Introduction</h3></center>
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<p>Marco Macek, a Slovenian computer-science student, has been developing a
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quite powerful and configurable editor called FTE for the past couple of
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years. FTE is a multi-platform folding editor, available for Linux, OS/2, DOS, and
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Windows; I wrote a short review of an earlier beta in issue 7 of LG. Lately
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Marco has turned his hand to developing a new window-manager. Unlike some
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Linux projects, which are released to the FTP sites in the early stages of
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development, the Ice window-manager seems to have been under development as a
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non-public project throughout the early beta versions. It just showed up one
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day in the Sunsite incoming directory in a remarkably complete and usable
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form.
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<h3><center>Differences and Features</center></h3>
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<p>Lately window-managers seem to be proliferating, with offshoots and variants
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of fvwm predominating. Icewm is in large part inspired by the OS/2 Workplace
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Shell interface. Though OS/2 has been never gained the market acceptance its
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adherents have hoped for, the Workplace Shell is a remarkably advanced
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object-oriented GUI, and Macek has attempted to adapt some of its
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"look-and-feel" to the Linux environment. Another influence is the common
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Windows 95 interface, which does have some useful features worth emulating.
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<p>Win95's bottom-of-the-screen icon bar , with its cascading menus and dynamic
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window indicators, has been nicely reproduced in Icewm. The equivalent of
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the "Start" menu (which functions much like Win95's) has a "Linux" label with
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a penguin icon.<br>
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<p>
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<img alt="icewm bottom-bar" src="./gx/ayers/icebar.gif">
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<p>The general appearance of the windows (borders, titlebars, et al) is very
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reminiscent of OS/2. Various types of "X" kill buttons are available, but the
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general appearance of the window-borders seems to be hard-coded; that is, not
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configurable. Here's a screenshot of a typical window:<br>
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<p>
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<img alt="Icewm window" src="./gx/ayers/icewindow.gif">
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<hr>
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<p>I liked the cascading mouse button menus, with a different menu shown for
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each mouse button. The Enlightenment window-manager has a similar feature.
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These menus are hierarchical and behave like their OS/2 equivalents.<br>
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<p>
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<img alt="ice menu" src="./gx/ayers/icemenu.gif">
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<hr>
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<p>This window-manager really doesn't have such compellingly new features that
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many long-time Fvwm2 or AfterStep users would want to adopt it, but for new Linux
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users more familiar with Win95 or OS/2, the similarities might serve to ease
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the transition. It compiled easily on my 2.0.30 system, and it seemed to be
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stable and dependable.
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<p>The source archive is available from
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<a href="http://ixtas.fri.uni-lj.si/~markom/icewm/">the icewm home-page</a>, as well
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as the sunsite FTP site. Icewm's home page also has Redhat RPM's of the source.
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1997, Larry Ayers<BR>
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Published in Issue 21 of the Linux Gazette, September 1997</H5></center>
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