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List:       qvwm-english
Subject:    [qvwm-e:00144] Re: Bugs / Changes / Ideas
From:       Bob Schmertz <schmertz () wam ! umd ! edu>
Date:       1999-12-29 19:32:13
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On Wed, 29 Dec 1999, ^me^ wrote:

>Hi.  Just installed the RPM of 1.1.4 and I've got a lot of ideas.
>1.  Settings dialog for the taskbar.  it's kinda annoying that the taskbar
>location and everything else is not all in one place.  They're kind of
>disorganized on the right click menu.

Not sure exactly what you mean here... in Windows95, when you right-click
on the taskbar, there is a menu option called "Properties", which opens up
a dialog; is this what you're talking about?  That might not be a bad
thing, but you're getting into the area of GUI configuration tools, which
unfortunately QVWM has virtually none of right now.  Though I can't speak
for qvwm 2.0....

>
>2.  Ability to turn off those darn animations.  I've found that I like
>to cover up the blasted icons after a while of staring at the screen.
>

I'm no fan of animated icons either :-).  Happily, I don't suffer from the
same problems as you, because I've been using qvwm since before it
supported animated icons, so all the icons set in my .qvwmrc file are
non-animated.  I'm not at my home with my Linux box, so I can't check
things, but it may be that the most recent versions of qvwm didn't ship
with the original default non-animated icons.  In that case, you'd have to
download an older version of it, perhaps, to get better icons.  Or you can
always use icons from other WM's -- an XPM is an XPM after all.  Check out
/usr/share/icons and /usr/share/pixmaps on Red Hat Linux.  And check out
your .qvwmrc file.

>3.  Icon reading.  most X apps have xpm icons embedded in them.  Should
>be able to pick those out and slap them on the taskbar.
>

Do X apps have 16x16 icons embedded in them, or only 32x32?  If only
32x32, then they would have to be reduced to 16x16 (or whatever size is
specified in the config file), which is very expensive, as anyone who has
used GNOME can attest.  OTOH, since you mentioned the taskbar, each new
icon would be placed there one by one, so it might not have a horrible
effect on system performance.

Meanwhile, I have always thought that it would be much more feasible --
and very desirable -- to have the embedded icons show up in the task
switcher (Alt+TAB)

>4. Add new icons via right-click and wizard thing.  Would be very cool.

This would indeed be cool.  You're back into the graphical config tools
again, though -- a major departure from what has been done so far.  First
of all, that sort of thing really is a bit extraneous to the basic
function of a window manager.  So while it would be worthwhile, I and many
other people, I think, would first want to make sure that QVWM doesn't get
too bulky.  If such a capability is implemented, I would prefer to see it
either as some sort of module, the way FVWM does things, or perhaps simply
an external app, which I've often considered doing.

The second issue is whether and how permanent config changes would be
made.  Right now, all configurations to QVWM -- except for a few minor
things such as taskbar position and the ability to remove an icon from the
desktop -- are made in the .qvwmrc file, and only take effect when the WM
is restarted.  Do you want QVWM (or a putative configuration tool) to
write its changes to the .qvwmrc file?  If so, would it read through the
file and make whatever changes were appropriate, or would it just dump
the current status out to a new file, overwriting the old one?

Just some thoughts.

>
>5.  Drag and Drop compatible w/ GNOME and KDE.  That would be the best
>thing I can see ever doing.  It'd make QVWM one of the first to support
>both.

Can you give some specific examples?

>
>6.  New toolbars.  Quick launch toolbar was a cool idea from M$.  I'd like to
>see one in QVWM.  Also, moving toolbars around w/ the mouse is cool.

Would this need to be a wm feature?  Is there anything disadvantageous
about having an external app that could launch apps instead?

>
>7.  Taskbar shouldn't show all apps when they're off the desktop.  it makes it
>kinda cluttered.  plus that would be a quick-and-dirty fix for the dissapearing
>app effect in the bugs section on the web page.

Someone earlier requested something like this, only with a slight
improvement: the ability to choose whether the taskbar showed all apps or
only those on the current desktop.  This sounds like a good idea.  My only
question is, how do you determine which desktop an app is in, since it can
overlap multiple desktops (half on this one, half on the next, or
whatever).

>
>8.  Windows button support.  Most people I know that run linux still have a
>windows button but it never gets pressed.

Actually, in more recent versions of linux/XFree86, the windows button
does serve a function.  Unix traditionally makes a distinction between the
"Alt" key and the "Meta" key (the latter of which has a little diamond on
it on a Sun machine), and the windows key has been made to fit one of
these functions (I don't know which, though).  Unfortunately, this doesn't
seem to correspond at all well with the function of the same button in
Windows.  Also, don't forget, QVWM is not a Linux-only wm.  Other Unix
machines don't have a "Windows button".  OTOH, everyone has to make
adjustments here and there; We will never be able to perfectly duplicate
Windows under Unix.

>
>9.  Run dialog. xterm, AAAAAH no. ick.
>

??????

>10.  better system tray support.  if I kill xeyes or xload it doesn't resize to
>get rid of them.

I've never tried this, but that does sound like a bug.

--
Cheers,
Bob Schmertz

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