
Window Maker 0.95.8 released - shimabukuro
http://windowmaker.org/news.php
======
SwellJoe
The "half-maximized" feature sounds great, and one of the things that I feel
like no one has right, still. Windows has actually gotten pretty good,
surprisingly (drag to corners to get a quarter screen window, drag to sides to
get half screen). Gnome is clumsier than I'd like. I really would love a
window manager that handles tiling well, but doesn't require complete buy-in
to a fully tiled concept. I doubt I'll be going back to Window Maker for this
(I used it up until switching briefly to Enlightenment and then on to various
Gnome standard window managers....Sawfish, and some others), but it seems like
it's reasonably well thought out implementation.

Also, I find it really funny when a project has been around for decades, and
has been regarded as stable for nearly as long, and still hasn't done a 1.0
release.

~~~
wernercd
> Windows has actually gotten pretty good, surprisingly (drag to corners to
> get a quarter screen window, drag to sides to get half screen)

Holy shit on a shingle... how did I not know about this magic incantation!

~~~
AceJohnny2
Even better then: try the Win key + arrow keys.

~~~
bastijn
And shift+win+arrows to kick it over your multiple monitors.

With those two features now in Windows (for a while) I could finally drop my
autohotkey windowing script.

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michel-slm
Feeling nostalgic ... Window Maker was my window manager of choice per year
(up to the GNOME 1 days when it was still easy to run gnome-panel on top of
WM).

The NeXTSTEP way in which menus can be triggered by right-clicking is really
usable - I only wish it's possible to attach the app menu bar as well. The
global menu bar approach of macOS and GNOME can feel a bit ridiculous on large
displays.

~~~
bcrescimanno
> I only wish it's possible to attach the app menu bar as well. The global
> menu bar approach of macOS and GNOME can feel a bit ridiculous on large
> displays.

I personally disagree. It's still highly relevant to be able to "slam" the
pointer upward to always land on the menu bar.

~~~
mavhc
Problem is returning to where you came from again.

RISC OS has the best menus, just click the mouse button anywhere in the
window, maximum Fitts score, and you can select menu items and keep the menu
open to select more, also select a menu item that has a submenu, and have
windows as submenus, for palette selection etc

~~~
kitsunesoba
>Problem is returning to where you came from again.

I have cursor speed set high on all of my machines for this very reason. Easy
to slam edges, minimal movement to get back to where you started. It takes a
day or so to adjust to being precise with small hand movements, but it was
totally worth it, at least for me.

~~~
i336_
I'm curious what kind of mouse you have, and how you have it set up. I'm
guessing you're not using a trackpad or TrackPoint?

~~~
kitsunesoba
My day to day pointing device is a trackball (CST L-Trac) but I occasionally
use a mouse and the trackpad on my MBP. At one point I used a dell precision
laptop with a trackpoint. Pointer speed is high on all of them, and I used to
use hot corners but now the only corner I use is bottom left for screen lock.

~~~
i336_
Ah, a trackball; that makes perfect sense. I really need to get myself one of
those things :)

Interesting, screen lock at bottom left. I'm guessing you're not using
Windows, or that you open the menu with the Windows key if you do.

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pjmlp
Nice to know they still keep developing it.

Window Maker became my favourite window manager around 1997, after trying out
the majority of them since I installed Slackware 2.0 for the first time.

I kept on using it until around 2006, when I switched back to Windows as my
main desktop.

Back the in day I had a nice collection of mini apples, pity that GNUStep
never came to be fully integrated with it.

Nowadays my GNU/Linux VMs run Ubuntu/Unity, I guess I will have to try WM
again. :)

~~~
zeotroph
As someone still using Window Maker, these mini-DockApps are a a reason why I
keep using it. The dock is on the left or right, so it does not take the more
precious vertical screenspace. And dockapps are reasonably sized (64x64 pixels
by default) and thus can show useful information. I am especially fond of one
showing CPU activity like blobs in a lava lamp (wmforkplop).

I also got very used to the way WM does virtual desktops, though KDE can be
configured to behave nearly identical by now.

~~~
Zardoz84
what does WM that is special with virtual desktops?

~~~
dredmorbius
Typically thy're arranged in a flat space, think of them extending left and
right, logically, of your monitor(s).

The Windowlist shows _all_ open windows. You can pin it, then walk through the
list if you've lost track of something.

Windows can be pinned to all desktops.

Nothing I've seen in 30 years comes close.

~~~
onli
Sounds to me exactly like functionality IceWM offers.

~~~
dredmorbius
A number of the older WMs are not entirely dissimilar. Some aren't, though.
FVWM for example has a grid rather than flat layout, which I find confusing
(you might go left/right, you might go up/down). The _boxes generally struck
me as pretty good -- Blackbox I think most especially.

KDE comes close to WindowMaker in functionality (I've been watching/using that
occasionally since ~1999), but never quite seems to get it right. KDE's
windowlist, for example, _isn't pinnable _, and if you 're walking that, _you
have to re-open, and re-acquire your current working spot, for each window
you're traversing _. That extra bit of friction rubs me raw every damned time.

The crazy thing about WindowMaker, for me, is how for such a ... not
particulalry _beautiful* desktop (though I find its asthetics completely
acceptable), it's so damned _useful_. It's either exceptionally well designed
... or I've just got it cold-welded to my muscle memory. I couldn't honestly
tell you which.

(Though I think its design is particularly good, with its design _stability_ a
major part of that.)

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mixedbit
Window Maker was my first encounter with virtual desktops and since I started
using it I can no longer imagine working efficiently without virtual desktops.
Was Window Maker the first manager that had virtual desktops?

~~~
antfarm
The first time I have seen virtual desktops was on a UNIX workstation running
the FVWM window manager in 1995, a couple of years before Window Maker's
inital release.

~~~
antfarm
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_desktop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_desktop)

~~~
digi_owl
That illustration image. In hindsight i can't help think that the release of
Compiz was what made the DEs jump the shark.

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gnuvince
Window Maker was one of the reason why I decided to start using Linux back in
1999. I was running Windows 98 back then, and I was so taken by the style of
the different window managers available for Linux. I marveled at how flexible
Enlightenment looked and fvwm either looked like crap or like a work of art
depending on the time the user spent in his configuration file.

But by far, my favorite look was Window Maker. I liked the large icons, the
blocky menu, and the intriguing dockapps. After I managed to install Linux
(that was a hard task for a 16 year-old who couldn't read English), I used
Window Maker for a number of years. It was fast, it was functional, and it was
really cool! These days I use LXDE with Openbox, but I'm always thrilled to
hear about new developments in Window Maker.

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dredmorbius
Thanks to the team. My daily driver for two decades.

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h2hn
I used it for 10 years till 6 years ago. kudos for it!!

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jwr
This brings back memories. I have screenshots of my desktop running Window
Maker from 1997 (on a SparcStation). Guess I could start using it again, after
20 years :-)

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reavon
Wow. This brings back memories. I think I used this after I used fvwm2. Sigh.

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jstewartmobile
I love WM. I hope they stay off the radar though. If it ever picks up any
momentum, RedHat or the Gnome team are going to move in and start "improving"
it.

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stenius
whoo, I just started using WMaker again a couple of days ago and this is one
of the features I missed the most from other envs.

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partycoder
Window Maker is great, inspired on NeXTSTEP.

On Windows there is LiteStep which is free and fully customizable. Makes
Windows more palatable.

~~~
digi_owl
But then Windows was never really designed to handle anything but explorer.exe
as its "WM".

~~~
preid24
That's my worry with Wayland. Everything will be designed around GNOME and KDE
and it will be difficult to run "alternative" WMs.

~~~
peller
I don't think this is anymore a valid concern. From the Wayland FAQ:

"How can I replace Wayland's Window Manager?

The Wayland architecture integrates the display server, window manager and
compositor into one process. You can think of Wayland as a toolkit for
creating clients and compositors. It is not a specific single compositor or
window manager. If you want a different window manager, you can write a new
one. A 'libweston' effort is underway in order to allow new environments to
reuse Weston's codebase and mechanics, whilst providing their own look and
feel."

And here's a list of "alternative" WMs already in progress for Wayland/Weston:
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wayland#Window_managers...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wayland#Window_managers_and_desktop_shells)

~~~
digi_owl
That leaves it up to the WM to allow or deny "accessories"...

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akojima
Amazing it's still under development. And that they're keeping the tradition
of forever approaching 1.0.0

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ktRolster
There used to be a ton of amazing WindowMaker themes. They seem to have
disappeared with freshmeat.org

~~~
notalaser
Some of them can still be found if you look around on Google. Unfortunately,
they haven't aged well -- their wallpapers are mostly for 4:3 monitors and low
resolutions, the textures are for low-res screens etc..

box-look.org has a few more recent ones.

~~~
ktRolster
Yeah, you're right. Back in 2001-2002 people would walk by my computer screen
and be impressed, ask, "What OS is that??" Now the other OSes have caught up
in appearance.

Thanks.

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coldtea
Hmm, I remember using Window Maker on Sun Spark workstations back in 1998-1999
or so...

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fithisux
it seems that hell froze over.

So fvwm95 will also come with a release?

~~~
digi_owl
I have the impression it has been folded into FVWM proper, and the latter is
still being maintained.

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zem
wow, there's a nice bit of nostalgia!

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mhd
Next up: A new release of bowman.

