Window Maker and I: busprof's Blog

Oh, Yes, You Can! (Put Window Maker on Puppy Linux)

2013-03-28T18:21:00.000-05:00

Anyone who has used Linux for more than six months has at least heard of Puppy Linux. In fact, Puppy Linux is often the first distribution people use. Puppy has been around for nearly 10 years (that's longer than Ubuntu, by the way) and I have used it off-and-on over the past decade as well. Periodically, I download the latest Puppy release and burn it to a CD or USB drive - just in case! Since Puppy can run entirely in RAM with no HDD installation needed, having a Puppy around the house to use when I've borked something on a system is nice. Also, I just flat like Puppy Linux, although it does have some quirks (at least, to me) compared with more "mainstream" Linux distributions.

A while back, a Puppy developer created an experimental version of Puppy using Window Maker as the default window manager. Puppy normally uses Joe's Window Manager (JWM) and offers the option to use ICEwm in many of its releases. Being a Window Maker user, seeing a version of Puppy with Window Maker as the default was exciting. Unfortunately, the experiment never resulted in a stable release.

Enter Puppy Linux developer 01micko, and "Slacko Puppy," a Puppy release that is "binary compatible" with Slackware's repositories. About a year ago, I downloaded Slacko Puppy 5.3.3, which is built to be compatible with Slackware version 13.37. I've had it on a CD and USB drive - and as a "frugal" install on one of my laptops - ever since. Occasionally I will boot into Slacko Puppy and make sure things are updated and still running well. One of these occaissions led me to poke around in the Slackware packages available for installation on Puppy, and behold! There was Window Maker!

So I did what any self-respecting Linux user would do - I immediately installed Window Maker and spent the next couple of hours figuring out how to set Slacko Puppy up to use it instead of JWM as the primary window manager. Not all that difficult, and reading through some of the posts on the Puppy Linux Forum (thanks, Google) helped me figure out what was needed. Here's the basic process:

1. Install Window Maker from the Slackware repositories using Puppy Package Manager.
2. Open a terminal and run wmaker.inst (a script that sets up Window Maker for use)
3. Open Rox Filer and see if wmaker.inst has provided a new ~/.xinitrc (it should have, and it should have renamed your original file to .xinitrc_original or .xinitrc_old).
4. Change the name of .xinitrc_original to .xinitrc_jwm (optional - helps me remember what's going on though).
5. Still in Rox - go to /etc and look for the file "windowmanager." This is a text file with just one line saying "jwm."
6. Rename /etc/windowmanager to /etc/windowmanager_old (or whatever you like).
7. Open /etc/windowmanager_old in an editor and change "jwm" to "wmaker" (no quotes) then save the file as /etc/windowmanager. This is necessary for Puppy's shutdown and reboot scripts to work. If you don't do this, you'll have to exit the session then fool around in a terminal to shut your system down (and Puppy doesn't recognize "shutdown -h now" or "shutdown -r now" for some reason, so this isn't trivial).
8. Reboot - you should find yourself in Window Maker instead of JWM.
9. Add a "shutdown" command to Window Maker's menu using WPrefs. You'll need to add a "run" line and use this command - wmpoweroff. Optionally, add a "reboot" command using wmreboot.

Here is my Slacko Puppy desktop with Window Maker:

I don't know how well you can see the open terminal - but I'm running htop and it's showing that Puppy is using only 70MB of memory - and that's with VLC media player running along with some background processes. At "idle," I'm seeing only 45-50MB of memory in use. Truly impressive!

You'll want some dockapps to go along with your new "Window Maker Puppy." Some of these are available here: http://ponce.cc/slackware/slackware-13.37/packages/

I had to compile wmsystemtray (from the Slackware 13.37 source) and there are other dockapps that would not install properly under Puppy and had to be compiled manually (for instance, wmtime). Because of this, you'll need to install the "devx" SFS package and load it at boot time. Best to do this while you're in a "vanilla" JWM session - although you can run Puppy Package Manager and the other utilities (including the "boot manager" that let's you load SFS packages on startup) from Window Maker. There is a decent tutorial on compiling in Puppy here: http://puppy.b0x.me/wiki/doku.php?id=compile

The other thing you'll need to do right away is to edit the menu using WPrefs. If you open your ~/.jwmrc file in a text editor you can find all of the needed commands to launch everything in Puppy's menu (and there's a BUNCH of stuff in Puppy's menu!).

So - not as simple as "apt-get install wmaker," but still very do-able. Cheers!

I Already Like Libreoffice 4.0

2013-02-22T20:20:00.000-06:00

Libreoffice 4.0 was released a few days ago, and after reading a few early reviews, I decided to take the plunge and install it directly from the Libreoffice website. I use Debian on all of my systems, so I downloaded the 64-bit Debian version and installed it using the instructions provided by the Open Document Foundation (the organization that is behind Libreoffice).

(NOTE: I already had version 3.5 installed via the Debian repositories, so I first removed the old version completely by running "sudo aptitude purge libreoffice?" in a terminal. This, according to the Libreoffice developers, is the "best practice" if you decide to install directly from the LO site. I have seen posts on Linux forums in the past regarding conflicts between LO versions, so I recommend this approach.)

Although I've only been using LO version 4 for a little over a day, I can honestly say there are noticeable improvements in two main areas. First, LO4 opens much more quickly than the 3-series versions - nearly instantly, in fact, on my desktop system.

Second, the level of compatibility with MS Office files has been improved. I know that some recent reviews of LO4 maintain that the Office compatibility improvements are minor - but my experience has been that the compatibility is much improved. Here, for example, is a document created as a .docx file using one of the memo templates in Word and opened in LO3.5:

Take a look at the header, which is superimposed over the word "Australia." Notice also that the text is cut off on the right - an outcome of the way the Word template is constructed using a massive "text box" to contain the body of the memo. Here's another shot of LO3.5 trying to open the same document:

See the little red triangle in the bottom right corner of the first page? That's indicating that the rest of the memo text is somewhere else - not displayed in the document.

Now let's look at the same file opened in LO4:

With version 4, the memo renders exactly as it would in MS-Word, with the header below the "Australia" graphic, the text showing up cleanly across both left and right margins, and no red triangle letting us know that LO couldn't display all of the pages correctly.

Right now, LO4 is only available to Debian users in the "experimental" repo, so if you want to use this version you will either need to add "experimental" to your sources.list and go through the steps to download the .deb from there, or (a simpler solution in my opinion) purge your current version as I did and install LO4 directly from the Document Foundation repository. If things go as they usually do with Debian, it will be many months before LO4 makes into the testing - much less stable - repos. For those of you who (like me) really want and need the improvements, I think it's well worth doing - and kudos to the folks at the Document Foundation for the improvements!

Num Lock Can Bork Your Keyboard Shortcuts in Window Maker

2013-02-18T19:55:00.001-06:00

If you are trying to set up keyboard shortcuts in Window Maker and you find yourself getting some really strange output in the Preferences Menu panel, it could be that your "num lock" is engaged. Apparently, this is something that has been an issue for a long time, but I just found out about it the hard way.

Here's the result of doing a key capture with "num lock" on on my desktop system (I'm trying to bind Mod4 - the infamous "windows" key - plus "w" to Firefox):

And here is the result with "num lock" off:

And yes, the shortcut works just fine after saving it in WPrefs.app.

So if you see weird, unexpected output while capturing a keybind in Window Maker - check "num lock."

Get Productive in Window Maker: Keyboard Shortcuts for Fun and Profit

2013-02-15T21:37:00.000-06:00

Window Maker provides one of the most productive computer work environments out of the box. It's hard for me to imagine a workflow that Window Maker can't accommodate. Whether your work demands full-screen visibility of one application at a time (I'm thinking graphics design here) or, like me, you tend to have multiple windows with different applications and you switch from one window to another, Window Maker can make your workflow easier, faster and more pleasant.

Keyboard shortcuts to launch frequently-used apps or commands can make your workflow more efficient by reducing the need to open menus, find the menu entry, and (finally) click on the entry to launch an app or execute a command. In this post, I'm going to describe the keyboard shortcut features in Window Maker. Keep your own preferred workflow in mind, and see if making use of this toolset might enhance your efficiency.

Built-In Keyboard Shortcuts

The quickest and easiest way to see which shortcuts are built-in to Window Maker is to open the Preferences app and take a look at the "Keyboard Shortcut Preferences" panel. In the Shortcuts Preferences panel you'll find a list of built in shortcuts - some of which have keystrokes defined and some of which do not. Those already defined have a small check-mark to the left of the description. For example, F12 opens the Applications Menu by default. Window Maker has sixty-three (!) pre-defined shortcuts. Look through the list and you may find one or more that you need. If no keystroke combination has been assigned to an available shortcut, you only need to click the "capture" button and enter the keystrokes you would like to use.

In the list of pre-defined shortcuts are many that have become common across a variety of desktop environments. For example, Alt+Tab window focus switching is included by default in Window Maker, and Ctrl+Alt+"right arrow" moves you to the next virtual desktop.

Adding a Custom Keyboard Shortcut

The ability to add keyboard shortcuts (or "keybinds" if you prefer) is certainly not unique to Window Maker, but it's trivially easy to add these in Window Maker compared to some other environments I've seen (and used). Before you add a shortcut, look through the shortcuts Window Maker already has by default by accessing the "Keyboard Shortcut Preferences" panel I just discussed.

If a shortcut already has a keystroke combination assigned, you'll have to disable it or redefine the keystrokes before you can use those strokes for a custom shortcut. You disable a default by clicking the "clear" button. Redefining a shortcut requires that you "clear" the entry then "capture" your new keystrokes.

Most of the built-in shortcuts use the Mod1 (Alt) key plus one or more other keys, so make sure you have a decent knowledge of these before you start adding your own.

Most "custom" shortcuts are used to launch specific applications, so I will describe the process with that goal in mind. To add your own keyboard shortcut for an application, go to the "Applications Menu Definition" panel in the Preferences app. Select the application item in the menu for which you want to create a shortcut, then use the "capture" button to capture the keystrokes you want to assign to that item. In the screenshot, I've assigned Mod1 + W to open Firefox.

Another tip - Window Maker has a "run..." menu item (it may be "execute..." in your distro). This menu item opens a dialog box that can be used to launch any application by typing in the executable command (for example, entering "vlc" in the box launches the VLC Media Player).

I recommend assigning a shortcut to the "run" dialog. In my experience this can be very helpful when you want to launch an application without taking your hands off the keyboard to grab the mouse and access the menu. For those applications that you use regularly but not often enough to justify adding them to the dock or clip - or assigning a dedicated keyboard shortcut - this can speed up your flow considerably. I use Mod1+F2 to launch the "run" dialog (I think Gnome uses the same keybind).

To sum up - making use of the pre-defined keyboard shortcuts can help streamline your workflow. The ability to easily add your own custom keyboard shortcuts makes Window Maker even more efficient for you - so give keyboard shortcuts a try. I think you'll quickly find them indispensable!

My Window Maker Desktops: In Praise of Plain

2013-02-09T21:35:00.000-06:00

If you've used Window Maker for any length of time, you know that you can theme the desktop with ease. Themes can be created "on the fly" using the Appearance Preferences tool in WPrefs.app. You can, with not much effort and little to no knowledge of any programming language, create your own style or theme with nothing but a text editor, a little time to spare and some patience. Or you can download themes created by others and place them in the appropriate "Styles" or "Themes" directory.

Window Maker has, without doubt, one of the most flexible and customizable desktops in or out of the Linux "world." Looking at the top two or three desktop environments (Unity, KDE and Gnome, at the moment) it does seem to me, sometimes, that the ease with which Window Maker can be themed is a double-edged sword. The temptation has always been to add more 'stuff,' and even a quick look at example desktops people have posted shows.

Over the past couple of years, I've come to appreciate the value of simplicity - maybe even outright plainness - in my own desktop configurations. I find lately that even a great photo used as a background image no longer appeals to me. Maybe it's a new-found Zen sensibility, maybe it's the fact that I'm no longer as young as I used to be (who is? BTW) but when it comes to my desktop, what I really like is something that get's out of my way and let's me focus more on the work or play that I rely on my systems to facilitate.

Here, then, are a couple of themes I use currently. One has been around a long, long time (since at least 2001) and the other is something I put together using a background image I found on the internet plus one of the styles that ships with Window Maker by default.

The first theme is entitled "rust," and it is available for download at the Lonely Machines website. Here it is, installed on my elderly Dell Inspiron laptop:

I think this theme is truly a classic for a couple of reasons. First, it really is minimal - it provides a quiet setting for the applications I run to accomplish work or just relax. So it meets my aesthetic needs very well. I like the texture of the background, the subdued palette - even the selection of fonts and font colors is great from my point of view.

Second, this is a classic because it makes very creative use of the ability of Window Maker to tile images to generate a background - AND it uses a color-gradient-overlay (another Window Maker capability) to further modify the tiled images into a really attractive 'texture.' If you look into the theme's directory, you'll find a single graphic image - a 512x512 pixel JPG that is used to generate the background, the icon tiles, the window titlebars - everything! Just outstanding use of the Window Maker toolkit. A work - in my opinion - of exceptional creativity.

The second example theme I've been using lately is built around Martin Hoeller's "Grain" wallpaper. It is available for download here.

Martin Hoeller provides 7 screen resolutions of the simple-yet-attractive PNG image he created. I downloaded his archive and extracted the image that matches my laptop's screen resolution to the ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Backgrounds/ directory. This made it available through the "Appearance -> Backgrounds" menu in Window Maker. I loaded the image as the background, then I went to the "Appearance -> Styles" menu and tried a few of the default styles available. I finally settled on the "Blue" style, which I think works well with Martin Hoeller's "Grain" wallpaper. The result is a "theme" that looks like this:

I find the plain, simple approach to desktop aesthetics suits me and makes using my systems both more pleasant and more productive. Window Maker let's you go to the other extreme, if that suits your taste and preferences - but as for me, I like plain.

My Window Maker Dockapps Line-Up

2013-02-01T21:55:00.003-06:00

Here is a quick rundown of the dockapps I am currently using on my main Window Maker desktop machine. Dockapps are "dockable applications." They are apps in and of themselves, not merely icons for applications that have been "docked" but that launch the actual application on the desktop. If you're confused, maybe I can clear this up with what follows.

wmclock - wmclock's function is to provide a clock and calendar for your Window Maker desktop. I have wmclock configured to launch an instance of Firefox that automatically loads my Google Calendar page. You could configure it to launch a desktop calendar such as gsimplecal, but having quick access to Google Calendar is very convenient for me.

wmnd - wmdn is a network monitor that provides constant information on activity across active network interfaces. Since this is a desktop system using a wired interface, it is showing some activity on "ETH0" in the screenshot. On my laptops, it generally shows "WLAN0" although I have one older IBM ThinkPad that shows an "ETH1" interface when I'm on wireless - go figure.

wmforkplop - a dockapp that monitors and displays "forking" activity and displays top CPU-consuming processes. I like to have this on all my machines because it's a quick and easy way to check, for example, if Firefox is REALLY opening or not, or where aptitude is in an upgrade cycle, and so on.

wmudmount - a dockapp for easy mounting of drives and filesystems. In particular, I find this to be nice when dealing with (for example) an mp3 player or a USB drive.

wmweather - a dockapp for monitoring current weather conditions using International Civil Aviation Organization station symbols.

wmsystemtray - a dockapp that provides a "tray" for "tray-aware" programs. Tray-aware programs such as VLC will place a mini-icon in wmsystemtray whenever they are opened. The nice thing about wmsystemtray is that it will hold an infinite number (at least, so I'm told) of icons and provides a "pager" so you can find any past the four that wmsystemtray holds per "page."

I may do a future post just on the state of "tray" applications for Window Maker. The bad thing about wmsystemtray is that it seems to have fallen out of the Debian Wheezy repository. Maybe it will make a comeback sometime soon. If not, "docker" can be configured and run on your Debian Window Maker desktop.

WMMail- a dockapp that monitors and reports the number of unread messages in your system mail directory (looks like I need to do some reading!).

Finally, wmbutton - wmbutton is sort of a cross between a dockapp and a docked application in that it provides launchers (icons) for up to 27 applications (3 per icon X 9 icons = 27). I have 26 applications currently defined. Looking over the list, I use about 6 on a frequent basis, so maybe I could get by with fewer launchers defined. On the other hand, why not have them even if I rarely use them? After all, wmbutton is only occupying a 64x64 pixel area.

How To Fix Window Maker's Menu Part 2: Automatic Menu Creation

2013-01-30T21:19:00.004-06:00

I discussed the process of manually generating an applications menu in Window Maker in a previous post. If you are running a Debian (or Debian-based) Window Maker installation, one thing you might miss is automatic menu updates whenever you add or remove applications.

I'm going to provide a method for (nearly) automatic menu generation an updating in Debian Window Maker systems in this post.

Step 1: Install the packages "menu" and "menu-xdg."

These two packages are available in all three divisions of the Debian repositories (i.e., stable, testing and experimental), so open a terminal and enter:

sudo aptitude install menu menu-xdg

Step 2: Make the file /etc/menu-methods/wmaker executable

In a terminal, enter:

sudo chmod +x /etc/menu-methods/wmaker

Step 3: Run the update script

In a terminal:

update-menus

If all went well, you should find your default Window Maker menu transformed into something like this:

Which will give you this sort of sub-menu:

Now, I mentioned that this method provides (nearly) automatic menu updates. The (nearly) part means that each time you add or remove software, you will need to remember to run the "update-menus" script. If you are so inclined, you could set this up to run at each session login, but that's up to you.

The downside to this approach, as I mentioned in a previous post, is that you lose the ability to customize the menu manually using the WPrefs.app menu functions. I'm a bit torn on this - on the one hand, being able to manually tweak the menu by adding all sorts of commands and also being able to organize the menu items exactly as I see fit is nice. On the other hand, the manual approach takes a good deal of work - especially on a fresh install of Window Maker, and having to remember to add every application I install each time I install something can be a pain.

I might also serve notice that I am not familiar with Window Maker's menu behavior outside the Debian world. I have run Window Maker on an Arch Linux installation, but I honestly don't remember the specifics for that distribution. If you are using anything but Debian, please look for information specific to your distribution.

So I've covered two menu production approaches for Debian-based Window Maker instances. If you know of other - possibly better - approaches, please don't hesitate to let me know!

How To Fix Window Maker's Menu Part 1: Manual Menu Creation

2013-01-27T16:12:00.001-06:00

When you first run Window Maker, you will notice that the default menu is less than perfect. First, it will lack entries for most of the software you doubtless have installed. (If you followed the process I described in a previous post, you won't find most of the packages you installed in your default menu.) Second, the default menu has entries for some packages most people don't use at all (at least, not nowadays). For example, when was the last time someone put Dia (a flow-chart diagramming tool) into a default distribution's standard package set? (BTW - Dia is still available, if you're interested.)

Fortunately, there are a couple of ways to fix the menu, and both are fairly painless. In this post I will cover the manual method. I'll cover a method for automating menu generation in a future post.

Step 1: Open WPrefs.app and go to the "Applications Menu Definition" dialog

As shown below, the preferences application in Window Maker offers the opportunity to edit your menu. Instructions for using the menu editor are provided in the dialog box itself, and are fairly straight-forward. We're only covering editing existing items, adding a new sub-menu and adding a new program to the menu in this post, although you can also add generated menus and sub-menus, entire directories, and a couple of other options in this tool.

When you first open the menu dialog, Window Maker will complain that the current menu format is not supported, and ask if you wish to discard the current menu. Since the current menu is fouled up, you can safely answer "yes" to this and proceed to generate a new menu with this method or with an automated method I will describe in an upcoming post.

Step 2: Edit existing entries you will not need (or need to change)

In the screenshot below, I'm getting ready to edit the entry for Ghostview (a PDF and PostScript viewer - a very old application!). While Ghostview is still around (I think) most distributions nowadays have moved to newer PDF viewers such as Evince. Rather than remove the Ghostview entry, I will edit it in place and change Ghostview to Evince. First, I will highlight the menu entry itself and enter "Evince" to replace "Ghostview." I will HIT ENTER after making this entry so the new entry will 'stick.'

Next, I will move to the menu dialog showing the launch command for Ghostview, and replace it with the command to launch Evince. (Most applications launch using the application name in lower case. If you don't know the launch command, open a terminal and enter "which" followed by the application name. This will provide the path for the executable, which can be used as the launch command.)

The final step is to click "save" to preserve the new menu entry and new launch command.

Look through the default menu and see if there are multiple entries you can modify "in place." This will save some time over adding the entries from scratch. After you have made any in-place modifications you want, you can delete items you know you won't be using by dragging the menu item off the list onto the desktop. This deletes that item from the menu list.

Step 3: Add New Sub-Menus and Program Launch Items
As the instructions in the dialog box indicate, you can left-click-and-drag one of the sub-menu or run-program bars from the dialog box into the menu bar to add an item. Below, for example, I have added a sub-menu bar for Libreoffice. Adding the sub-menu automatically provided an empty Libreoffice menu, which I am in the process of populating with run-program bars for each of the LO components. This was accomplished by dragging new run-program bars into the appropriate spot on the LO menu, then entering a name, then entering the appropriate launch command (just as described above when we edited existing items.

Following these steps will (eventually) give you a menu that actually contains the applications and commands you have on your system. The main benefit to creating your menu manually is that it retains all of the flexibility to customize the menu built into Window Maker. Automating the menu generation process saves time up front, but using the automated method I will descibe in a future post will mean that you can no longer edit the menu using the Applications Menu Definition tool. If you want to retain the flexibility, then use this method. If you don't care to do any menu tweaking and you just want to let the system add (or remove) packages as they are installed, then maybe an automated approach will suit your needs. With Linux, you have the freedom to choose.

Window Maker is Installed - Now What?

2013-01-25T16:32:00.000-06:00

From my last post, if you've just completed a fresh Window Maker installation you've got a shiny new desktop that looks like this.

Not exactly the most attractive 21st Century desktop, but not the ugliest, either. We'll be doing some redecoration shortly, but there are some things we absolutely must do for our fresh install to work the way most folks want it to work. So let's get started.

1. Enable session save on exit

One of the first things you really must do is to ensure that Window Maker saves any changes you make upon exit. Most of us will forget to open the applications menu and do a "Workspace -- Save Session" every time we log out, so we want Window Maker to do this automatically. So, Item 1 on our things to do after a Window Maker installation is to open WPrefs.app by double-clicking the topmost icon in the dock (the one with the GNUstep logo on it by default in Debian). This opens the "preferences" application dialog. Go to the very last box (Expert User Preferences) which is denoted by the mortarboard and exclamation point graphic, as shown here:

You are going to put a check mark next to the "Automatically save session when exiting Window Maker" line. Optionally, you can do what I also do right from the start, which is to enable font smoothing by checking the "Smooth font edges (needs restart)" line. When you've done that, don't forget to click "Save" or your change won't be recorded!

2. Fix broken icon search paths

As long as we're in WPrefs, we might as well fix the default paths Window Maker uses to find icons for things like docked applications. Go to the "Search Path Configuration" box (it's the one with the folder image surrounded by icons - see below). You will see three or four paths in red. These are paths hard-coded into Window Maker but not found on your system. Highlight each of these in turn and click the "remove" button to get rid of them.

You will now want to add one or more new paths. At the very least, you'll want to add in the "hicolor" application icons, since these are more-or-less default for most application nowadays. To add this path, use the "add" button to open the path finder window, then just keep moving through the path (normally /usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/). If you have other icon sets you want to make available automatically, then add those in the same way.

Doing this allows you to find a good icon for any docked application (or undocked apps, for that matter). Window Maker uses the application's own icon path if available. If not, it tries to find something, and sometimes what if finds is not very attractive, so this makes it possible to ensure that your desktop looks the way you want it to look.

3. Change the default icon for WPrefs.app

Debian's Window Maker uses an absolutely horrible version of the GNUstep icon as its default, so I always change this on the very first session after an installation. By default, you have a better looking version of the GNUstep icon in the /usr/share/WindowMaker/icons/ path. To change to a better icon, right click the WPrefs icon and go to the "settings" dialog in the menu. Click the "browse" button to open the icon selection window. Go through your /usr/share/WindowMaker/icons/ directory and look for the "GNUstepGlow.tiff" icon. Select it and click "ok" in the selection window, then "ok" again in the "settings" dialog to make the change. I think GNUstepGlow looks about a thousand times better than the Debian default.

4. Add a desktop clock

If you followed the process I outlined in the preceding post, you have two clock applications available - wmclock and wmtime. I'm going to explain how to open and set up wmclock, but you'll follow the same process for wmtime.

First, open the application menu by right-clicking any empty area of the desktop. Go to "run" (or "execute," I've seen both in Debian) and enter "wmclock" in the run dialog. This will open wmclock, which should show up in the bottom right corner of your screen. Left-click and hold on any of the edges of wmclock, and drag it up to the dock. The icon should autoattract and attach itself below the last item in the dock.

Now right click wmclock's icon and go to the "settings" item in the menu. You will put a check in the "Start when Window Maker is started" and the "Lock (prevent accidental removal)" boxes. This will ensure that your clock is up and running each time you start a Window Maker session.

5. Change the background and (optionally) the color / style of the desktop

The last thing I'm going to cover in this post is changing the background image and the color scheme settings. To change the background, open the applications menu and go to the "appearance" sub-menu. Clicking on "background" will give you three choices: solid, gradient and images. Play around with different choices in each of these categories until you find one you like better than the default wallpaper. Note that you can put wallpaper image files in the ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Backgrounds/ directory and the images will appear as choices under the "images" menu item, so you can add as many images as you want in the future.

To change the color scheme used by window titlebars and so on, click on either the "styles" or "themes" entries and play around with some of these choices as well. In general, styles do not come with their own background specified, while themes do - so if you select a theme you'll see the background change along with the window titles, menu colors, and so forth. Selecting a style will not usually result in a change in the desktop wallpaper.

There you have it - some initial steps to get things going in the right direction. Next post, I'll cover the Window Maker menu - which can be a bit of a problem in Debian.

Installing Window Maker: a Debian Wheezy Netinstall Approach

2013-01-24T17:47:00.000-06:00

I'm documenting the steps I took to install Window Maker using the Debian 'Wheezy' 64-bit netinstall image as a base. The process should work for 32-bit installations just as well, but I have not tried the 32-bit image. Anything that I know differs for 32-bit systems I'll try to note below.

This process owes a great deal to a netinstall script posted on the Crunchbang Linux forums by forum member Stanie back on March 30, 2012. If you want to see the post and his original script it's available here: http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=261842%23p261842

My script (see below) is a modification of Stanie's script, so I want to thank Stanie for sharing this idea.

STEP 1: Obtain a Debian Wheezy netinstall image here: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
You want the 'netinst' amd64 image. Download this and burn it to a CD.

(NOTE: I realize that some of you may want to use a USB drive. There are, I believe, different images for USB use so make sure you know which image you need for USBs. I also believe that tools like unetbootin can create installable USB images from the CD image - but I have not tried that, either.)

STEP 2: Perform a minimal Debian installation from your CD installing nothing but the "standard system" packages. (NOTE: If you're on a laptop, also get the "laptop" packages.)

The Debian installer is really pretty easy to use. It walks you through a series of steps that should result in a bootable, usable installation with a minimum of fuss on your part. The outcome of this step will be a working Debian Wheezy installation without any graphical desktop installed - in other words, a text-only environment. Don't worry, we're going to put Window Maker on here along with whatever software you want - but we have to start with a solid but bare foundation.

So, follow the installation steps until you reach the "Software Selection" dialog shown here.

You want to select ONLY the "standard system" packages, with the "laptop" packages if you are installing to a laptop. That's all. Nothing else. Nada. Zip. No mas.

If you would like to preview a Wheezy netinstall, there's a YouTube screencast showing the process under Debian 6, but the installation process has not changed much for Wheezy (Debian 7, or will be). The video is about 14 minutes long, and you'll be most interested in the "Software Selection" section at approximately 9 minutes 35 seconds. If you've never done a netinstall, this might be worth spending at least part of the 14 minutes watching.

For written netinstall instructions, there is a nice little PDF available. The document was written in 2009, but again, not much has changed and it gives a concise, illustrated overview of the netinstall process. Of course, there's also Debian's official (and very detailed) installation guide here.

STEP 3: Boot into your installation and switch to "root."

When the netinstall process completes you will be prompted to boot into the console environment you just installed. You will log in as the regular user, but immediately change to "root" by entering "su" at the prompt, followed by your root password.

<A BRIEF INTERLUDE>

I'm going to proceed as though you want to accomplish all of the installation manually. I have a script that automates what follows, (see WAY below). The script simply does what each of the following steps do, but faster and without you having to worry about mis-typing something or leaving something out. On the other hand, if you follow these steps manually, you will doubtless know more about exactly what is on your system and how it got there and why. At the very least, reading over the step-by-step process below will help you decide whether to bother with the script or just follow along step-wise with a manual approach. It's up to you.

</INTERLUDE>

STEP 4: Add the "contrib" and "non-free" repositories to the software sources list.

Enter
cd /etc/apt/

This moves you into the /etc/apt/ directory. In this directory is a file named "sources.list." This is the software repository index created during the installation, and it does not include the contibutor (contrib) and non-free software repositories. First, save the sources.list file as sources.list_old (mv sources.list sources.list_old). If something goes wrong, at least you can resurrect the original sources file.

Open nano (a text editor) by simply typing "nano." Enter the following information:

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free

(NOTE: The entries above are for general USA users. You can select a mirror closer to you by looking at the list of Debain repo mirrors here:

http://www.debian.org/mirror/list

Find a mirror close to you and substitute its URL after the "http://" above and you'll probably get better download response. For example, I use:
http://ftp.uwsg.indiana.edu/linux/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
because this mirror is close to me and reliable.

In nano, enter "Ctrl-X". Nano will ask for a yes or no - say Y. For "filename to write," enter /etc/apt/sources.list and hit "Enter."

STEP 5: Update the repositories to include the contrib and non-free packages.

Enter the command "aptitude update." This will refresh your software lists. Once this is finished, enter the command "aptitude upgrade." This will upgrade anything new (NOTE: there shouldn't be anything new at this point - you just finished an install - but it's always a good idea to refresh and upgrade every time you change your software sources list).

STEP 6: Install the base packages.

Now enter the following command:

aptitude install xorg lightdm gksu gdebi fakeroot checkinstall terminator ntp synaptic apt-xapian-index disk-manager ntfs-3g gparted gufw bash-completion screen byobu figlet whois rpl zenity xfsprogs avahi-utils binutils jfsutils debian-keyring firmware-linux firmware-iwlwifi sudo

This install the basic X.org system needed for a graphical user environment, along with a terminal emulator (terminator), sudo and some other utilities and tools. What you'll see on screen is a much longer list - don't panic, it's just aptitude telling you exactly what else must be installed in order for these packages to work.

Feel free to change most anything in the above list to suit your preferences. The most likely candidates for change would be terminator and maybe sudo (everyone has a terminal of choice and not everyone likes sudo). Feel free also to cut and paste the list - it's a long one!

STEP 7: Prepare the system for Window Maker.

Enter the following command:

mkdir ~/GNUstep

This creates a directory called GNUstep in your /user/home/ directory. I know this is the preferred method for Arch Linux and other distros. It's possible that installing the Window Maker packages straight from the Debian repos creates this directory automagically - I simply don't know. I do know it's needed and I do know it doesn't hurt to do this in advance - so I recommend you do it.

STEP 8: Install the Window Maker packages.

Enter the following command:

aptitude install wmaker wmaker-common wmaker-data wmacpi wmbutton wmclock wmctrl wmmixer wmnd wmtemp wmtime wmwave wmweather wmwork wmxres

This installs Window Maker, some Window Maker icons, and a few dockapps (dockable applications) from the Debian repos. I'll go over some (or all) of these later or in a separate post.

STEP 9: Add a system tray dockapp.

Enter the following command:

wget http://www.rumbero.org/wmlive/dockapps/wmsystemtray_1.2-1_amd64.deb

Once the download is complete, enter this command:

dpkg -i wmsystemtray_1.2-1_amd64.deb

This dockapp - wmsystemtray - provides a place for "tray aware" applications like volumeicon and wicd to park their icons. Window Maker lacks a native "tray," so this is a very necessary tool. Paul Seelig - the developer of the Window Maker Live CD - has graciously provided a deb package for 64-bit systems since Debian's repos do not have this and some people (myself included) have had trouble compiling this from source. Thanks, Paul, for making this available.

STEP 10: Install a file manager and archivers.

Enter the following command:

aptitude install thunar thunar-archive-plugin thunar-media-tags-plugin ffmpegthumbnailer arj bzip2 lzop p7zip p7zip-full p7zip-rar plzip rzip unace-nonfree unalz unrar unzip xz-utils zip zoo cabextract

This installs Thunar (the XFCE-native file manager) and a bunch of archiving and file management tools and utilities. Again, feel free to edit the list to select a different set of file management packages (but you're going to need some of this, even if you want to manage files from the command line!).

STEP 11: Install audio / video packages.

Enter the following command:

aptitude install alsa-base volumeicon-alsa gstreamer0.10-alsa gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-base gstreamer0.10-plugins-good gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly audacious vlc

I'm going with VLC, because it doubles (triples?) as a music player (including network streams), a video player (including, if you have it BlueRay) and a recording package. If you want something else, by all means feel free...well, you know the rest by now!

STEP 12: Install graphics and theme packages.

Enter the following command:

aptitude install gimp gcolor2 inkscape ttf-bitstream-vera ttf-dejavu fonts-freefont-ttf ttf-mscorefonts-installer oxygencursors gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-murrine human-icon-theme nuvola-icon-theme lxappearance

This is really the "kitchen sink," and probably isn't necessary for many people. I have included lxappearance in this group, which is a utility for changing gtk themes, icon themes and mouse cursor themes easily. Some people have had better experiences with gtk-chtheme, which only allows you to change the gtk theme (not the icon set or cursor set). You decide, and edit the list as you see fit.

STEP 13: Install network and related packages.

Enter the following command:

aptitude install deluge iceweasel flashplugin-nonfree wicd wicd-gtk xchat elinks links2

I've selected iceweasel as the browser - feel free to select something else. Also, wicd and not network-manager-gnome. If you have a different preference edit to your heart's content. I've also included xchat, elinks, and links2 - if you don't want or need them...

STEP 14: Install office packages.

Enter the following command:

aptitude install cups epdfview galculator mousepad default-jre libreoffice xournal

Libreoffice, cups, epdfview, and galculator are the core here. Xournal is a nice little note-taking program that also allows for pdf annotation and export, so I like it as well. If you don't need Libreoffice but want a word processor and a spreadsheet, then Abiword and Gnumeric would probably be the substitutes you'll like.

STEP 15: Miscellaneous applications.

Enter the following command:

aptitude install apt-listbugs assogiate kupfer parcellite rcconf secure-delete wipe clamav

These are my own likes, and are not needed if you don't want them. If you decide to use the script (see below) then open the script in nano before you run it and comment out the entire section (or edit, etc.).

STEP 16: Install file-roller

Enter the following command:

aptitude install -R file-roller

I like file-roller, but it pulls in a bunch of recommends if you're not watching closely, so I'm installing it "without recommends" (-R) here. If you don't think you want it...

STEP 17: Clean up the mess you just made.

Enter the following command:

aptitude clean

This gets rid of residual deb files that may be left after all of this getting and installing!

STEP 18: Add yourself to the lpadmin group so you can add and modify printers.

Enter the following command:

usermod -a -G lpadmin <yourusernamehere>

STEP 19: Reboot your system.

Still logged in as root, enter the following command:

shutdown -r now

That's it! Upon reboot, you should be taken to the lightdm login dialog. After loggin in, you'll get this:

Attractive? Well...maybe not just yet. We'll look at making some changes and improvements in the next post.

If you'd rather use the script, then do steps 1 through 3, then this:

STEP 4a: Download the install script.

Enter this command:

wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19849146/debian_windowmaker.sh

STEP4b: Edit the script (if desired). (NOTE: The script uses the US repos. You may at least want to edit this portion of the script if you live elsewhere. The repo section starts at line 26 and runs for a few more lines, so it's right at the beginning of the script.)

Enter this command:

nano debian_windowmaker.sh

This will open the script in nano, allowing you to find and edit anything you want to change. Once finished editing, do the following:

enter "Ctrl-X"
answer "Y"
just hit "Enter" to accept the existing filename.

STEP4c: Run the script.

Enter the following command:

chmod +x debian_windowmaker.sh

Then enter:

./debian_windowmaker.sh

This will start the script. Just follow along and respond to any prompts you are given. There will be a prompt from aptitude after each group of software asking whether you really want to install the packages - so you'll need to stay alert. Also, you will be asked to enter your username so you can be added to the lpadmin group.

So what next? Next you will want (and need) to make some changes to the Window Maker environment. Some of these are relatively trivial (like changing the theme) and some are, in my opinion, important. For now, though, enjoy Window Maker!

Theming Window Maker Part 1: Styles

2011-11-06T17:30:00.000-06:00

Theming Window Maker Part 1: Styles

Window Maker themes that lack a background image are referred to as "styles." In this post, I'm going to describe the components of a style. I'll then show how to hand-build a style from scratch.

Components of a Style

A style defines the basic components of the Window Maker desktop, so we need to know how Window Maker identifies these components. For theming, we're most interested in two key attributes of these components. The key attributes we need to define in a style or theme are color and "texture." Texture in this context means using multiple colors in various types of gradients - we're not limited to solid colors only. In this post, I am not going to use image files for our elements, and we'll stick with a solid color for each element. I will cover texture and the use of images in future posts. First, it helps to have a working knowledge of the various components of the Window Maker desktop. Here is a screenshot of a typical Window Maker desktop with the key components labeled:

Colors are specified either as color names in the standard X color name format or by color numbers in the standard rgb (red-green-blue) format. You can use any color name shown by the showrgb program (like 'black', 'white' or 'grey') or any color value in the #rrggbb format, where rr, gg and bb is the intensity of the color component (such as #ff0000 for pure red or #000080 for medium blue). Note that color names in the #rrggbb format must be enclosed with double quotes.

In Linux, there are a large number of rgb color names pre-defined, and it is interesting to open a terminal, enter showrgb, and look over the choices you have. For example, there are four different "tomato" shades defined (tomato1, tomato2, tomato3 and tomato4 - obviously!). So the showrgb program can be a valuable resource for theming.

For solid colors, the color of an attribute is defined by <AttributeName> = (solid, <Color>)

For example, if I wanted icon backgrounds to be light blue, I would use:

IconBack = (solid, LightBlue)

I could also use a color picking program such as the one available at http://www.colorpicker.com to generate an rgb number. I might then use the rgb number as follows:

IconBack = (solid, "#8FB8F2")

Note that I have enclosed the rgb number with quotation marks. This is necessary because the color number contains a non-alphanumeric character (the # symbol) and therefore requires the quotation marks for proper interpretation by Window Maker. Any time a string contains a non-alphanumeric character in a style file (characters such as '#' ',' '.' etc.) you need to enclose that string with quotation marks.

A First Style File
With the information we have covered so far, we can put together a basic style, save it into our ~/GNUstep/Library/Windowaker/Styles directory, and use it on our system.

Step 1:
Start by opening your text editor and creating a file named ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Test1.style. Copy or type the following template into the file:

{
IconBack = ();
FTitleBack = ();
FTitleColor = ;
PTitleBack = ();
PTitleColor = ;
UTitleBack = ();
UTitleColor = ;
MenuTitleBack = ();
MenuTitleColor = ;
MenuTextBack = ();
MenuTextColor = ;
HighlightColor = ;
HighlightTextColor = ;
MenuDisabledColor = ;
MenuTitleFont = "-*-lucida-medium-r-normal-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1";
MenuTextFont = "-*-lucida-medium-r-normal-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1";
MenuStyle = ;
ClipTitleColor = ;
CClipTitleColor = ;
ClipTitleFont = "-*-helvetica-medium-r-normal-*-10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*";
IconTitleFont = "-*-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-8-*-*-*-*-*-*-*";
ResizebarBack = ();
Displayfont = "-*-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*";
TitleJustify = ;
WindowTitleFont = "-*-lucida-medium-r-normal-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*";
}

The template provides all of the components of the Window Maker desktop formatted for use in a style or theme, EXCEPT the entry for the workspace background. Notice that some of the elements are followed by a pair of parentheses '()'. These correspond with elements that can carry both color and texture definitions. For these items, commands can be enterd that will produce various color gradients. You enter color and texture information between the parentheses. For now, I'm just going to use solid colors.

Notice that I have pre-loaded the font information. Window Maker themes and styles allow for specifying fonts using the X Logical Font Description format. This is a very complex (some would even say unnecessarily complex) syntax. You can see the syntax HERE or you can use a program like xfontsel to find and select fonts. Xfontsel will provide all of the syntax defining a particular font for you. For now, I've simply provided a couple of examples. When selecting fonts, remember that a font that is not installed on your system (or someone else's system, if you're sharing your styles and themes) may not display properly and that the sytem will choose an alternate font for you if the one you specify is not installed.

Step 2:
Now we're ready to build the style. I'm going to use various shades of gold. You can run showrgb and take a look at the dozens of pre-defined color names available, or go to colorpicker.com and use your imagination!

Enter (or copy and paste) the following values for the components in your template:

{
IconBack = (solid, DarkGoldenrod);
FTitleBack = (solid, DarkGoldenrod);
FTitleColor = black;
PTitleBack = (solid, brown1);
PTitleColor = grey40;
UTitleBack = (solid, goldenrod1);
UTitleColor = grey40;
MenuTitleBack = (solid, DarkGoldenrod);
MenuTitleColor = white;
MenuTextBack = (solid, PaleGoldenrod);
MenuTextColor = black;
HighlightColor = white;
HighlightTextColor = black;
MenuDisabledColor = gray80;
MenuTitleFont = "-*-lucida-medium-r-normal-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1";
MenuTextFont = "-*-lucida-medium-r-normal-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*";
MenuStyle = normal;
ClipTitleColor = black;
CClipTitleColor = black;
ClipTitleFont = "-*-helvetica-medium-r-normal-*-10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*";
IconTitleFont = "-*-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-8-*-*-*-*-*-*-*";
ResizebarBack = (solid, goldenrod3);
Displayfont = "-*-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*";
TitleJustify = center;
WindowTitleFont = "-*-helvetica-bold-r-normal-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*";
}
After saving this into your ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Styles directory, you can select your new style from the menu under Workspace-->Appearance-->Styles. Selecting the Test1 style should give you a desktop that looks something like this:

So, we've got our dark goldenrod icon backgrounds, dark goldenrod menu titlebars, pale goldenrod menu background, dark goldenrod focused window titlebars, and so on. The menu item text is black as is the focused titlebar text.

Making A Change

Now let's try a brief experiment. Open the Test1.style file, and change the entry for MenuStyle from normal to flat. Save the Test1.style file, then reload your style from the Workspace-->Appearance menu. Right click your desktop and take a look at the menu. It should now have a smooth menu field instead of a beveled field, like this:

Now that you know how easy it is to define a style in Window Maker...What are you waiting for? Get busy styling your Window Maker desktop!

In a future post, I will add to the level of complexity by including color gradients (textures) and adding a workspace background, which will move us from the 'style' category into the full-blown 'theme' category. Enjoy!

How to Get Window Maker

2011-10-29T18:02:00.001-05:00

Once upon a time, most Linux distros included a Window Maker version 'out of the box.' This is no longer true. So, how can you get Window Maker today, since OOTB Window Maker installations seem to have gone the way of the Dodo? In this post, I'm going to provide information on two Linux distributions that still offer Window Maker as a standard option. I will cover other methods for getting this great window management environment in a future post.

Window Maker Out-of-the-Box: Two Options

The first - and in my opinion the best - option for anyone wanting an OOTB Window Maker install is Liquid Lemur Linux (http://www.liquidlemur.org). In the interest of full disclosure, I need to mention that I am currently on the Liquid Lemur staff, so my remarks need to be taken with that in mind. I believe I can be objective, but you do need to be aware of my direct relationship with the Lemur project.

Liquid Lemur Linux is a young (very young - less than a year old) distribution that is the handiwork of lead developer DragonPalemoon. DragonPalemoon has many years of Linux development experience that includes full development responsibility for the Window Maker versions of two past distributions. His level of expertise shows in the Lemur Window Maker quality and 'finish,' even though the distro is still at RC1 as of this writing (late October 2011). As with any young open source project, there is a chance that the project won't get fully off the ground, so one (and in my opinion the only) possible negative in opting for Liquid Lemur is the concern that you might get left 'high and dry' if that were to happen. But offsetting this concern is the fact that Liquid Lemur is based on Debian Testing - and Debian isn't going away any time soon! Basing the distribution on the Testing branch of Debian makes Lemur, in essence, a 'rolling release' with no unpleasant 'point releases' to contend with (this is the approach that Linux Mint took with it's recent 'Debian Edition' BTW). So...if the distro were to fold, you would have, in effect, a Debian-based OS that you could keep up with just routine 'aptitude update / aptitude upgrade' maintenance of your install.

Lemur Window Maker uses the wmaker-crm fork of the original Window Maker project. Those of you who may be looking at Window Maker are probably aware that Window Maker's 'official' development is stalled at version 0.92 - which is the last 'stable' release available in most distros (including Debian, at least for the time being). However, developer Carlos Mafra forked the Window Maker project and is in active development now. The wmaker-crm version of Window Maker is at version 0.95, and a deb package is available at version 0.94 - which is the version used by Liquid Lemur.

Lemur Window Maker version is a 'base distro,' meaning that it is not chock completely full of all sorts of applications right out of the box, and that every effort has been made to keep extra libraries, non-essential packages, and so forth out of the iso. If you want to bloat the install later - that's up to you :) The off-the-shelf version does include a good number of applications, though, including Chromium, terminal and text-editing apps, Scite for developers, Xchat for IRC, and a good selection of dockapps for system monitoring, weather, and so on. Also, the installation process is scripted to allow users to opt to install pre-packaged lists of software for office productivity and other purposes - or users can access these software bundles through the 'ApeMan' utility that pre-scripts downloading and installing bundles designed for such things as office, media, graphic arts, and so on.

The Liquid Lemur Window Maker iso is available at the distro's homepage (see above). There are both i386 (32-bit) and AMD64 (64-bit) versions available. The kernel in use is the latest 3.0 available in Debian Testing, and is currently available in both 486 and 686 PAE-enabled versions. If you aren't sure whether to use the 486 kernel or to install the PAE-enabled version, open a terminal and do "grep pae /proc/cpuinfo" (without the quotation marks) and look through the output for "pae." If it's there, your CPU supports physical address extensions and you can use the PAE kernel (whether you have over 4Gb of RAM memory or not BTW - there's a lot of misinformation out there on this issue).

The second option for an OOTB Window Maker install may surprise some - it's that minimally-sized icon of the Linux World - Puppy Linux. That's right, Puppy has a Window Maker 'respin' called Next Puppy. The project is the brainchild of lead developer Iguleder, and from reading the multitude of posts on the Puppy Linux forum, he seems to be an experienced developer as well.

Those of you familiar with Puppy know that it is a very different sort of experience when compared with most other distributions of Linux. Puppy's main goal is to be small in size (around 100MB is the goal for iso size) and other goals include speed, and 'newbie friendliness.' Next Puppy meets the size goal (the iso file is around 90MB) but my trial run indicates that this particular Puppy respin is not as friendly as the stock Puppy Linux for new users. (Note: I have used Next Puppy off and on for the last two weeks to give it as fair a trial as I could). In fairness - I haven't been a new user for a while. Also in fairness - Iguleder's respin of Puppy does not appear to be geared toward new users in the same manner as standard Puppy Linux. For example, the installed application base is very minimal - it ships with Firefox, an e-mail client, a BitTorrent client, a text editor, a terminal, an archive manager and not a whole lot more. Users are expected to know what applications they need (and which are appropriate for this particular environment) and install them on their own. Not a problem for someone with a decent level of Linux experience, but a serious problem (perhaps) for new users. Another example - printing with CUPS requires configuring the boot manager to enable DBUS - not something most new users would feel comfortable doing in my opinion.

Next Puppy is based on the current stable release of Debian, and the Debian repos are available (at least in theory, I've had quite a time getting applications downloaded and installed using the unique Puppy Package Manager). This means that, as with Liquid Lemur, you get the comfort and stability of Debian. Unlike Lemur, however, you get the stable version of Debian, which means that the newer wmaker-crm Window Maker package is not available (unless Iguleder has modified wmaker-crm to work with Debian Stable - I haven't been able to determine this for certain).

The look and feel of Next Puppy is much more 'original Window Maker' than is the case with Liquid Lemur. You get the default three dock tiles on the right (dock, terminal, and wmakerprefs utility) and (for some bizarre reason) wmsystemtray (a dockapp that 'captures' backgrounded daemons and apps like the disc use monitor shown in the screenshot) is also on the right, but separated from the three 'standard' tiles by quite a distance. I don't know why Iguleder did this, but it's his distro and his preference, and it's easy enough to change. You get the 'clip' in the upper left-hand corner of your screen.

Opened apps (like the terminal instances shown in the screenshot) generate the default lower-left-hand-corner miniwindow. You also get the default one workspace (aka 'desktop') that Window Maker has always come with out of the box. Window behavior, mouse settings and keybindings - all are standard-issue Window Maker. In short, you might be excused for thinking you were back in 1999 breathlessly awaiting the Y2K catastrophe everyone was predicting back then.

Next Puppy is a good implementation of Window Maker, though, and Iguleder has done a very good job integrating Window Maker with the Puppy Linux approach to Linux. If you want to just play around with Window Maker for a bit, Next Puppy might be a good option. On the other hand, Liquid Lemur ships as a live CD and is therefore available for 'playing around' as well. Next Puppy is available for download HERE.

Anyway - there you have it - two ways to grab a Window Maker desktop right this minute, without resorting to the more complex methods that are available (and again, I'll discuss those down the road). My final recommendation is for Liquid Lemur, but you probably knew that was coming. For those of you who may want a non-Debian or non-Puppy approach, those are available, but require a good deal more work than either Lemur or Next Puppy. I'll post on alternatives in the future.

Ugly Duckling: Don't Let the Default Window Maker Desktop Fool You!

2011-10-21T21:45:00.003-05:00

If you're coming to Window Maker from any other window management or desktop environment, the first thing you will probably notice is the lack of a taskbar and 'start' or 'menu' icon (with the possible exception of Openbox, which ships without either of these tools by default, as well). Window Maker menus and applications are easily accessible, though, by simply right-clicking anywhere on the desktop - or - for those who prefer the keyboard - via the F12 key (for the applications menu) or with F11 (for the window menu, which shows which applications are running and allows for easy application switching).

The default desktop looks pretty plain, though, and this can put new users off. I want to briefly cover the basic Window Maker desktop in its default configuration in this post, then show how much can be done to improve the look and even the functionality of the Window Maker desktop very quickly and easily. My hope is that those who are contemplating Window Maker will know what they are getting 'out of the box,' and what is easily possible - so that new users won't make the mistake of abandoning one of the finest window management tools available just because it starts out life as a bit of an ugly duckling.

So...Here is a (nearly) default Window Maker desktop, with a few annotations:

As you can see, this is a very spartan, if not downright ugly, default look. This can be easily transformed into a much more attractive desktop, as I will show in a moment, but before we turn our ugly duckling into a desktop swan, let's examine the basic attributes. I've labeled each of these in the screenshot, so we'll begin with the column of icons on the far right of the screen. The topmost icon is the 'dock.' It's purpose is to serve as an anchoring point for so-called 'dockapps' (dockable applications) and, by default, Window Maker provides two of these.

The first default dockapp provided by Window Maker is a terminal emulator. Window Maker generally uses an rxvt-type terminal (such as aterm, xterm, or rxvt itself) but can be any terminal emulator you prefer. My personal preference is currently terminator - you can use any terminal you like.

The third icon from the top is the wmprefs application. wmprefs is a tool for configuring most of the options in Window Maker, such as the initial positioning of application windows on the desktop, the default fonts used in titlebars and the menu, among many other things. In a future post, I will cover wmprefs and its many uses.

These three dock icons - the dock itself, the terminal icon, and the wmprefs icon - are the only three icons in the default dock. Other dockable applications can be added, though, and in this screenshot I have added two. The fourth item down the dock in the screenshot is a the wmcalclock dockapp. By its name, you can probably guess that this is simply a calendar/clock application that provides (wait for it...) the date and time.

The final dockapp shown in the screenshot is the wmsystemtray application. This application "captures" background applications and daemons - such as the volumeicon and wicd daemon shown here - and places them "inside" the icon for easy access and viewing.

Any application a user wishes to permanently dock (so that it will automatically appear on the desktop) must first be started from the command line in a terminal or from the 'run' dialogue in the menu. Once the application is started, its icon will appear at the bottom left of the desktop (by default - this can be changed as well). The screenshot shows two terminal instances open at the bottom left of the screen - and any app that you start will provide an icon in this initial location. To make an application a permanent part of the dock column, you simply left-click-and-drag the icon to the bottom of the dock column, and the icon will be 'attracted' to the dock. The app icon will remain there permanently until the user removes it, and it will reappear after each re-boot in the same location.

The other major default feature shown in the screenshot is the 'clip.' The clip is a mini-dock that is workspace-specific. In other words, users can attach application icons to the clip just as to the dock, but the clipped icons only appear on the specific workspace on which that instance of the clip appears (some folks call these 'desktops' although 'workspace is the preferred nomenclature). Users can have as many different workspaces as desired (I use six - the default is one - but it is easy to add more; we'll cover this in a future post).

There you have it - the default appearance and very basic features of the Window Maker desktop. Now, before you despair, here are a couple of examples of just how good Window Maker can look. Compare these with the default configuration and see if you can uncover some of the customizations involved. We'll be discussing how to accomplish these customizations in appearance and functionality in future posts.

Why am I doing this?

2011-10-19T22:01:00.000-05:00

Starting a weblog - and making it public - needs to be done with a sense of purpose. Given the fact that we seem to exist today in a state of 'information overload,' there's no real benefit to adding to the cacaphony, unless...

Unless you believe that you have something to say that at least some people will find interesting, and useful, and that you won't merely add another decibel or two to the noise that seems to surround us. So, it is with the belief that I can provide something useful and interesting that I have created this public weblog.

This blog will not be a daily diary of my life - I don't think most people (and that includes my friends and most of my relatives) want to read a day-by-day account of my comings, goings and doings (or 'don't-ings' as the case sometimes is) and I certainly don't believe that sort of thing is either useful or interesting. The blog title (the inspiration for which I owe to Rich at debianandi.blogspot.com - see the link below right) and the blog description really tell you most of what you need to know about my purpose here - namely - to do what I can to promote the Window Maker window manager, Linux, and open source projects (mainly software projects of various sizes, types and descriptions) and (maybe - occasionally) something outside the Linux-Window Maker-Open Source family of topics that I find especially interesting and compelling enough to post on this blog.

What I envision - at least now, at the outset - is that I can provide information on Window Maker, Linux, and open source software from a user's perspective that will help in some small way to help others with similar interests or who are looking for alternatives to their current computing tools.

I will be posting how-to's related to Window Maker. I will be posting information on the ongoing development (as I understand it - I'm not a programmer or developer, just a user) of Window Maker and the Linux distributions that offer it as a window management environment. I will be posting on projects that I am directly connected with - such as Liquid Lemur Linux (see the 'links') and others. In short, I will be trying to provide useful information that is interesting to at least some people - but I've already said that, and since I'm beginning to repeat myself, I'll end this first post here, except to say - Please check back, you might find something you can use or something of interest.