FVWM

[Deleted member 48958]

Don't get me wrong, I've nothing to complain about pcmanfm, I've been using it for some 5 years now and rather like it. It really goes a long way as a standalone file manager, I'm very thankful for it. It does provide everything you'll need in a file manager, that's true.

My FVWM config related to this FM only onсe, I added icon to start it quickly from dock. But it's very easy to switch this icon to start any another one FM, so I cannot understand, why we discuss pcmanfm in serious FVWM topic. Personally I use GUI FM pretty rarely, to perform most of file operations, I use drop-down terminal, which is also present in my config and may be easily launched with F1 hotkey.

 

[Deleted member 48958]

In FVWM ( x11-wm/fvwm2 ) it is pretty easy to "dock" whatever application you want. If app has WM_CLASS or WM_NAME in its properties (use FvwmIdent or xprop to find it out), then, it's possible to add it to your dock (FvwmButtons module). For example, it is possible to "dock" graphics/sxiv, which will play your favorite gif animation, for example, to add it to my config (https://forums.freebsd.org/posts/390111), find lines containing "*FvwmButtons:" and replace one of dockapps with it. To replace wmclock with animated gif, find

*FvwmButtons: (Frame 2, Swallow(UseOld,NoClose) wmclock 'Exec exec wmclock -led green -24', \
...

in ~/.fvwm/config and replace it with

*FvwmButtons: (Frame 2, Swallow(UseOld,NoClose) myanimation 'Exec exec sxiv -g 64x64 -N myanimation -ba /path/to/your/animated.gif, \
...

If you want to change this animated dockapp click actions, edit few lines, which follows the line from above:

...
Action(Mouse1) 'Exec exec $[infostore.terminal] -g 66x36 -cr white -bd white -bg white -fg black -b 25 -hold -e cal -A11', \
Action(Mouse3) 'Exec exec $[infostore.terminal] -g 74x31 -cr black -bd black -fg white -bg black -b 25 -hold -e ncal -A11')

Change commands after "Exec exec". By default, these lines should open two types of calendar with left/right click. "Action(Mouse1)" is left click, "Action(Mouse2)" is middle click and "Action(Mouse3)" is right mouse click.
Here is couple of ~ 60x60px gifs, for example:

But it is even possible to use some terminal applications as dockapps, for example, to "dock" misc/termatrix, it is possible to use the following code

*FvwmButtons: (Frame 2, Swallow(UseOld,NoClose) wmatrix 'Exec exec urxvt -fn xft:Andale\\ Mono:size=6 -name wmatrix -g 4x6 -e termatrix')

 

[gofer_touch]

Hi! This thread seems to a bit dated (last post over a year ago), but it seems to be the best place to jump in with my question. I have first the first time decided to use something other than Xfce/Thunar for my desktop/window manager and have tried plain vanilla FVWM. After a few days it feels great but there are three shortcuts that I have not figured out how to implement:

1) Autofocus on a new window when it is created. (not crucial but would be nice to have)
2) Be able to switch between windows with alt+tab. (crucial)
3) Be able to switch between virtual desktops with ctrl+alt + Left/Right keys. (crucial)

The FVWM docs are quite lengthy and I still haven't figured them out. Haven't found anything else either that was helpful on fora that were not extremely complex, very old, or difficult to understand.

Any tips on this would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Deleted member 48958]

1. To use autofocus, add Style * ClickToFocus to your config file.
2. Alt+TAB — Key Tab A M WindowList Root c c MaxLabelWidth 99
3. This depends on number of desks you're using. To have 4 desks, use these lines in your config file:

DesktopSize 1x1
Key Left   A   CM    Desk -1 0 3     #Ctrl+Alt+Left
Key Right  A   CM    Desk +1 0 3     #Ctrl+Alt+Right

Where "0" is 1st desk and "3" is 4th (last).

 

[gofer_touch]

Awesome, many thanks!

 

[free-and-bsd]

Hey, people, what do you use as your clock app on your FVWM desktop? I used to be content with xclock, until got bored. So I wrote this little script based on date and xterm to give me multi-color date clock -- at least, more fun than plain xclock.

$ >cat clock.sh
#!/usr/local/bin/bash
while true
do
tput clear
date | awk '{ print "\033[34m" $1,"\033[35m" $2,"\033[35m" $3,"\033[39m" $4, \
"\033[33m" $5,"\033[36m" $6 "\t" }' | tr -d '\n'
sleep 1
done

Then I set it in .fvwm/config to run without title bar and always be in left top:

Style *clock*  !Title WindowListSkip
..........
###And lanuch my script in terminal###
AddToFunc FvwmMyClock
+ I Exec exec xterm -geometry 30x1+1+1 -bg black -fg green \
  -fa 'xos Terminus:style=Bold' -fs 16 -e ~/clock.sh

The only problem is, don't know how to get rid of the cursor in the end... though it doesn't hurt me that much.
EDIT: Well, strictly speaking, I actually composed the script from the parts somebody else wrote. The script itself is somewhere at stackexchange.com, I only added the awk coloration part to it.

 

[free-and-bsd]

Ok, the only way I was able to put it into a single file was this:

#!/usr/local/bin/bash
clock_f () {
while true
do
tput clear
date | awk '{ print "\033[34m" $1,"\033[35m" $2,"\033[35m" $3,"\033[39m" $4,"\033[33m" $5,"\033[36m" $6 "\t" }' | tr -d '\n'
sleep 1
done
}
export -f clock_f
xterm -geometry 30x1+1+1 -bg black -fg green -fa 'Terminus:style=Bold' -fs 16 -T Clock -e bash -c clock_f & disown

Edit: using export -f solves the problem.
And then:

Style *Clock*  Sticky, !Title