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Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!linus!necntc!ames!pasteur!cory.Berkeley.EDU!dheller
From: dheller@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Dan Heller)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d,comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: v00i002:  Ardent Window Manager(X11), Part01/13
Message-ID: <4961@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 11 Aug 88 05:24:24 GMT
References: <1621@wyse.wyse.com> <1701@hoqax.UUCP>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: dheller@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Dan Heller)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 72

In article <1701@hoqax.UUCP> twb@hoqax.UUCP (T.W. Beattie) writes:
>PLEASE PLEASE at least a brief indication of what the posting does, why
>anyone would want it, etc.

Good idea -- and how about at least 5 postings a day instead of 3? :-)

>So what is an  Ardent Window Manager(X11)??

The newsgroup, of course, is comp.windows.x, so the software posted
it going to be X-windows related ...oops, excuse me..."X Window System"
At any rate, a window manager is something that manages the windows on
your screen (or do you need to know more than that).

More specifically, however... AWM is something written by Jordan Hubbard
formerly of Ardent Computer.  He hacked up a "version" of uwm (I don't
know which version) to allow title bars on windows and so forth...  For
the most part, it's pretty nice and functional for the common user.

However, as a programmer, I'm finding it rather tough, but I don't know
how bad it is because I haven't used any other window manager other than
uwm (and I need title bars too much to bother with that too long).

The problems I'm having with awm (sorry, Jordan -- since you've moved
away, I have to complain to _someone_) are mostly that it dies too easily
at the first sign of trouble.  For example, I start up X via the alias

xinit =80x11+0+715 -fn r14 -C -T console -e ~/.Xinit

This gives me a startup shell which uses the font "r14", places it
at 0,715 on my screen, is 80 columns by 11 lines, is a console window
(-C) has the name "console" and the startup file to run is the file
.Xinit in my home dir (be sure to make this file executable, or you
won't last too long :-).  In .Xinit, I start "awm &" and run other
applications (my clock, my "biff" and 2 xterms).  So far, fine...

I have no idea why this happens, but even tho I can go in and out
of other programs in that window and so on... but the *first* ^C that
I do in that window kills awm.

When I start awm again, all the windows that existed on the screen
do _not_ respond to the "autoraise" feature.  If I start new applications,
regardless of what they are, they will get autraised if I enter the
window, but only the new ones... not the old ones..  ^C in that window
no longer kills awm.

I can't seem to turn the title bars off on windows anymore.  I used
to have things like "*showTitle: off" and that used to work for the
programs I didn't want to have title bars, but now everything has
title bars and there's no way to turn them off.  Yes, I know about
the change to "decorate" as documented in the latest version.  however,
I can't even use f.nodecorate to turn them off... Most f.* functions
hardly work as they used to (e.g. I click in a window and the function
should apply to that window, but literally nothing happens).

If I write a program which has a simple form widget and some command
wigets in it and I use my mouse button within the _form_ widget, AWM
seems to think I'm on my _root_ window and tries to translate events
ignoring the fact that I'm not on my root window...

AWM seems to core dump a lot more often than it used to.  Also, unknown
events seem to kill it pretty easily.

I still use awm despite my grumblings, but I've noticed that each
version posted is just a little buggier than the previous release
and there's no backwards compatibility with previous versions (for
example, the titlebar changes).  however, I'd love to get feedback
on other people's experiences with awm and/or other window managers.
I haven't run TWM, but I haven't seen many bug reports on it... is
that cuz no one uses it, or cuz it's bugless? :-)


Dan Heller