The Window Maker Window Manager


To demonstrate some of the features that are common to most lightweight window managers, we'll now look at Window Maker, one of the most popular desktops for more advanced users who prefer to avoid all the bells and whistlesand their attendant heavy processor and memory loadof environments like KDE and GNOME.

Window Maker is designed to recall the appearance and function of the now defunct desktop for the NeXTSTEP operating system, which many hail as one of the most innovative and functional desktops ever designed, and which became the basis years after its heyday for Mac OS X. Many of the features we know today as "Mac features," such as the Dock of Mac OS X, originally appeared in NeXTSTEP, and are thus replicated in Window Maker. Figure 5.9 shows a Window Maker desktop.

Figure 5.9. The Window Maker desktop isn't a full-featured user environment like KDE, but it does have many efficient features for using your X11 applications.


The following list describes the main features of the Window Maker desktop:

  • The column of buttons along the right side of the desktop is known as the Dock. If you've used Mac OS X, the Dock should be a familiar sight, though it might appear more primitive than Apple's modern iteration. Although you can't arbitrarily place icons on the Window Maker desktop like you can in Windows or KDE, you can place square tile-like buttons for launching commonly used applications onto the Dock. The main advantage the Dock offers over arbitrary icons is that it is never covered up, even when windows are maximized. Your application buttons are thus always available. In addition to application launchers, you can also place "mini-programs" on the Dock. The calendar/clock shown in the figure is an example of one of these mini-programs. You learn more about the Dock in "Working with the Dock," later in this chapter.

  • You can think of the icons for currently running applications as being similar to the Windows taskbar. Double-clicking an icon, for example, will restore a window that has been minimized.

  • The Applications menu is similar to the Start menu in Windows. This menu is accessed by right-clicking a blank area of the desktop.

  • The Windows menu opens a list of currently running windows. Clicking an entry will bring that window to the foreground and also make it the active one. This menu is accessed by clicking the middle mouse button on a blank area of the desktop. (For those with two-button mice, the Windows menu is accessed by clicking the left and right buttons at the same time.)

  • The Clip in Window Maker allows you to move between multiple virtual desktops that are active at the same time, and all these desktops can be displaying different windows and applications. Clicking the arrows on the Clip button allows you to "page" back and forth between the various desktops.

Working with Windows

Window Maker, like every window manager, provides its own paradigm for window control buttons. All the controls you expect are there; you just have to know which ones do what. Fortunately, the icons for each control are usually pretty clear in meaning, and Window Maker is no exception.

Moving and resizing windows works pretty much the way we've all become accustomed after decades of experience with Windows and Mac OS desktops: click and drag the title bar to move a window; click and drag the window's borders to resize it. Clicking the icon at the left end of the title bar will minimize the window to an icon at the bottom of the screen. (You double-click the minimized icon to restore the window.) Clicking the x icon at the right end of the title bar closes the window. Double-clicking the title bar itself will roll up the window so that only the title bar is displayed (an effect known as WindowShade). You can double-click the title bar again to restore the window. If you want to maximize the window or perform various other window-manipulation functions, you can right-click the title bar to open a menu of options.

Tip

Notice the Close and Kill options when you right-click the title bar. What is the difference? The Close option closes the window normally. It performs the same function as clicking the x icon at the right end of the title bar. The Kill option, however, sends a kill signal to the program running in the window. This can be useful for terminating a misbehaving application that is not responding to the Close command. However, Kill should only be used if Close has failed. Close terminates the application gracefully and allows it to do all of its normal tasks before closing (such as asking whether you want to save any files that have been edited). Kill simply squashes the application immediately. This can sometimes result in lost data or orphaned runtime files (which can interfere with the application if you run it again) because applications can't perform their normal shutdown tasks when terminated in this manner. That's why Kill should be used only as a last resort.


Window Maker Menus

As mentioned previously, Window Maker menus can be accessed by clicking a blank area of the desktop. Right-clicking opens the Applications menu, whereas middle-clicking (or clicking both the left and right buttons on a two-button mouse) opens the Windows menu. If you open a menu and then decide you don't want to select any of its options, you can close the menu by clicking the same mouse button somewhere on a blank spot of the desktop.

Normally, the menu will disappear after you have made a selection from it. However, if you want the menu to stay on the desktop, you can left-click its title bar. When you have done this, the x icon will appear at the right end of the title bar, which allows you to close the menu. Both main menus and submenus can be "pinned" to the desktop by leftclicking their title bars.

Working with the Dock

The Window Maker Dock is the bar of buttons along the right side of the screen. One of the functions of the Dock is for holding application launcher buttons. It's quite easy to add an application tile to the Dock. A running application will have an icon placed at the lower-left part of the screen. To add this icon to the Dock, simply hold down the left mouse button and drag the icon below the last button currently on the Dock. When you have it in the correct location, a white border will appear around the icon. Release the mouse button and a new button will be created in the Dock. Double-clicking this new button will launch the application. If you later decide you don't want the launcher anymore, simply click and hold down the left button and drag the launcher off the Dock to a blank area of the desktop. Release the mouse button, and the launcher will disappear.

You can rearrange the order of the buttons on the Dock by dragging them around. Note that you should only drag them up or down, though. Dragging a button to the left will result in that launcher being removed.

To change the properties of a launcher button on the Dock, right-click it and hold down the mouse button to open a pop-up menu. Move the mouse to the Settings menu option and then release the mouse button. This will open the Docked Application Settings dialog, which allows you to customize the launcher's look and functions, such as indicating that the associated application should be launched upon login, or whether the application button should be "locked" (prevented from being deleted by being dragged off the Dock).

If you want to move the Dock to a different location on the screen, simply click and hold down the left mouse button on the top button of the Dock and then drag. This action moves the entire Dock. You can move the Dock up and down the right side of the screen, or you can move it to the left side of the screen, if you prefer.

Installing and Using Dock Applications

A number of applications are designed specifically for running in the Window Maker Dock. These applications include a clock/calendar, network traffic monitors, system performance monitors, and a CD player. Figure 5.10 shows wmCalClock, an example of a Dock application.

Figure 5.10. The clock/calendar wmCalClock is an example of an application specifically designed for running in the Dock.


A fair number of Dock applications (DockApps) are available in the FreeBSD ports collection (see Chapter 16 for information on installing software from the FreeBSD ports collection). There is no ports category for Window Maker DockApps; rather, DockApps are scattered throughout the collection depending on each one's purpose. However, you can visit the page for Window Maker's logical grouping of ports, as seen in Figure 5.11, to see all ports that have to do with Window Maker listed in one place; the direct URL for this page is http://www.freebsd.org/ports/windowmaker.html.

Figure 5.11. A section of the web page showing ported applications available for the Window Maker Dock.


Tip

Dockapps.org (http://www.dockapps.org) is an independent site that keeps track of DockApps for Window Maker. If you find a DockApp here that you want to install, look for it in your system's ports collection using locate. For example, to find wmCalClock, try the following commands:

# locate wmCalClock # locate -i wmcalclock /usr/ports/x11-clocks/wmcalclock


Ahait's in the x11-clocks section.


If you find one that interests you, note the line that reads Also listed in. For example, in Figure 5.11, FSViewer.app-0.2.5_2 is shown at the top of the page. The description of this application tells you that FSViewer.app is also listed in X11-fm. It turns out that the category misc is in the FreeBSD ports collection, and this is where you can find the FSViewer.app application.

Window Maker DockApps can be installed like any other application (see Chapter 16 for information on how to do this). After a DockApp has been installed, you can start it by right-clicking the desktop to open the Applications menu and then selecting the Run option. This opens the Run dialog shown in Figure 5.12.

Figure 5.12. The Run dialog allows you to start an application by entering its name.


In the Run dialog, type the name of the application you want to start and click OK. The DockApp will start as a minimized icon that appears at the bottom of the desktop, and which you can move to the Dock if you intend to reuse it.

After you have the application installed in the Dock, you can configure it so that it starts automatically each time you start Window Maker. To do this, first produce the Docked Application Settings dialog (right-click the application's icon and choose Settings). Select the Start When Window Maker Is Started option and then choose OK to close the dialog. From now on, the DockApp will start automatically each time you start Window Maker.

Tip

Many DockApps have customizations available that are dependent on the individual applications. Often these are in the form of options supplied to a program when it is started. Many DockApps will install manual pages. To access them, type man at the console command prompt, followed by the name of the command (for example, man wmCalClock).


Customizing Window Maker

You can customize various aspects of Window Maker to your liking. For example, you can change the desktop background, the color scheme, and much more. The following sections explain how to perform these and other customizations in Window Maker.

Changing the Desktop Theme

The desktop theme affects the color scheme as well as the desktop background. To change the theme, right-click the desktop to open the Applications menu and then select Appearance. From the Appearance menu, choose Themes to produce a list of available installed themes. To apply a new theme, simply click it in the list.

Changing the Style

You can also change the color scheme used for window borders, title bars, and menus as well as the Dock. This is referred to as the style. To change the style, right-click the desktop to open the Applications menu. Then click Appearance and then Styles. Window Maker has many available styles.

Customizing the Desktop Background

You can customize the desktop background in several ways. For example, you can select one of several solid colors, a color gradient, or an image that you want to use as the desktop background. If you have a custom image that you want to use as a background, you should place it in your home directory under the following subdirectory:

GNUstep/Library/Window Maker/Backgrounds


After you have placed the image in this subdirectory, right-click the desktop to open the Applications menu. Then click Appearance and then Background to open a list of possible backgrounds. The custom image you added to the subdirectory will appear in the Backgrounds list. (See Chapter 8, "Working with the Shell," if you need help with copying or moving files.)

Tip

If the image you select is too small to cover your entire desktop, Window Maker will tile multiple copies of it to fill the available space. Of course, if your image is a photograph, tiling is probably not desirable. To avoid this, you should make sure the image is the same size as your desktop resolution. For example, if your desktop resolution is set to 1024x768, you should use the same size for the photograph. You can use any photo-editing program to resize the image. If you don't have a photo-editing program, a powerful oneGIMPis available for free in the graphics category of the ports collection.


The Preferences Utility

You can use the Preferences utility to make further configuration changes in Window Maker. To access the Preferences utility, double-click the utility's Dock button, shown in Figure 5.13.

Figure 5.13. Click the utility's launcher button to open the Window Maker Preferences utility.


At the top of the Preferences utility window is a row of buttons you can click to access configuration preference settings. Use the scroll bar beneath this row to display the remaining buttons. In the bottom-left corner of the Window Maker Preferences utility window is a check box labeled Balloon Help. Check this box and then move your pointer over the various buttons to see pop-up descriptions of what configuration options are available for each button. In some cases, the picture on a button might not help you much if you aren't familiar with Window Maker.

Configuring Window Maker Preferences

Configuration preferences are arranged into categories, each one with its own icon in the toolbar of the Preferences utility window. Scroll left and right to reach all the possible configuration categories. For example, scroll to the right to display the button with a mouse icon on it. Click that button to open the Mouse Preferences panel, shown in Figure 5.14, which allows you to configure your mouse.

Figure 5.14. Configure the mouse in this dialog. Among other things, you can set the speed of the mouse and how much delay is allowed between double-clicks.


Here's another option you might be interested in: Click the button that looks like the title bar of a window (shown to the right of the Mouse Preferences button in Figure 5.14). Here, you can create a custom color scheme in case none of the default schemes suit your taste.

Customizing the Applications Menu

You can customize the Applications menu from within the Preferences utility. To do so, click the button that shows part of the Applications menu (if you have the Balloon Help box checked, the pop-up description for this button reads "Edit the menu for launching applications"). This will open the dialog shown in Figure 5.15.

Figure 5.15. Click the Applications Menu button (outlined in white when selected) to open the Applications Menu Definitions dialog. Use the options in this window to configure the Applications menu.


This process is fairly straightforward and is explained in the Instructions list in the right pane of the dialog. You can drag items from the New Items list in the dialog and drop them where you want them on the Applications menu. A dialog will open asking you to specify the name of the item, the program to load, and so on. If you want to remove an item from the Applications menu, you can drag it off the menu.

Quitting Window Maker and X11

Recall that Window Maker is only an overlay on top of X11, and that X11 itself is just a graphical shell running on top of the command-line core of FreeBSD. When you log out of Window Maker, X11 quits as well, and you are returned to the command prompt.

Right-click on the desktop area to open the Applications menu and choose Exit from the bottom of the menu. Click OK to confirm that you want to exit your session. After Window Maker quits and X11 terminates, you should again see the text screen with the command prompt where you originally started X11.

If you're shutting down your computer, you can now issue a shutdown command as described in Chapter 4, "Booting and Shutting Down FreeBSD."




FreeBSD 6 Unleashed
FreeBSD 6 Unleashed
ISBN: 0672328755
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 355
Authors: Brian Tiemann

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