[XWEM]: Re: first impressions

[Steve Youngs]

* Jens Petersen <address@hidden> writes:

  > Hi,
  > I finally got xwem to work yesterday (second time lucky? ;).

Congrats!

  > Well actually I finally heeded the advice of actually running it
  > from ".xinitrc".  Is it known why it can't be started from a
  > lonely xterm say instead after X has started up?

Dunno, I've never tried to start it that way.

  > I have problems with the latest pre-release xwem pkg though
  > (xwem-1.14 with xlib-1.12). Particularly it seems to hang for
  > me pretty reproducibly with say H-x b or H-x 4 b say, as does
  > H-x r say when all the frames are hidden.

You need to remember that XEmacs is _single-threaded_ so sometimes you
can run into problems if you try to do stuff while XEmacs is busy.
Evgeny is working on a way to sort of work around this using
`enqueue-eval-event' stuff.

  > I like the concept of windows and frames like in Emacs
  > and being able to move between windows with the cursor
  > keys is cool (however I fail to understand why in the default
  > keybindings H-left moves one right and H-up down, etc:

Yeah, that does seem wrong.  I don't use those particular bindings, so
I've never noticed.

  > I found it unintuitive enough that I interchanged the
  > left/right and up/down H- bindings in my xwemrc.el file.

Another advantage of a lisp WM... limitless configuration
possibilities. :-)

  > I was hoping to actually move to xwem as my window manager
  > but it is not quite stable enough for me yet I guess: or

I think it's great.  I've been using it exclusively for a number of
months now.  I think my current xwem session is about a week old now,
so things appear to be quite stable here.

  > I haven't gotten used enough to its perculiarities yet? :)

Quite possibly. :-)

  > Anyway I'm sure I'll be playing with it sometimes because
  > it is so much fun...

I've noticed that it has a certain addictive quality, it's hard to
keep away from it for too long. :-P

  > Anyone found a good way to run gnome-panel in it?
  > Do systray apps work with it?  I guess some configuration
  > is needed for that?

Yes, yes, and yes...

  $ wget http://youngs.au.com/~steve/xwemrc.el

...for all kinds of xwem coolness.  Have a look at what I did with
Gkrellm to give you ideas for gnome-panel.  And look at
`xwem-my-start-ldocks' in there for systray apps.

  > Also noticed that sometimes when closing windows (actually
  > how to do that directly with xwem?) 

Button 3 on the client's "title bar tab thingy" for a menu.

  > focus didn't seem to get passed over to the window underneath.

I've noticed that focus seems to be "linear", in other words it seems
to pass to the next closest win rather than the last selected win.
I'm used to it now, so it doesn't bother me.

  > Also a small feature request: command completion for launching
  > apps would be really nice - I mean tab in H-x r etc.

That works for me.  Strange that it doesn't for you.  Oh, I think I
know what it is.  You can do completion on commands that are in your
path, but you can't do completion on directory names etc for commands
that aren't in your path.  Yes, this would be good to have.

BTW, you can also set up "launch abbrevs"... see
`xwem-launcher-abbrev-table' (I've got some in my xwemrc.el).

Have fun.

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