Joe's Window Manager

Forum: DSL Tips and Tricks
Topic: Joe's Window Manager
started by: mikshaw

Posted by mikshaw on Nov. 11 2005,20:54

Themes

I've been messing around with simple ways to "skin" JWM without needing to manually edit .jwmrc every time i want a visual change. Fortunately the configuration allows you to include additional config files, and fortunately you can override the settings in .jwmrc by adding new settings in the external files. This requires adding a new tag to .jwmrc, just before the </JWM> tag:

Code Sample

So here are a few that were based on fluxbox styles in DSL....

Simple:

Code Sample

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<JWM>

<StartupCommand>xsri --color=black --center-x --center-y --emblem /usr/share/fluxbox/backgrounds/tux_c_logo.jpg</StartupCommand>
<Border>
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*
<Foreground>grey</Foreground>
<Background>#666666</Background>
<ActiveForeground>white</ActiveForeground>
<ActiveBackground>#333333</ActiveBackground>
</Border>
<Tray>
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*
<Foreground>white</Foreground>
<Background>#666666</Background>
<ActiveForeground>white</ActiveForeground>
<ActiveBackground>#333333</ActiveBackground>
</Tray>
<Pager>
<Outline>#666666</Outline>
<Foreground>#333333</Foreground>
<Background>#333333</Background>
<ActiveForeground>white</ActiveForeground>
<ActiveBackground>grey</ActiveBackground>
</Pager>
<Load>
<Outline>white</Outline>
<Foreground>white</Foreground>
<Background>#333333</Background>
</Load>
<Popup>
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*
<Outline>#666666</Outline>
<Foreground>black</Foreground>
<Background>grey</Background>
</Popup>
<Menu>
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*
<Foreground>white</Foreground>
<Background>#666666</Background>
<ActiveForeground>white</ActiveForeground>
<ActiveBackground>black</ActiveBackground>
</Menu>
</JWM>

Fissure2:

Code Sample

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<JWM>

<StartupCommand>xsri --scale-width=100 --scale-height=100 /usr/share/fluxbox/backgrounds/fractalMovementscape.jpg</StartupCommand>
<Border>
-*-helvetica-*-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
<Foreground>black</Foreground>
<Background>#a6a6a6</Background>
<ActiveForeground>#fefefe</ActiveForeground>
<ActiveBackground>#2152c5</ActiveBackground>
</Border>
<Tray>
-*-helvetica-*-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
<Foreground>black</Foreground>
<Background>#a6a6a6</Background>
<ActiveForeground>#fefefe</ActiveForeground>
<ActiveBackground>#2152c5</ActiveBackground>
</Tray>
<Pager>
<Outline>#888888</Outline>
<Foreground>black</Foreground>
<Background>#2152c5</Background>
<ActiveForeground>#fefefe</ActiveForeground>
<ActiveBackground>#4184de</ActiveBackground>
</Pager>
<Load>
<Outline>white</Outline>
<Foreground>DarkOrange2</Foreground>
<Background>#2152c5</Background>
</Load>
<Popup>
-*-helvetica-*-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
<Outline>#a6a6a6</Outline>
<Foreground>#fefefe</Foreground>
<Background>#2152c5</Background>
</Popup>
<Menu>
-*-helvetica-*-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
<Foreground>black</Foreground>
<Background>#a6a6a6</Background>
<ActiveForeground>#fefefe</ActiveForeground>
<ActiveBackground>#2152c5</ActiveBackground>
</Menu>
</JWM>

BizCard:

Code Sample

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<JWM>

<StartupCommand>xsri --color=#3a1f61 --color2=#000000 --vgradient --center-x --center-y --emblem /usr/share/fluxbox/backgrounds/BizCard_c.png</StartupCommand>
<Border>
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*
<Foreground>grey</Foreground>
<Background>black</Background>
<ActiveForeground>white</ActiveForeground>
<ActiveBackground>#444444</ActiveBackground>
</Border>
<Tray>
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*
<Foreground>grey</Foreground>
<Background>#111111</Background>
<ActiveForeground>white</ActiveForeground>
<ActiveBackground>#444444</ActiveBackground>
</Tray>
<Pager>
<Outline>#888888</Outline>
<Foreground>#121212</Foreground>
<Background>#3a1f61</Background>
<ActiveForeground>grey</ActiveForeground>
<ActiveBackground>#121212</ActiveBackground>
</Pager>
<Load>
<Outline>white</Outline>
<Foreground>white</Foreground>
<Background>#3a1f61</Background>
</Load>
<Popup>
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*
<Outline>grey</Outline>
<Foreground>white</Foreground>
<Background>#3a1f61</Background>
</Popup>
<Menu>
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*
<Foreground>white</Foreground>
<Background>black</Background>
<ActiveForeground>white</ActiveForeground>
<ActiveBackground>#888888</ActiveBackground>
</Menu>
</JWM>

EDIT: I just noticed that I left the "antialias" attribute in the font tags, which is probably not necessary.

Posted by roberts on Nov. 12 2005,05:35

Nice job, mikshaw! I am using your Fissure2 theme.

Posted by from the jwm advocate on Nov. 12 2005,15:57

if you all want i have several already created themes on my project site.
there is also some minor projects created for JWM there also

< My Webpage >

Posted by crusadingknight on Nov. 13 2005,02:43

Methinks it may be possible to hack a simple lua or Tcl/Tk script to manage themes under JWM, if no such thing exists yet?

Posted by mikshaw on Nov. 13 2005,03:59

Yes it would...or even a bash or flua script. I'm doing this very thing.
Currently i have the "Include" tag pointing to a symlink called "default" rather than a specific theme file, much like DSL does with fluxbox themes, so i don't have to change that tag....just have to create a new symlink to the appropriate theme.

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Nov. 13 2005,04:36

Look at what I have in the twm extension. It's pretty simple to do.

Posted by roberts on Nov. 13 2005,18:37

If you want to have a root window pop menu, then simply remove the onroot="false" from the Root Menu tag of the .jwmrc file.

I anchored it so that it would not conflict with clicking on the icons.

Also, when editing the rc file .jwmrc then you can "test" it by running the command jwm -p
This will show errors before you restart the window manager!

Posted by jwm advocate on Nov. 14 2005,22:40

you can split the main jwmrc file into several parts/files in a way to seperate the menu from the settings and other sections. this is a good way to get organized.
in the .jwmrc you can just use the include tag to combine all the files into a usable file for JWM.

example i have a folder in $HOME called .jwm/themes and .jwm/config/
in .jwm/config/ i have all the different parts of the original jwmrc.

Posted by matrulesok on Nov. 27 2005,14:51

Is there any way of incoporating the fluxbox wm apps into jwm?? i would really like to be able to see net traffic and the cpu load box is too slow. I had a look around and tried using "swallow", but i failed to get it to work, other than this, jwm is cool!

p.s. I cant see any help in the config section of the jwm site for the "load" tag - am i missing somthing??

Thanks for any help!

Posted by mikshaw on Nov. 27 2005,15:04

JWM doesn't have a slit or dock, so they will open in their own windows. You will also need to change the commandline parameters of some of them in order to have them load properly, remove "-withdrawn" from the wmnet command for example. I can't remember fully what changes need to be done, but i'd suggest running each application from a terminal while testing. You can find the commands listed in .xinitrc.

Posted by matrulesok on Nov. 27 2005,15:26

I can open them ok, i was just wandering if it was possible to have them appear where the current "load" graphic is now.

As i say, there is the tag "swallow" listed on the jwm site, but i cant get it to work (wrong version of jwm??).

Failing that, I would at least like to speed up the refresh rate of the current "load" graphic....

Thanks again!

Posted by jwm advocate on Nov. 27 2005,17:21

Quote (matrulesok @ Nov. 27 2005,09:51)

the load tag is now missing because in the latest version of jwm you swallow the xload application. the load window was hardcoded before in versions 0.24 and prior. DSL is currently using jwm v0.24. the latest is v1.1

Posted by matrulesok on Nov. 27 2005,18:33

Thanks jwm advocate....my current set up has the cpuload sat on top of xload in sticky state, this seems to be the best "solution".

Thanks to everyone for getting JWM working with DSL- it is the WM of choice in my low ram system!

Posted by roberts on Nov. 27 2005,18:58

Actually I backported the root menu options from jwm 1.0 into jwm 0.24 that we are presently using. At the time of release jwm 1.0 had several issues and we had no idea of the timeline of 1.1. So even though you see the change on the onroot tag it is not 1.0 or 1.1. The onroot tag is the only change that I back ported. We will be monitoring the progress of jwm and update when appropriate. You can always see the version of jwm by opening a shell window and running jwm -version

We selected jwm for its low consumption of resources. It indeed is very nice and fits the philosopy of DSL.

Posted by Guardian on Dec. 07 2005,10:23

Quote (Guest @ Nov. 12 2005,16:57)

if you all want i have several already created themes on my project site.
there is also some minor projects created for JWM there also

< My Webpage >

I just tried to install some of the themes on this website, but when trying to untar the package I get a 'this doesn't look like a tar file' error and it won't go any further, had anybody the same problem? which steps should I foolow to solve this?
Thanks in advance.

Posted by jwm advocate on Dec. 07 2005,18:35

Quote (Guardian @ Dec. 07 2005,05:23)

Quote (Guest @ Nov. 12 2005,16:57)

if you all want i have several already created themes on my project site.
there is also some minor projects created for JWM there also

< My Webpage >

what was the command you used? the correct command would be

Code Sample

tar -jxvf <theme_name>

the packages are in a bzip2 compression is if not un compressed ( the -j flag in tar) then you will get that error everytime. or if you want to you can uncompress and untar in different steps.

Code Sample

bunzip2 <themename>

Code Sample

tar -xvf <themename>

either solution will do.

i hope this works... if it doesn't let me know which theme you had problems with and i will attempt to debug and fix.

Posted by Guardian on Dec. 08 2005,17:24

Thanks very much JWM, I�ll give it a go ASAP and let you all know.

Posted by Guardian on Dec. 09 2005,23:18

Well here I am again, lost, tried the different commands but still no luck, could be a bug in the themes... but I think it could be more a bug in my brain :-)
Where do I find the JWM files in DSL? I thought they'd be in usr/share/ but they aren't there.
Thanks everyone.

Posted by roberts on Dec. 10 2005,00:19

As was originally posted we are using a minimal version of jwm.
It consists of custom jwm binary based on v0.24 plus some code from 1.0 for root window click options. If you read this thread from the beginning you will see several themes posted by user mikshaw and how and where to put them.

Posted by doobit on Dec. 15 2005,18:11

I'm starting to like jwm the more I use it, especially with the right click menus that work like fluxbox. Occasionally the icons don't display properly on startup, but come back once I open the icon tool and close it again. The problem now is that I keep trying to reboot and shutdown with the right click when I'm using Windows