Window managers alternatives (was Re: [svlug] StarOFfice to be GPL'd...)

[Aaron Lehmann]

> I personally prefer the KDE concept of separate, discrete desktops (using
> the function keys between them like you would in virtual consoles).
> 
> I personally detest the concept of a large virtual screen where stuff
> scrolls. Ick.

Well, there is stuff in between. For example in E, it is not one huge
scrolling desktop, but rather different ones, joined together in sequence
(e.g. "one comes after the other", "one is below the other"). This is much
different than the metaphor of panning a camera around the huge virtual
desktop. The method you sugest with function keys raises a lot of usablity
issues. It is no longer so simple just to drag windows from desktop to
desktop, because the desktops would almost be like different dimensions.

While we're on the topic of WM pagers, I should mention Nick Moffitt's The
Village. It's a FVWM setup with a gigantic virtual desktop and an xterm
covering each screen-sized space (with the window decorations off the
screen). To the untrained eye, it looks like he's in a text mode,
especially with the way he jumps between consoles with keystrokes. But the
magic begins when he starts an X application, and it comes up right over
the console. This kind of setup seems great for someone who's a text kind
of guy but doesn't want to have to go into a different environment to use
X applications.


Aaron Lehmann