Re: [dwm] cycling through tags?

markus schnalke wrote:
> Joerg van den Hoff <j.van_den_hoff_AT_fzd.de> wrote:
> >
> > definitely don't believe in configuring a window manager by
> > editing the source code. at the very least, this seems to imply
> > that one starts over and over again with each new release (or
> > one has to verify that the config header default layout has not
> > changed.
>
> I upgrade dwm every half year or so. Normally there is no need for
> users to follow the latest development.
>
> > I would stil be in favour of some simple(-minded)
> > configuration file of the keyword/value variety (or even activating
> > this by a compile flag only, leaving the defaults defined in config.h).
>
> What is the big difference between config.h and a .dwmrc?
> If .dwmrc would be simple, then editing config.h is needed anyway.
> (Applying patches is needed anyway.)
> If .dwmrc would be complete, then it would be the same as config.h.
>
> You sayed, that compling is not a problem.
> And how often do you change your window manager configuration?
>
> > that's no good if I'm actually "only" a user of a nice window manager
> > who needs to get other things done.
>
> So just take what vanilla-dwm offers you.
> ... or if you want more, then apply some patches.
>
> > if I look at the home page there a quite a few nice extensions to `dwm'
> > which are tied to specific releases and are simply left behind while
> > dwm is developed further. I think this is a pity.
>
> dwm is community development. It's from developers for developers.
> The available patches are just published personal extensions.

I guess I agree with Joerg. I've been using dwm for more than a year
(and various versions of wmi[i] for years before that), but I recently
switched to awesome (<http://awesome.naquadah.org>). awesome is a fork
of dwm with a different philosophy.

I don't mean to troll here - I don't plan any more posts. I just wanted
to share some advantages I see in awesome:

  - Conventional config file: Recompiling isn't much of a pain, but it
    is another step.

  - Distribution package: The use of a config file allows me to use the
    Debian package as-is, like I do for almost everything else.

  - Potential popularity: I'd like tiling window managers to gain in
    popularity to increase the incentive to fix broken applications that
    don't play nice. The above factors should contribute to long-term
    popularity.

  - More built-in features: Several features that would require dealing
    with patches (and keeping them current and playing nice together)
    are built into awesome. And some features I don't use are easy to
    ignore.

  - Interesting new development: awesome is still fairly early in
    development, so it's still experimenting with new ideas. dwm is
    more mature but less exciting.

Yes, the awesome executable is three times the size of dwm's, but, for
me, that is outweighed by the advantages above. At least awesome's
executable is still less than 1% of the size of Firefox's :)

Doug.
Received on Fri Feb 01 2008 - 15:19:31 UTC