9wm: A Lightweight X Window Manager in the style of 8 1/2

9wm: A Lightweight X Window Manager in the style of 8 1/2

[David]

I have just released version 1.0 of my X window manager, 9wm.  9wm
attempts to capture the look and feel of the Plan 9 windowing system
"8 1/2".  This provides a minimal yet comfortable user interface.

9wm is particularly handy for users who are constantly moving back
and forth between Plan 9 and X windows, but it should also appeal
to non-Plan 9 users, particularly those who are sick of the amount
of time that certain other window managers take to start up ;-)

9wm should be appearing on comp.sources.x soon, if all goes well.  In
the meantime, you can get it via anonymous ftp from ftp.cs.su.oz.au,
in the directory /dhog/9wm.  9wm is freely available.

9wm: A Lightweight X Window Manager in the style of 8 1/2

[Arnold]

I'd rather have something like acme for unix and x.  sigh...

9wm: A Lightweight X Window Manager in the style of 8 1/2

[Dave]

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: 9wm is particularly handy for users who are constantly moving back
: and forth between Plan 9 and X windows
i wish i had this problem.

9wm works well for me, with two problems:
- if i use a proportionally spaced font the menus are a bit wild,
- i have a two-headed display.  9wm doesn't deal with two displays (which i 
can live with - i just run two 9wm's), but a bigger problem is that selecting 
a window on one screen causes a grab on the display, so that if i move my 
mouse to the other screen it _looks_ as though i have selected a window 
(border is dark), but the `other' 9wm has grabbed the keyboard focus.  i have 
to select another window on the new screen and then go back to the one i 
really want.  did i explain that right ?  hmm.  sounds more complicated than 
it actually is.

anyway, here's a patch for the first problem:

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*** 1.1	1994/12/12 11:34:52
--- 1.2	1994/12/12 11:41:19
***************
*** 66,74 ****
          return -1;
  
      dx = 0;
      for (n = 0; m->item[n]; n++) {
!         wide = strlen(m->item[n]) * font->max_bounds.width + 4;
          if (wide > dx)
              dx = wide;
      }
      wide = dx;
--- 66,74 ----
          return -1;
  
      dx = 0;
      for (n = 0; m->item[n]; n++) {
! 	wide = XTextWidth(font, m->item[n], strlen(m->item[n])) + 4;
          if (wide > dx)
              dx = wide;
      }
      wide = dx;
***************
*** 163,171 ****
                  XFillRectangle(dpy, menuwin, gc, 0, cur*high, wide, high);
              break;
          case Expose:
              for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
!                 tx = (wide - strlen(m->item[i])*font->max_bounds.width)/2;
                  ty = i*high + font->ascent + 1;
                  XDrawString(dpy, menuwin, gc, tx, ty, m->item[i], strlen(m->item[i]));
              }
              if (cur >= 0 && cur < n)
--- 163,171 ----
                  XFillRectangle(dpy, menuwin, gc, 0, cur*high, wide, high);
              break;
          case Expose:
              for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
! 		tx = (wide - XTextWidth(font, m->item[i], strlen(m->item[i]))) / 2;
                  ty = i*high + font->ascent + 1;
                  XDrawString(dpy, menuwin, gc, tx, ty, m->item[i], strlen(m->item[i]));
              }
              if (cur >= 0 && cur < n)

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great work !

dave.
--
Dave Edmondson, The Santa Cruz Operation, davided@sco.com
  How many retired bricklayers from FLORIDA are out purchasing
   PENCIL SHARPENERS right NOW??


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9wm: A Lightweight X Window Manager in the style of 8 1/2

[Amos]

Now all we need as the opposite -- a more versatile window manager
which can do on P9 what mwm does on X.  (Yes, I know, wait for ACME in
the next release....)

--
	Amos Shapir		Net: amos@cs.huji.ac.il
Paper: The Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, Dept. of Comp. Science.
       Givat-Ram, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
Tel: +972 2 585706,586950        GEO: 35 11 46 E / 31 46 21 N