Middle-Mouse button

On a sunny day (Mon, 1 Sep 2008 19:56:50 +0000 (UTC)) it happened DanS
<t.h.i.s.n.t.h.a.t@a.d.e.l.p.h.i.a.n.e.t> wrote in
<Xns9B0CA21FDC021thisnthatadelphianet@85.214.90.236>:
[color=blue]
>All this mention of a hot-key.....seems like it wouldn't be the most
>optimum way for my app to be run. In my understanding, a hot-key setup
>will run a program.[/color]

Yes.

[color=blue]
>My program should be constantly running.[/color]

You did mention that all your program does is present a menu with programs.
So in that case the hotkey should launch a program that presents a menu.
Once the user makes a selection from that menu, then that selection is executed,
and the menu program killed.


[color=blue]
>All this talk of Linux and how it's so flexible and can do things you
>can't do in Windows, it seems as if I can't do this.[/color]

It is simple.
In its most simple way you could start an xterm with 'dialog', see man dialog, and
[url]http://www.cyberciti.biz/nixcraft/linux/docs/uniqlinuxfeatures/lsst/ch04sec10.html[/url]
[color=blue]
>Nor can I seem to
>disable the middle-click paste either. It should be my choice right ?[/color]

You can write your own OS and applications, but in Linux (as in MS windows),
some standard ways for programs to eschange data, like cut and paste with middle mouse
exist.
If you do not respect middle mouse, you get into problems with many applications.
the X server cut and paste happens to be that way.
If you only run command line (X not started), then the same mouse functions are
handled by 'gpm', you can kill gpm and lose cut and paste.

You will find it is sometimes difficult to read all the man pages, in my view
it is a learning curve, and it likely never ends :-)
It is not for the weak, one needs to persists.

DanS <t.h.i.s.n.t.h.a.t@a.d.e.l.p.h.i.a.n.e.t> wrote:[color=blue]
> Bernhard Agthe <dark2star@gmx.net> wrote in news:g90a40$q4r$1@daniel-
> new.mch.sbs.de:[color=green][color=darkred]
> >> It started off as just a simple launcher program where the middle
> >> click would just immediately show the menu to launch programs...[/color]
> >
> > Actually it sounds like you're trying to apply a Windows-problem to
> > Linux. Don't bother - good launcher applications do exist and they
> > usually are assigned to a hot-key.[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
> I haven't found any good launcher programs. Of course, good in my opinion
> is one that acts as mine does. The only motion required is to move a
> finger 1/2" to the middle button and click. The one's I have seen require
> you to click on the destop (which means possibly having to move/min/unmax
> a window), or have a 'hot-spot' on the screen, or move to this edge or
> that edge.[/color]

a) (Mis)using the middle mouse button is like hooking into the
Crtl-V key press event in Windows - you will get everybody mad
at you since no application can do a 'copy' from the clipboard
anymore. The middle mouse button has been used for this under
Unix since long before Windows even appeared....

b) You can, in principle, get the window manager to do something
on basically any kind of event. It depends on the window manager
you're using if it allows you to do that. But there are lots of
different ones - some, in the name of "consistency of user expe-
rience" give you less lee-way (ironically, it's the more fancy,
Windows influenced window managers that don't seem to let you
to) while the traditional ones (twm, fvwm etc.) let you more or
less do whatever you want. The window manager is what can hook
into all kinds of events, you have to learn how to ask it nicely.
If yours won't let you you have to take it up with the whoever
wrote that it, you may get a (hopefully) reasonable explanation
of why it's considered a bad idea. And, of course, you can do a
fork and change your private version to do whatever you want;-)
[color=blue]
> All this mention of a hot-key.....seems like it wouldn't be the most
> optimum way for my app to be run. In my understanding, a hot-key setup
> will run a program. My program should be constantly running. In order for
> that to work, the hot key would need to be used to launch a second
> instance of the app, which would then check for an existing instance, and
> if it finds it, notify my previously running app to show itself.[/color]

First question is why your program has to run all of the time, just
using up memory? Unless you have to read in and later store lots of
state information, starting a simple program isn't that much of a
hassle. But even if you have good reasons for that, there are dif-
ferent ways. You could e.g. have your program listen on a (local)
socket or a FIFO etc. and just have the hot-key (or whatever you
use) start a short program or script that sends a single data item
(like the position of the mouse or whatever) or just a signal to
your program to get it going. Only if this doesn't work you would
have it start your obviously not yet running program. All that is
hardly any work, so what's the big problem? What exactly are your
criteria for the "most optimum way"? Optimal may be different be-
tween Windows and Linux...
[color=blue]
> All this talk of Linux and how it's so flexible and can do things you
> can't do in Windows, it seems as if I can't do this. Nor can I seem to
> disable the middle-click paste either. It should be my choice right ?[/color]

Your choice as a user, yes, but not your choice as the programmer
of a normal application.

Windows comes from a single-tasking, single user tradition. That
shaped a lot of the design decisions made. Since quite some time
it's moving more and and more into a multi-tasking, nulti-direction
that UNIX started with (and with each new Windows version people
complain that they can't do things the way they were used to;-)
One of the things you need in a real multi-tasking, multi-user en-
vironment is to keep one process from influencing other processes
unduly. Hooking into things like certain GUI events is something
that a process shouldn't be able to do since there's simply no way
it can find out what other processes may need this event for. (Ad-
mittedly, there are a few exceptions like the ability of a program
to "grab" the mouse or keyboard, but use of these features is usu-
ally heavily frowned upon...)

The "master controller" for your GUI, the window manager, which the
user can configure to his/her likings, can do that, so it is the
user that stays in control. But a "normal" program should never be
able to negatively influence the behaviour of other programs (like
taking away clicks on the middle mouse button). Only if the user
(and not the programmer) wants your program to be able to do that
(s)he can do that by telling the window manager to do something
unusual on e.g. a middle mouse button click.

Regards, Jens
--
\ Jens Thoms Toerring ___ [email]jt@toerring.de[/email]
\__________________________ [url]http://toerring.de[/url]

Hi,

actually I have no better answers than have already been presented.
[color=blue]
> I haven't found any good launcher programs. Of course, good in my opinion
> is one that acts as mine does. The only motion required is to move a
> finger 1/2" to the middle button and click. The one's I have seen require
> you to click on the destop (which means possibly having to move/min/unmax
> a window), or have a 'hot-spot' on the screen, or move to this edge or
> that edge.[/color]

Actually the "click the desktop" is what Jens Toerring mentioned with
"interfering with system events" - applications grabbing events they
shouldn't. This gets really annoying if you have to use rdesktop to
access a different computer... In most cases you just press a hotkey and
it launches a program.
[color=blue]
> All this mention of a hot-key.....seems like it wouldn't be the most
> optimum way for my app to be run. In my understanding, a hot-key setup
> will run a program. My program should be constantly running. In order for
> that to work, the hot key would need to be used to launch a second
> instance of the app, which would then check for an existing instance, and
> if it finds it, notify my previously running app to show itself.[/color]

But why do you want your program to run all the time, except for "it has
always been this way"? Just imagine, your program would keep it's state
in it's config file and recover the last state even after a reboot.
Wouldn't that be even more convenient? So you still have one instance
only (except you call your program multiple times on purpose). There are
many interesting solutions for your problem. Just do not try to think
"the Windows way" - that will get you to choose a suboptimal solution...

By the way, the middle mouse button is handled in Windows, also, just
not very consistent. In Unix (including Linux), the middle mouse button
is handled very consistently and that is a very good thing. If you want
your Launcher started by a mouse click, you could use buttons four and
higher. You see, buttons 4 and 5 are the mouse wheel (=scrolling) which
you wouldn't want to lose, would you? But your mouse might have some
extra buttons which are yet unused?
[color=blue]
> Is this correct ?[/color]

Depends on the solution you choose - this may be correct if you
implement it this way, but may not if you implement it differently.
[color=blue]
> All this talk of Linux and how it's so flexible and can do things you
> can't do in Windows, it seems as if I can't do this. Nor can I seem to
> disable the middle-click paste either. It should be my choice right ?[/color]

Do you want to disable the "Windows-Key" in Windows OS? You wouldn't
because some very essential functions are accessible through it (Windows
Explorer: <win>-<e>, run program: <win>-<r> and so on). This is as much
a feature of Windows as the copy-and-paste-via-mouse is a feature of
Unix (including Linux). It is your choice to use it, but you should
remember that some people share a computer with colleagues and they want
a similar user interface on all machines they use, so a little
consistency goes a long way.

If you insist on using the middle mouse button, I know for a fact that
you can re-assign mouse keys in fvwm window manager and you should be
able to do so even at X-Server level, but I advise you not to change
anything about the X-Server than (a) its configuration or (b) the
Xmodmaps (key bindings). You could re-map the middle mouse button to the
<F13> key code (provided you don't use that for your keyboards extra
function keys). Then basically you assign that to launching your
application (or a script which sends a signal to your app)...

So probably you are asking the right questions, but not quite in the
right way ;-)

Have fun...

On 2008-09-01, DanS <t.h.i.s.n.t.h.a.t@a.d.e.l.p.h.i.a.n.e.t> wrote:
[color=blue]
> All this talk of Linux and how it's so flexible and can do things you
> can't do in Windows, it seems as if I can't do this. Nor can I seem to
> disable the middle-click paste either. It should be my choice right ?[/color]

if you really want to do that use twm for your window manager
I'll let you map the middle button to a menu.

unfortunately it looks worse than windows 95

what you gain in configurable behavior you lose in looks.

also many X apps are kind of hard to use wihout a middle button.
(eg: xfig) but if your mouse has another useless button you could map
that to your menu instead....

Bye.
Jasen

Hi,
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
> >>All this talk of Linux and how it's so flexible and can do things you
> >>can't do in Windows, it seems as if I can't do this.[/color]
> >
> > It is simple.
> > In its most simple way you could start an xterm with 'dialog', see man
> > dialog, and[/color][/color]

If you want to do this in an X environment, I would recommend Xdialog or
zenity over dialog running in an xterm. They are very similar (they are
supposed to be compatible with dialog) but produce dialogues using X and
gtk respectively.

Cheers,
John McCallum

John McCallum writes:[color=blue]
> If you want to do this in an X environment, I would recommend Xdialog or
> zenity over dialog running in an xterm. They are very similar (they are
> supposed to be compatible with dialog)...[/color]

Unfortunately, they aren't.
--
John Hasler
[email]john@dhh.gt.org[/email]
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA

On a sunny day (Tue, 02 Sep 2008 07:04:57 -0500) it happened John Hasler
<john@dhh.gt.org> wrote in <87wshubvo6.fsf@thumper.dhh.gt.org>:
[color=blue]
>John McCallum writes:[color=green]
>> If you want to do this in an X environment, I would recommend Xdialog or
>> zenity over dialog running in an xterm. They are very similar (they are
>> supposed to be compatible with dialog)...[/color]
>
>Unfortunately, they aren't.[/color]

I thought it was a cool idea, and immediately replaced 'dialog' with 'Xdialog'
in one script.
Worked fine in X:
[url]http://panteltje.com/panteltje/dvd/show[/url]
Cannot speak for 'zenity', never used it.

John McCallum writes:[color=blue]
> If you want to do this in an X environment, I would recommend Xdialog or
> zenity over dialog running in an xterm. They are very similar (they are
> supposed to be compatible with dialog)...[/color]

I wrote:[color=blue]
>Unfortunately, they aren't.[/color]

Jan Panteltje writes:[color=blue]
> I thought it was a cool idea, and immediately replaced 'dialog' with
> 'Xdialog' in one script. Worked fine in X:...[/color]

It partially works. I tried to support it with pppconfig but I had to give
up.
--
John Hasler
[email]john@dhh.gt.org[/email]
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA

John Hasler wrote:
[color=blue]
> John McCallum writes:[color=green]
>> If you want to do this in an X environment, I would recommend Xdialog or
>> zenity over dialog running in an xterm. They are very similar (they are
>> supposed to be compatible with dialog)...[/color]
>
> Unfortunately, they aren't.[/color]

Of course, compatibility isn't an issue for the OP as he would be writing
from scratch. However they do not produce menus but rather dialogue boxes,
which may be more of an issue to him.

As an aside, zenity, the gnome project's version of Xdialog, is something I
haven't used much yet. I am interested in using it for it's additional
features like notification area icons. Is anyone aware of any gotcha's with
it?

Cheers,
John McCallum

On Sep 2, 10:50*am, John McCallum <john.mccal...@skipthisemerson.com>
wrote:[color=blue]
> John Hasler wrote:[color=green]
> > John McCallum writes:[color=darkred]
> >> If you want to do this in an X environment, I would recommend Xdialog or
> >> zenity over dialog running in an xterm. They are very similar (they are
> >> supposed to be compatible with dialog)...[/color][/color]
>[color=green]
> > Unfortunately, they aren't.[/color]
>
> Of course, compatibility isn't an issue for the OP as he would be writing
> from scratch. However they do not produce menus but rather dialogue boxes,
> which may be more of an issue to him.
>
> As an aside, zenity, the gnome project's version of Xdialog, is somethingI
> haven't used much yet. I am interested in using it for it's additional
> features like notification area icons. Is anyone aware of any gotcha's with
> it?
>
> Cheers,
> John McCallum[/color]

It's lacking some widgets which dialog and Xdialog implement
(password, time),
as well as those that dialog implements that Xdialog doesn't (form,
inputmenu).
Compatibility with dialog is achieved via a shell script, which could
behave
differently with embedded quotes and escapes. On the positive side,
its
manpage does not assert that it's a drop-in replacement for dialog ;-)

--
Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
[url]http://invisible-island.net[/url]
[url]ftp://invisible-island.net[/url]

>>>>> "Jan" == Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> writes:

Jan> What I use is fvwm, one of the oldest filemanagers I think,

FVWM is not a file manager, but a _window_ manager.


Jan> with 9 virtual screens, those virtual screens are in a pager
Jan> to right. Does not MS call thos virtual desktops? I dunno.

No. We X11 people called the virtual desktops FIRST, and have been
using this feature for many years _before_ MS discovered this nice
thing. Even so, MS has still failed to implement virtual desktops
decently.


Jan> It is much faster to type 'route' in an xterm. or 'ls -rtl
Jan> /mnt/hdd4/video/*.ts' then to go to it with a file manager...
Jan> And perhaps even safer.

Not perhaps, but certainly. :)

File manager? I use dir-ed inside Emacs. :)


Jan> There are thousands of commands in Linux, over time you
Jan> will learn some, you cannot possibly have them all in a menu
Jan> structure.

You could. But that'd be like finding your way through a dense
forest.



Jan> If you double click mouse left on a word in the xterm, then
Jan> it gets selected. If you then click middle mouse, you can
Jan> paste it anywhere in a text field. It is one of the most
Jan> important features there is :-)

I can't agree more. It's much more productive than cutting&pasting
with Ctrl-C/V. Why did you forget to mention triple-clicking, which
selects the whole line? :)



--
Lee Sau Dan §õ¦u´° ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: [email]danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de[/email]
Home page: [url]http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee[/url]

>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Hobley <markhobley@hotpop.donottypethisbit.com> writes:

Mark> I also would like to be able to use the keyboard to
Mark> replicate all mouse movement, and to be able to record and
Mark> script mouse events for the purpose of application
Mark> automation.

Use Emacs, then. It has got a web browser, file browser, news reader,
any many other things that you can think of. The most important thing
is that all these things running inside Emacs provides a unified,
keyboard-friendly (but not mouse-unfriendly) user interface, with
_searchable_ menus/buttons that can be operated using keyboard OR
mouse. If you install emacspeak, Emacs can even read out the
menus/buttons as well as the screen contents for you!


--
Lee Sau Dan §õ¦u´° ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: [email]danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de[/email]
Home page: [url]http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee[/url]

>>>>> "Bernhard" == Bernhard Agthe <dark2star@gmx.net> writes:

Bernhard> Do you want to disable the "Windows-Key" in Windows OS?
Bernhard> You wouldn't because some very essential functions are
Bernhard> accessible through it (Windows Explorer: <win>-<e>, run
Bernhard> program: <win>-<r> and so on).

Indeed, many Windows users don't know these hot-keys. When I use them
in front of them on their computers, they are surprised (sigh...!)
that I can launch Explorer, cmd.exe and lock the screen without
clicking any menus/buttons.


So, maybe, most Windows users won't mind or even notice it if the
<win> key on their keyboards are unwired! ;)



Bernhard> So probably you are asking the right questions, but not
Bernhard> quite in the right way ;-)

Tell people what you intend to do, instead of how you want it done.
:)



--
Lee Sau Dan §õ¦u´° ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: [email]danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de[/email]
Home page: [url]http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee[/url]

LEE Sau Dan <danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote:[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>>>>> "Jan" == Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> writes:[/color][/color]
>
> Jan> What I use is fvwm, one of the oldest filemanagers I think,
>
> FVWM is not a file manager, but a _window_ manager.
>
>
> Jan> with 9 virtual screens, those virtual screens are in a pager
> Jan> to right. Does not MS call thos virtual desktops? I dunno.
>
> No. We X11 people called the virtual desktops FIRST, and have been
> using this feature for many years _before_ MS discovered this nice
> thing. Even so, MS has still failed to implement virtual desktops
> decently.[/color]

MS supposedly has an add-on for XP for multiple desktops; downloaded &
insalled it on my XP system, but it doesn't work, typical for MS, I guess.[color=blue]
>
>
> Jan> It is much faster to type 'route' in an xterm. or 'ls -rtl
> Jan> /mnt/hdd4/video/*.ts' then to go to it with a file manager...
> Jan> And perhaps even safer.
>
> Not perhaps, but certainly. :)
>
> File manager? I use dir-ed inside Emacs. :)
>
>
> Jan> There are thousands of commands in Linux, over time you
> Jan> will learn some, you cannot possibly have them all in a menu
> Jan> structure.
>
> You could. But that'd be like finding your way through a dense
> forest.[/color]

Or through the abysmal mess of a menu structure in MS word looking for
some feature you last used 6 months ago.
Give me a simple man page that I can do searches in.
[color=blue]
>
>
>
> Jan> If you double click mouse left on a word in the xterm, then
> Jan> it gets selected. If you then click middle mouse, you can
> Jan> paste it anywhere in a text field. It is one of the most
> Jan> important features there is :-)
>
> I can't agree more. It's much more productive than cutting&pasting
> with Ctrl-C/V. Why did you forget to mention triple-clicking, which
> selects the whole line? :)
>
>
>[/color]

Bernhard Agthe <dark2star@gmx.net> wrote in
news:g9iruv$ifr$1@daniel-new.mch.sbs.de:


<SNIPPED>
[color=blue]
> But why do you want your program to run all the time, except for "it
> has always been this way"?[/color]

The reason I want it to run all the time is because, ultimately, I want
to use it as the shell....just as I do in Windows. It was originally
written as a launcher only 5 or 6 years ago....middle-click...boom, menu
popups up at the mouse location.

Then, I expanded it to be the entire shell for Windows....taskswapper,
system tray, clock, some quick Window controls for the current window,
and another menu for some common windows ops, like shutdown, control
panel, search, run....and a few menu items for options in my program
itself.

Here, this is the window that pops up when you middle click...

[url]http://users.adelphia.net/~thisnthat/shell.png[/url]

I have been using this as a shell for a long time (continuous
development). To navigate, it requires very little mouse movement. It
does not have a 'desktop', although I did write a module for it that does
present a desktop, but I don't use it. One thing that bugs me to no end
is when I sit down at someone elses computer, and the desktop is covered
top to bottom, left to right, with icons. My desktop has no icons, just
the wallpaper. Clean.

Using the desktop module though completely defeats my entire purpose for
writing it in the first place.....to use a more convenient (to me) shell
that is substantially more lightweight. More lightweight means it doesn't
eat up 20 megs or more of RAM. I haven't rebooted in days, and it's only
using 5.5 megs of RAM (which seems odd, because it's usually at about 7.5
megs....wait, I did just clean up a bunch of code and actually dumped a
feature I was working on.)

<SNIP>
[color=blue][color=green]
>> All this talk of Linux and how it's so flexible and can do things you
>> can't do in Windows, it seems as if I can't do this. Nor can I seem
>> to disable the middle-click paste either. It should be my choice
>> right ?[/color]
>
> Do you want to disable the "Windows-Key" in Windows OS? You wouldn't
> because some very essential functions are accessible through it
> (Windows Explorer: <win>-<e>, run program: <win>-<r> and so on). This
> is as much a feature of Windows as the copy-and-paste-via-mouse is a
> feature of Unix (including Linux). It is your choice to use it,[/color]

And I don't...use the Win key that is. (Although I did code a few of
those into my shell, I don't use them, it was an attempt at mimicking how
explorer works if I ever did want to distribute.)

(On a side-note, the WinKey shortcuts implemented using a keyboard hook.
Is this, a keyboard hook, also a difficult thing in X ?)
[color=blue]
> but
> you should remember that some people share a computer with colleagues
> and they want a similar user interface on all machines they use, so a
> little consistency goes a long way.[/color]

As I said, this is an un-distributed app.
[color=blue]
> If you insist on using the middle mouse button, I know for a fact that
> you can re-assign mouse keys in fvwm window manager and you should be
> able to do so even at X-Server level,[/color]

And what consequences does using fvwm have, versus using whatever I am
using in Ubuntu right now ? Does it still support themes, is compiz still
supported, etc ?

Thanks.

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:g9hp85$kpr$1@aioe.org:
[color=blue]
> You did mention that all your program does is present a menu with
> programs.[/color]

Well, at the absolute very least that is what I need to do, but ultimately
I would like to develop it into a complete shell replacement as I did for
Windows.

On 2008-09-04, DanS <t.h.i.s.n.t.h.a.t@a.d.e.l.p.h.i.a.n.e.t> wrote:[color=blue]
> Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote in
> news:g9hp85$kpr$1@aioe.org:
>[color=green]
>> You did mention that all your program does is present a menu with
>> programs.[/color]
>
> Well, at the absolute very least that is what I need to do, but ultimately
> I would like to develop it into a complete shell replacement as I did for
> Windows.[/color]

The source for twm is small enough to be understood by one man with out
too much work.

Bye.
Jasen

Hi,
[color=blue]
> The reason I want it to run all the time is because, ultimately, I want
> to use it as the shell....just as I do in Windows. It was originally
> written as a launcher only 5 or 6 years ago....middle-click...boom, menu
> popups up at the mouse location.[/color]

OK, have your program keep its status in a file and start up whenever
you request it with the "last" state. No need to run in the background ;-)
[color=blue]
> Then, I expanded it to be the entire shell for Windows....taskswapper, [...][/color]

Still the same, save you CPU some load and shutdown all the time ;-)

Well, if you're looking for that, assign some hot key to launch a shell
terminal in Linux. Everything you can think of is available in the Linux
shell, you can even do movie-cutting, image manipulation or sound
recording with a few keypresses on a Unix shell. You can watch a
Star-Wars-Movie in the shell!
[color=blue]
> Here, this is the window that pops up when you middle click...[/color]
Neat.
[color=blue]
> I have been using this as a shell for a long time (continuous[/color]
[...][color=blue]
> the wallpaper. Clean.[/color]

Well, that does actually bother me, too... but it is out of the current
discussion.
[color=blue]
> And I don't...use the Win key that is. (Although I did code a few of
> those into my shell, I don't use them, it was an attempt at mimicking how
> explorer works if I ever did want to distribute.)[/color]

So if you don't use the Win-Key, assign it to run your app instead of
the windows-menu or <nothing>. It will save you time because the fastest
way for computer input is the keyboard. Assign hot-keys to all items in
your launcher and you will notice you don't use the mouse anymore.
[color=blue]
> (On a side-note, the WinKey shortcuts implemented using a keyboard hook.
> Is this, a keyboard hook, also a difficult thing in X ?)[/color]

Well, in X it may be, but that is what you use your window manager for,
it's a simple configuration item, just assign any program to any
key-shortcut. Actually, do not try to assign the number or letter keys,
you might want to enter a text containing that special number or letter ;-)
[color=blue]
> As I said, this is an un-distributed app.[/color]

So? Whenever I get to a different computer, I want to use it without
re-configuring everything, so consistency matters.
[color=blue]
> And what consequences does using fvwm have, versus using whatever I am
> using in Ubuntu right now ? Does it still support themes, is compiz still
> supported, etc ?[/color]

Well, as mentioned before, fvwm is different. Give it a try, but do not
expect "Windows-Vista" nor "Windows-3.1" look and feel. It is different
and there surely is much less eye-candy. Themes? Yes, it did at a time
when Windows 3.1 was still "state-of-the-art" - just change the config
file. There's nothing special.

Actually as someone else stated, if you want the "fancy" stuff, you have
much more restrictions. And let me tell you, this is good - Ubuntu
wouldn't be as successful if you had to change the "Registry" and reboot
your computer whenever you want to change the desktop background.

Another thought, if you write your app to keep it's state and to run
from memory-stick, you can take it with you where ever you go and access
it even at your colleague's or your friend's PC, wouldn't that be nice?

Have fun and keep going ;-)

Someone who Bernhard Agthe neglected to credit writes:[color=blue]
> The reason I want it to run all the time is because, ultimately, I want
> to use it as the shell....just as I do in Windows.[/color]

Then what you really want to do is write your own window manager.

Bernhard Agthe writes:[color=blue]
> Well, if you're looking for that, assign some hot key to launch a shell
> terminal in Linux.[/color]

I don't think "shell" means the same thing to him as it does to us.
--
John Hasler
[email]john@dhh.gt.org[/email]
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA

John Hasler <john@dhh.gt.org> wrote in
news:878wu85c6z.fsf@thumper.dhh.gt.org:
[color=blue]
> Someone who Bernhard Agthe neglected to credit writes:[color=green]
>> The reason I want it to run all the time is because, ultimately, I want
>> to use it as the shell....just as I do in Windows.[/color]
>
> Then what you really want to do is write your own window manager.
>
> Bernhard Agthe writes:[color=green]
>> Well, if you're looking for that, assign some hot key to launch a shell
>> terminal in Linux.[/color]
>
> I don't think "shell" means the same thing to him as it does to us.[/color]

Maybe not. Should I instead call it a 'Desktop' ?

A Gnome/KDE/Xfce replacement ?