Re: Etch upgrade and keyboard in WindowMaker
On Tue, Apr 17, 2007 at 07:51:34PM EDT, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 17, 2007 at 06:59:26PM -0400, cga2000 wrote:
> >
> > Yes, I'm still on sarge and running wmaker 0.80.2.
> >
> > So I guess this was changed with the newer 0.90.x versions ..
> >
> > Actually when you do get it to work you're in for a "treat" ..
> >
> I'd love to get it working :-)
>
> > WindowMaker now has the Windows gadget popup when you Alt-Tab right in
> > the middle of your screen and has an icon for each window on your
> > current workspace. Completely ruins the look and feel of wmaker, imho.
> >
> I get what you are saying, but I usually have enough windows open at a
> time that I don't mind. Sometimes it is just a pain to read through the
> whole list that you get on a middle-click.
That's why I asked them to stick in easily visible separators on the
"winlist" menu so you could tell apart at a glance the windows open on
each workspace. A much better choice imho, since it kept wmaker
"unpolluted". And a lot more effective because the menu lets you display
a window identifier that's basically unlimited in length .. Not so with
the windows-inspired gadget. And I don't even mention the fact that it
breaks the wmaker/next interface .. at least aesthetically. After all
the work and passion he put into recreating the NeXT interface, I don't
understand how A. Kojima could put up with that.
> > I'll try to boot into etch later tonight .. but in the meantime ..
> > since I vaguely recall you had also problems with F12 for the root menu
> > .. etc .. you may want to locate your "WindowMaker" config file and
> > check in there the keyboard shortcut definitions. See if they are what
> > you expect. The file used to be in ~/GNUstep/Defaults/ but that may
> > have changed with the new version.
> >
> I could not find anything there.
Do a "locate WindowMaker" .. that's the name of the main config file
.. case-sensitive .. If you don't have updatedb set up as yet .. you
could do a "find / name WindowMaker -print".
It's a good idea to know where you config file live.
> > If you edit the file, do not do with wmaker up and running .. At best
> > your changes will be overwritten when you exit wmaker .. at worst your
> > config files will be wiped out. Do it from a linux console - eg.
> >
> > I imagine you have bounced your wmaker session since you tweaked your
> > keyboard shorthcuts. Otherwise be aware that there is an ancient bug in
> > wmaker where you need to issue a "Save Session" .. should be in the
> > "Commands" submenu .. before any changes you made via WPrefs are applied
> > to your current session. Doesn't make sense but I have confirmed this
> > many times.
> >
> Yes. I have it set to automatically save the session on every exit.
OK.
I don't do that because I like wmaker to come up with just the couple of
things I need at startup. If I set this option .. the next wmaker
session might restart any tentative garbage I have in the current
session.
> > If nothing comes of the above and unless I find something useful my end
> > with the newer version, you may also want to try the alternative
> > configuration GUI .. ie. wmakerconf. Probably won't make any
> > difference .. but it may yell at your for some reason or other and that
> > may shed some light on this affair ..
> >
> I finally figured it out.
>
> It turns out that at some point, my keyboard configurations got trashed
> (I am willing to bet this is an artifact of the upgrade from Sarge to
> Etch, but I can't prove it). Anyhow, I went back and manually
> reassigned all the shortcuts.
Try to locate wmaker's config files and copy them to a backup
directory. One of the rare weaknesses I have found with wmaker is a
marked propensity to wipe their contents.
But then after losing them a few times and recreating them by hand --
twenty desktops .. 50+ dockapps .. nice bloated config .. now that I
have a backup, it hasn't happened again.
Go figure :-)
> At the time, I did not think anything of
> it, but all the shortcuts were getting assigned like this:
>
> alt+m -> Mod1+Mod2+m
>
> When I tried modifying some them in wmakerconf, I actually noticed it
> again. I realized that asside from alt, I was not pressing any other
> modifiers. I then noticed that my numlock was on. I didn't think it
> could be related, but I turned it off. Then I fixed the shortcuts so
> that instead of Mod1+Mod2 they all used only Mod1. After logging out
> and back in, everything seems to work the way it did before.
>
> I am not sure how things got into the state that they did, but it is now
> fixed.
Glad to hear that.
The problem I had was with the debian menu. Couldn't customize until I
got rid of the debian menu hook. I don't use the wmaker menus except
as a mnemonic but I must have access to it via WPrefs in order to
bind keyboard actions to applications.
> Thanks for all your help.
You're very welcome.
Thanks,
cga
> Regards,
>
> -Roberto
> --
> Roberto C. Sánchez
> http://people.connexer.com/~roberto
> http://www.connexer.com
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