Re: fluxbox slit
On 5/11/07, Sjoerd Hiemstra <shiems@kpnplanet.nl> wrote:
> The slit is one of the many parts of Fluxbox that has been inherited
> from Blackbox. It is designed to hold WindowMaker Dockapps, (and
> anything that runs in that mode which is called 'withdrawn' or (less
> often) 'swallowed'). Such applications often have a -w option, but
> some are automatically in withdrawn mode.
I've been running Blackbox for 8 years, but what the 'slit' is, has
always remained a mystery. This explanation does not bring any light
either. What, for heaven's sake, is a 'WindowMaker Dockapp', what
'mode' are they talking about, when is an application 'withdrawn', what
does the -w option do?
My conclusion is that the 'slit' is a big joke, they're keeping it
deliberately mysterious. ;-)
S.H.
If you want a clear definition I agree. But for practical purposes,
what the documentation indicates should be enough. It mentions
wmxmms, and gkrellm. Simply try to install and run them. There are
lots of dock applications available to be placed in the slit. Fluxbox
page includes links to some:
http://www.dockapps.org
http://web.cs.mun.ca/~gstarkes/wmaker/dockapps
Just to mention a couple. The pager, like fbpager, is kind of a dock
application and it's pretty common application under flubox users
(with fluxbox themes that comes with the package I see no need for a
pager though, it's placed in the slit). The dock application I mostly
use on my laptop is wmacpi. We could say then, that for practical
purposes "the slit is the place where dock applications are attached
on the workspace/desktop, and where they end up showing up". Problem
then is defining dock application. Which can be for practical
purposes, a dynamic small icon which pretends to show some status, and
in some cases add some limited functionality associated to it. There
are wikies about dock applications around:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dock_(computing)
http://www.gnome-dock.org/trac
In some environments like desktop managers (kde, gnome, etc) the dock
applications are embedded in the task/toolbar. In the case of
fluxbox, the task/toolbar offers limited capacity for applications as
far a I know (date/clock, workspace indication, and of course the
task/toolbar with the windows present in the workspace whether
minimized or not), which I'm not sure if can be increased with
fluxspace (never even tried it). So a simple way to add this kind of
applications is the slit.
Again I can't find a simple clear definition, but for practical
purposes one could try a dock application, or at least go to the
wikies and the dock applications pages to see what's available there.
The fluxbox screenshots includes some dock applications besides the
pager as well one can look at, for example:
http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/zoom.php?shots/brendan_fluxbox.jpg
Javier.
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