01:03 03/02/2006

quick look at wmii

Here are a couple of screnshots of archlinux running wmii - Windows Manager Imroved - version 2.5.
I use from time to time when I realise I don't nedd all the bloat of KDE. Because wmii is very stripped down. It's a window manager that is here to mange windows. period. It's well oriented console mode and uses an original concept of frames and pages. pages are equivalent to virtual desktop on other WM but here they are created only when required with a quick key kind. Frames are subsets of a page where windows can be stuck in. The first great thing about wmii is the ability to attach or merge frames - thinks tabbed browsing of firefox but with windows frames. Notice on the screenshot that firefox is merged with liferea. This allows me to stick all my favourites apps and the required number of x terminals, on only 2 pages... where I use 6 virtual desktops on KDE.
the second great thing in my opinion is the relatively easy scripts that tweaks your wmii to your taste. They control key bindings to autolaunch at login and are very useful to automate the utilisation of wmii.
I must admit that I had some difficulties at the beginning with it. I was co ming from XFCE4 so it was a bit of a dive in. If you want to try it out don' t hesitate. Their website is a wiki so it's very clear and you can add your own pages in once you are familiar with it. The guys on #wmii on irc.oftc.net are very helpful and weren't mean with me and my stupid questions.
There is only one disadvantage I can think of .... it doesn't pass the girlfriend test. So I am forced to switch quite often between kde of xfce4 and wmii.
But still great stuff, guys.

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <blockquote>
  • You can enable syntax highlighting of source code with the following tags: <code>, <blockcode>. PHP source code can also be enclosed in <?php ... ?> or <% ... %>.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Images can be added to this post.
  • Image links with 'rel="lightbox"' in the <a> tag will appear in a Lightbox when clicked on.

More information about formatting options