Echinus window manager, historical & recent github versions

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musher0
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Echinus window manager, historical & recent github versions

#1 Post by musher0 »

-- The latest echinus wm package (mid-December 2015) is here.
-- Echinus now has themes. Please see here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello, Puppyists!

I've been dabbling with smaller window managers for more than half a year now on various recent PuppyLinux distros, and this Echinus "wm" should really be number one, way up there on top of the charts. It has a very intelligent design, with all the features you need -- and none that you don't. In my opinion, Echinus should be very widely circulated, pre-configured and ready to run from within most distros, Puppy or no.

Echinus 0.3.6 is available here:
http://www.rootshell.be/~polachok/code/ (web page)
http://www.rootshell.be/~polachok/code/ ... 3.6.tar.gz (the wm itself in source form).

The compiled wm file has a size of 43k, 21k upx'd. Power-packed is the word! If you want to try it, a pet file is attached at
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 150#348150, with the ourico companion task bar included.

If you do try echinus, may I suggest that you download and install the pet file for fbpanel as well. (Lxpanel apparently does not work with ourico.) That's because the Ourico task bar also provides a desktop pager, but no menu.

There is a screenshot of echinus 3.6 running under Puppy 4.12 here: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... h&id=22254

This echinus pet is provided with my configuration. You may however restore the original configuration by copying "-echinus.org" to "echinusrc" within the "/root/.echinus" directory. Please note that the magic key(s) in my configuration is Ctrl-Alt-something, not Alt-something, as in the original. This frees the Alt key to be used for entering DosBox in full screen and back (Alt-Enter), and for various ROX hot-keys you may wish to define with Alt-something to call your favorite programs instantaneously.

The main particularities of the Echinus window manager are:
1) I believe it to be the only window manager allowing some desktops to have floating windows and other desktops to have tiled windows.

2) It's entirely controlled through an easy-to-understand and easy-to-modify "rc" file, similar to the "Xresources" file located in the /root. This is much simpler than in wmx, for example, of which you have to modify the config.h file and re-compile every time you want to change, say, the colour of the window frame. It's also simpler than editing the jwmrc file or the icewm parameters file (in my view).

The function of Echinus' various parameters is explained in the author's well-prepared "readme" file. I've also attached a more detailed table with explanations (in French, however) at this address:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 150#348150

I wanted to congratulate the author personally, but his e-mail address was nowhere to be found on his website.* So be it: a man has a right to his privacy. Then it dawned on me that posting here could be a good substitute, an indirect but perhaps more than adequate way to say "thank you" to this very insightful programmer.

So, many thanks to "polachok", the author of Echinus -- and thanks to you for reading this! Enjoy!

Christian L. (alias / aka Musher0)

* Please also refer to amigo's comment below and my reply to it.
Last edited by musher0 on Sun 13 May 2018, 19:47, edited 16 times in total.
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Echinus 3.6

#2 Post by musher0 »

Hello again!

For better functionality, please symlink the ourico program from /usr/local/bin/ourico to /root/Startup. (Note: Now included in the updated package.)

This should start the ourico bar/pager at the same time as echinus. Since ourico won't start if echinus is not the wm, it should not affect your regular startup sequence when you start a jwm or icewm session, for example.

BFN.
Last edited by musher0 on Tue 06 Oct 2009, 19:14, edited 1 time in total.
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sullysat
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#3 Post by sullysat »

This looks very interesting. Have you done any benchmarks against jwm or icewm or any of the other lightweights?

Sully
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Echinus 3.6 wm

#4 Post by musher0 »

Hello, sullysat,

Thanks for dropping by.

If you mean scientific benchmarking, such as for disk drives or for boot times, no, I haven't done that. What did you have in mind?

BFN.
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Echinus 3.6 wm

#5 Post by musher0 »

Hm...

Preliminary report concerning test of Echnius 3.6 in Puppy 4.31.1:

1) Echinus 3.6 doesn't work, Echinus 3.4 does.

2) Can't get any font to show the window title at the top of an Echinus window.

3) ourico and lxpanel hate each other...
However fbpanel and ourico worked in perfect harmony in Puppy 4.12

Possible workaround: modify the $CURRENTWM if's line(s) in the
Puppy .xinitrc, so lxpanel won't load if we use echinus (and ourico).

Hm...

More later, after some shut-eye!
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#6 Post by trapster »

Damn, yet another I must play with.
trapster
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#7 Post by amigo »

"his e-mail address was nowhere to be found on his website"
Are you new around the open-source scene?
See here:
http://github.com/polachok/echinus/blob/master/LICENSE
or just look in the sources you grabbed -and be sure to make those sources available along with your binary that you are distributing -or at least include a copy of the Copyright statement *in your package*.
Spirit of open-source, you know, and to the letter even better.

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Echinus and ourico copyright

#8 Post by musher0 »

Hello, amigo.

Thanks for mentioning it in a spirit of co-operation. Both ourico and echinus are published under the MIT/X Consortium License. See: http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php (and of course your URL reference above.)

Yes I am new to creating open source pet packages, but I am a long-time open source user. I built the pet with dir2pet, by putting everything echinus or ourico related that was on my computer in a special directory and then creating the pet archive. That's how you're supposed to do it, according to the docs.

I had not noticed that echinus' and ourico's "make install" initially did NOT tranfer their licence to directories such as /usr/local/doc/echinus or ourico/licence, as is usually the case with programs governed by the GPL licence. The MIT/X licences are in the *.tgz sources of echinus and ourico, but their "make-install" doesn't transfer them onto your system. You can validate this for yourself. Very strange, don't you think? I've never seen that before.

Now, I'd willingly do it, but I'm no expert in these matters, and strictly speaking, I don't know if I am at liberty to create in MY package an additional directory with licenses in it, IF THE AUTHOR(S) themself(ves) did not intend to do so.

I suppose this post and yours above are a "publication" of copyright -- of sorts, at least these posts recognize that such a right exists in those programs -- that echinus and ourico are NOT public domain, such as a folk song belonging to a particular culture, or to the entire humanity.

I don't know what else to say, except that if there was an oversight on my part, rest assured that it was entirely UN-intentional. I hope that you know more than I do on the subject of copyright and that you can contribute to solving this little paradox. Shouldn't this "non-appearance" of the copyright in the usual place at installation time be brought up with the people in charge of the MIT licence? Or is this their usual way of doing things?

BFN
Last edited by musher0 on Tue 06 Oct 2009, 19:10, edited 3 times in total.
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Mention of copyright in echinus and ourico

#9 Post by musher0 »

Hello again, all.

To be on the safe side, I've updated the echinus package to include the proper copyright licences under /usr/local/share/doc, even if the original "make install" did not include them there.

This updated package also contains version 3.4 of echinus under /opt. If v. 3.6 does not work (as in Puppy 4.31.1), you can switch to this older version. Simple instructions on how to do this are included. If v. 3.6 works on your machine, may I suggest that you delete the echinus 3.4 directory under /opt to save space.

Sincerely,
Last edited by musher0 on Tue 06 Oct 2009, 19:16, edited 3 times in total.
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#10 Post by musher0 »

trapster wrote:Damn, yet another I must play with.
To trapster:
Are you always this funny ?!?! (LOL)
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#11 Post by sunburnt »

Suggestion: Post a pix of it... !!!

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Echinus screenshot

#12 Post by musher0 »

To sunburnt:

Shucks, you missed the reference to the screenshot on my 1st post, 5th paragraph! (:-)

But, never the one to repeat myself (:-), it's at
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... h&id=22254

I hope you like the dog in the picture! Have fun!

All the best,
Last edited by musher0 on Fri 08 Nov 2013, 22:26, edited 1 time in total.
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Echinus screenshot # 2

#13 Post by musher0 »

Hi, sunburnt.

Here's another screen capture. Original size is 1280 x 1024.
Lots of opened windows on this one.

BFN.
Attachments
echinus_capture2_768x.jpg
Scaled-down screenshot of echinus 3.6 with a variety of opened windows.
(120.25 KiB) Downloaded 2350 times
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#14 Post by sunburnt »

Thanks musher0; I usually post a shrunk down pix shown directly on the forum page.
It looks nice, I detest desktop clutter, that`s why I tend to like Xfce, it has panels.
I see HotPup, a part of the Puppy distro. I assume, great! More desktop icons.
Does the transparency work for all of the apps., or just a few?

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Hot-pup? Y-ess...

#15 Post by musher0 »

Hi sunburnt!

Thanks for the kudo and for the tip. (I suppose I should be writing these posts in html rather than txt format, to be able to integrate pictures.)

I hate desktop clutter too. Label me an heretic, but my personal opinion is that the 48x48-pixel icons on all original puppies would make sense on a touch-screen such as you have in restaurants... not for a regular keyboard-commanded computer. Since Puppy has lots of advances over other distros, I usually shut up about its minor annoyances.

I'd rather have useful smaller icons in a ROX launch bar on one of the borders of the screen than have same icons in large size creating distractions on my screen. Only my opinion, of course, but panels are the way to go.

As to hot-pup, y-esss... (hesitating), hot-pup is a part of Puppy, I believe it is now integrated with the disk event-management system. I'm not sure if I'm getting your point here.

BFN.
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#16 Post by sunburnt »

It was just a gripe about more desktop icons. The HotPup drive icons would be great on a slide out panel (Xfce).

I put this .png file in the download and it came up like this???
Attachments
Puppy-DT_Quakarium_341.png
Old desktop wallpaper...
(48.46 KiB) Downloaded 1335 times

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#17 Post by disciple »

The HotPup drive icons would be great on a slide out panel (Xfce).
Yes!
A slide out panel from a tray icon would be best, as it would be supported by (almost) all panels... it shouldn't be too hard to make :)... but then we could just have a panel icon to launch a fast starting pmount-type application.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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#18 Post by musher0 »

Do you mean something like this?

I know, it's not a panel, but it seriously reduces the number of disk icons while maintaining access to them.

Then again, you could put these two icons or programs in a ROX panel or a XFCE panel, and open the menus from there, so you'd have even less clutter on your screen.
Attachments
echinus_capture_disks1.jpg
(30.07 KiB) Downloaded 1311 times
Last edited by musher0 on Wed 07 Oct 2009, 15:27, edited 2 times in total.
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#19 Post by musher0 »

Or like this?

This menu -- and the following -- illustrate access to the linux directroy structure on your system, through a menu.
Attachments
echinus_capture_hierarchy1.jpg
(31.02 KiB) Downloaded 1284 times
Last edited by musher0 on Wed 07 Oct 2009, 15:16, edited 1 time in total.
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#20 Post by musher0 »

Sorry... (double post).
Last edited by musher0 on Wed 07 Oct 2009, 15:13, edited 1 time in total.
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