Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[musher0]

Hello, all.

Here's a little gem of a window manager, derived from icewm, called "lxp-icewm", from http://lxp.sourceforge.net/

Download from:
http://limelinx.com/files/8ecb3739f560efed7fffcf6f332f2535
(Previous URL removed. This one has the correct Imlib library included in the lxp-icewm pet. Thanks to TMan for the hint. Sorry about that.)

Screenshots:
http://lxp.sourceforge.net/Vista_1024.jpg
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?mode=attach&id=54257

Its interest lies in that it uses an extra image library. Because of that, it has one feature not readily available in the regular icewm:

1) it's advertized as being able to mimic XP -- but it does an even better job of mimicking Ubuntu!

And with some of the themes provided in the package (e.g. ekexinfonia), you can even give it the look of the pekwm or oroborus window managers. So lxp-icewm is very versatile.

And because it uses its own directory in ~/root/.lxp-icewm, the menu in ~/.icewm can be processed differently than in the regular icewm:

2) from the standpoint of configuration, lxp-icewm makes it very easy to get the maximum out of the icewm taskbar and menu. What happens is this: it uses the icewm menu called from the usual fixmenus to process the bar and the menu in an original way.

The way this is done, the actual "menu" file is freed so the user can insert his favorite programs and utilities, while preserving access to the Puppy menu. You find a similar approach to the menu in openbox and pekwm, for example.

This archive (~7.9- Mg) contains:

1) the wm itself

2) adapted icons (~800 K)

3) two original backgrounds and one original screenshot

4) localizations

5) the imlib library for better rendering of icons and pictures (a peculiarity of lxp-icewm; the regular icewm doesn't need it).

6) 29 themes (including the original lxp themes, with some additional ones);

7) full docs for icewm (since that's what it is, underneath the pretty costume) ;

And for convenience:

eight) stalonetray, and

9) the icewm menu editor.

I did compile it for lupu, but I believe that my main merit is that I've coralled all the elements to provide the user with a complete package. No need to roam for various "parts" of a program on the web or in the Puppy forum with this one: it's all here!

It works very well on lupu 5.25 retro and dpup 4.85. It probably will work on all Puppies, since it is not new: there was a pup package made of it in 2007.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=31042&sid=6d132ea643f49c27083a885552fd7918

It is provided with no menu button: since all the sub-menus have buttons on the taskbar, you don't actually need a menu button. As to the taskbar, I've tried to make it as compact as possible, on one line only.

Because of this, it is recommended to use an independent tray called stalonetray (included in the package).

If you don't like compact taskbars, you can restore the defaults by copying them from /usr/share/lxp-icewm to ~/.lxp-icewm, or by re-processing the "preferences" file.

Voilà!

Tell me if you like it?

BFN.

[Tman]

It looks interesting, I will have to take a look at it when I get home.

[musher0]

Hi, T-Man.

Thanks for your reply.

You're not bursting any bubble. The expression "No bubbles were bursted while filming this movie" comes to mind. As in "The SPCA certifies that no actual puppies were hurt creating the Puppy distros." (hehe)

Back to being serious:

If some user wants to create some categories at the /etc/xdg level. that's fine. I'm all for it. No problem whatsoever. What I'm talking about is completely different. Try to follow, please:

fixmenus creates the icewm (and/or jwm) menu with the "xdg" process from the "*.desktop" files in /usr/share/applications. The resulting menu for icewm is put in file ~/.icewm/menu. So far, so good.

Now I've made it so that lxp-icewm (which is in ~/.lxp-icewm) symlinks its "toolbar" file to the ~/.icewm/menu file. And we link once more: the "programs" file in lxp-icewm symlinks to ~/.lxp-icewm/toolbar.

Result so far in lxp-icewm:
we have a toolbar with sub-menus accessible on it (Figure 3). This actually saves you one mouse click or more to get to any program.

we have a "programs" sub-menu in the menu file (provided you configured your preferences file for it; figure1), which is actually the "menu" created by fixmenus. This appears under "programs" when you right-click on the backdrop (as is customary for most window managers).

But... ha-ha! The ~/.lxp-icewm/menu itself still remains untouched. The user can put anything (s)he likes in it. See figure 2. If the user adds the proper entry in the menu, we have recursion in the icewm menu, and the user can change it on the fly.

This is how it is done.

[Tman]

hi Musher,

What a very thourough explanation, thanks. I see what you mean now about the separae menu. I have already downloaded your tarball and will test lxp-icewm over the next few days.

Question: do any of the pets overwrite settings for the old icewm and what is the command to start lxp-icewm from the console?

-

[musher0]

Hello.

Here's an alternative set of localisation files for lxp-icewm, derived directly from icewm. (icewm.mo files simply renamed to lxp-icewm.mo.) Use if the previous ones don't work properly. (34 languages or so.)

BFN.

[oldyeller]

Hi Musher

how do you do this file in order to use it?

Thanks
oldyeller

[musher0]

[oldyeller]

Hi musher0

could not get it to work on lupu 525.

How do you start the wm? Tried xwin icewm-session or is it something else?


Thanks

oldyeller

[musher0]

Hello, oldyeller.

You start it with the command: