The Waimea window manager, "designed for maximum efficiency"

[musher0]

Hello all.

The Waimea window manager has been around since 2004.

It has however been recently brought back in the mainstream through work on github:
https://github.com/bbidulock/waimea by somebody nicknamed "bbidulock".

To give you an idea of how it is different from other WMs, this is the 1st paragraph
of his introduction:

INTRODUCTION
The design goal for waimea is to create the most efficient desktop
working environment available.

To achieve this, waimea is a
-- fast and
-- highly customizable
-- virtual multiple desktop window manager.

It has a very advanced style engine with features like
-- blackbox style support,
-- pixmap style support and
-- transparent textures.

Text can be ren­dered
-- double buffered using both
-- X core fonts and Xft fonts.

Waimea also includes a
-- fast lightweight menu sys­tem
-- with dynamic menus support.

The
-- built-in action con­figuration system
makes waimea the most configurable win­dow manager available.

It allows the user to set up waimea to behave as
-- any other window manager
-- or in new ways never before possible.

(Point form is my doing.)

~~~~~~~~

You'll find below the pet archive for the 64-bit version of waimea, and some scripts for
generation of its menu. Also a 64 version of the bmpanel2 task-and-tray bar, since
waimea does not have one.

(The 32-bits version of waimea is available a few posts down.)

It was originally I intended the 64-bit compilation of waimea-170901 as a Christmas gift
to Phil B. for its excellent work on xenialPup, and to the Puppyists using xenialPup64.

However, some other forum members have showed an interest, and even suggested
this independent thread be opened for it.

If you wish to share past or current experiences of waimea, to suggest any improv-
ements that would be nice to have for it, the "best" environment for it IYO, themes
compatible with it (from the blackbox WM or elsewhere), etc., etc., this is the place!

Welcome! Let's give Puppy's WM by default, jwm, some worthy competition!

[musher0]

Shucks. This thread is heading for "limbo".

No Puppyist is interested in this beautiful and efficient window manager, snif.

[bigpup]

If you are going to post this in the Additional Software section of the forum.
How about posting the pet packages here also!

This topic is the place people expect to find a pet for whatever it is about.
If not a pet package. Some info on how to download and install from Github.

That link to the Xenialpup topic is just that, a link to Xenialpup.
All that info should be posted here and Xenialpup topic should have a link to this topic.

Give us some love and we will give it back.

However, Thanks for this Window Manager!!!!!!!!!!

I will ask Flash what is the best way to move those posts into this thread.

I have done such things by simply copy and past to new location and delete from the old location.
The old post can not be removed by me, but I just edit it, deleting everything in it and put "entered in error".

[musher0]

When I first posted on the waimea WM in the xenialPup64 thread, someone sent me a
PM suggesting that I explain how to switch WM's.

I was so surprised I stood stunned for a full minute.

(Paragraph below edited at 23:45 the same day)
For those of you oldies who have been adoring the JWM god for too long, or for
the newbies who were brought up in the religion and as a result have no inkling
that other window managers exist, here goes:
(You are right, I added more teeth to the paragraph above intentionally!
It felt good, too!)

(...)
Doesn't every Puppyist know how to change window managers anymore?
You know, back to the initial black console with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace and then
you type < xwin newWM >.

To dot the i and bar the t:

Code: Select all

xwin waimea

or

Code: Select all

xwin icewm

or

Code: Select all

xwin echinus

or...

Could it be that all Puppyists bow to the god JWM nowadays? Geez. What
happened to freedom of religion!!!

Happy Holidays anyway!.

[musher0]

Was in the xenial64 thread at this post. Thanks for your understanding.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Menu generator, v. 0.2, is here
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Someone sent me a PM suggesting I explain how to switch WM's.

I was so surprised I stood stunned for a full minute.
...
For those of you oldies who have been adoring the JWM god for too long, or for
the newbies who were brought up in the religion and as a result have no inkling
that other window managers exist, here goes:...

Code: Select all

xwin waimea

or

Code: Select all

xwin icewm

or

Code: Select all

xwin echinus

or...

Could it be that all Puppyists bow to the god JWM nowadays? Geez. What
happened to freedom of religion!!!

Deserves a whole thread just to itself. I don't try other window managers because
a) BarryK said jwm is compulsory and
b) Changing window managers is hard.

Or maybe not?

I would like to try other wms, but not if it's hard, and only if I can do it in 30 seconds and recover previous settings quickly.

HowTo?

Ah greengeek, you are an angel!
Thanks for the support.

As to making it easy, I'm trying, I'm trying, but it's a big battle to undertake and
sustain when you're almost alone. I can count the people on this forum who helped
me specifically with other WM's on the fingers of one hand: aragon a few years
back, vovchik more recently. Some insights by Puppus Dogfellow, slavvo67 and
(can't remember his nick... I hate those blanks).

A lot of people here helped me with Puppy things generally through my years here,
and I thank them warmly. I mean the forum members who one way or another
encouraged me in my exploration of WM's: those are few.

Anyway, great minds meet, green geek. On the other side of the world, I too was
thinking that waimea deserved its own thread.

still have to refine the English version on this draft of a full menu generator, but
the French version works perfectly, it clocks in at approx. 1.85 second, which I find
fabulous. So the English menu will of necessity build in less time, because no
translation will be needed. "The end is near." (To stay with religious expressions !!!)

The waimea WM, although little known, is very interesting. For those who know
those other two WM's, it's sort of mid-way between blackbox and pekwm. I like
that it has transparency natively (depending on the theme you choose), and its
menu, that behaves almost like a program on screen. It also has dynamic menus,
but I still need to find a practical handle on that feature.

And the docs are understandable!!! Can you believe that, the docs are
understandable by regular users and not just by nerds !!! Praise the Lord!!!
Dieu soit loué !!! Inch Allah!!!

I'm attaching my menu generator script for the curious.

Please open the tree archive, it will tell what's in the pet archive. I have also included
scripts that are related to the waimea menu or to the bmpanel2 bar.

Use at your own risk. As usual before installing any new material, make a proper
back-up of your system.

Please provide feedback if you encounter any bug. Or if you have better design ideas for this menu.

TIA.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PS. I may have forgotten to explain a couple of things, because I have a terrible flu.
So don't be shy to come back to this thread and ask your questions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As I said above, the Menu generator, v. 0.2, is now here.

[musher0]

Hello again.

Here are some styles (aka themes) for the waimea WM. Except the "Default.style", they
come from the blackbox WM environment. I heavily edited some of them, but left the
original with the ending "orig".

So I guess with all of the above you have enough to give the waimea WM a good try-out.
Please get back to me if you have any problem. I'll try to come up with a solution.

(I will also accept compliments!)

BFN.

[musher0]

If you are going to post this in the Additional Software section of the forum.
How about posting the pet packages here also!

This topic is the place people expect to find a pet for whatever it is about.
If not a pet package. Some info on how to download and install from Github.

That link to the Xenialpup topic is just that, a link to Xenialpup.
All that info should be posted here and Xenialpup topic should have a link to this topic.

Give us some love and we will give it back.

However, Thanks for this Window Manager!!!!!!!!!!

I will ask Flash what is the best way to move those posts into this thread.

I have done such things by simply copy and past to new location and delete from the old location.
The old post can not be removed by me, but I just edit it, deleting everything in it and put "entered in error".

Done!

[musher0]

Hello all.

Here is the 32-bits version of waimea compiled for xenialPup32. The styles and menu
scripts will work fine on either the 32- or the 64 -bits versions.

As to the bmpanel2 task-and-tray companion bar for 32-bits, you will find on this thread
a link to a 32-bit version of bmpanel2, intended for slacko-6b, PuppyPrecise 5.4.3. This
version will run on any Pup from those versions up, including on the xenialPup32.

Enjoy. BFN.

[backi]

Hi musher !

Wanted to give it a try but Waimea 32bit pet failed to install on LxPupXenial32.

Regards !

[musher0]

Hi musher !

Wanted to give it a try but Waimea 32bit pet failed to install on LxPupXenial32.

Regards !

Hi, backi.

You can't just say that and then run away! Give me a couple of details, please?
Like... the pet itself will not install? Or... this build of waimea will not run on LxPup32 ?

TIA

[backi]

Hi Musher !
Downloaded pet ,,,,,,clicked on it .....
"Error ...waimea-151025_32bits.pet failed to install .

[musher0]

Hi Musher !
Downloaded pet ,,,,,,clicked on it .....
"Error ...waimea-151025_32bits.pet failed to install .

Hello again, backi.

Strange. I just retried the install and had no problem.

I have just posted the hashes for the 32-bit version in my post above.

Can you download again and compare the hashes you get for the downloaded pet file
with the hashes I have posted? Thanks.

Maybe it's a faulty download, for some reason.

BFN.

[bigpup]

NOTE:
wmswitcher does not seem to see Waimea installed.
This is an old program and Puppy may have changed too much.
Maybe someone wants to tweek the code in wmswitcher.
Never a simple answer, is it

About switching window managers.

Some Puppy versions had the wmswitcher program that made it easy to switch window managers.

Need to first install the new window manager, so it will show up, when you run wmswitcher.

This is a 32bit program. To run in a 64bit Puppy. Need to have the Puppy versions 32bit compatibility sfs loaded.

First try running in a terminal:

Code: Select all

wmswitcher

If nothing happens.

Here is the pet by 01micko

[Billtoo]

I downloaded icewm with PPM then installed the pet in my 32bit rc3 install.
After switching to icewm it works not too badly, right clicking on the desktop brings up a menu, some applications show where you'd expect to find them but many are under the "other" menu entry.
Firefox starts with the desktop icon.

[MochiMoppel]

NOTE:
wmswitcher does not seem to see Waimea installed.

wmswitcher doesn't see it because it doesn't look for it, wmswitcher only supports JWM, ICEWM, XFCE, OPENBOX, FLUXBOX and KDE. Puppy can't even tell you reliably, which wm is currently running, so don't expect it to magically know that a newly installed program is in fact a window manager and needs to be listed. Please also note that in Tahrpup the shutdown process relies on a list of *possible* window managers, and currently this includes only the usual suspects.

[Anniekin]

looks better that jwm but... everything looks better than jwm

[backi]

Hi Musher !
Managed to install waigea_32bit.pet on Tahrpup 6.0.6.........but does not find new installed desktop with xwin waigea ......do i have to save and reboot after installing maybe ?
Wm Switcher also does not find anything .

BTW,,,,,installing the pet (as i stated before ) does not work on LxPupXenial.........probably something to do with compression type of the xxxx.pet

[musher0]

Thanks to all for a wonderful response! Warms the heart, really!

@backi:
It's spelled waimea! < xwin waimea > With an "m", not a "g".

@Billtoo:
This is a thread on the waimea WM, not icewm? (Being "in the moon" happens
to the best of us!! Don't worry!)

@bigpup and MochiMoppei
I'll have a look at that wmswitcher script. Maybe try to modernize it a bit.

I already have a wm switcher based on aemenu, but it may not be appropriate to
mix menus from different WM's.

I can certainly incorporate restartwm lines to go back to icewm, jwm, etc., in the
waimea menu.

The line is only < restartwm name-of-WM >. Anyway, give me a few hours on this.

@bigpup
If the wmswitcher is strictly a bash script with no executables in it, 32-bits or 64
bits does not matter. This is a general rule for bash scripts, BTW.

@Anniekin
Thanks for telling the truth! And for the comic relief!

@all
Would you be kind enough to tell in your next posts if you are running the 32-bit or
the 64-version of waimea? TIA.

Also I discovered that waimea does not accommodate utf-8. Probably a problem for
you, MochiMoppei?

For Anglophone users, it's no problem. But English is only used by one billion
users! Out of 7.5 billion (?) humans on this planet!

I'll try to get in touch with the author to see if he can update his code to solve this.
I had a look at the source, and utf8 is only mentioned in the net.* files. Something
like < utf-8, false >. But I did not touch anything, I don't know C.

That rounds it up for now. TWYL, gang.

[musher0]

Hello!

About switching WMs, i have come up with an alternative solution here:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... ost#978261

I will still try to do something with 01micko's switcher, although I am NOT an
X-Dialog/GTK programmer, and 01micko's script uses that type of programming.
Give me a break,guys, this is Christmas Eve!

Why "Christmas Eve" instead of "Christmas Adam", nobody knows!!!

Joke aside, I'm including a new waimea menu generator that scans if the
Puppy has a variety of WM's and comes up with a list of restarts. waimea has its
own way of restarting WMs, so I couldn't use our familiar < restartwm WM > on
a waimea menu line. The waimea syntax for this is

Code: Select all

[item] "restart(icewm)"

(or whatever WM). It's faster and more efficient than our procedure, though;
the code may be worth borrowing for Puppy. (Just a thought.)

The WMs the menu generator scans for are:

echinus fluxbox icewm jwm
kde openbox pekwm waimea
xfwm4 xmx

Only the WMs you have installed are shown in the Exit submenu.

I did a bit of testing, but please re-test. TIA for any feedback.

BFN.

[musher0]

Hello all.

For the record, I have produced a 2nd version of my icewm menu generator, here.

It is based on the same concept I used for the waimea menu above. (This concept
being: "Install or copy or create menu entries for the WMs the user has installed on
his/her Pup from a ready-made list of WMs.")

BFN.