xfwm4

[David Mohr]

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 7:57 PM, Diego Jacobi <jacobidiego at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Nice to ear also.
>> > Then you agree that xfce is not looking for the lightestweight and
>> > pretty DE, its looking for its own implementation of "best balance
>> > between features, memory and speed".
>>
>> Of course we are - you can see that everywhere. Just take five minutes
>> to compare fluxbox and Xfce and you'll notice that fluxbox is much more
>> lightweight than Xfce. Do you really need other people to tell you that?
>
> klar, but fluxbox is not a complete DE, and is not really pretty and
> standard compliant. So wont be fear.
>
>>
>> Sorry for not replying to your other mails as well, but here is one
>> more thing you can easily see by yourself. We talked about the
>> configurability and you appreciated that I finally mentioned that I
>> consider xfwm more configurable than metacity, right? Just look at this:
>>
>> Metacity configuration:
>>
>> http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/settings/appearance/gnome220redhat9-5-1.png
>>
>> Xfwm configuration:
>> http://www.simplehelp.net/images/kateos/kateos7.jpg
>> http://www.xfce.org/images/about/tour/xfce44-preferences-keyboard.png
>> http://www.xfce.org/images/about/tour/xfce44-xfwm4-tweaks.png
>>
>> These are the dialogs you get to see if you try both window managers.
>> Notice the difference?
>
> Thanks for taking that job.
> But gnome usually hides some properties in gconf and sometimes more hidden
> in config files. I cant know if those are the only features.
> But being xfwm4 better than metacity, why doesnt the distros use xfwm4 with
> gnome to provide better features, or why doesnt gnome use xfwm4 by default
> and stop to spend precious time with metacity?
> Or more important is it possible to have a gnome desktop with xfwm4 and some
> other xfce apps. working nicely together? I mean, the best of xfce and the
> best of gnome.
> There should be a good reason why both projects are separated and why
> distributions always prefer to use metacity in gnome.

Probably because of better integration, and probably because metacity
is using "gnome design philosophy".

>> If you feel insulted by me because of comparing xfwm and metacity then
>> you're wrong. It's not that. It's questioning things in the wrong way.
>> The basic message of your initial mails was to be interpreted as: "I
>> thought this was a lightweight desktop - now I prefer openbox - what's
>> your point in developing Xfce anyway?!"
>
> "I'am using openbox now"

So why don't you keep using it? I don't see any issues with that,
except that maybe in the settings manager the WM configuration doesn't
show up... I myself used to use xfce with sawfish, and it worked just
fine (as would using another WM work in gnome).

> Because i want a very lightweight WM and a simple minimizing animation,
> which xfwm4 seems to not fit in. xfce is better than gnome respecting to
> programming philosophy, but is not lightweight to me.
> But i was comparing xfwm4 with metacity because the last is the WM of a
> heavy desktop and the first the WM of a light desktop and but are very
> similar. So why doesnt the heavy desktop use the lighter alternative if it
> is equal or better?

Hm, so given the arguments in this email, why are you asking this
question to the xfce group, and not to the gnome people? They are free
to choose whatever WM they want, and they have switched in the past
(at some point sawfish was their default WM).


>> And if that's what arrives at the other end then you've definitely hit
>> the wrong tone, don't you think?
>
> Of course, but this is a reason to leverage the tone?
> Not answering would be a better answer.

By the same note, people can respond to you "better not to ask, than
to ask in the wrong tone". Keep in mind that most people develop these
programs in their spare time, for fun and nothing else.

~David