On 28/08/17 02:14, Steve Litt wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Dave Turner mentioned ctwm in the "devuan ascii - how much of systemd is
> still in there? UPDATE" thread, and because I've failed at every
> attempt to use twm, I tried ctwm.
>
> The package manager installs it like a breeze, but in the tradition of
> Debian packages, it doesn't work out of the box. First problem: The
> Debian package forgets to install /usr/share/xsessions/ctwm.desktop, so
> pressing F1 on the slim login screen doesn't find it. You can't get to
> ctwmrc using normal methods. Oops.
>
> So create the following /usr/share/xsessions/ctwm.desktop :
>
> ==================================================
> ## /etc/dm/Sessions/ctwm.desktop ##
>
> [Desktop Entry]
> Name=ctwm
> Comment=ctwm
> Exec=/usr/bin/ctwm
> TryExec=/usr/bin/ctwm
> Terminal=True
> Type=Application
> ==================================================
>
> Don't ask me what all that gibberish means: I just copied it from
> lxde.desktop and changed the obvious.
>
> Now slim sees and delivers ctwm, so you have a fully functional ctwm,
> which is one of the most configurable WMDEs around (I have a temporary
> moritorium on the word GOSFUI).
>
> Things look up: You can F1 through slim to get to ctwm, but The menus
> from clicking the desktop don't work. You navigate to the "Debian"
> selection, release the left mouse button, and nothing happens. Not to
> worry, this is a ctwm-ism: When navigating to a an item, you must move
> the mouse pointer to the right in order to sub-navigate. That little
> tidbit should be in the README, but now you know. You have a great and
> functional WMDE.
>
> Now that you can navigate the menu system, you notice that dragging all
> the way right on the "Exit" choice gives you the choice of "No, restart
> ctwm" or "Yes, really quit". Choosing the former updates your running
> ctwm to the current ~/.ctwmrc, thereby removing the necessity to go
> all the way back to slim's mandatory F1 every time you try a new
> config element. From now on I'll use the phrase "restart twm" for the
> procedure consisting of "leftclick desktop, navigate to Exit, drag right
> to the little square, choose "No, restart ctwm".
>
> So now you can use the menus. But, oops, you have no way to change your
> ctwm configuration, because you have no ~/.ctwmrc file. You'll soon fix
> that:
>
> cp /etc/X11/ctwm/system.ctwmrc ~/.ctwmrc
>
> Restart ctwm, and cool, you have a perfectly running ctwm.
>
> If you only use a mouse...
>
> Trouble is, as it ships from the factory, ctwm is extremely keyboarder
> hostile. Try it and see: No matter what you do with your keyboard, you
> need to grab your mouse to fix the focus. Given that most lightweight
> WMDE users are keyboardists, this is a problem.
>
> Or not.
>
> Edit ~/.ctwmrc after copying it elsewhere, and add the following lines
> below the list of simple settings like "NoGrabServer" or "GrabServer",
> "DecorateTransients", the font assignments, etc, add the following
> lines:
>
> ==================================================
> UsePPosition "on" # Help kbd instantiated windows get focus
> RandomPlacement "on" # Help kbd instantiated windows get focus
> AutoFocusToTransients # Help kbd instantiated windows get focus
> SaveWorkspaceFocus # Obviously workspace focus should be retained
> WindowRing # Enable Alt+Tab type window circulation
> WarpRingOnScreen # Enable Alt+Tab type window circulation
> ==================================================
>
> Now go below all the Button assignments as well as any hotkey
> assignments, and add the following:
>
> ==================================================
> # HOTKEY DMENU Ctrl+Shift+;
> "semicolon" = s | c : all : f.exec "/home/myuid/bin/dmenu_litt.sh"
>
> # HOTKEY defops MENU, HIGHEST LEVEL CTWM MENU
> "comma" = s | c : all : f.menu "defops"
>
> # HOTKEY LIST OF ALL MENUS ON ALL WORKSPACES
> "period" = s | c : all : f.menu "TwmAllWindows"
>
> # NOTE! ALT+TAB CANNOT BE MADE TO WORK.
> # USE Ctrl+Shift+h and Ctrl+Shift+l instead.
> "h" = s | c : all : f.warpring "prev" # HOTKEY REV THIS WKSPC WINS
> "l" = s | c : all : f.warpring "next" # HOTKEY FWD THIS WKSPC WINS
>
> "u" = s | c : all : f.menu "TwmWindows" # HOTKEY THIS WKSPACE WIN LIST
> ==================================================
>
> In the preceding, dmenu_litt.sh is simply a shellscript that calls
> dmenu_run in a way that menus vertically instead of horizontally, and
> displays a readable size font in good contrast colors. See the dmenu
> man page for the proper arguments to dmenu_run, which simply passes
> command line arguments to dmenu.
>
> Restart ctwm and you have a dmenu-enabled, Shift+Ctrl+h and
> Shift+Ctrl+l cycling productivity machine.
>
> There are other things you can do to make it more keyboarder friendly.
> Find the name of the context for being in a menu, and in that context
> alone, hotkey vim keys j,k,h and l to go down one choice, up one
> choice, plunge into a submenu, and return from submenu, respectively. I
> didn't find a way to do it, but I bet I could.
>
> Bigger kudos if you can find a way to make Alt+Tab work the same as in
> Fvwm or LXDE, although my Shift+Ctrl+h (and l) render that a luxury
> rather than a necessity. If you really want to use ctwm as your daily
> driver, be sure to install easy hotkeys to navigate between workspaces.
> You also need a comfortable hotkey to close the current window: Note
> that twm, at least as it comes from the factory, has no "close" widget
> on the titlebar, and Alt+F4 does nothing (but Alt+F4 is a horribly
> inconvenient hotkey for close window: I prefer Alt+0). I'm pretty sure
> that if one spends some time with ctwm, one can make it into a
> perfectly crafted productivity machine. DaveT, thanks for cluing me in
> to ctwm!
>
> I don't know how resource-conserving ctwm is compared to twm, Openbox
> and its other competitors, but I believe ctwm can be crafted into a
> demu-equipped, keyboarder high productivity machine just like Openbox
> and all the others, while still respecting your machine's resources and
> not spending them profligately.
>
> SteveT
> _______________________________________________
> Dng mailing list
> Dng@???
> https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
A nicely documented ctwmrc file is here:-
https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/laptop/ctwm/ctwmrc-lape-2014-05-13.txt
google ctwmrc sloman will turn up a couple of versions, I used the one
from 2001 as the basis for mine.
::
Re: [DNG] ctwm
