On Sun, Aug 27, 2017 at 09:14:11PM -0400, Steve Litt wrote:
> 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.

Instead of complaining here, it'd be more productive to talk to the
package's maintainer:

    Debian QA Group <packages@???>

Oh, wait -- the maintainer is you! (And also your cat and your mother in
law.). Thus, please submit patches. The package is orphaned, so you are
allowed to make any sane changes whatsoever (as a non-DD, "sane" is defined
as "whatever passes uploader's review"). Drive-by changes are fine.

You may submit the patches to Devuan or Debian, but as this matter is not
related to systemd, the latter would be greatly better: (still) 100-1000
times more users, packages migrate to Devuan anyway. Thus, it'd be nice if
you could send your proposed changes for review to anyone who can upload to
Debian (like me for example).

> 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 :
[snip]

This looks like an obvious, undebatably good change.

> 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
> ==================================================

I don't know ctwm (and was greatly relieved as a newbie that I can replace
that twm thingy with WindowMaker) -- thus, in your opinion, is what you
propose:
ᴀ) a default good for everyone
ʙ) personal preference of a random (if well-meaning) guy?

If ᴀ, then what about making it work better out of the box?

> 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
> ==================================================

I'd put this into /usr/share/doc/ctwm/examples/ -- unless you believe it'd
be reasonable to override the current/old upstream default with what you
propose.

> 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.

I'd dismiss this particular argument. We're not talking about a WM which
is so bloated to require the machine to have whole 4MB ram and thus needs to
be trimmed down to run on 2MB. The crummiest monitor-capable SoC you can
buy today has ~1GB ram, with anything real having 2GB in the low-end ARM
world and far more everywhere else.

Only a few WMs can be still called "bloated": GNOME (needs a mid-end GPU to
even run, or slooow software emulation otherwise), Cinnamon (uses GNOME's
backend), maybe some configurations of KDE.

Choice between everything else should be a matter of ergonomics only: you
use what is most comfortable for you; micromanaging the last bit of resource
usage is counterproductive -- it'd be like writing an editor in assembly.


But, returning to the original issue: you can't claim that the maintainer
does a bad job if there's no maintainer. There's also no one to step in
your way if you'd want to make improvements.

Meow!
-- 
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ 
⣾⠁⢰⠒⠀⣿⡁ Vat kind uf sufficiently advanced technology iz dis!?
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀                                 -- Genghis Ht'rok'din
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