5 ms·

As someone who used a real NeXT machine, I could never figure out the appeal of window managers like WindowMaker. It's like those Aqua 'themes' for Windows XP.

by ken 7y ago

As someone who used a real NeXT machine, I could never figure out the appeal of window managers like WindowMaker. It's like those Aqua 'themes' for Windows XP. It's superficially similar (more or less) but it's missing the guts. Window managers are an add-on, and consistency isn't something you can get with an add-on.

cat199 7y ago
my wm setup has: - keyboard shortcut for (horiz|vert|global)-maximizing - keyboard shortcut for hide app, miniwindow window - window shading (huge feature) - middle-click select and alt-move of multiple windows at once (so I can 'click click click 3 windows, alt click and move all 3) - plus emulate appicon based on window title this makes grouping windows and managing them much easier than anything else i've found that is still mouse driven
kick 7y ago
Did you use WindowMaker before or after the redesign? I have a friend who swears by the pre-redesigned version, but the new one seems useless (as it eradicates the global menu). dockapps were really cool as well.
asveikau 7y ago
I used to pair WindowMaker with GNUstep apps, which were written in objc against AppKit APIs and some of them had a nice and consistent feel. The WindowMaker piece was a bit of an odd duck in this though, written in C and essentially being a traditional X WM.
mhd 7y ago
This is a bit of a nirvana fallacy issue. The Next-like window manager family wasn't sold on purely visual merits, and thus even just having the window managers themselves provided some benefit. I don't see that as much in the Aqua-likes, as the functional changes are pretty minimal (scroll-bar buttons on the same side, back when that still was a thing) or even counter-productive (keeping all the window buttons together). Back when bowman/afterstep/wmaker came out, pretty much no one who used them was familiar with the NeXt interface, beyond having seen one in a magazine or knowing its look-and-feel via Win95 copying some of it. As far as I can remember, the popularity rested on a few pillars: For one, it's a pretty sleek look compared to twm or mwm. It also had a rather good resize functionality -- big enough handles to grab at the bottom, while saving a few valuable pixels at the sides. A lot of people also like(d) the dock apps that came with it. Even other window managers adopted them. Can't say a lot about general dock/shelf usage, as I never got into that. Window shading was nice and probably introduced into common usage by that family of WMs.

by ken 7y ago

cat199 7y ago

my wm setup has: - keyboard shortcut for (horiz|vert|global)-maximizing - keyboard shortcut for hide app, miniwindow window - window shading (huge feature) - middle-click select and alt-move of multiple windows at once (so I can 'click click click 3 windows, alt click and move all 3) - plus emulate appicon based on window title this makes grouping windows and managing them much easier than anything else i've found that is still mouse driven

kick 7y ago

Did you use WindowMaker before or after the redesign? I have a friend who swears by the pre-redesigned version, but the new one seems useless (as it eradicates the global menu). dockapps were really cool as well.

asveikau 7y ago

I used to pair WindowMaker with GNUstep apps, which were written in objc against AppKit APIs and some of them had a nice and consistent feel. The WindowMaker piece was a bit of an odd duck in this though, written in C and essentially being a traditional X WM.

mhd 7y ago

This is a bit of a nirvana fallacy issue. The Next-like window manager family wasn't sold on purely visual merits, and thus even just having the window managers themselves provided some benefit. I don't see that as much in the Aqua-likes, as the functional changes are pretty minimal (scroll-bar buttons on the same side, back when that still was a thing) or even counter-productive (keeping all the window buttons together). Back when bowman/afterstep/wmaker came out, pretty much no one who used them was familiar with the NeXt interface, beyond having seen one in a magazine or knowing its look-and-feel via Win95 copying some of it. As far as I can remember, the popularity rested on a few pillars: For one, it's a pretty sleek look compared to twm or mwm. It also had a rather good resize functionality -- big enough handles to grab at the bottom, while saving a few valuable pixels at the sides. A lot of people also like(d) the dock apps that came with it. Even other window managers adopted them. Can't say a lot about general dock/shelf usage, as I never got into that. Window shading was nice and probably introduced into common usage by that family of WMs.