Best Mouse-free Windowmanager?

An Anonymous Coward writes "I've been using fvwm2 for quite some time now as I don't need to use the mouse much. I don't have time to try every window manager under the sun, but are there newer window managers out there that have better 'usability' characteristics when it comes to avoiding the mouse? I still have a mouse handy for browsing, etc. so I don't need to do away with it altogether.). Thanks."

Comments

Try Ion

[kraf]

I think Ion is worth a try.

wmx

[HyperbolicParabaloid]

I like wmx, especially on my laptop.
All the windowing functions can be bound to alt-keys. So, for instance, on my laptop, the otherwise-useless Windows keys pop up menus of commonly used applications and a menu of current windows.
It has multiple virtual desk tops (accessable by key commands. Does gnome/sawfish do that? How? I couldn't figure it out...)
wmx is great for a laptop because of it's unusual window decoration scheme. The title tab is on the left side of each window, not the top. Since vertical screen space is scarcer(sp?) than horizontal, this actually makes sense, though it takes getting used to.

Re:wmx

[Bishop]

Instead of your 'sticky window' hack[1] you can also bind a key to 'send window to workspace...' In my case I have ctrl-Fn bound to send a window to workspace n.

[1]don't get me wrong: that is a nice hack.

off the beaten path: sawfish lisp and oroborus

[ubiquitin]

How many window managers have I tried? Way too many. ;) Here are a few interesting/unusual keyboard config options.

A while ago I ran into Oroborus - it has an
optional component called 'Key Launch' that basically sits there and runs
commands based on key presses. This is completely separated from window
manager and desktop environment, and highly customizable.

The default GNOME window manager as you probably already know is sawfish, and there's a hack that lets you do smooth workspace scrolling with key commands, which is, um, smooth.

When all is said and done, though, I still usually wind up gravitating back to WindowMaker.

Windowmaker works for me

[Ragetech]

Thanks for posting this question, it's a good one. I have the same dilemma you have -- I want a window manager that I don't have to use the mouse to navigate and use. Additionally, I prefer a desktop without a lot of fancy icons or control panels that get in the way of the windows I'm working in.

A few years ago I tried out Window Maker, as I was looking for an Afterstep alternative. At the time, kde was an infant and gnome was in the same nursery. Afterstep was getting to bloated and slow, and when I tried out Window Maker I was in heaven! It was fast, lightweight and clean. My only complaint is that every time a new app is launched, an icon is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

As far as key bindings are concerned, everything is customizable. I use my keyboard to move virtual desktops all the time. Actually this is one of the things Window Maker wins me with -- I can jump from virtual window 1 to virtual window 3 by just typing "Alt-3" sort of a la Linux virtual consoles. I can also cycle through windows making them active "Alt-tab" or kill windows (read: Netscape annoying javascript banner pop-up adds)

I haven't tried the other window managers people have suggested, but I will be soon. If you want to get something up quick, without having to do a lot of customization, try out Window Maker for a while.

Re:Windowmaker works for me

[dead_penguin]

My only complaint is that every time a new app is launched, an icon is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

To deal with this, I use the clip. In the clip options, set it to "Collapsed" and "Autoattract Icons". Any new app icons will just get sucked in there and not be seen. You do have to set this individually for each desktop though.

What I like best about Windowmaker are the various dock apps and being able to minimize a window to an actual icon (aka miniwindow) instead of an actual task bar. Personal preference, I know, but having started on fvwm that's just the right behaviour in my mind.

a word on enlightenment

[Mandrake]

something that not a lot of people know is that if you have X display access with enlightenment just about everything is scriptable from outside of the window manager. try opening up a terminal window inside of enlightenment and typing 'eesh'. it won't say anything outright, but you can type 'help' and get a list of commands that you can use. not EVERYTHING is documented, but 95% of the commands are documented in here appropriately. This was one of the things I was really interested in working on in E. There may or may not be a couple of sample scripts that use this interface available in the distribution package, but there is a perl module for it (Pesh I think) and I did write a few sample scripts I will put up on my website here: http://mandrake.net/downloads/e-scripts/.

You can script, of course, in the scripting language of your choice (I've never been a big fan of lisp). The script examples aren't terribly pretty but very easy to write.

PLWM

[Jonas �berg]

PLWM is the "Pointless Window Manager". Written by Peter Liljenberg and others, one if its basic ideas is that "the mouse should be banished, and
everything should be possible to do without moving your hands from the keyboard."

That's the pointless bit of PLWM. The window manager is built using a number of Python classes and another idea is that you should be able to configure it exactly as you want it by writing Python-snippets that use the PLWM library to construct your window manager.

Re:Blackbox and bbkeys

[ThatComputerGuy]

Or, since BlackBox hasn't been developed for so long, use FluxBox, which is based off BB0.61.1 and doesn't require the use of an external keygrabber.

I used to love BlackBox, now I love FluxBox.

link

[ThatComputerGuy]

Erm, shit, it might have helped if I included a link.. http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/.

BTW, this fucking 2 minute counter is incredibly fucking lame goddamnit I hate this fucking counter yadda yadda...

Why has no one mentioned...

[PeterClark]

Ratpoison? Note, I have not tried it (I'm perfectly happy using the mouse :) but it sounds like something you might be interested in. Here's it's description:

Ratpoison is a simple window manager with no large library dependencies, fancy graphics, window decorations, or flash. It is largely modelled after GNU Screen, which has done wonders in virtual terminal market. All interaction with the window manager is done through keystrokes. ratpoison has a prefix map to minimize the key clobbering that cripples EMACS and other quality pieces of software. All windows are maximized and kept maximized to avoid wasting precious screen space.

You can find it at http://ratpoison.sourceforge.net/.

:Peter

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[sedawkgrep]

A friend of mine uses this on his laptop and now swears by it. It takes a little getting used-to, but it is apparently very fast and very lightweight.

Re:Stay with fvwm, replace your browser

[jovlinger]

Does anyone have a link to a non-WM specific FvwmIconBox replacement? I have sawfish at home, and Merlins hacks are... well, hacks. I'd like something a little prettier, w/o having to use the panel. I try to avoid gnome as far as possible.

Just to make sure everyone reads that the same way: I'd like a list of windows, up in the corner of the screen (growing down), of all windows on the current desktop -- iconized and not -- from which I can (de)iconize them. Kinda like the panel, but using much less real estate -- in total, and per window.

There was/is a framework out on sourceforge for writing those panel/iconbox stype apps, but google searches found exactly zero programs that claimed to use it. what was it called? Plip? Plop? Flack? Something like that.