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WindowMaker Development Resumes, Has First Release Since 2006
First time accepted submitter brad-x writes "A new team of developers has recently picked up development of WindowMaker, and they've added many new features, including improved support for the freedesktop standard menu layout and Mac OS X style application and window switching from the keyboard, culminating in a new release, 0.95.2. A basic changelog is available on the newly redesigned website."
I've been waiting anxiously for this for, like, 6 years!!!!
Did you mean release?
This signature has Super Cow Powers
I actually use WindowMaker on my personal dev-server-slash-tertiary-backup-desktop. It's an old piece of junk - Athlon 900 FTW! - but it still runs, and I don't have to worry about breaking anything important.
I've tried various window managers and desktop environments. KDE, even a 2.x release, is too slow. Same for GNOME. Most of the rest are too capability-light for me to seriously use. But WindowMaker hits the sweet spot of "runs fast on old crap" and "is actually usable".
This is the same machine I keep a copy of Firefox 2 on, since anything after that doesn't so much "run" as "walk".
If you really want to make your modern operating system look antiquated, isn't it easier just to go back to doing everything from the command line?
if window maker supported Expo and Scale for window management like in OSX or Compiz I'd Gladly switch.
Personally, I've used WindowMaker since the early '00s, and I'm still sticking to it. As a power user, I find its customization abilities extremely helpful. Also, I like that it's sticking to what it does best -- window management -- without eating up most of my CPU and GPU resources and bloating my memory. That's great news, keep up the good work!
"Mac OS X style application and window switching from the keyboard".
Too bad, looks interesting.
I never "got" WindowMaker. I gather it was good back in the day, when docks were kind of a special feature. But these days even Fluxbox has support for dock apps. So why WindowMaker?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Man, I do not envy the person who has to clean up that mess...
(Yes that was a sex joke)
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The old one looked like a website from 1999, the new one looks 1996
WindowMaker (now Window Maker) was the first X11 window manager I liked, after having used CDE (shudder), fvwm95 (double shudder), bowman, and AfterStep.
Congratulations and thanks to everyone involved.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
With a lot of people unhappy with the direction Gnome 3 and Unity are going. WindowMaker is a nice light window manager. It's what I use to use until active development stopped. I will look at it again for sure.
1990 called. They want their website back.
This is _exactly_ what the OSS/Linux community needs to get more converts onto Linux on the Desktop. I mean, who doesn't spending three hours figuring out a new graphical interface every time they switch employers or use a friend's computer?
In all seriousness, one of the primary reasons why Windows is still king shit on the desktop is that it provides a (relatively) consistent interface. There is no consistent interface with the Linux world.
This is exactly the reason why I predominantly use the command line on *nix systems. Seriously, people think I'm some kind of Linux expert at work, so I get a lot of questions on "how do I do X on Linux". I am then faced with a system running some random distro and some random desktop environment, and almost always fire up a command line and get complaints that it looks too complicated (usually one-liners, proxy settings, mounting drives/images etc.). I look them in the eye, and say, "You asked me how to do it, and I'm showing you the ONLY consistent way to do it using Linux".
OSS DOES NOT NEED MORE GUI's. It needs ONE that's really, really good. Until that happens, it will always be only for nerds.
Argh! Careful! It's that choice thing again! Kill it with fire!
Seriously: I never used WindowMaker. Still: my sincere and cheerful "welcome back".
No this would be the second release since 2006. 0.95.1 was released 2.5 weeks ago.
I've tried all the window managers at one time or another, but I always seem to return to WindowMaker,
It is simple, and it allows me to manage my windows easily and without fuss.
I can drop monitoring/chat/music/etc apps on the side of the screen without excessive configuration,
and it lets me get on with my work, which is why I use a computer. I program for a living, and I enjoy it.
I don't need the overhead of a window manager (even Windows 7 GUI seems slow in comparison).
Ah the memories. As they're not very clear I'll ask: couldn't you run this alongside Gnome 1.x, so you had the task bar and the dock? I used to use WindowMaker about 12 years ago, even had LiteStep & WindowBlinds on my Windows box to emulate it as much as possible. When Gnome 2 disappears completely I'll be in the market for a new/old window manager, I might just have to go back in time a bit!
I know there's a Hell, I've worked in retail.
I've missed the elegance and flexibility of Windowmaker and have always wished that it had stayed current. Looking forward to having a great way forward vs. that unity garbage!!
i've been following the development for more than a year. i've even contributed a fix for a null pointer exception on the menu editor.
the only news for me is to see it back on the news. which is a great thing in the sense that it'd bring awareness to this great desktop manager.
i've tried using KDE, gnome, several *boxen to name a few, but i always go back to windowmaker.
the killer featuer to me is the automatic cascading of new windows. i often need to open more than a dozen terminal windows to do my job, and having them cascaded across several virtual desktops is a helluva lot more eficient than any other method (and no, tabs don't work for my workflow)
What ? Me, worry ?
WindowMaker has a special place in my heart, right next to BlackBox. I still look at them and go "cool".
I hope someone revitalizes BlackBox, too. It was just plain neat.
I have a bunch of art updates I'd like to push. Real Media or ICQ, anyone?
There is a list of x-windows type interfaces that used to ship with lin at around 2000 that were just dropped in favor of KDE / Gnome, etc. I like the idea of putting the choice back into distros, with complete object model inheritance so that all the apps run. Non trivial task?
The purpose of existence is to make money.
I remember using afterstep on damn small linux and found the little squares confusing, esp. when launching an app resulted in twice the little squares, one of which seemingly functioned as a task bar button. maybe the point it for it to look cool. well, I liked it better than OSX.
That's amazing. What are they going to add next, a built-in messenger for ICQ support? Anyone who was stuck on Windowmaker has very likely moved on to GNUstep by this point, and barely anyone uses either of them. It's like posting a news story about the HURD or whatever abomination they're labelling an Amiga these days, the amount of people who actually give a shit is so stunningly small that you wonder why it was posted in the first place. You aren't just beating a dead horse talking about it, the horse has turned to bones and dust and you're laying down machinegun fire at the patch of ground it rested on at this point.
At least there's no chance of this article being sponsored like the rest of the veiled advertisments the BoingBoing-reject editors are posting here. No one developing for Windowmaker is making any kind of money.
wmaker has always been my favorite window manager for all times!
Yay! I've always *loved* Windowmaker.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
I found a script a long time ago that would generate a WM Menu based off the gnome menu. It's really nice and I have it as the Applications menu in my WM setup.
#!/usr/bin/python -tt
# This has been adapted from Luke Macken's OpenBox menu generation
# script.
import gmenu
def walk_menu(entry):
if entry.get_type() == gmenu.TYPE_DIRECTORY:
print '"%s" MENU' % entry.get_name()
map(walk_menu, entry.get_contents())
print '"%s" END' % entry.get_name()
elif entry.get_type() == gmenu.TYPE_ENTRY and not entry.is_excluded:
print '"%s" EXEC %s' % (entry.get_name(), entry.get_exec())
print '"Fedora" MENU'
map(walk_menu, gmenu.lookup_tree('applications.menu').root.get_contents())
print '"Fedora" END'
I was and still am a fan of WindowMaker, for all the reasons others have given. Lately I've switched to GNOME because I find myself constantly mounting thumb drives and DVDs, etc. In the old days there was a wmmount app for the dock that did this, and you set up your fstab so the mount points were all defined. These days I don't configure fstab. I'll have multiple USB drives plugged in and GNOME will just assign the mount point a name based on the volume label and mount them. If WindowMaker could do this I'd give up GNOME and never look back.
WindowMaker also makes it really easy to create themes and backgrounds for your desktop and switch them. Switching backgrounds in GNOME is a much bigger deal to go through.
So rather than just throw expense at the problem, we work SMARTER.
Try evolving some time. It's super great.
amiwm was refreshed in the summer of 2010. Prior to that release the code hadn't been updated since the late 1990's or thereabouts.
http://www.lysator.liu.se/~marcus/amiwm.html
Working smarter is good
Evolving is good
Staying stuck in 1996 is not
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
I love WindowMaker. Monitors are square, therefore my persistent icons and helper apps should be square also. It's the best way to manage desktop real estate. And it's lightening fast. I'm very gracious that the project continues on.
wmtop, wmblob, wmcalclock, wmjazz, wmbinclock, wmchess, wmcube, wmtetris, wmgrav, I can't get enough!
Now, if only I could find a version of `wmfire` that actually works, I'd be 100x more productive!
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
Window Maker was "THE" thing years ago ... used it from early 2k to 2005
I actually tried it some time ago, but ubuntu didn't like it :(
Quality? In a 10-year old AMD machine with Windowmaker as the UI running on it?
I love it how you signed out of your account to save precious karma while you make no fucking sense whatsoever. You aren't working smarter, you're working cheap. Original point still stands.
How about you try harder? Or better yet, try getting a fucking job?
I read that as widow maker development has restarted...
Are you by chance a Gnome 3 developer?
Progress for the sake of progress alone, that's what you say, right?
There is a project on sourceforge to remaster a standard Ubuntu 11.04 ISO image into a Window Maker Live ISO. It is based on a small scripting framework which relies on the Ubuntu Customization Kit for the creation of a working Live CD, and has the very latest Window Maker 0.95.2 as the only and default graphical user interface. It is also very preconfigured, so that one is able to just start using it already at first login.
The project is currently hosted at sourceforge.net/projects/wmlive and also provides some ready made live ISO torrents for interested people who don't want to have to remaster an Ubuntu ISO image on their own. Any feedback and possibly even contributions are very welcome.
If it ain't broke... don't fix it. If a machine that is not "cutting edge" (or dare I say "old") and it still runs, why throw it out?
My machines are not cutting edge by a long shot... but I tend to use things until they finally wear out, rather than the hamsters in the upgrade wheel, tossing out perfectly good hardware for the "next big thing"....
Thinks like Windowmaker and lightweight distros are giving purpose to old machines that are still very much useful. (And I've got a stack of games for my PC that run fine on a Pentium III)....
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
thank for your full and clear text,
http://www.wallet.ir
Great, WindowMaker is no longer up to date in Debian!
Ooh, bashing Gnome 3, how incredibly creative of you. I suppose you still spell it Macro$haft and still subscribe to every other bit of mindless, Slashdot groupthink don't you, you low-ID lame-ass piece of shit?
Wow, it _is_ fun to make uninformed assumptions! You fuck children too I bet. Hilarious. Now go get a job so you don't have to use a PC running fucking WindowMaker, kiddyfucker.
Pretty much everybody who's tried Gnome 3 thinks it's a gigantic pile of donkey shit. I can't think of a single person outside either canonical or the Gnome 3 dev team who would waste their time with that garbage.
Must have touched a nerve, I see. Get back to trying to stump your stupid Neo Freerunner, whatever the hell that is. Sounds Chinese anyway.
I use KDE 3.5 for day-to-day but always install WM as a backup.
Also rocks for VNC sessions.
I am very happy to see someone take up development of Old Reliable again! Huzzah! Thank you!
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
With a few tweaks(2), got the release to compile and generate debs on Ubuntu 10.4.
Care to send those tweaks to wmaker-dev@lists.windowmaker.org if they are useful for general consumption?
Thank you for not let WindowMaker disappear. this is the best window manager i've used.
The CPU on that machine used 12.5W power.
I eventually upgraded to a quad core process, more because I wanted to do mulit-core software dev than any other reason. I got the lowest power quad core I could find - 45W. At that point, the CPU uses more power than the entirety of my old K6-III
So, until I needed to, yeah, sticking with the "90s tech" was good because it saved me energy, and I got NO advantage from upgrading.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Why? Been using it since SuSE 4.something...didn't know there was anything else out there...
The problem is, the NeXT UI was more than just appearance --- it was a synergy of:
- Display PostScript (it kills me that it's still possible to display something on-screen in Mac OS X or Windows and _not_ be able to print it as it appears on-screen!)
- Services --- I still miss poste.app's ``Print envelope from selected address'' Service, LaTeXiT doesn't work quite as well as TeXView.app's ``TeX eq -> EPS'' Service, &c.
- pop-up main menu which made how far one was from the main menu irrelevant and made some commands (e.g., ``Punch'' in Altsys Virtuoso) gestural
- tear off menus which meant no need for inscrutable toolbars --- just position a frequently needed command where one wanted it, then close the torn-off sub menu when done
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
I used to be a devout user of WindowMaker around ~2000 (I had used fvwm, olvwm and afterstep before). After that, I've used Gnome 1, then Gnome 2... I found Gnome 3 to be an abomination and I went to XFCE. It does what it is meant to do and quite frankly, I don't see why I would want to go back to WindowMaker. And no, nostalgia isn't enough...
I've got VMs for Rhapsody and OpenStep, but alas no real black hardware. I was aware of all those features, and I so totally miss them. I really hope Étoilé comes out in a usable form soon.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
*love WindowMaker*
alive to the universe, dead to the world
Are you by chance a Gnome 3 developer?
Progress for the sake of progress alone, that's what you say, right?
Well, isn't "raw" science progress for the sake of progress alone? That's very anti-science attitude there you have there ;)
I think something usable will come out of Unity and Gnome3. Eventually. Probably with different name. Traditional desktop UIs are going down shortly anyway, because after Win8 comes out, it'll take like half a year until all laptops and desktop monitors sold will be touch screen devices. At that point, Linux better have a good, evolved, mainsteam touch-based DE.