WindowMaker Development Resumes, Has First Release Since 2006

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

WindowMaker Development Resumes, Has First Release Since 2006

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 16, 2012 @05:35AM from the now-where-was-I dept.

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."

20 of 192 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Woooo! by busyqth · 2012-02-16 05:36 · Score: 5, Funny

I've been waiting anxiously for this for, like, 6 years!!!!
1. Re:Woooo! by Samantha+Wright · 2012-02-16 05:53 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  So have I—only more seriously. I built a crude imitation of the NeXT UI for Windows in tribute four years ago and I can't live without it. Tiles for icons was a Good Idea.
  
  --
  Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
2. Re:Woooo! by ByOhTek · 2012-02-16 06:05 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Dude, Window Maker is awesome as a light weight desktop system. 3
  Aside from compatibility improvements, I say don't fix what isn't broken.
  
  --
  Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Sweet by gman003 · 2012-02-16 05:42 · Score: 5, Interesting

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".
1. Re:Sweet by ByOhTek · 2012-02-16 06:08 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Prior to upgrading the hardware (2-3 years ago?), I had an old K6-III for my server, and Window Maker was awesome on it. I still use it for the VNC attachable desktop I have running in the background to keep all my projects open so I don't have to restart my apps each time I log in. I don't need anything that lightweight any more, but, it gets the job done well, and doesn't crap out in the VNC "box" like KDE or Gnome.
  
  --
  Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Yay? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-16 05:44 · Score: 5, Funny

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?
1. Re:Yay? by Spiridios · 2012-02-16 06:59 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I'd imagine CLI-only GIMP would really live up to its name.
2. Re:Yay? by larry+bagina · 2012-02-16 07:59 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Before starting work on GIMP, Peter Mattis asked for input on features and formats.
  The first suggestion was to use existing CLI utils, augmented with new CLI utils. (In fairness, there were some other ideas that did make it in and script-fu is similar in spirit to cli apps)
  
  --
  Do you even lift?
  These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
WindowMaker is awesome. by Strahd+von+Zarovich · 2012-02-16 05:48 · Score: 5, Interesting

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!
Is WindowMaker still relevant? by Hatta · 2012-02-16 05:50 · Score: 3, 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!
1. Re:Is WindowMaker still relevant? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-16 05:59 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Sometimes all you want is a window manager. You don't need an integrated file manager, dvd burner or media player. WindowMaker is tremendously fast, stable and memory efficient.
2. Re:Is WindowMaker still relevant? by drinkypoo · 2012-02-16 08:38 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  What I'm really asking here is what's the actual benefit of doing things the NeXTSTEP way? I don't get it.
  The NeXTStep dock keeps things that you fix to one place in the same place so you can use muscle memory to find them, whereas when it was remade for OSX it was designed to prioritize looks and so it wanders around the display. It has folders, which is a cool thing for a dock to have, and which was taken out for OSX. It's nothing you can't get with other docks, but it's sensible by default and at the time it was pretty groundbreaking.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
One release in 6 years? by CanHasDIY · 2012-02-16 05:52 · Score: 3, Funny

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
They will definitely have a niche.... by cyberkahn · 2012-02-16 05:59 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.
wrong by Lunix+Nutcase · 2012-02-16 06:04 · Score: 3, Funny

No this would be the second release since 2006. 0.95.1 was released 2.5 weeks ago.
Re:Expo and Scale by Unknown+Lamer · 2012-02-16 06:09 · Score: 3, Interesting

xcompmgr was always just the demo/reference compositor... IIRC it had (still has?) memory leaks... cairo-compmgr almost works but for whatever reasons goes out to lunch whenever changing display settings (I might have a laptop and external monitor so that makes it really, really unusable for me).
Unfortunately things like Expose can't be implemented in an external compositor now (at least not in a flashy or particularly usable way)-- there's no way for the window manager to say "hey can you do this fancy animation crap for me". AFAICT there is only a window property that communicates the translucency level of a window available. The same goes for fancy iconization effects, graying out unfocused windows, wobbly dragging, etc.
And so every window manager ends up having to implement its own effects using its own internal protocol... it's a hard problem figuring out the needed common ground (especially when GNOME and KWin both appear to be actively divorcing themselves from X11). I've always wondered how hard it would be to at least make Compiz a library that other window managers could integrate (some construction needed) to gain compositing and effects... but I'd rather whine about how CLIM had a transformation and frame management protocol in 1995 that could do all of this without radical replumbing like X11 does ;)

--

HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
Re:1990 Called by Beelzebud · 2012-02-16 06:10 · Score: 5, Funny

I know! Where is the flash content, and the social media scripts, and tracking cookies that we have all come to love in this modern era!
Re:Nooooo! by Unknown+Lamer · 2012-02-16 06:27 · Score: 3, Interesting

Since Window Maker has had pretty bad multi-display support, when I got a new laptop a summer or two ago I looked for replacements and discovered ... Sawfish is alive too. I'm using it now with xfce-panel and gnome-session (2.x since 3.x hates me) and it's pretty tolerable (supports all of the new window hints and session management stuff ... giving me something that's almost as reliable as what I had with Window Maker a decade ago). I really, really miss the dockapps though... the network and cpu monitors available nowadays blow and I've never really gotten over now having a dock app to control my music player ("media keys" get the job done but you get used to doing things a certain way when you've done them that way for a decade and all).

--

HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
Cool by itomato · 2012-02-16 06:31 · Score: 5, Funny

I have a bunch of art updates I'd like to push. Real Media or ICQ, anyone?
Window Maker Live ISO by pseelig · 2012-02-16 12:16 · Score: 4, Informative

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.