Tiling Window Managers

[Miven]

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So while I was removing the debug printfs from dwm-6, I also got rid of two unused variables and tried to do something about the deprecated XKeycodeToKeysym function. According to what I read here the following code should work:

//keysym = XKeycodeToKeysym(dpy, (KeyCode) ev->keycode, 0);
{
int keysyms_per_keycode_return;
keysym = (KeySym)XGetKeyboardMapping(dpy, (KeyCode) ev->keycode, 0, &keysyms_per_keycode_return);
}

but it doesn't; it just kills my key mappings.

That will teach me not to try and hack code I don't understand!

Er... are you trying to get rid of compiler warnings? Don't worry about it. Turn them off in the Makefile. Get rid of that pedantic biz:

config.mk

# flags
CPPFLAGS = -DVERSION=\"${VERSION}\" ${XINERAMAFLAGS}
#CFLAGS = -g -std=c99 -pedantic -Wall -O0 ${INCS} ${CPPFLAGS}
#CFLAGS = -std=c99 -pedantic -Wall -Os ${INCS} ${CPPFLAGS}
CFLAGS = -Wall -Os ${INCS} ${CPPFLAGS}
#LDFLAGS = -g ${LIBS}
LDFLAGS = -s ${LIBS}

And, yeah, I had a quick go at that one too, but I saw that it would add a level of complexity that is unnecessary, Plus I just didn't care enough.

It's much more fun when the the compiler doesn't cough so many warnings, I agree. Get rid of that -Wall biz, and you won't see any of it. It's just like wearing rose-colored glasses. As long as the resulting program compiles and runs, on *your* PC, who cares? That's the joy of it. Like home-made blackberry jam.

Nothing will blow up. Glib/GTK are loaded with deprecated funcs that still work. X is loaded with them. Every serious library is loaded with deprecated stuff, in much the same way as your local library has old books that are still useful, although a bit out of date. Buy the new book. Or don't. The knowledge still works.

[oz]

It's now been almost 8 weeks since I began experimenting with tiling window managers. I really do like both, Awesome and Monster, and will likely keep playing around with both of them, but it seems that DWM may be the winner, as it always draws me back.

Awesome window manager comes with lots of options and features, and it feels rather polished, whereas Monster window manager is extremely lightweight and looks somewhat plain, yet it does plenty with windows considering its tiny code base. DWM on the other hand is situated in the middle of those two, and from the moment you've logged in, there's just something about it that looks and feels right. DWM is very simple, fast, and efficient, and has been highly stable on my box thus far.

For anyone still pondering the idea of trying tiling window managers, I'd recommend trying all three of those mentioned above, but do keep in mind that it takes some time to adjust to such a different way of handling windows. Even after almost eight weeks, I'm still not fully adjusted. Once you've learned to manipulate windows using keyboard commands, you should find yourself working through your various computer chores much faster than you did using a mouse.