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X Windows - Configuring Window ManagersAfterStep"This was previously known as Bowman, by Bo Yang. It is based on the popular fvwm window manager, written by Robert Nation. It is designed to emulate some of the look and feel of the NEXTSTEP® user interface, while adding useful, requested, and neat features. The changes which comprise AfterStep's personality were originally part of Bowman development, but due to a desire to move past simple emulation and into a niche as its own valuable window manager, the current designers decided to change the project name and move on.Major changes from fvwm are: 1. NeXTSTEP-alike title bar, title buttons, borders and corners. 2. Bowman's Wharf is a much worked-out version of GoodStuff. To avoid copyright complications it is not called a "dock." 3. NeXTSTEP style menu. However the menus are not controlled by applications, they are more of pop-up service lists on the root window. 4. NeXTSTEP style icons. These styles are hard-coded in the program, thought to be good for a consistent look of NeXTSTEP interface. However, the flexibility of fvwm was not traded off. The initiation file, .bowmanrc, recognizes most of the fvwm( 1.24r) commands. Virtual screen and pagers are still intact. Fvwm modules should work just fine. However, compatibility with fvwm-2 is not planned." - Window Managers Some AfterStep basics:
Configuring AfterStepThe full default configuration for AfterStep is huge, on the order of a few meg. Thankfully, AfterStep reads in the default and then checks for the things that you have added or changed in your personal settings, so you don't have to take up a good chunk of your disk space quota to make AfterStep behave the way you want it to. The default configuration files are located at /mnt/src/AfterStep-1.6.10/afterstep . Copy the files that you want to configure personally to your AfterStep configuration directory at ~/GNUstep/Library/AfterStep/. Then, in your local copies open up the files in a text editor and make whatever changes you like. (Syntax for many of the config files is similar to that of FVWM) One nice feature is the start menu, which is set up in an odd, but easy to use manner. Go to your ~/GNUstep/Library/AfterStep/start/ directory, and check what is in it. (If you don't have one, make one using mkdir from the command prompt.) You may see some files such as: 1_nop Applications/ Quit/ 2_afterstepdoc Desktop/ Screen_savers/ 3_orion Modules/ Windows/depending on how much of the configuration you copied. If you didn't, no matter, you'll see how easy this is momentarily. First, lets create a new item to put in the main part of the start menu. (That's the menu you get by clicking on an empty part of the desktop.) If you have some files currently, find the first unused integer following the ones that are already preceding the filenames in this directory. (For example, since I have '1_nop', '2_afterstepdoc', and '3_orion', I would pick 4.) Edit a file [X]_xterm where [X] is the number you just picked. (Continuing the previous example, I would edit 4_xterm.) Now, enter into the file the following: Exec "X terminal" exec xterm & MiniPixmap "mini-app.xpm"This may seem slightly gibberishy at first, but it is really quite simple. The first statement of the first line tells AfterStep what type of action it is going to perform when this menu button is invoked. In this case, we are going to Exec(ute) something (this is what you will generally be doing, until you get real good with all of AfterStep's features.) The string inside the double-quotes (") is the caption that will be placed on the button. Then the stuff following it is the actual command that is executed, followed by an ampersand (&) to make sure that it doesn't freeze the window manager by taking control of the process. The second line is simply the graphic that will be displayed next to the menu option, bitmaps that are specifically sized to work well for such things are located in /mnt/share/afterstep/desktop/icons/common, run the GIMP and take a look at them to pick the one you want. Creating a new sub-folder in your start menu is as easy as creating a new sub-directory in you start directory. Simply use mkdir and the name of the new directory will be the name of the new folder, which you can fill out with buttons and options just like the main start menu. Getting it to update: Open up your start menu, go to Desktop, and at the bottom of the menu you should have 2 options, "Update Start Menu" and "Update All." Click the one appropriate to the configuration you are doing. Back to the window managers qref page Copyright (c) HMC Computer Science Department.
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