xfwm4

[Diego Jacobi-2]

Hi.

I just wonder why xfwm4 is different of Metacity.

I have found that both takes mostly the same amount of RAM, and does seems to be really faster.
They both have mostly the same theme functionalities but are not compatible due to language conventions.
xfwm4 doesnt have any minimizing animation or any other.

I am using openbox now, because it is much faster than xfwm4, more easy to configure with obconf, and have a great number of themes which integrates well, and also it haves some minimum animation when minimizing apps.


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[Olivier Fourdan-3]

Hi,

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 6:39 AM, Diego Jacobi <jacobidiego@...> wrote:
> I just wonder why xfwm4 is different of Metacity.
>
> I have found that both takes mostly the same amount of RAM, and does seems
> to be really faster.

Well, speed of a window manager is definitely the hardest thing to
measure, so I am not sure how you came to that conclusions (please
don't tell me about torture-wm which is one of the most stupid
benchmark I have ever seen).

I believe xfwm4 is faster than metacity because of the way it's coded
and how redraws are done. That may not show depending on the hardware
you use though.

> They both have mostly the same theme functionalities but are not compatible
> due to language conventions.

Well, I really don't understand what you mean here...

> xfwm4 doesnt have any minimizing animation or any other.

Well, it's a waste of time and resources, I think, especially if you
are refering to the ugly box  animation, reminds me of window 3. YMMV
though and you're perfectly entitled to you opinion ;)

> I am using openbox now, because it is much faster than xfwm4, more easy to
> configure with obconf, and have a great number of themes which integrates
> well, and also it haves some minimum animation when minimizing apps.

I do not know about openbox (i am not interested in the numerous
blackbox derivatives anyway), but xfwm4 ships with 96 themes by
default, not counting the themes from www.xfce-look.org. But is that
really a point? I don't think so, I am somehow dubious about the goals
of your post here anyway.

As for configurability, I think there is no comparison between
metacity and xfwm4 in this regard.

So, you prefer metacity over xfwm4 and you are using openbox, fine.
It's your choice and free software is all about choice, so what is
point of your post on this list, really?

Cheers,
Olivier.
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[Diego Jacobi-2]

2008/7/13 Olivier Fourdan <fourdan@...>:

Hi,

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 6:39 AM, Diego Jacobi <jacobidiego@...> wrote:
> I just wonder why xfwm4 is different of Metacity.
>
> I have found that both takes mostly the same amount of RAM, and does seems
> to be really faster.

Well, speed of a window manager is definitely the hardest thing to
measure, so I am not sure how you came to that conclusions (please
don't tell me about torture-wm which is one of the most stupid
benchmark I have ever seen).

I believe xfwm4 is faster than metacity because of the way it's coded
and how redraws are done. That may not show depending on the hardware
you use though.

I dont know about torture-wm, but i agree that is difficult to messure. By my side, i "messure" the speed with the feeling that i can get from it. Months ago i was using ubuntu with compiz with mostly all efects shoted down, and with quick minimizing/maximizing/moving effects.
The i disabled compiz i found in gnome an option with effects but without compiz, that was pritty enought to me. I guess that that was handled by metacity.
Now i moved to a debian distro with xfce by default, i happy with the ammount of resources taken, this distro with the same theme have 90 Mb for XFCE and 120 Mb for gnome, which is not MUCH more than xfce, but i beliebe that xfce programers are better in resources management, than the gnome ones. I great example is thunar.
But often some applications of xfce seems to be just a duplicate from the ones already developed for gnome, and i dont like to see duplicated efforts in linux just because there are lots of beautiful projects that are not even started.
Now i am on xfce, i see that when minimizing windows i have no effect, so it requires more focus from the user, to know what button corresponds to what window. Of course that is not a big issue, but if openbox haves it, i guess that is not a big resources hole.
Also i have an nvidia GF7025 card, and when moving windows around with xfwm4 or resizing, i can see the slow refresh of the content, which is an indicator to me of being slow.
So instead of developing a entire new WM as all the people does, what is the reason for what the xfce developers didnt choose to use metacity and optimice it.

 

> They both have mostly the same theme functionalities but are not compatible
> due to language conventions.

Well, I really don't understand what you mean here...

Recently i was trying to use a cool gnome theme in xfce, so i started a new one, and i am not an artist, but i made it to work by just renaming the files. But gtk theme are more complicated to me and i abandoned it.
Also having 999 themming scheme, one for each program in the linux word, is duplicated efforts for the artists, and differences are not too big.

> xfwm4 doesnt have any minimizing animation or any other.

Well, it's a waste of time and resources, I think, especially if you
are refering to the ugly box  animation, reminds me of window 3. YMMV
though and you're perfectly entitled to you opinion ;)

It allows me to focus in my tasks instead of finding what button correspond to the window that i have minimiced.

> I am using openbox now, because it is much faster than xfwm4, more easy to
> configure with obconf, and have a great number of themes which integrates
> well, and also it haves some minimum animation when minimizing apps.

I do not know about openbox (i am not interested in the numerous
blackbox derivatives anyway), but xfwm4 ships with 96 themes by
default, not counting the themes from www.xfce-look.org. But is that
really a point? I don't think so, I am somehow dubious about the goals
of your post here anyway.

I did have downloaded some themes from that page, but i found that some themes increases the memory consumption, so i goed back to my distro default, also it seems like my distro have remove 90 default theme, because it only comes with a few. :(
Also some themes requires to get an xfwm4 theme, an icon theme, a gtk2 theme, etc.etc. and founding them, installing them, and with a litle of magic it will work nicely with xfce, because most icon themes and gtk themes are made for gnome applications.
Maybe a theme tracker for xfce will be a nice new application.

So, you prefer metacity over xfwm4 and you are using openbox, fine.

I DIDN'T say that.
If i would i wouldn't send this mail.
But i do believe that openbox-WM is better than xfwm4 when i dont require themes with images in the title bar for the buttons.

It's your choice and free software is all about choice, so what is
point of your post on this list, really?

My point is clear.
I havent found any page about why xfwm4 is different of others and who better to ask than the xfwm4 developers?
I preffer xfce over gnome, but often i find that i need gnome applications and i cant find any goals of xfce showing me that thoose applications will be some day developed.
So if a DE have no defined goals, will it grow or evolve?

I didnt write this mail as an offensive. But i think that i dont really have to clear that. Hope you understand that.

Cheers.
Diego


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[Jannis Pohlmann-3]

Am Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:00:56 -0300
schrieb "Diego Jacobi" <jacobidiego@...>:

> 2008/7/13 Olivier Fourdan <fourdan@...>:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 6:39 AM, Diego Jacobi
> > <jacobidiego@...> wrote:
> > > I just wonder why xfwm4 is different of Metacity.
> > >
> > > I have found that both takes mostly the same amount of RAM, and
> > > does
> > seems
> > > to be really faster.
> >
> > Well, speed of a window manager is definitely the hardest thing to
> > measure, so I am not sure how you came to that conclusions (please
> > don't tell me about torture-wm which is one of the most stupid
> > benchmark I have ever seen).
> >
> > I believe xfwm4 is faster than metacity because of the way it's
> > coded and how redraws are done. That may not show depending on the
> > hardware you use though.
> >
>
> I dont know about torture-wm, but i agree that is difficult to
> messure. By my side, i "messure" the speed with the feeling that i
> can get from it. Months ago i was using ubuntu with compiz with
> mostly all efects shoted down, and with quick
> minimizing/maximizing/moving effects. The i disabled compiz i found
> in gnome an option with effects but without compiz, that was pritty
> enought to me. I guess that that was handled by metacity.
> Now i moved to a debian distro with xfce by default, i happy with the
> ammount of resources taken, this distro with the same theme have 90
> Mb for XFCE and 120 Mb for gnome, which is not MUCH more than xfce,
> but i beliebe that xfce programers are better in resources
> management, than the gnome ones. I great example is thunar.
> But often some applications of xfce seems to be just a duplicate from
> the ones already developed for gnome, and i dont like to see
> duplicated efforts in linux just because there are lots of beautiful
> projects that are not even started.
> Now i am on xfce, i see that when minimizing windows i have no
> effect, so it requires more focus from the user, to know what button
> corresponds to what window. Of course that is not a big issue, but if
> openbox haves it, i guess that is not a big resources hole.
> Also i have an nvidia GF7025 card, and when moving windows around
> with xfwm4 or resizing, i can see the slow refresh of the content,
> which is an indicator to me of being slow.
> So instead of developing a entire new WM as all the people does, what
> is the reason for what the xfce developers didnt choose to use
> metacity and optimice it.

First of all: I have a Thinkpad with a crappy graphics card and still I
don't notice any performance issues or whatsoever with xfwm. No idea
what's wrong with your setup.

The answer to your last question is easy though: When xfwm was first
released (that must have been 1997 according to wikipedia), metacity
didn't even exist. Comparing metacity to xfwm is a joke. Metacity isn't
half as configurable as xfwm. I don't know which version of Xfce you
are running, but you have to be pretty ignorant not to take notice of
that.
 

> >
> > > They both have mostly the same theme functionalities but are not
> > compatible
> > > due to language conventions.
> >
> > Well, I really don't understand what you mean here...
>
>
> Recently i was trying to use a cool gnome theme in xfce, so i started
> a new one, and i am not an artist, but i made it to work by just
> renaming the files. But gtk theme are more complicated to me and i
> abandoned it. Also having 999 themming scheme, one for each program
> in the linux word, is duplicated efforts for the artists, and
> differences are not too big.

Having a similar window manager theme system is only a very small part
of the whole functionality. And by the way: Xfce and GNOME both use
GTK+ and thus, the whole user interface theming is part of GTK+
already. No duplicate efforts here.

> > > I am using openbox now, because it is much faster than xfwm4,
> > > more easy
> > to
> > > configure with obconf, and have a great number of themes which
> > > integrates well, and also it haves some minimum animation when
> > > minimizing apps.
> >
> > I do not know about openbox (i am not interested in the numerous
> > blackbox derivatives anyway), but xfwm4 ships with 96 themes by
> > default, not counting the themes from www.xfce-look.org. But is that
> > really a point? I don't think so, I am somehow dubious about the
> > goals of your post here anyway.
> >
>
> I did have downloaded some themes from that page, but i found that
> some themes increases the memory consumption, so i goed back to my
> distro default, also it seems like my distro have remove 90 default
> theme, because it only comes with a few. :(
> Also some themes requires to get an xfwm4 theme, an icon theme, a gtk2
> theme, etc.etc. and founding them, installing them, and with a litle
> of magic it will work nicely with xfce, because most icon themes and
> gtk themes are made for gnome applications.
> Maybe a theme tracker for xfce will be a nice new application.

There are websites like xfce-look.org, there are settings dialogs
listing all the themes installed. What else do you need?!

> So, you prefer metacity over xfwm4 and you are using openbox, fine.
>
>
> I DIDN'T say that.
> If i would i wouldn't send this mail.
> But i do believe that openbox-WM is better than xfwm4 when i dont
> require themes with images in the title bar for the buttons.
>
>
> It's your choice and free software is all about choice, so what is
> > point of your post on this list, really?
> >
>
> My point is clear.
> I havent found any page about why xfwm4 is different of others and who
> better to ask than the xfwm4 developers?

Just ... use it, play with the config options and you'll see how it is
different. Either you like it or you don't. You have the choice between
many alternatives. If you have problems to figure out the differences:
try them.

If you really wanted to know what separates xfwm you could have just
asked. Questioning the purpose of Xfce is senseless unless we as
hobby developers do it.

  - Jannis


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[Diego Jacobi-2]

Jannis: Thanks for the partial answer.
I dont really like how you answer, and you are not forced to answer.
I dont think that going into verbal agression ("ignorant") is a good way to answer.

I was looking for more details about xfwm4 and metacity, you just say that xfwm4 is more configurable. Well, finally you give 1 detail.

If you really wanted to know what separates xfwm you could have just
asked. Questioning the purpose of Xfce is senseless unless we as
hobby developers do it.

That was what i did.
But for some reason you get insulted by comparing metacity with xfwm. Not being the developer of any of both, i cant know about any differences.
I was looking for details and information, best possible answered with some link to the xfce page. Which as i say didnt found any.
I didnt question the purpose of xfce, i question the goals, which are not answered anywhere. I want to know if the developers still want a lightweight desktop and are focused to that or just want an alternative to gnome. But i think that for the bad answer that i have got, there is some kind of bad felling against gnome. That is sad, but dont blame me for that.

Forget all about it. And dont answer if you dont want to.

Cheers.
Diego


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[Olivier Fourdan-3]

Hi,

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 11:14 PM, Diego Jacobi <jacobidiego@...> wrote:
> I didnt question the purpose of xfce, i question the goals, which are not
> answered anywhere. I want to know if the developers still want a lightweight
> desktop and are focused to that or just want an alternative to gnome. But i
> think that for the bad answer that i have got, there is some kind of bad
> felling against gnome. That is sad, but dont blame me for that.

Oh no, we really have no bad feelings about gnome (afaik). Thing is,
we share gtk+ with gnome and gtk+ has grown quite a lot recently, so
the amount of (shared) memory used by every process may also have
grown. But that's the price to pay to benefit from all the facilities
provided by gtk+. There is no such thing as "light" actually, it's
always a balance between functionalities, memory and speed.

Cheers,
Olivier.
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[Olivier Fourdan-3]

Hi,

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 7:00 PM, Diego Jacobi <jacobidiego@...> wrote:
[...]
> Also i have an nvidia GF7025 card, and when moving windows around with xfwm4
> or resizing, i can see the slow refresh of the content, which is an
> indicator to me of being slow.

Disable compositing in xorg, does that make any difference?

> So instead of developing a entire new WM as all the people does, what is the
> reason for what the xfce developers didnt choose to use metacity and
> optimice it.

The main reasons is probably because I do not like metacity code...

Cheers,
Olivier.
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[Diego Jacobi-2]

2008/7/13 Olivier Fourdan <fourdan@...>:

Hi,

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 7:00 PM, Diego Jacobi <jacobidiego@...> wrote:
[...]

> Also i have an nvidia GF7025 card, and when moving windows around with xfwm4
> or resizing, i can see the slow refresh of the content, which is an
> indicator to me of being slow.

Disable compositing in xorg, does that make any difference?

Thanks Olivier.
I have disabled compositing and the slow redrawing is much better. But i can only compare with openbox, which is not fare. Both draws better.
 

> So instead of developing a entire new WM as all the people does, what is the
> reason for what the xfce developers didnt choose to use metacity and
> optimice it.

The main reasons is probably because I do not like metacity code...

Well, nice to ear that.
I have not seen any of both code, but agree that sometimes is impossible to work with code from others.
Can i ask what about the code you dont like?
Is the implementation, something about the sintax or the project goals?

That is what i want to know. I would like to see an experienced developer to say metacity is going in the wrong way by X causes.

Cheers

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[Diego Jacobi-2]

2008/7/13 Olivier Fourdan <fourdan@...>:

Hi,

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 11:14 PM, Diego Jacobi <jacobidiego@...> wrote:
> I didnt question the purpose of xfce, i question the goals, which are not
> answered anywhere. I want to know if the developers still want a lightweight
> desktop and are focused to that or just want an alternative to gnome. But i
> think that for the bad answer that i have got, there is some kind of bad
> felling against gnome. That is sad, but dont blame me for that.

Oh no, we really have no bad feelings about gnome (afaik). Thing is,
we share gtk+ with gnome and gtk+ has grown quite a lot recently, so
the amount of (shared) memory used by every process may also have
grown. But that's the price to pay to benefit from all the facilities
provided by gtk+. There is no such thing as "light" actually, it's
always a balance between functionalities, memory and speed.

Nice to ear also.
Then you agree that xfce is not looking for the lightestweight and pretty DE, its looking for its own implementation of "best balance between features, memory and speed".

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[Jannis Pohlmann-3]

Am Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:08:04 -0300
schrieb "Diego Jacobi" <jacobidiego@...>:

> 2008/7/13 Olivier Fourdan <fourdan@...>:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 11:14 PM, Diego Jacobi
> > <jacobidiego@...> wrote:
> > > I didnt question the purpose of xfce, i question the goals, which
> > > are not answered anywhere. I want to know if the developers still
> > > want a
> > lightweight
> > > desktop and are focused to that or just want an alternative to
> > > gnome. But
> > i
> > > think that for the bad answer that i have got, there is some kind
> > > of bad felling against gnome. That is sad, but dont blame me for
> > > that.
> >
> > Oh no, we really have no bad feelings about gnome (afaik). Thing is,
> > we share gtk+ with gnome and gtk+ has grown quite a lot recently, so
> > the amount of (shared) memory used by every process may also have
> > grown. But that's the price to pay to benefit from all the
> > facilities provided by gtk+. There is no such thing as "light"
> > actually, it's always a balance between functionalities, memory and
> > speed.
> >
>
> Nice to ear also.
> Then you agree that xfce is not looking for the lightestweight and
> pretty DE, its looking for its own implementation of "best balance
> between features, memory and speed".

Of course we are - you can see that everywhere. Just take five minutes
to compare fluxbox and Xfce and you'll notice that fluxbox is much more
lightweight than Xfce. Do you really need other people to tell you that?

Sorry for not replying to your other mails as well, but here is one
more thing you can easily see by yourself. We talked about the
configurability and you appreciated that I finally mentioned that I
consider xfwm more configurable than metacity, right? Just look at this:

Metacity configuration:
http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/settings/appearance/gnome220redhat9-5-1.png

Xfwm configuration:
http://www.simplehelp.net/images/kateos/kateos7.jpg
http://www.xfce.org/images/about/tour/xfce44-preferences-keyboard.png
http://www.xfce.org/images/about/tour/xfce44-xfwm4-tweaks.png

These are the dialogs you get to see if you try both window managers.
Notice the difference?

If you feel insulted by me because of comparing xfwm and metacity then
you're wrong. It's not that. It's questioning things in the wrong way.
The basic message of your initial mails was to be interpreted as: "I
thought this was a lightweight desktop - now I prefer openbox - what's
your point in developing Xfce anyway?!"

And if that's what arrives at the other end then you've definitely hit
the wrong tone, don't you think?

  - Jannis



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[Diego Jacobi-2]

> Nice to ear also.
> Then you agree that xfce is not looking for the lightestweight and
> pretty DE, its looking for its own implementation of "best balance
> between features, memory and speed".

Of course we are - you can see that everywhere. Just take five minutes
to compare fluxbox and Xfce and you'll notice that fluxbox is much more
lightweight than Xfce. Do you really need other people to tell you that?

klar, but fluxbox is not a complete DE, and is not really pretty and standard compliant. So wont be fear.

Sorry for not replying to your other mails as well, but here is one
more thing you can easily see by yourself. We talked about the
configurability and you appreciated that I finally mentioned that I
consider xfwm more configurable than metacity, right? Just look at this:

Metacity configuration:
http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/settings/appearance/gnome220redhat9-5-1.png

Xfwm configuration:
http://www.simplehelp.net/images/kateos/kateos7.jpg
http://www.xfce.org/images/about/tour/xfce44-preferences-keyboard.png
http://www.xfce.org/images/about/tour/xfce44-xfwm4-tweaks.png

These are the dialogs you get to see if you try both window managers.
Notice the difference?

Thanks for taking that job.
But gnome usually hides some properties in gconf and sometimes more hidden in config files. I cant know if those are the only features.
But being xfwm4 better than metacity, why doesnt the distros use xfwm4 with gnome to provide better features, or why doesnt gnome use xfwm4 by default and stop to spend precious time with metacity?
Or more important is it possible to have a gnome desktop with xfwm4 and some other xfce apps. working nicely together? I mean, the best of xfce and the best of gnome.
There should be a good reason why both projects are separated and why distributions always prefer to use metacity in gnome.

If you feel insulted by me because of comparing xfwm and metacity then
you're wrong. It's not that. It's questioning things in the wrong way.
The basic message of your initial mails was to be interpreted as: "I
thought this was a lightweight desktop - now I prefer openbox - what's
your point in developing Xfce anyway?!"

"I'am using openbox now"

Because i want a very lightweight WM and a simple minimizing animation, which xfwm4 seems to not fit in. xfce is better than gnome respecting to programming philosophy, but is not lightweight to me.
But i was comparing xfwm4 with metacity because the last is the WM of a heavy desktop and the first the WM of a light desktop and but are very similar. So why doesnt the heavy desktop use the lighter alternative if it is equal or better?

 

And if that's what arrives at the other end then you've definitely hit
the wrong tone, don't you think?

Of course, but this is a reason to leverage the tone?

Not answering would be a better answer.




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[David Mohr-4]

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 7:57 PM, Diego Jacobi <jacobidiego@...> wrote:

>>
>> > Nice to ear also.
>> > Then you agree that xfce is not looking for the lightestweight and
>> > pretty DE, its looking for its own implementation of "best balance
>> > between features, memory and speed".
>>
>> Of course we are - you can see that everywhere. Just take five minutes
>> to compare fluxbox and Xfce and you'll notice that fluxbox is much more
>> lightweight than Xfce. Do you really need other people to tell you that?
>
> klar, but fluxbox is not a complete DE, and is not really pretty and
> standard compliant. So wont be fear.
>
>>
>> Sorry for not replying to your other mails as well, but here is one
>> more thing you can easily see by yourself. We talked about the
>> configurability and you appreciated that I finally mentioned that I
>> consider xfwm more configurable than metacity, right? Just look at this:
>>
>> Metacity configuration:
>>
>> http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/settings/appearance/gnome220redhat9-5-1.png
>>
>> Xfwm configuration:
>> http://www.simplehelp.net/images/kateos/kateos7.jpg
>> http://www.xfce.org/images/about/tour/xfce44-preferences-keyboard.png
>> http://www.xfce.org/images/about/tour/xfce44-xfwm4-tweaks.png
>>
>> These are the dialogs you get to see if you try both window managers.
>> Notice the difference?
>
> Thanks for taking that job.
> But gnome usually hides some properties in gconf and sometimes more hidden
> in config files. I cant know if those are the only features.
> But being xfwm4 better than metacity, why doesnt the distros use xfwm4 with
> gnome to provide better features, or why doesnt gnome use xfwm4 by default
> and stop to spend precious time with metacity?
> Or more important is it possible to have a gnome desktop with xfwm4 and some
> other xfce apps. working nicely together? I mean, the best of xfce and the
> best of gnome.
> There should be a good reason why both projects are separated and why
> distributions always prefer to use metacity in gnome.

Probably because of better integration, and probably because metacity
is using "gnome design philosophy".

>> If you feel insulted by me because of comparing xfwm and metacity then
>> you're wrong. It's not that. It's questioning things in the wrong way.
>> The basic message of your initial mails was to be interpreted as: "I
>> thought this was a lightweight desktop - now I prefer openbox - what's
>> your point in developing Xfce anyway?!"
>
> "I'am using openbox now"

So why don't you keep using it? I don't see any issues with that,
except that maybe in the settings manager the WM configuration doesn't
show up... I myself used to use xfce with sawfish, and it worked just
fine (as would using another WM work in gnome).

> Because i want a very lightweight WM and a simple minimizing animation,
> which xfwm4 seems to not fit in. xfce is better than gnome respecting to
> programming philosophy, but is not lightweight to me.
> But i was comparing xfwm4 with metacity because the last is the WM of a
> heavy desktop and the first the WM of a light desktop and but are very
> similar. So why doesnt the heavy desktop use the lighter alternative if it
> is equal or better?

Hm, so given the arguments in this email, why are you asking this
question to the xfce group, and not to the gnome people? They are free
to choose whatever WM they want, and they have switched in the past
(at some point sawfish was their default WM).


>> And if that's what arrives at the other end then you've definitely hit
>> the wrong tone, don't you think?
>
> Of course, but this is a reason to leverage the tone?
> Not answering would be a better answer.

By the same note, people can respond to you "better not to ask, than
to ask in the wrong tone". Keep in mind that most people develop these
programs in their spare time, for fun and nothing else.

~David
_______________________________________________
Xfce mailing list
Xfce@...
http://foo-projects.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
http://www.xfce.org

[Diego Jacobi-2]

Probably because of better integration, and probably because metacity
is using "gnome design philosophy".

Right.
 

>> If you feel insulted by me because of comparing xfwm and metacity then
>> you're wrong. It's not that. It's questioning things in the wrong way.
>> The basic message of your initial mails was to be interpreted as: "I
>> thought this was a lightweight desktop - now I prefer openbox - what's
>> your point in developing Xfce anyway?!"
>
> "I'am using openbox now"

So why don't you keep using it? I don't see any issues with that,
except that maybe in the settings manager the WM configuration doesn't
show up... I myself used to use xfce with sawfish, and it worked just
fine (as would using another WM work in gnome).

Maybe, but i like xfce and i want it to evolve in the features a like, obviusly as everybody, and i dont know what are the goals to evolve and if they include working with xfwm4.
Maybe if i like a cool gnome theme or some simple but useful animations i can use metacity with xfce. And because they both seems to take the same resources, would it be wrong (in the sense of lightweight) to do that? use metacity with xfce? I couldnt know without technical details.
OpenBox is nice but isnt written with gtk, so isnt as much pretty, and adds more libs to the shared memory, if i am not wrong.

> Because i want a very lightweight WM and a simple minimizing animation,
> which xfwm4 seems to not fit in. xfce is better than gnome respecting to
> programming philosophy, but is not lightweight to me.
> But i was comparing xfwm4 with metacity because the last is the WM of a
> heavy desktop and the first the WM of a light desktop and but are very
> similar. So why doesnt the heavy desktop use the lighter alternative if it
> is equal or better?

Hm, so given the arguments in this email, why are you asking this
question to the xfce group, and not to the gnome people? They are free
to choose whatever WM they want, and they have switched in the past
(at some point sawfish was their default WM).

Because i didnt know that xfwm4 is better than metacity, for me at the moment of writing they are both equal, with xfwm4 having less resources for animations, but maybe the problems that i am having can be bugs.

>> And if that's what arrives at the other end then you've definitely hit
>> the wrong tone, don't you think?
>
> Of course, but this is a reason to leverage the tone?
> Not answering would be a better answer.

By the same note, people can respond to you "better not to ask, than
to ask in the wrong tone". Keep in mind that most people develop these
programs in their spare time, for fun and nothing else.

Yep but at my side and at that moment, i have asked right. So why shouldnt i ask a right question?
Badly or aggressively answering a wrong question is different.
You can easily see that my english is not perfect, not even correct, so dont you have in mind that i can possible be saying something incorrectly but with good intentions?
After all, how many people spend time in subscribe to a list to blame it for fun? That would be insane. And for me is the less possible side of interpretation.

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Xfce@...
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http://www.xfce.org

[David Mohr-4]

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 8:33 PM, Diego Jacobi <jacobidiego@...> wrote:

>
>>
>> Probably because of better integration, and probably because metacity
>> is using "gnome design philosophy".
>
> Right.
>
>>
>> >> If you feel insulted by me because of comparing xfwm and metacity then
>> >> you're wrong. It's not that. It's questioning things in the wrong way.
>> >> The basic message of your initial mails was to be interpreted as: "I
>> >> thought this was a lightweight desktop - now I prefer openbox - what's
>> >> your point in developing Xfce anyway?!"
>> >
>> > "I'am using openbox now"
>>
>> So why don't you keep using it? I don't see any issues with that,
>> except that maybe in the settings manager the WM configuration doesn't
>> show up... I myself used to use xfce with sawfish, and it worked just
>> fine (as would using another WM work in gnome).
>
> Maybe, but i like xfce and i want it to evolve in the features a like,
> obviusly as everybody, and i dont know what are the goals to evolve and if
> they include working with xfwm4.

You see, the issue with "evolving xfce" is not a lack of ideas. It's a
lack of man-power. I obviously don't speak for all of the xfce
developers, but my guess would be that noone would mind adding a
feature to xfwm4, like your hiding animations, if it is reasonably
coded and optional.
But unless you know how to code, discussion emails like yours
unfortunately don't get xfce much ahead.

> Maybe if i like a cool gnome theme or some simple but useful animations i
> can use metacity with xfce. And because they both seems to take the same
> resources, would it be wrong (in the sense of lightweight) to do that? use
> metacity with xfce? I couldnt know without technical details.
> OpenBox is nice but isnt written with gtk, so isnt as much pretty, and adds
> more libs to the shared memory, if i am not wrong.

If metacity with xfce works for you, you should use it, period. And
you can decide yourself, by whatever means you have, to decide if that
is lightweight enough for you or not.
And yes, you are probably right that openbox might add a bit more of
memory usage because it is using other libraries. Nonetheless it might
be more lightweight (I honestly have no clue). Again, just use what
works for you.

If I understand you correctly, then you would like the xfce project as
a whole to move ahead, and that's why you're interested in the
features of the stock components, like xfwm4. That's a nice intention,
but as I wrote above, xfce needs advocacy maybe, and mainly people
that can contribute code, not discussions about features or being
lightweight or not :-).

>>
>> > Because i want a very lightweight WM and a simple minimizing animation,
>> > which xfwm4 seems to not fit in. xfce is better than gnome respecting to
>> > programming philosophy, but is not lightweight to me.
>> > But i was comparing xfwm4 with metacity because the last is the WM of a
>> > heavy desktop and the first the WM of a light desktop and but are very
>> > similar. So why doesnt the heavy desktop use the lighter alternative if
>> > it
>> > is equal or better?
>>
>> Hm, so given the arguments in this email, why are you asking this
>> question to the xfce group, and not to the gnome people? They are free
>> to choose whatever WM they want, and they have switched in the past
>> (at some point sawfish was their default WM).
>
> Because i didnt know that xfwm4 is better than metacity, for me at the
> moment of writing they are both equal, with xfwm4 having less resources for
> animations, but maybe the problems that i am having can be bugs.

Yes, you could file the issues you are having with xfwm4 as bugs /
feature requests. That would help that they don't get forgotten. But
xfce has a lot of work that needs to be done, and you should not
expect someone to work on it soon.

>>
>> >> And if that's what arrives at the other end then you've definitely hit
>> >> the wrong tone, don't you think?
>> >
>> > Of course, but this is a reason to leverage the tone?
>> > Not answering would be a better answer.
>>
>> By the same note, people can respond to you "better not to ask, than
>> to ask in the wrong tone". Keep in mind that most people develop these
>> programs in their spare time, for fun and nothing else.
>
> Yep but at my side and at that moment, i have asked right. So why shouldnt i
> ask a right question?
> Badly or aggressively answering a wrong question is different.
> You can easily see that my english is not perfect, not even correct, so dont
> you have in mind that i can possible be saying something incorrectly but
> with good intentions?
> After all, how many people spend time in subscribe to a list to blame it for
> fun? That would be insane. And for me is the less possible side of
> interpretation.

Hehe, blaming can be fun :-). If your English is not that good, then
be more careful about what you say. Most people on this list are not
native speakers. Looking at the amount of text that you have written,
I think it's very reasonable to say that yo