FreeBSD fvwm3 problems

Configuration General Questions
1

The default fvwm3 configuration on FreeBSD has various bad issues.
Most notable is that PgDn pops up the FVWM menu, and arrow down creates a xterm.
So, the FVWM3 config “out of the box” gives a quite bad first impression.

When I transferred my old FVWM2 config, I noticed the EdgeScroll problem described here.

When trying to find out the FVWM version using fvwm3 -V, it only shows "fvwm3 1.0.2 (released)
with support for: ReadLine, PNG, Shape, XShm, SM, Bidi text, XRandR, XRender, XCursor, XFT, NLS
".
I am using FreeBSD 12.2 configured to use the “latest” repo.
So I guess the FVWM3 there is not the most recent one?
Or could there be other reasons for the EdgeScroll issue?

What do you think? Should I file a bug report in the FreeBSD bug tracker?

2

Latest fvwm3 release (stable): 1.0.3-66
git clone https://github.com/fvwmorg/fvwm3.git

3

Since I don’t know what this default config is, I can’t say whether what you’re describing is meant to be true or not.

Please try the latest fvwm3-1.0.3 release (or ideally the master branch in git for the main fvwm3 repo: GitHub - fvwmorg/fvwm3: FVWM version 3 -- the successor to fvwm2). Please open any issues there if you’re still having problems.

4

Sorry for this late reply which revives an old topic. However, since I just recently began using the default config I too ran into the strange “arrow down creates an xterm” issue. I cannot be sure precisely WHY this is true on FreeBSD but I can say that my keyboard is attached via ps2 port. What solved the odd binding was to disable the ‘Super’ key. Excerpt from .fvwm/config below.

# Super_R (windows key) will launch a terminal.
# Alt-Space to launch dmenu (Note: dmenu must be present in the system)
# 
# Silent suppresses any errors (such as keyboards with no Menu key).
Silent Key F1 A M Menu MenuFvwmRoot
Silent Key Menu A A Menu MenuFvwmRoot
Silent Key Tab A M WindowList Root c c NoDeskSort, NoGeometry, SelectOnRelease Meta_L
Silent Key F1 A C GotoDesk 0 0
Silent Key F2 A C GotoDesk 0 1
Silent Key F3 A C GotoDesk 0 2
Silent Key F4 A C GotoDesk 0 3
#Silent Key Super_R A A Exec exec $[infostore.terminal]
Silent Key Super_R A A

My solution was to remove the binding portion which succeeded, though possibly there is another way with more finesse. I almost never use the PgDn key, but in testing moments ago, yes it will bring up the FVWM menu. This menu is different than my custom root menu, so that seems odd but it is helpful to have access to both until I merge everything into the new config by one method or other.

My FVWM3 is built and reinstalled (not automatically) with each new source commit from fvwmorg/fvwm3/commits/master and I keep my own repo for this at https://github.com/tigersharke/fvwm3-dev

I’m a long time FVWM user, still learning how to enhance my use of it. Thank you!

5

What does the output of xev show when you press the keys which aren’t doing what you expect them to do? I suspect something else has grabbed them before fvwm can.

6

No idea whether keys are being grabbed.
After I replaced the default FreeBSD FVWM config with my own Meow+Purr config that I use since 2016, problems went away.

I made a .tar with the default fvwm config, but I see I cannot upload that for some reason.

7

Then it’s all rather moot, but that will have been the issue.

8

Not so sure…
I really think I should make a FreeBSD PR and link to @tigersharke 's post with the fixes he found.
Because, a FVWM configuration that ill-behaves that way will likely p!ss off potential FVWM-interested people.

9

I tried xev two ways, from within an xterm, and that didn’t seem as helpful, but “^[[6~” without the quotes is what I saw if I pressed the Page Down key in that xterm window. However, if I told xev to generate a window of its own, and I put the mouse over it, then pressed the Page Down key, I saw the following:

KeyPress event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x2200001,
    root 0x50f, subw 0x2200002, time 540747539, (46,46), root:(3148,510),
    state 0x0, keycode 117 (keysym 0xff56, Next), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x2200001,
    root 0x50f, subw 0x2200002, time 540747658, (46,46), root:(3148,510),
    state 0x0, keycode 117 (keysym 0xff56, Next), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

I hope this is helpful. Once more, this unusual effect was for me due to choosing to use the config installed as /usr/local/share/fvwm3/default-config/config which I copied to my user’s ~/.fvwm directory.

10

I’m able to reproduce this with a fresh install of FreeBSD 13.2-RELEASE-p3. No configuration in ~/.fvwm/ , only the default config from the freebsd package. Pressing down-arrow spawns an xterm, while PageDown shows the FVWM menu (“MenuFvwmRoot” in the config, apparently).

So this is still an issue and something, somewhere needs to be fixed. However, it’s a bit hard to debug because simply restarting fvwm without restarting the X server (left-click on the desktop → “Restart”) removes this behaviour – until the next X session, that is.

My hardware is a thinkpad T430, which is different from the PS/2 keyboard reported above. The OS keymap is set to “US English with accent keys”.