FvwmPager Bug

Now that I have version 2.6.1 installed and running, I’ve discovered a bug
in the way FvwmPager works, unless there’s something I’m missing. In my
configuration, I have “DeskTopSize 3x3”, and while it’s obvious that my
desktop is actually that size, FvwmPager only shows a 2x2 grid, which
appears to be the first two rows and the first two columns. I’ve played
with various other sizes of desktop by typing commands into FvwmConsole,
and FvwmPager always shows the same 2x2 grid (even if there’s only one
row or one column). Sometimes, the whole current page is highlighted, but
most of the time, it only highlights the top left corner of the page in a
size that is proportional to the size of my desktop. For example, with
my 3x3 desktop, the highlighted area is 1/3 the width of the desktop and
1/3 the height of the desktop, but it’s not just that the lines are wrong;
it really is only showing four pages. If I scroll to the right two pages,
there is no highlighted area in the FvwmPager window, and any windows in
that page don’t appear in FvwmPager. I’ve considered that the configuration
syntax may have changed, but looking at the man pages for both FVWM and
FvwmPager don’t tell me anything, and lead me to believe that this really
is a bug, and I should be seeing a 3x3 grid in the FvwmPager window. Has
anyone else experienced this, or am I missing something?

Put your config somewhere.

Are you running FVWM under a DE such as GNOME or KDE? Have you set EwmhNumberOfDesktops? I’ll be able to tell from your config.

But I see no bug here – FvwmPager’s code hasn’t changed in a long long time – nothing that would affect FVWM 2.6.1

– Thomas Adam

No, I’m not running any kind of desktop. Just FVWM by itself, like I’ve
been running it for years (the old version 2.4 that Slackware has always
included as standard). I’ve still got version 2.4.0 installed, so I can
easily run them both, alternately, or even at the same time, either in
separate virtual consoles, or one in a Xephyr window under the other, and
version 2.4.0 always gives me a 3x3 pager window, while version 2.6.1
consistently gives me a 2x2 pager window. Before installing 2.6.1, I had
version 2.5.31 installed briefly, with the same results as 2.6.1. What
additional information would you like? My configuration is nearly 150k:
over 23000 lines spanning eight files, so I can’t easily post it. Other
than the “DeskTopSize 3x3” line I already posted, the only other part I
would consider relevant to this discussion would be the following:

FvwmPager: Back grey60
FvwmPager: Fore black
FvwmPager: Font -adobe-helvetica-bold-r--
-12-
------
*FvwmPager: Hilight #c3c3c3
*FvwmPager: Geometry 134x108-118+40
*FvwmPager: SmallFont 5x8

The colons weren’t there in my original configuration for 2.4.0, but I
added them after reading the FvwmPager man page, thinking they might have
something to do with the problem, but it didn’t help. The original had
the colons and their adjacent spaces removed. Then the pager is invoked
in InitFunction with this:

  •                       "I" Module FvwmPager *
    

There’s also an additional pager I added recently (a few months ago),
also invoked in InitFunction with this:

  •                       "I" Module FvwmPager FourPager 0 3
    

and it has a corresponding configuration section similar to the first:

FourPager: Back grey60
FourPager: Fore black
FourPager: Font -adobe-helvetica-bold-r--
-12-
------
*FourPager: Hilight #c3c3c3
*FourPager: Geometry 251x57-1+156
*FourPager: SmallFont 5x8

This pager window shows the first four desktops, whereas the first one
is larger, and shows only the current one, and the four-desktop version
shows the same 2x2 desktop size as the original. Any ideas?

Nope – that’s not right, and not reproducible by me.

So I want your config. All of it.

– Thomas Adam

Never mind. I found the problem. Since no one else was seeing the problem,
I figured I would strip my configuration down to just the InitFunction and
FvwmPager configuration, and then if there was no problem, start adding stuff
back in a little at a time. When I started deleting stuff, I came across
this: “ModulePath /usr/libexec/fvwm/2.4.20” (I was mistaken - Slackware
didn’t come with 2.4.0; it was 2.4.20), and I had an “Aha!” moment. I
went back to the original configuration and changed that to “…2.6.1”,
and now the problem is solved. I was still using the old FvwmPager. Sorry
for wasting your time. (I had to add three pixels to the height of my
FvwmPager window, too, so everything still fits together the way it’s
supposed to; something in the new FvwmPager changed the overall size of
the pager window.)

For anyone who might be coming here from somewhere like Google because
they’re having the same problem, I should point out that ModulePath is
not necessary anymore unless you have modules in nonstandard locations,
and evidently hasn’t been necessary for quite some time. I only had it
in there because I’ve been using FVWM for years, and have been carrying
the same configuration forward with each upgrade, and it evidently must
have been necessary at one time. I would also like to correct a previous
statement I made. My configuration is not over 23000 lines; it’s over
3000 lines (a little over 3300 including comments). I did a wc without
the -l because I wanted to see not only how many lines, but also the
total size, and I looked at the wrong number for lines (that’s 23000
words). I apologize for the confusion.

This tends to get tedious. But you can still use ModulePath, providing you don’t outright remove the built-in path. That is, it’s silly to do this:

ModulePath /foo/bar

But OK to do this:

ModulePath /foo/bar:+

Where the “+” carries over the definition from any previous ModulePath construct, as well as the one defined by FVWM at the point it was compiled.

– Thomas Adam