FvwmStep - AfterStepClassic Reborn

FVWM Themes
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This is something I’ve been working on for a while: a recreation of AfterStepClassic. This odd little window manager existed after the BowMan window manager and the first releases of AfterStep and I loved it! I’m working on recreating it and I’m pretty happy with what I got so far. However I am still working on making minimized icons the same size without creating my own and making the root menu look like the one in AfterStepClassic.

The plan is to make this installable with a script ala NsCDE and Fvwm-Crystal and when I do this will be called AfterStepClassic-1.1b3, the first release in twenty two years.

fvwmstep
fvwmstep1920×1080 60.4 KB

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Hi PrisonGuy. I remember AfterStep and liked it. Took a quick look at the Wikipedia.

In 2000, Linux website TuxRadar selected AfterStep as one of the year’s best window managers, praising it as “fast and reliable, with a huge range of configuration options and the ability to create some spectacular themes”

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I’m going to keep working on it for a few more weeks, to get the last things done, if not, I’ll just release it as AfterStepClassic 1.1b3 with a list of regressions ;-)

There is a version for OpenBSD’s ancient FVWM I’m working on.

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And a year later, just about done! Life got in the way.
To do:
Create a GitHub reporsitory
Clean up and comment the fvwm2rc
Make sure I give credit to projects/people

And no config for the ancient version of FVWM on OpenBSD. I use OpenBSD as my OS but getting this to work on it is so, so difficult and probably not worth it.

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afterstepclassic
afterstepclassic1920×1080 69.6 KB

And we have a release:

Lots of fun stuff, enjoy!

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Nice start. A small suggestion about icons: Icons are from the original AfterStep Classic tarball, add the location. Also, add the 9 icons that are visible on the desk, in .fvwm/icons. Looks good when things are ready at startup.

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Great. What difference between AfterStep and Fvwm? Same script (config) works on both. The “Wharf” style of application and function buttons are nice. Better than icons. Less distracting and easy to click on.
There is a Debian afterstep package, will check it.

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I’ll have to google where a tarball for the original ASClassic can be found, honestly, I’ve had the tarball in a back up for years.

The Debian ASClassic is pretty broken, last I checked.

I found some tile backgrounds for the buttons, I just have to scale them up.

AS Classic was based on FVWM 1.x. The Wharf could be hidden and “rolled” up, something I can’t imagine trying to implement.

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If this is about the Panel command that “rolls on/off” FvwmButtons, it was also new for me when I had a look at one old Sample-95 config. Did you read this recent topic? Also, @amlug posted one example of Panel in action.

I will make one test script of your Wharf buttons.

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That’s interesting, I’ll try it. Fun fact: the Wharf wasn’t able to be hidden in AS Classic 1.1b1, it was in 1.b2, Debian never updated their package, it seems the 1.1b2 release was ignored, I only found it by pure chance a few months ago. I’ll get around to uploading to GitHub soon.

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I uploaded 1.1b1 and b2 to GitHub under “old releases”.

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Okay, even though the release notes says the Wharf can be “rolled” up, what they actually mean is way simpler:

The second beta has one new feature:

The *WharfHide configuration option tells Wharf to hide itself
most of the time, popping up temporarily only when the mouse
pointer hits a designated screen edge. For example,

  *WharfHide 1

tells Wharf to hide until the mouse pointer hits the right
edge of the screen. And

  *WharfHide 3

tells Wharf to hide until the mouse pointer hits the left edge
of the screen.

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Did a test, a few suggestions and a sample roll button. I didn’t find the WharfHide feature.

  1. ImagePath correction, add .fvwm between $HOME/ and /icons
    ImagePath $HOME/.fvwm:/usr/local/share/icons:$HOME/.fvwm/icons
  2. Information: Fvwm2 version 2.7 doesn’t use fvwm2rc but config.

Sample how to add Roll Button in fvwm2rc

################
#Init functions .... disable this function
################
AddToFunc StartFunction
# + I Module FvwmButtons Wharf ## disabled

################
#The Wharf (this is ok)
################
Style "Wharf" NoTitle, !Handles, !Borders, StaysOnBottom

*Wharf: Geometry 68x656-0+0
*Wharf: Font -adobe-times-bold-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
and other options and all buttons

#######
## Roll Button ... after Wharf buttons add this RollBar button
#######

Module FvwmButtons RollBar
DestroyModuleConfig RollBar: *
*RollBar: Fore Black
*RollBar: Back grey
*RollBar: Geometry 68x68-0+0
*RollBar: Rows 1
*RollBar: Frame 0

*RollBar: (1x1, Icon 'penguin.xpm', Panel (down, steps 6, delay 10, position module top, indicator 40) "Wharf" 'Module FvwmButtons Wharf')

Style RollBar NoTitle, NoHandles, Sticky, WindowListSkip, \
	BorderWidth 0, CirculateSkip

Click on/off

roll-button

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Version 2.2.12 is ok. A bit slow compared to Fvwm but nice features. Was it AfterStep or Fvwm having the first rollup button and the multi-action button (mouse 1, 2, 3 exec different apps/command)?

Restart/logout rollup-left is cool.
afterstep-buttons

Multi-action on title bar button.
multi-button

My first multi action:

*MultiButton: (1x1, Title "TH/XT/CL", Icon $[icons]/multi.png, \
	Action(Mouse 1) 'Exec exec thunar',\
	Action(Mouse 2) 'Exec exec xterm', \
	Action(Mouse 3) "Exec exec $[USER_DIR]/script/Calendar.sh", Frame 1)
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I see your confusion. The current Afterstep is a different beast from AfterStep Classic. AfterStep Classic was a short lived fork of AfterStep 1.x and was a separate package in Debian.

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Thanks guys…
i only want a little help…
can i just use the .config file on fvwmrc instead of installing a whole repo ?
also how to add remove icons on dock ?
Thanks…

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Yep, copy the fvwmrc into your config file. This will be fixed in the next release. You do need the icons from the icons folder.

To add items, edit your config file. The syntax is easy to use.

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afterstepclassic
afterstepclassic1920×1080 90.1 KB

Inching closer to release. Updated in git so far:
Button backgrounds now have they have that wonderful (?) AfterStep grey tiles now.
Fixed the size of the Wharf so the tiles actually work.
Uploaded the original AfterStep Classic b1 and b2 tarballs.

Up next:
Update the config file.
Implement Rasat’s Wharf roll up.

Once that’s finished, Beta 4 will be released.

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Fixed the root menu font so it actually works.
Removed xterm action on the AfterStep logo because its redundant, it will also be the place where the roll up action happens.
I tried adding a drawer via a container in the Wharf, but it didn’t work because it doesn’t work like that.
Finally, I got AfterStep Classic 1.1b2 installed on NetbSD, the last OS I can get the thing to compile and found I was missing some stuff; the root menu is called HotList so I changed that in github, the icons animate minimizing/unminimizing, so that will implemented via FvwmAnimate and finally, the minimized icons are packed together (which I knew) with the label on top, which I also knew, but these things don’t work in FVWM.
Onto the roll up!

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Rasat’s roll up implemented in Github :-) It’s sweet!
Next up: the minimize icon animation, I have to see exactly what AfterStep Classic uses. The .steprc says it uses zoom but the action sure looks like spin. I’ll look at it later this weekend.

Then 1.1b4 release!

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