What Window/Desktop Manager has all these features? [closed]

Question

I have been long time kde 3.5 user, but now it's more difficult to get it on newer Linux distributions. I tried to use kde4, but found it unusable. So, perhaps you can suggest which desktop or window manager to use.

I generally use a lot of keyboard shortcuts - mostly using windows key on keyboard. But, on the other hand - I don't like tiling window managers.

I need environment where I could define (and use of course) shortcuts for all the following actions:

1. maximize window
2. make window full screen
3. remove window border
4. mark window as "always on top"
5. mark window as "visible on all virtual desktops"
6. start any defined command (for example: "windows key" + "f" starts firefox)
7. set desktop wallpaper from command line

Also I need a way to specify preferences for given windows at start, for example:

• firefox starts without border and title, with given window position and size (can be moved , but it has predefined starting geometry)
• terminal starts maximized, with no border
• mplayer is not displayed on task bar or virtual desktops preview

Additional "plus" if you know terminal application that is more lightweight than konsole (from kde) that can: - have predefined sessions, that can start new tab with this session on a defiend keypress (example: press windows-m, and it creates new tab with mutt running instead of bash) - allow me to divide the window into many separate terminals - split view, and a way to save layout and restore it later. - handle utf8 input/output.

Does such environment exist? or did it "die" with kde 3.5?

Answer 1

I would recommend OpenBox. It's extremely fast, runs with KDE & Gnome if you like, and is highly configurable. There 's detailed help on the actions page to give you sense of what's possible.

Answer 2

I think Compiz can do all that (just mess around in ccsm for some time).

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1. set desktop wallpaper from command line

In GNOME, you can use

gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename --type string foo.png

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Additional "plus" if you know terminal application that is more lightweight than konsole (from kde) that can: - have predefined sessions, that can start new tab with this session on a defiend keypress (example: press windows-m, and it creates new tab with mutt running instead of bash) - allow me to divide the window into many separate terminals - split view, and a way to save layout and restore it later. - handle utf8 input/output.

gnome-terminal? Doesn't have split view though.

And the "press windows-m, and it creates new tab with mutt" thing should be handled externally, IMO.

Answer 3

You might take a look at PekWM and IceWM as well. Both fulfill all the requirements you listed above although nowadays I would prefer the latter one as it is easier to configure. However, PekWM appears to be more flexible and also offers more configuration possibilities that may be beneficial if you are dealing with many applications that shall be treated differently (Gimp, Dia, Mozilla Firefox, URxvt, just to name a few contrary design concepts). I have used both for quite some time and I cannot remember them crashing or misbehaving once.

If you are mainly a console-user, a tiling window manager would be even more adequate for your needs. Therefore, I can recommend i3 as it is well-documented, implements UTF-8 and is very straight-forward compared to other tiling window managers.

Answer 4

KDE/KWin 4.3 has these features.

1. maximize window — ✔ Global keyboard shortcut.
2. make window full screen — ✔ The important applications support this natively; all other can be coërced by removing their border, hiding the task bar and maximising the window.
3. remove window border — ✔ Global keyboard shortcut.
4. mark window as "always on top" — ✔ Global keyboard shortcut.
5. mark window as "visible on all virtual desktops" — ✔ Global keyboard shortcut.
6. start any defined command (for example: "windows key" + "f" starts firefox) — ✔ K menu global keyboard shortcut

You have already accepted an answer to question 7.

Concerning window preferences at start, KDE applications support this via command line parameters, see

somekdeapplication --help-qt
somekdeapplication --help-kde

Another possibility is the Window specific settings applet, reachable from the window title context menu. Change settings such as borderless, maximised or the position there and have them reäpply at application start.