“Once again FOSDEM is over and was a great success for GNUstep. Attendance by GNUstep developers/users was, if anything, even better than last year, and the combined GNUstep/OpenGroupware booth was well attended and looked very good with a selection of leaflets to give away, books to show NeXT and Cocoa relationships, and T-shirts for sale.”
Great coverage. Was there any videos recorded?
Yes, jesse ross did film some of the presentations 🙂 — he’ll probably put that live when he has time to do the editing.
Check some pictures too: http://jesseross.com/blog/ and http://iamleeg.blogspot.com/2007/02/apres-ca-le-fosdem.html
Graham’s account: http://iamleeg.blogspot.com/2007/02/apres-ca-le-fosdem.html
for GNUStep + Etoile + Windowmaker to get wide acceptance.
Next in the row is LESSTIF .
+1
Windowmaker is the ONLY desktop I run nowadays. After wasting time with KDE, Gnome, even Blackbox and Fluxbox, I have to say Windowmaker has the only features that allow me to feel truly productive:
1. Virtual desktops (“workspaces” in Windowmaker parlance)
– Incredibly fast switching– literally the blink of an eye
– easiest key combination for switching (CTRL-ALT+left or right arrow)
– Auto-creation of new desktops as needed (that’s in the configuration options
I like to work in multiple desktops, each with one window open fullscreen. My text editor might be in desktop 1 and my testing/output window in desktop 2. Moving from edit to test is a key combination away, with absolutely no visual clutter. Even more importantly, Windowmaker allows you to configure any application to always open in a specified workspace. This means I can fire up 3 applications at once, and start working on one while the others start up and quietly go to their desktops without interrupting me. Niiiiice…. especially if you want to start editing while waiting for Thunderbird and Firefox to start up.
2. Window manipulation.
– any window can be pulled, stretched, moved, etc… without needing to click on that tiny strip around the edge, or finding the top bar. I hate having to use other window managers, especially in my 1920×1200 laptop display, because you have to work so hard to get that mouse into those few pixels around the edge of a screen in order to resize or move. In Windowmaker, just hit ALT + mousedown to move a window, ALT+right-click to resize a window.
– the outer window menus (minimize,maximise,close, and a host of other useful features) can be accessed instantly with CTRL-ESC, no mouse needed. I realize that most other window managers have key commands to access this, but usually it takes two or more keys in succession to get the equivalent features.
– the window interface follows the standard window switching method used by just about all other graphical desktops: ALT-TAB. This is nice because for once the standard happens to be a quite intuitive, easy approach. Windowmaker doesn’t go out of it’s way to be different for no reason.
– since any window or application can have a customized set of attributes, this allows me to configure certain applications to always open up fullscreen, with absolutely no chrome, and within their specified workspace (as mentioned above). Since literally everything you do with a window can be done with a combination of shortcut keys and the mouse, I can still easily move,resize,maximize/minimize.
– Also, Windowmaker is the only WM I know of that will let you select multiple windows and move them as one.
3. Main windows menu:
Again, you aren’t forced to move your mouse or shuffle graphical elements to get to your main WindowMaker menu. Just hit F12 and you are there.
4. Tear-off menus:
This is something also available in Blackbox/Fluxbox. Any level of menu or submenu from the main Windowmaker menu can be separated from the main menu and left floating over your window (always on top). This is great if you want to repeatedly access this submenu without navigating down the hierarchy each time. For example, go to Appearance->Themes, tear off the Themes menu and leave it floating, and then you can cycle quickly through themes until you find one you like*.
*Granted, that touches on the ONE downside of Windowmaker: it’s themes and styles are sooo 1990s. It would be truly nice to see some renovation in this area, such as increased style options, along with Cairo and OpenGL integration, but really that is not a necessity. I actually use a computer desktop to get work done.
I am a new GNUstep user so I am still looking for and trying out the different apps I can find, but does anyone know if a web browser based on GNUstep exists or if is even possible with the current frameworks?
Search and ye shall find.
http://wiki.gnustep.org/index.php/Application_wish_list#Web_browser
I really want a webbrowser in GNUstep as well. I had my first few hours with it today, and I’m hooked.
I really want a webbrowser in GNUstep as well. I had my first few hours with it today, and I’m hooked.
You are not alone, and I’m not surprised you’re hooked. GNUstep sort of does that to people
I wonder how much would be involved in porting GNUstep to BeOS, not strictly Unix based, but has fair Posix compatibility, this would seem much more compelling than the previous GTK port done years ago. Seems like a great way to get quality apps onto a platform too.
While I love GNUstep, (I’m actually learning to program Objective-C in the hopes of writing a few desktop apps one day for it) it looks quite different from your usually app just on linux. In BeOS a GNUstep app might look damn near awful. Though from what I recall there is work going into making GNUstep apps play better with other systems, including KDE and gnome I haven’t heard BeOS mentioned at all. One hurdle is though that BeOS’ gcc complier is extremely behind the times these days and will be for the release of haiku R1 as well in order to prevent breakage if I’m not mistaken. I don’t know if it would be an issue for compiling objective-c programs, which is what the majority, if not all of the current GNUstep apps out there use, but it very well might be a large one.