Howto: Install and configure Pekwm

[Mos_Barbuta]

Thanks for this guide, the installation went perfectly

It really seems like the perfect window manager for me (I love the screen edges) but I have a big problem with the panel behaviour : when I click on the panel, the window gets focused, but stays under the other maximised windows.

I tried all the panels out there (xfce, perlpanel, barpanel, bmpanel, tint, fbpanel, lxpanel...) but I have the same problem.

The only one that works is pypanel...but I have another problem : all the windows related with another window stay on the panel, even after being closed or minimised (ex: plugins config for audacious, search in synaptic, any application that goes into tray, etc). These windows disappear from the panel only after closing the main application.

It's very frustrating because I really love pekwm.

What panel/dock do you use with pekwm? Did you have the same problems?

Thanks for your help

[urukrama]

If I use a panel, I use pypanel with Pekwm. The problems you encounter with it are well-known, and there isn't a workaround yet. It is fixed in the git version of Pekwm, though (See here under "Development"), which should be released as 0.1.7 'soon'.

I haven't experienced the problems with other panels you mentioned, but then I rarely use other panels. I'll try it out myself.

Btw, thanks for mentioning barpanel. I hadn't seen that one before.

[Mos_Barbuta]

Thanks for your answer.

I'll be waiting for the 0.17 release (and keep using pypanel in the meantime)

[droog]

Anyone else have problems with shading windows when using xcompmgr? After shading a window it leaves artifacts of the window on the desktop and it gets all glitchy
and if you move the titlebar around it leaves a trail.
It happens when using most themes but a few like elegant brit and blackwhite it works perfectly.

I have no problems using xcompmgr in fvwm openbox fluxbox or any other wm, only pek.

[jviscosi]

If I use a panel, I use pypanel with Pekwm. The problems you encounter with it are well-known, and there isn't a workaround yet. It is fixed in the git version of Pekwm, though (See here under "Development"), which should be released as 0.1.7 'soon'.

I haven't experienced the problems with other panels you mentioned, but then I rarely use other panels. I'll try it out myself.

Btw, thanks for mentioning barpanel. I hadn't seen that one before.

I grabbed the git version and it still had the problem of windows not raising when clicking on them in the fbpanel taskbar, so I added a line to fbpanel's taskbar.c file (borrowed from the method that gets called when you right-click on the task icon and select "Raise", which does work) and that seems to have fixed it. This is nasty and hackish, but it makes me happy; now I can move on to messing with my PekWM configuration ...

I can post the change I made to taskbar.c if anyone's interested, although I'm not sure this is the appropriate spot for that sort of thing.

[Sammm_]

Brilliant guide but I can't actually load the session. When I select the PekWM session from GDM it complains that there isn't a "Exec" line and it reverts to the failsafe xterm session, any ideas what could be up?

Cheers.

Edit: Solved the problem, after some google-fu.

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=PekWM
Comment=Use PekWM as your window manager
Exec=pekwm
TryExec=pekwm
# no icon yet, only the top three are currently used
Icon=
Type=Application

Another question now... any idea how I can get the XFCE quit dialog to show? I.e. is there a command I can run from the menu for it?

[canistra]

how to set up normal window behaviour in pekwm ? thanks ! cheers !

[jviscosi]

how to set up normal window behaviour in pekwm ? thanks ! cheers !

I'm not sure what you consider normal, but Urukrama has a very helpful blog post that I used as the basis for my pekwm settings. That might help you out.

[canistra]

when I say normal , I mean a behaviour like in xfce or other normal WM // DE

[lkajdflkjaoeif]

I grabbed the git version and it still had the problem of windows not raising when clicking on them in the fbpanel taskbar, so I added a line to fbpanel's taskbar.c file (borrowed from the method that gets called when you right-click on the task icon and select "Raise", which does work) and that seems to have fixed it. This is nasty and hackish, but it makes me happy; now I can move on to messing with my PekWM configuration ...

I can post the change I made to taskbar.c if anyone's interested, although I'm not sure this is the appropriate spot for that sort of thing.

Same problem here. Would be really nice if you could post your changes here. You should commit your changes or send a patch to the developers.

Thank you in advance,
lkajdflkjaoeif