====================================
Dakkar's ``fvwm-crystal`` settings
====================================
I use a 2800x1050 desktop (two 20" LCD panels on a GeForce 6600), with
a `slightly modified version`_ of the `TopLine` recipe. I also use a 5x5
pages virtual desktop, and a Dvorak keyboard with valume keys (mapped
to the proper keycodes in X11). My music player is `AmaroK`, and my
desktop manager is `ROX`.
.. _`slightly modified version`: ../tree/recipes/TopLine
Since my monitors can "pivot", I have further modified the recipe to
handle rotating the displays. This needs help from the video card. See
the section `Rotating the displays`_.
The recipe
==========
The main differences from the stock `TopLine` are:
- different desktop bindings
- larger thumbnails
- different behaviour of the edges
- 2 identical pagers (one per physical screen)
- geometries rewritten to use ``@g`` to work with `Xinerama`
- each pager (and my "biff" terminal) is raised above all other
windows if I keep the mouse pointer on it long enough
- some functions added to handle `rotating the displays`_
The decoration
==============
I have changed the `Clearlooks DeepSky` decoration_ to add a mini-icon
as button 3.
.. _decoration: ../tree/decorations/Dakkar/
The colorsets
=============
Since I use tha `Gentoo` version of ``fvwm2``, it has a patch that
allow fake transparency in the menus. Thus, I changed the
`DarkDesktop` and `WhiteDesktop` colorsets_ to use this feature.
.. _colorsets: ../tree/colorsets/
The bindings
============
I redefined most keyboard bindings to my taste. Of particular interest
may be the Music_ file, where I bind the volume controls to the volume
keycodes, and the ``Music-GUI`` function to the "eject" keycode. I
also bound most window manipulation functions to various combination
of ``Alt`` and the numeric keypad (see the `Window-Control-Dakkar`_
file)
.. _Music: ../tree/components/bindings/Music
.. _Window-Control-Dakkar: ../tree/components/bindings/Window-Control-Dakkar
The preferences
===============
To be able to select `AmaroK` as a music player, and `amixer` as a
mixer control, I created the `dakkar_Preferences`_ file, which adds
them to the appropriate menus.
.. _`dakkar_Preferences`: ../tree/components/desktop/dakkar_Preferences
The styles and icons
====================
I added some style declaration and icons for some applications
(e.g. the windows created by ``xine-ui`` and ``xpad`` should be bare,
and I added icons for ``xchat-2`` and ``skype``)
The functions
=============
I redefined a couple of function in the Numpad_ to add the
``AnyScreen`` option.
.. _Numpad: ../tree/components/functions/Numpad
Then I wrote the `Mixer-amixer`_ and `Music-amarok`_ files to interact
with by chosen music programs.
.. _`Mixer-amixer`: ../tree/components/functions/Mixer-amixer
.. _`Music-amarok`: ../tree/components/functions/Music-amarok
``amixer`` is a simple command-line mixer, and its integration was
easy.
`AmaroK` is a `KDE` application, and it's not straightforward to
control. At the moment only "random", "repeat", "stop", "play/pause"
and "show/hide" are implemented, all via ``dcop`` calls.
The ``Music-GUI`` function is used to toggle the display of
`AmaroK`, and also to start it: it the ``dcop`` calls fails, the
``amarok`` command gets executed, launching the program.
.. note:: `AmaroK` and `Trayer`
For some not-really-clear-to-me reason, the tray icon of `AmaroK`
is not displayed by `Trayer`, normally. To work around this
problem, I have written the small ``amarok`` script, which sits in
my ``~/bin`` directory (which is at the beginning of my
``$PATH``). Using this, the icon works as expected.
I also tweaked a Perl script I found on the Web to create a menu for
my ``screen`` sessions, see the `Screen-Menu`_ configuration file and
the `fvwm-screen.pl`_ script.
.. _`Screen-Menu`: ../tree/components/functions/Screen-Menu
.. _`fvwm-screen.pl`: ../tree/scripts/fvwm-screen.pl
Finally, in the `Notify`_ file, I redefined the ``UrgencyFunc`` to pop
up a notification via the dbus notification mechanism (using a `simple
Perl script`_ which uses `Net::DBus`_).
.. _Notify: ../tree/components/functions/Notify
.. _`simple Perl script`: ../tree/FvwmNotify.pm
.. _`Net::DBus`: http://search.cpan.org/~danberr/Net-DBus-0.33.5/
Rotating the displays
=====================
This takes a little background.
First of all, my ``/etc/X11/xorg.conf`` file has a ``Screen`` section
like this::
Section "Screen"
Identifier "dual-nv"
Device "nvidia"
Monitor "LCD"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "TwinView" "true"
Option "MetaModes" "DFP-0: 1400x1050 @1400x1050 +0+0, DFP-1: 1400x1050 @1400x1050 +1400+0"
Option "RandRRotation" "on"
Option "Xinerama" "on"
SubSection "Display"
ViewPort 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1400x1050"
EndSubSection
EndSection
This specifies that, normally, I use my displays horizontally, one to
the right of the other.
Then, in my `~/.xinirc`_, I add a second "MetaMode"::
./bin/nv-control-dpy --add-metamode \
'DFP-0: 1400x1050 @1400x1050 +0+1050, DFP-1: 1400x1050 @1400x1050 +0+0'
The ``nv-control-dpy`` program can be found in the source tarball for
the ``nvidia-settings`` program, in the ``samples`` subdirectory.
You may be wondering: why adding a second MetaMode in this way, when
you can specify both in the ``xorg.conf`` file? Good question. The
answer is that, if you do it "the logical way", the always helpful
NVidia drivers will tell the X server that you have a virtual screen
whose size is the bounding box of the union of all MetaModes. Which in
my case would mean that I'd have a lot of panning around, *very*
irritating when you use multiple viewports. Adding the MetaMode after
the startup of the X server avoids this issue.
In the recipe, I have two functions to set landscape (normal) and
portrait (vertical) orientation. They call ``xrandr`` to set the
display orientation and size, and do some repositioning of the various
things that need it:
- a script instructs `ROX-Filer` to change its "pinboard" to the one
with the proper layout (this is not optimal, but since I very rarely
change the contents of my pinboard, works well enough for me)
- `gkrellm2` and my "biff" terminal get moved to their proper
positions during ``StartFunction``
Maybe there's a samrter way to get the same result, but this works,
and it only took an evening to set up.
.. _`~/.xinirc`: ../tree/xinitrc
