JWM's Aesthetic Weakpoint

[JASpup]

I've spent so much time customizing my JWM desktop, I'm using it more now than LXDE or XFCE on my 32 puppies.

Alas, I am convinced the lo-res Notification Area icons are JWM's enduring aesthetic weakpoint.

This isn't the difference between bad and good, but decent and refined.

Theoretically you can keep all of JWM's benefits and create an interface on-par with XFCE, but it requires too much technical expertise.

[greengeek]

Do you have any idea which is the best resolution for a JWM tray icon?
I assume there is probably one specific res that is rendered best. Or does it vary depending on screen specs and dpi etc?
Forum member ETP always seemed to make icons and trays look great. And some other puppians also seem to have the same ability to make things look crisp but I think there is a bit of clever understanding as well as artistic skill in using the right icon...

[amethyst]

Yes, this is an icon size issue and not a JWM problem. The 16x16 and 24x24 icons provided with puppy distributions appear dull (when "blown up" to fit) whilst 48x48 and higher appear vivid. Not sure about the size of the icons that can be displayed in the notification area but 48x48 should be about right. I think I have even used 128x128 icons in the taskbar tray before without any problems. If the image in itself is of poor colour depth, it will be of bad quality no matter the size.

[wiak]

The weakpoint, for me, of JWM is this scenario:

You have browser minimised, so appears in bottom panel only.

You have an html file in your open filemanager that you wish to open in that browser.

If this was openbox then dragging that html file down to the bottom panel browser 'tab' would automatically open the browser window again allowing you to drop the file there and see it immediately.

In JWM, that doesn't work, so first you have to click JWM open (but that alas obscures your file manager that has the html file open in it, so you have to click filemanager into the foreground (and hope it is not scaled to full screen) and only then can you drag and drop the html file into the visible open browser window.

Otherwise JWM is pretty great. However... because I use drag/drop files technique all the time I much prefer having openbox as my window manager.

Yes, clicking on the html file will all going well open it in the browser (if set up to work that way), but what if I want to use a different minimised browser or open it in a minimised text editor instead. A small advantage of openbox, perhaps, but in practice I really find JWM painful because it doesn't have that drag/drop capability. No big deal I suppose, but enough for my electing to use openbox instead (why suffer even in a minor way when I don't need to?). Configuring openbox (via the many tools available to do so) is also less painful to me than mucking around with JWM awkward-syntax text files (despite me having previously used JWM for years, and being very familiar with 'awkward syntax' config files more generally). The RAM saving of using JWM simply isn't significant enough for me to install it rather than openbox (except, maybe, on a particularly low RAM machine of which there are fewer and fewer still existing or working - I do have one ancient old machine, but not low-powered enough that JWM offers any improvement over using openbox/tint2 (for example) and anyway, such old machines often guzzle too much electricity compared to their utility and have clunky keyboards and are falling to bits (in the case of the ones I have) - just not comfortable to use (and I have a dozen other better laptops lying around gathering dust anyway). Puppy should move on from JWM machines (choice is okay though) and to some extent it has (with LXDE pups, for example). JWM certainly has its place though when target is truly old low-powered machine where every byte of RAM is important and every WM action that uses as little CPU cycles as possible (Hence I like WeeDog_Void32 that rockedge is developing - though for other slightly more powerful laptops personally I would modify its build plugin to use openbox instead).

[MochiMoppel]

I am convinced the lo-res Notification Area icons are JWM's enduring aesthetic weakpoint.

What on earth does this have to do with JWM?
Icons in the notification area are usually compiled into the programs that use this area. JWM has no say in their aesthetic value or resolution. All JWM is doing is - if necessary - scale them to the hight you set for the tray.

[JASpup]

@greengeek
Yes, I believe there's ONE guy out there with a really nice-looking tray.

@amethyst
I think they look a little better in XFCE, but they also look like the same icons.

@wiak
I see your frustration, but I'm not sure how much your functionality has to do with aesthetics. For ANY user there's going to be a discomfort-comfort level via appearances, but what I'm essentially trying to do is put WMs in leagues.

The best comparison there might be video games: People like old video games for the novelty, but they won't swear by them as 'the best gaming has to offer'.

XFCE just has the sweet spot of a modest footprint + visual refinement, but overall the proof is in its popularity.

Moving a menu item to the desktop for a launcher - JWM should try it!

@MochiMoppel
You're right. Overall XFCE looks nicer out-of-the-box, so it seems like the Notification Area is better when it isn't. It seems like the Notification Area is part of the tray, so it goes with the Windows Manager, but it doesn't.

These issues are why I've difficulty committing to a distro.

This is X-Tahr:

[greengeek]

... Moving a menu item to the desktop for a launcher - JWM should try it!

Hi JASpup,

If i understand your comment correctly you would like JWM to offer the ability to select a program from the menu and place it on the desktop or into the launcher tray? Did i understand correctly?

This is possible!

I use the following pet to create a tray icon (or desktop icon) for any program in the JWM menu.
It is only applicable to the original standard JWM structure (Not the more recent one created by Radky's JWM desk manager which unfortunately uses multiple jwmrc tray template substitution)
After loading the pet look for "Add a Program to the ROX desktop" in the desktop menu.
(It lets you choose whether to add the icon to the desktop or into the quicklaunch tray).

JWM_menu2tray_gg-1.4.pet

(14.09 KiB) Downloaded 45 times

This pet requires replaceit which is available here:
Replaceit32.pet:
download/file.php?id=1078
Replaceit64.pet:
download/file.php?id=1079

The menu2tray pet uses Taersh's clever code from this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=106&t=987
(I made a small change to the code to eliminate dependency on xdotool, and to add a bit of onscreen coaching to help the user with menu selection)

WARNING: Always back up your savefile or savefolder before trying .pets - or test the pet on a pristine boot without any savefile at all.
WARNING: Use this pet on puppies that use a single /root.jwmrc-tray file. It will not work on puppies that have the multiple hybrid jwmrc trays in /root/.jwm

MochiMoppel offered another method here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=100819

[bigpup]

JWM was picked to be in Puppy Linux to help keep the size of Puppy small.
Yes JWM has limits.
Use something else or deal with it's limits.

The files in /usr/share/applications are the .desktop files for menu entries.
In each file is the info for what icon to use.
Hopefully, whoever coded this file, picked a good looking icon.
Example:
palemoon.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Palemoon
Icon=/usr/share/icons/mozicon128.png
Comment=Palemoon web browser
Exec=palemoon
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=X-Internet-browser
GenericName=Palemoon web browser

Notice the icon it is using.
Icon=/usr/share/icons/mozicon128.png
A PNG image data, 128 x 128, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced

Again, Puppy Linux is about keeping it small in size.
The more detailed icons are, the bigger the icon file will be, thus adding to the overall size of Puppy Linux.

[bigpup]

There is this program you can download and use.
PupMenu-6.2.1
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=76713
Lets you do about anything to the menu.
It will install two entries in menu->Utility to run it.
In a 64bit Puppy, may need to have the Puppy versions 32bit compatibility SFS loaded.

[MochiMoppel]

If i understand your comment correctly you would like JWM to offer the ability to select a program from the menu and place it on the desktop or into the launcher tray? Did i understand correctly?
This is possible!

For JWM (!) this is not possible.
Very impossible in case of desktop shortcuts because JWM as the windowmanager cannot run functions of the filemanager and doesn't even know which filemanager is running. Knows nothing of the ROX-Filer pinboard and how to create desktop shortcuts and doesn't have to know. Not its business.
A bit less impossible in case of tray buttons because JWM owns the tray, so in theory creating a traybutton from a menuitem would seem to be more feasible, but GTK does not support drag'n'drop for menuitems.

Of course third party programs can convert JWM menuitems into whatever is needed, but JWM itself can't do this.

MochiMoppel offered another method here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=100819

This is too old. The new version is here , just 2 topics before this topic

[JASpup]

LXDE resolution looks even better than XFCE, especially network & firewall. Clipboard is using a different icon.

The only ones I would change are the super-useful storage monitor and temperature.

Otherwise your points are all related:

I'm sophisticated enough to use modest enhancements, but when they're not a part of the Mainline installs and come with caveats, the issue of standardization and integration is key.

I have no idea how some good idea becomes a part of Puppy, but that's the central issue.

This connects to the take-it-or-leave it idea. Puppy should always seek efficiency with a light WM, but 'flavors' that somebody's going to make/use anyway are still lighter than other distro competition, while an XFCE is going to be the heaviest flavor in Puppy while in other distros the lightest.

I'm not heavily biased on Puppy's WM usage as a user, but notice that this grey area of unofficial compatibility doesn't work very well.

I'm sort of buzzing around with a lot of choices seeing advantages and disadvantages everywhere instead of making the most out of one Puppy.