donn@MILTON.U.WASHINGTON.EDU (Donn Cave) (07/28/90)
From a couple of estheticians: >you would think they could invest some time into making them more visually >appealing. Would 3-D color effects really be that hard to do for one of ... >What about a compromise: decent 3d look which does NOT waste resources >(not only CPU cycles) the way Motif does ? Does beautiful graphic design depend on fake 3-D ornamentation? I hope not! But whatever esthetic principles inspire our would-be graphic designers, I hope they will also consider screen "real estate" as a resource. Most of the window managers I've seen want to add considerably to the size of a window, forcing me to overlap windows that could otherwise be adjacent. Twm, to its credit, allows me to control the size of these decorations. Window managers from the "look fascism" camps aren't generally so flexible. Donn Cave University Computing Services University of Washington donn@cac.washington.edu
jim@ncd.COM (Jim Fulton) (07/28/90)
Subject: VOM Look When we coined the name, we intended for the trailing IT in "Virtually Obsolete MIT" to be included in the abbreviation.... :-)
dbrooks@osf.osf.org (David Brooks) (07/30/90)
In article <9007271840.AA15107@milton.u.washington.edu> donn@MILTON.U.WASHINGTON.EDU (Donn Cave) writes: >...I hope they will also consider screen "real estate" as a resource. Most of >the window managers I've seen want to add considerably to the size of a window, >forcing me to overlap windows that could otherwise be adjacent. Twm, to its >credit, allows me to control the size of these decorations. Window managers >from the "look fascism" camps aren't generally so flexible. From one of the fascists... If you want to do this with mwm, try: Mwm*clientDecoration: none You can still get at all the window management functions using accelerators, or modifier-clicks if you like keeping your hand on the mouse. Actually, I prefer giving otherwise undecorated windows a matteWidth of 3. This takes little real-estate and looks fairly cool. I also tailor my decorations on a per-class basis; for many clients I just plain never need the resize handles. -- David Brooks dbrooks@osf.org Systems Engineering, OSF uunet!osf.org!dbrooks
bpistr@ciba-geigy.ch (Joseph C Pistritto) (07/30/90)
> >From a couple of estheticians: > >you would think they could invest some time into making them more visually > >appealing. Would 3-D color effects really be that hard to do for one of ... > > >What about a compromise: decent 3d look which does NOT waste resources > >(not only CPU cycles) the way Motif does ? > > Does beautiful graphic design depend on fake 3-D ornamentation? I hope > not! But whatever esthetic principles inspire our would-be graphic designers, > I hope they will also consider screen "real estate" as a resource. Most of > the window managers I've seen want to add considerably to the size of a window, > forcing me to overlap windows that could otherwise be adjacent. Twm, to its > credit, allows me to control the size of these decorations. Window managers > from the "look fascism" camps aren't generally so flexible. > No, of course not. On the other hand, I was a real die-hard UWM user, (sort of the ultimate in 'minimalist' window managers), and now use Motif (and MWM) becauase we're using it for a project. I find that I can mostly get rid of and control the size of the decorations down to the point where I can still effectively use 99% of my screen. For instance I have several 'fixed' windows on my screen, which have no decorations at all (nor even a border, as UWM would insert). You can get a fairly good approximation of the 'minimalist' look and feel even with MWM, if you're willing to put in some time setting up the defaults files appropriately. -jcp- -- Joseph C. Pistritto (bpistr@ciba-geigy.ch, jcp@brl.mil) Ciba Geigy AG, R1241.1.01, Postfach CH4002, Basel, Switzerland Tel: +41 61 697 6155 (work) +41 61 692 1728 (home) GMT+2hrs!
dave@dptechno.UUCP (Dave Lee) (07/31/90)
In article <9007271840.AA15107@milton.u.washington.edu> donn@MILTON.U.WASHINGTON.EDU (Donn Cave) writes: > >Does beautiful graphic design depend on fake 3-D ornamentation? I hope >not! But whatever esthetic principles inspire our would-be graphic designers, >I hope they will also consider screen "real estate" as a resource. Most of >the window managers I've seen want to add considerably to the size of a window, >forcing me to overlap windows that could otherwise be adjacent. Twm, to its >credit, allows me to control the size of these decorations. Window managers >from the "look fascism" camps aren't generally so flexible. On a similar note, Most "smart" window managers and indeed most of the contrib software seems (IMHO) to be written with a large screen in mind. Typically 1152x900 or atleast 1024x768. Try these wm's on a VGA at 640x480 and you have real problems of the above mentioned type. I'm of the "roll-your-own" camp. I use uwm exclusivly. Program in Xlib only. Have my own X libraries that use my own quick minimal 3D effect. And, Yes, it does look much better than the 2D effect. Amazing what just 8 XDraw()'s can do for appeal, WITHOUT much noticable overhead in either response time OR library size. -- Dave Lee uunet!dptechno!dave
davisp@skybridge.SCL.CWRU.Edu (Palmer Davis) (07/31/90)
In article <9007271840.AA15107@milton.u.washington.edu> donn@MILTON.U.WASHINGTON.EDU (Donn Cave) writes: >I hope they will also consider screen "real estate" as a resource. Most of >the window managers I've seen want to add considerably to the size of a window >forcing me to overlap windows that could otherwise be adjacent. Twm, to its >credit, allows me to control the size of these decorations. Window managers >from the "look fascism" camps aren't generally so flexible. > We used to have this very objection about Motif until we bothered to read the manual page. The "resize handles" that add so much thickness to a Motif window can be toned down (or up, if you're a closet Open Look fan :-) ) or turned off completely, as can the other controls Motif displays. If you feel particularly energetic (which we did), you can reconfigure Motif completely to get the feel you're used to from twm. We haven't bothered much with Open Look (for obvious reasons), so I can't say for sure if you can tweak the appearance of their frames. The copyright message in the Open Look sources saying "you can't call it Open Look if you change *anything* about it" makes me rather pessimistic about this, though. -- Palmer Davis -- -- Palmer T. Davis | davisp@scl.cwru.edu -OR- ptd2@po.cwru.edu Pittsburgh Powercomputing Corp. | {att,sun,decvax,uunet}!cwjcc!skybridge!davisp -------------------------------------------------------------+----------------- "*I* am in charge of security." "Then who gets the chairs?" | Life is short.
drl@VUSE.VANDERBILT.EDU (David R. Linn) (08/01/90)
Perhaps we could rename the Virtually Obsolete MIT look-and-feel to the *Cost-free* (if somewhat) *Ordinary* MIT look-and-feel in order to stress its perhaps strongest point. After all, COMIT makes one's thoughts turn to the skies, which is a bit more pleasant than the image offered by the other acronym.