Perhaps you have read my article about Using a
Laptop in Different Environments. There I described an
easy way to setup a Linux laptop to boot into different
network configurations. I mentioned that setting up a shell
variable called PROFILE
is useful not only for
configuring the network but also the windowmanager.
rlogin
-sessions.
After fiddling some time with patching different
fvwm configuration files on different machines I found this to be a
pain. A typical .fvwm95rc
is about 900 lines. Keeping several of them
in sync is not the thing I like.
cpp
, the C-preprocessor ! fvwm 2.xx as well
as fvwm95 are configured by a central file. fvwm95 is derived from
fvwm, so the basic idea applies to both. Let me show you the details
using fvwm95. I keep my fvwm95 configuration in the file ~/.fvwm95rc-cpp
.
You can use the system default setup in
/etc/X11/fvwm95/system.fvwm2rc95
as starting point.
Look at this code fragment from my .xinitrc
(For me, .xsession
is
linked to .xinitrc
):
... # I need the value of PROFILE for generating .fvwm95rc # netenv contains an assignment like e.g. PROFILE=32 if [ -r /tmp/netenv ]; then . /tmp/netenv fi # Now the actual .fvwm95rc is generated depending on the value of PROFILE cpp -lang-c++ -D PROFILE=$PROFILE ~/.fvwm95rc-cpp ~/.fvwm95rc exec fvwm95 # exec saves the extra memory for a no longer useful shell ... ...The shell variable
PROFILE
contains the information about the current
environment. The file /tmp/netenv
is set up by init
when going to run
level 2. I described this in the article mentioned above.
Obviously you need cpp
, which comes either as an extra package or as
part of gcc
. Yes, I know that there is a module FvwmCpp
(which calls
cpp
) - but I never managed to get it work.
One advantage of the old-fashioned style of configuration files is that you can put comments in. You really should do this ! All that hidden dot files in your home directory make up your personal environment (these files will never be touched by a system update). Having comments will make it easier to maintain this environment.
system.fvwm95rc
comes in shell style comment syntax (so does
fvwm). You can't feed this into cpp
. I didn't like
traditional c-style comments in a configuration file, so I switched
all these comment lines
# this is a useful commentinto c++-style comments
// this is a useful comment(hail emacs !). Calling
cpp
with
-lang-c++tells
cpp
to preprocess c++-code. A hint for those, who are not
familiar with cpp
: cpp
strips off the comment lines of the input
file. You probably will get output with a lot of blank lines.
.fvwm95rc-cpp
.
Of course, everything herein is strongly a matter of personal taste.
I don't like to stress my eyes. So I hate small letters, I barely can
read them in the evening of a long day ... So my desktop has 4x2 pages.
Each page is assigned to one application (or a few). I use
<Alt><F1>
to <F8>
to
switch quickly between pages. Using the fabulous fvwm95 mini icons my
screen holds the FvwmTaskBar
and on the right hand side a column
holding some icons. This way I can maximize the application window.
The screenshot should make it clear.
FvwmButtons
section like this:
*MiniButtons - mini-edit.xpm Exec "Xemacs" /usr/bin/xemacs \ -geometry EMACS_GEO &
EMACS_GEO
is to be substituted by
cpp
. I put all the #define
in the
beginning of my .fvwm95rc-cpp
. Basically it reads like this
#if PROFILE == 30 || PROFILE == 31 || PROFILE == 32 #define EMACS_GEO 80x25+0+480 #else #define EMACS_GEO 96x31+0+767 #endifWhenever I'm on my laptop,
PROFILE
equals 30, 31
oder 32 (at home, in the office, on customers site). The
LCD-Display has 600x420 pixel. My other systems have 17" monitors and
there I use 1024x768. The +0+480 or +0+767 pops up the xemacs window
on the leftmost page on the bottom row of my 4x2 desktop. But this is
true only when being on the very first page while clicking the
icon. I'm shure, this could be improved.
With defining
Key F5 A M GotoPage 0 1I can conveniently switch to my xemacs window using
without
leaving the keyboard.
rlogin
sessions to
some well known machines. Being on a customers site I frequently have
to work with high availability configurations mostly consisting of two
machines. I call them always abba and bebe. See how this can be set
up (shortened for clarity):
DestroyFunc "InitFunction" #if PROFILE == 30 AddToFunc "InitFunction" \ "I" Exec xsetroot -solid turquoise4 -cursor_name top_left_arrow & + "I" Exec xconsole -font 6x10 -geometry XCONSOLE_GEO -sb -file /dev/xconsole & + "I" Exec rxvt -geometry 94x28+0+0 -fn DEF_FONT -ls -sb -vb \ -title TERMWIN_ID1 -n TERMWIN_ID1 -cr Yellow3 & + "I" Exec rxvt -geometry TERMWIN_GEO2 -fn DEF_FONT -ls -sb -vb \ -title TERMWIN_ID2 -n TERMWIN_ID2 -cr Red3 & + "I" Exec rxvt -geometry TERMWIN_GEO3 -fn DEF_FONT -ls -sb -vb \ -title TERMWIN_ID3 -n TERMWIN_ID3 -cr Magenta3 & + "I" Module FvwmButtons MiniButtons + "I" Module FvwmTaskBar + "I" Module FvwmAuto 700 + "I" Module FvwmPager 0 0 #elif PROFILE == 10 ... #else AddToFunc "InitFunction" \ ... ... + "I" Exec rxvt -geometry 94x28+0+0 -fn DEF_FONT -ls -sb -vb \ -title TERMWIN_ID1 -n home -cr Yellow3 & + "I" Exec rxvt -geometry TERMWIN_GEO2 -fn DEF_FONT -ls -sb -vb \ -title TERMWIN_ID2 -n TERMWIN_ID2 -cr Red3 & + "I" Exec rxvt -geometry TERMWIN_GEO3 -fn DEF_FONT -ls -sb -vb \ -title TERMWIN_ID3 -n TERMWIN_ID3 -cr Magenta3 & + "I" Exec rxvt -geometry TERMWIN_GEO4 -fn DEF_FONT -ls -sb -vb \ -title TERMWIN_ID4 -n TERMWIN_ID4 -cr Green3 & + "I" Exec rxvt -geometry TERMWIN_GEO5 -fn DEF_FONT -ls -sb -vb \ -title TERMWIN_ID5 -n TERMWIN_ID5 -cr Blue3 & ... ... #endif
The terminal geometry und identifiers are defined as follows:
#if PROFILE == 10 #define TERMWIN_ID1 bav@nana #define TERMWIN_ID2 nana #define TERMWIN_ID3 lulu #elif PROFILE == 20 ... #elif PROFILE == 30 ...#define TERMWIN_ID1 bav@lulu #elif PROFILE == 31 ... #elif PROFILE == 32 #define TERMWIN_ID1 bav@lulu #define TERMWIN_ID2 lulu #define TERMWIN_ID3 abba #define TERMWIN_ID4 bebe #define TERMWIN_ID5 abba #endif
cpp
as shown.
Perhaps you know, that xrdb(1)
also can
make use of cpp
. So
you can preprocess your ~/.Xdefaults
achieving the discussed advantages.
I hope you will find these ideas somehow useful !
Kind regards
Gerd