Hotkey to Remember window size and position for IceWM

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Great catch!
Navigator.Firefox-esrgeometry:
is a syntax error.
Navigator.Firefox-esr: geometry 1338×1257+0+-363

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Brian Masinick

[Member luke22]

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@Xunzi

Xunzi_23 wrote:

You might in your case be able to use session restore to your advantage, try just
shutting down without closing the browser. It should open at previous position and size
as well as opening the book for you.

Tried and didn’t work. Firefox remembered tabs, but opened in a MaxVert size.

Xunzi_23 wrote:

You were asking iceshell to
open and position for example Navigator.Firefox-esrgeometry the separator is missing in all
the commands.

Good spot. Changing that for each item and restart icewm gave size AND postion for everything but firefox-esr.

Also thanks for tip regarding session restore. That makes sense.

More experiments with firefox-esr required.
Edit:
Tried firefox window smaller than screen. Set winoptions as BobC suggested and restarted. Firefox opens with remembered size but sits within and adjacent to borders. i.e. ignores prescribed position. If size set larger than screen, then restart reduces size to within borders.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by luke22.

[Member luke22]

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Tried Palemoon. I installed this as i didn’t have it, so it is fresh.
It defaulted open to a corner (NW) first time and not full screen.
I moved it centrally, didn’t change size.
Use script to generate winoptions addenda, and corrected as follows:

Navigator.Pale.geometry: 1024×551+155+69
Navigator.Pale.layer: Normal
Navigator.Pale.workspace: 1

Closed Palemoon, refreshed icewm and started Palemoon.
It kept size but positioned in a corner, not centrally, and also on workspace 0 not 1. (i.e 1 not 2 in antix).

I wonder if my chromebook is too peculiar for all icewm settings to function fully.
Also are browsers just too complex for this to work for me?

[Member Xunzi_23]

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How did you get the strings for Palemoon.
Using xprop I get WM_CLASS(STRING) = “Navigator”, “Pale moon”

Open palemoon window enter xprop in terminal, you may have to install it first.
Press enter, you get an X cursor, click with that in Palemoon window.

Check your entrys. If you installed palemoon normaly Navigator.Pale is incorrect.

WM_class and name must be exactly as shown by xprop for ICE shell to do its job.

No good trusting the script until it is checked against a correctly working setup.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by Xunzi_23.
• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by Xunzi_23.
• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by Xunzi_23.

[Member luke22]

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I used the script in this thread to generate strings.
Did what you said and I get same as you for WM_CLASS(STRING) = “Navigator”, “Pale moon”
Amended winoptions to
Navigator.Pale moon.geometry: 1024×551+155+69
Navigator.Pale moon.layer: Normal
Navigator.Pale moon.workspace: 1

Restarted and size remembered, position in a corner in first workspace.
I resized, moved, amended winoptions, refreshed, same result. Position not actioned.

Thanks for continued interest.

Edit 17:22 Minor success.
I changed layer to Desktop from Normal. Restarted icewm and Palemoon opened in 2nd workspace, i.e workspace: 1 above was recognised.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by luke22.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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@luke22: regarding post #100207, I had previously either overlooked or didn’t carefully read all of the post.

In particular, your interest in extensive book reading, and getting the page size and orientation just right in order to be able to read for extended periods of time with minimal or no further adjustment, simply by “turning the page” and continue reading.

I really appreciate this and I hope that our discussion and your implementation lead to success. Best wishes!

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Brian Masinick

[Member Robin]

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Xunzi_23 wrote:

# WORKSPACES NAMES format as below, you can use name like docs mail etc on bigger screens.
WorkspaceNames=” 1 “, ” 2 “, ” 3 “, ” 4 ” , ” 5 ”

Good point, @Xunzi_23 , many thanks. Obviously icesh doesn’t set this permanently, what was what I’d have expected. But taking this into account, still its behaviour seems to be completely inconsistent to me:

Try yourself:

$ icesh workspaces 3

Immediately you get a third workspace, labeled as “3” in GUI. Now let’s name some of them:

$ icesh setWorkspaceName 0 "Test1"
$ icesh setWorkspaceNames 2 "Test3"

Nothing happens. Name of Workspaces #0 and #2 (human readable: first and third workspace) in GUI reads still “1” and “3” instead of “Test1” and “Test3”, even when IceWM itself claims it was changed properly:

$ icesh listWorkspaces
Arbeitsbereich #0: 'Test1'
Arbeitsbereich #1: ' 2 '
Arbeitsbereich #2: 'Test3'

OK, you are told, you need to restart IceWM to make the name change active.
$ icesh restart

And now you are back on 2 workspaces, of which the first actually displays the new name in GUI.

$ cat /home/demo/.icewm/preferences | grep TaskBarWorkspacesLimit=
# TaskBarWorkspacesLimit=""

$ cat /home/demo/.icewm/preferences | grep WorkspaceNames=
WorkspaceNames=" 1 ", " 2 "

$ icesh listWorkspaces
Arbeitsbereich #0: 'Test1'
Arbeitsbereich #1: ' 2 '

And now, to actually see your new named third workspace (workspace #2), you need to reopen third workspace manually again:

$ icesh workspaces 3

And voila, it comes up in GUI immediately with the proper name you have assigned to it before restarting icewm. That’s really funny. It keeps all the names, but not the number of workspaces.

$ icesh listWorkspaces
Arbeitsbereich #0: 'Test1'
Arbeitsbereich #1: ' 2 '
Arbeitsbereich #2: 'Test3'

And all this while it was still not present in preferences file:

$ cat /home/demo/.icewm/preferences | grep WorkspaceNames=
WorkspaceNames=" 1 ", " 2 "

So please let me know what I’m doing wrong. I can see only what we call “Kraut und Rüben”, an expression for a big muddle. Something survives IceWM restart, something not, and nothing gets stored to the preferences file as far I can see. So probably after next system reboot every setting is lost?

Btw, I didn’t see any option in man icesh to make it write the changes to the preferences file. Do I actually have to write it manually to the file using a text editor to make the changes persistent?

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Member luke22]

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You’ll be pleased to know I have found a solution, so those helping me can get on with their lives. 😉

In the preferences file in ~/.icewm lines 64 to 68. I uncommented 65 and 68 to
LimitSize=0 rather than 1
LimitPosition=0 rather than 1

This worked perfectly for Palemoon.
I adjusted firefox line in winoptions to
Navigator.Firefox-esr.geometry: 1050×1259+168+-342

That worked for firefox-esr.
i.e. both browsers can be positioned and sized larger than screen and off screen borders.

I can now dedicate Palemoon for Archive . org book reading, and leave firefox-esr as normal.

Icewm is incredibly flexible, but the preferences file is so big and the manuals so large, finding exactly what you want doesn’t always come easily.
Thanks to all.

@BobC , just one question, which version, if any, of the script in this thread will put the correct . and : as spacers in the winoptions file?

[Member Xunzi_23]

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Hi Luke22,
nice, please do not worry about asking questions like you did. In the end we can if wished for all benefit.
As you now know understanding ICE is not so easy, I certainly have very limited knowledge of the myriad options.
The forum is part of our lives, giving back to the community by trying to assist others, share and gain knowledge 🙂
regarding the limit options in config, at least on my system, antiX 23 Test compiled in default is not to limit
to screen. Just tested again to be sure.

@Robin, I wrote the desktop options to the config manualy so never noticed strange or inconsistant results.
Maybe another task for control center GUI and script. Arch/Arch based made me very unafraid of config
files. The present live stick is started with 9 workspaces, more than enough.
Regarding some weird partial settings surviving a reboot, cache ? although I see no entry for desktop session
on my setup.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by Xunzi_23.
• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by Xunzi_23.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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I agree about IceWM. It’s been around a long time and the window manager works out of the box (as is) just fine, yet in spite of the relatively modest size, it’s incredibly flexible and as I was reading through the documentation yesterday I was surprised how many choices are available and also the many provisions it has.

Not only is IceWM a very good window manager, it’s also a powerful replacement window manager in desktop environments and the reason is that it has all the necessary interfaces and options to interact with other components. For as long as I have used this efficient, capable window manager I’ve been using only a fraction of the features and that’s fine. This shows the flexibility as well as the efficiency.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator BobC]

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Luke22,

I can look into it, but I didn’t write them all. For me to work on it I would need to know:

What post did you get the script from?

What did you enter (provide screenshot)

What was the resulting entry in winoptions file?

What would be the correct entry it should have put in winoptions file?

[Member luke22]

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@BobC
I use the script from post 37228.
I have downloaded script from post 37246 but have been unable to make it work. I’ve obviously made it executable, and run from terminal, but no gui comes up, as in the former one, and nothing changes in the winoptions file.
Reading the post post 37232 I recognise that there is a problem with the dot missing in the winoptions file, and assumed the later post 37246 fixed this, but as I can’t get it to run I used the first one above.
i.e the first script gives, for example,
roxterm.Roxtermgeometry: 737×531+326+16, which I can then edit to put “.” before geometry. i.e. roxterm.Roxterm.geometry: 737×531+326+16 and then the size and position get remembered correctly.

Clearly there are difference in the scripts, but I’m not able to find why I can’t make it work.
I have no doubt I’m doing something stupid, not unknown, but I can’t find out what. Please don’t spend much, if any, time on this, as clearly others can get it to work, and I can manage with what I’ve got.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by luke22.

[Member PPC]

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@luke22 – I fixed the version in post37228 for you. Please test, it should not have the missing dots bug now…
Just uncompress the script and try it out.

P.

Attachments:

1. icewm-remember-settings.zip

[Member luke22]

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PPC
Thank you.
Works perfectly.

[Member Xunzi_23]

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Hi PPC,
Nice work, One presently known Limitation, Does not work correctly with Libreoffice which seems
more stubborn and monolithic than ever in latest versions.

Will see if I can find some kind of workaround starting in sofficerc. In time will also compare with the
version from LO Org which may have different compile options set in comparison to the Debian flavour.

Open calc and writer on separate desktops, closing one takes the other down too as soffice gets closed
not the current application window. Pretty sure that is an innovation ….
Means some older tested workarounds for autostart are also now broken.

OT but maybe best place for now.
Strg W or usage of window menu will close an open window without taking entire Libreoffice down,
It can added to the menu above close Libreoffice which applies Strg Q and closes
applications writer draw calc or whatever is open all together.

Will see if LO team is open to the suggestion as setup every update would be a pain as to my present
knowledge it needs adding to each individual module.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by Xunzi_23.
• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by Xunzi_23.

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