sysop @ mousehouse:

Quick start on ~/fvwmrc

started on 11.09.1998 - updated 11.09.1998
Index
  1. What does ~/fvwmrc do?
  2. How is ~/fvwmrc started on this system?
  3. A short example progname input file
  4. Miscellaneous

1. What does ~/fvwmrc do?

~/.fvwm specifies the way fvwm is fired up under X. There is one file for every user, located at every user's home (~).
As any other ~/prognamerc file, it is read and payed attention to when progname is fired up, though it may be overridden by command line options and/or environment variables.

Usually, it is very good commented, so I won't talk about DontZap (which prevents zapping between different resolutions.

2. How does ~/.fvwmrc do this?

In the midst of the document, there are the PopUp menus defined. Unlike other computer trees, the grow with detail on top and base more down (on the screen). Last commands in this section say which main mouse menus are connected to which mouse button, and this should be a good exercise to program something easy for the beginner to see it work right at once.

It is disgusting to click on some program's name just found in the click menus, and see nothing, not even the system complaining. (There should be produced a "Doh1.au" in this case, but the sound demon doesn't work on my system - NOT YET).

3. A short example progname input file

So I have to rewrite the mentioned part. It is done easy, it is just Work.
The example will fire up a menu with the submenus Editors and Fun, and these will present some action: 


Popup "Editors"
        Title "Editors"
        Nop   "" 
        Exec  "Andrew"  exec ez /usr/andrew/README.ez*
        Exec  "Tex Shell"       exec ts &
EndPopUp        

PopUp "Fun_for_all"
        Title "Fun"
        Nop   ""
        Exec  "Alien"    exec mpeg_play /usr/data/films/mpg/alien.mpg &
        Exec  "Fire"     exec mpeg_play /usr/data/films/mpg/fire.mpg &
        Exec  "6cyl1"    exec xanim /usr/data/films/fli/6cyl1.fli &
        Exec  "Admod"    exec xanim /usr/data/films/fli/admod.fli &
EndPopup

PopUp "LeftMouse"
        PopUp "Fun"        Fun_for_all
        PopUp "Editor"     Editors
EndPopup

#     Button    Context Modifi  Function
Mouse 1         R       A       PopUp "LeftMouse"
To prepare for this, sysop usually takes a list of installed packagets, which can be received easily by ls /var/adm/*, and then sorts it and breaks it up, as shown above. Setting all exec commands might appear quite boring, but the result should be some sort of optimized.

4. Miscellaneous

The point is: I wonder why no one yet has written an automatic script to configure the fvwm successfully.
To do this, a data sheet should be provided and updated, for fvwm-shell-builder to know which file works with which program and which standard options.
It can't be that complicated, can it?
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