[H-GEN] Why no keyboard with NO Window Manager ?

Jason Parker-Burlingham jasonp at uq.net.au
Fri Apr 25 15:34:42 EDT 2003


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Robert Brockway <robert at timetraveller.org> writes:

> On Fri, 25 Apr 2003, Stuart Longland wrote:
> > Mark Corben <mcorben at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > > I have set up the same scenario using an xterm and an X
> > >application and even Netscape as the default application and with
> > >this the user can type but if I use konqueror or Phoenix (a non X
> > >app) the keboard is not recognised.
> > Is there any specific reason for not using a Window Manager?  What's
> >wrong with just using FVWM or TWM with no defined menues?
> 
> A couple of quick thoughts before I go off to sleep...
> 
> When using a display manager (eg, xdm,kdm,etc) it is possible to run
> _any_ application as the window manager.  Just make it the last line in
> .xsession & don't & it.  When it exits you X session exits and the
> display manager reappears.  I've tried this with netscape to limit a
> user to only using netscape under X.  Worked fine (ie, no technical
> problems) except the lack of window framing/decoreations made the app
> a bit hard to see, especially when using dropdown menus.

It's very interesting; I edited my .xsession (or perhaps it was
.xinitrc; I have both of those files symlinked to ~/XSESSION) to run a
shell and mozilla.  The application started fine and worked through
mouse clicks, but I could type *one* character into the URL bar and
then no further keyboard input would be accepted (I clicked through to
Google News and found I couldn't do searches through their form,
either).

It seems to me there's some widget issue here; maybe mozilla *needs* a
window manager (which I think is pretty ridiculous) to accept keyboard
input.  I didn't test this much as I have other things to do.

Mark, try running an xterm as the application instead of a web browser
and see if you have the same problem.

> A better option is to use fvwm2 (or another highly configurable WM)
> with the menus strictly controlled (as Stuart suggests).  I have done
> this successfully on several occassions.

This is probably an acceptable compromise; there's no shortage of
lightweight window managers out there (Pwm for one can have all the
keybindings and menus turned off pretty simply).

jason
-- 
``I didn't program you for sarcasm.''

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