(Don't get too excited... it may not be what you think)

I have been using sawfish for many years now, and written a few custom hacks for it. My current theme is Tlines. I've tried most the other window managers and come back to sawfish every time I get adventurous, because sawfish is so bloody configurable.

Recently I started using the following settings, as a very cool time saver:

  • focus = enter-only
  • root-window binding 'button1-click2' locks my screen
  • root-window binding 'w' start galeon
  • root-window binding 't' start 3 vertical non-overlapping terminals
  • root-window binding 'g' start gimp + gqview (also non-overlapping)

Since I use enter-only focus, I never lose focus (ie: something other then the root-window is always in forcus) unless I enter an empty workspace. When I do, the root-window becomes focused and the last three bindings actually become usable.

So if I am doing photo editing, I want to have gimp and gqview opened. I enter a new work space and push 'g'... which starts those.

The 'w', 't', and 'g' are the most common themes that I have for workspaces, and this saves a bit of time launching them from the right-click menu or from an xterm.

My next sawfish hack will be to write some scheme that will allow me to switch focus to the window whose center is closest to the current one given a direction. So M-left would give me the window that is to the left of the current one. But, I've been meaning to do this for years now... so, don't hold your breath. Scheme is scary. :)