[MAYBE SOLVED :) ] Awesome - where to find reliable info

Question

I tried Awesome yesterday and does pretty much what I was looking for. The problem for me as a Awesome-n00b is the quite radical changes to code between versions. Even from 3 to 3.1 there are a lot of changes, so many that I haven't been able to figure out how to make the simplest working widget yet... a very humbling experience!
I don't even know whether the copy of rc.lua I got (installed yesterday, version 3.1.2-1) is up to date because not even the already included parameter to let for example Gimp be floating work. To begin with:
- either a good reliable link to guides that are up-to-date (the Awesome Wiki is confusing since it more or less expect you to be familiar with the ongoing development and hence understand where to adjust accordingly; other guides end with edits like "sorry this is already outdated because version 3.1 makes 3.0 configurations... bla bla bla...")
- or a simple tip to why this default doesn't work:
floatapps =
    -- by class
    ["MPlayer"] = true,
    ["pinentry"] = true,
    ["gimp"] = true,
    -- by instance
    ["mocp"] = true
I suppose I have to struggle with the widgets in my future attempts to master Awesome. Otherwise it's one of the most responsive WMs I've tested, combined with a fairly friendly default configuration.
Last edited by KimTjik (2009-02-21 19:13:26)

Answer 1

@ anrxc
Maybe you missed that it was a joke about awful? Think about the names of the libraries used in Awesome (sometimes it boring to add a smiley to every other joke). Nevertheless Awesome is a challenge since you've got a information which concern different versions of Awesome, something that isn't obvious for a new user of Awesome. No need to be defensive, because Awesome is awesome and I suppose the main focus at the moment is its constantly progressing, and hence changing, code.
That said let me explain some of my issues (and remember that I like Awesome so no need to defend it; I'm only interested in constructive suggestions not a debate about pros and cons):
Eject
Awesome doesn't handle auto mounting at all and hence it's not an Awesome issue, and I didn't explicitly say it is, but it's one of those things you'll have to make a choice about. Thunar's volman is one option and since I already have XFCE4 installed I'm content using it instead of adding lvman to the mix.
However I can't get it to play nicely, or it does until I choose to eject through thunar, something that leads to errors like Device to unmount is not in /media/.hal-mtab so it is not mounted by HAL. This has nothing to do with Awesome, but it's a new problem I don't have if starting a XFCE4 session. Simple as that, but I don't really need it to work since I mainly use the keyboard.
Cursor theme
This isn't an Awesome issue as well since Awesome doesn't include any such configuration option. There are several options here; I have used the same line in ~/.xinitrc as suggested by Nezmer (thanks for your suggestion!), another one is to redirect by a index.theme or create a ~/.icons/default directory with the theme of choice. You might be right that it doesn't totally work in an environment as Awesome (I notice that the cursor theme goes back to default as outside of application boarders, and likewise disappear within windows of none GTK applications). I just wanted to test it since it's a suggestion in the Awesome wiki. Probably I could get it to work better if a had more knowledge.
A .gtkrc.mine file plus some is a way of getting the icon and/or panel theme of choice for GTK applications (see Awesome wiki). It works as well as a way to change fonts or cursor theme, but it's isolated to GTK applications.
I hope the too wordy reply cleared any cause for misunderstanding.
Cheers!