Tweaks to fvwm95

How to make fvwm95-2 more like Windows 95

This applies to Red Hat 4.1 which includes "The Next Level" desktop. Edit /etc/X11/TheNextLevel/.fvwm2rc.m4 and make the following changes (or copy this file to your home directory and edit it there). Red Hat 4.2 has equivalent changes already so you don't need to do this.

--- .fvwm2rc.defines.orig	Fri Oct 25 17:04:25 1996
+++ .fvwm2rc.defines	Mon Feb 24 14:26:44 1997
@@ -226,10 +226,10 @@
 define(`CLICK_MS',	150)
 
 # COLOR_MAP_FOCUS is either FollwsMouse or FollowsFocus
-define(`COLOR_MAP_FOCUS',`FollowsMouse')
+define(`COLOR_MAP_FOCUS',`FollowsFocus')
 
 # FOCUS_FOLLOWS_POINTER
-define(`FOCUS_FOLLOWS_POINTER')
+#define(`FOCUS_FOLLOWS_POINTER')
 
 # The level of niceness to use for commands that will be nice-d
 define(`NICELEVEL',`-16')

This is a "patch file". Replace those lines which begin '-' with lines which begin '+', but don't include the '+' itself!

From now onwards, focus stays with the front-most window. Also, when you click on a program on the button bar, the mouse is not automatically teleported to that window.

Note that fvwm95-2.0.42a appears to have a bug where sometimes clicking on a window no longer brings it to the front. You can still select the window by clicking on the button bar, but otherwise you need to exit and restart fvwm.

Getting more info on fvwm95 configuration

The following man pages are useful (but very complex)

man fvwm95-2
man FvwmM4

Switching between text virtual consoles and X

When you are in X you can still switch to your text virtual consoles by using Ctrl-Alt-F1 instead of Alt-F1. To switch back to X, use Alt-F7.

X key mapping

When in X, the backspace key generates code 08 and the delete key generates 7F. This is annoyingly different to the case of virtual consoles, where the backspace key generates 7F and the delete key generates ESC [3~

You can fix this by adding the following lines to .Xdefaults in your home directory (if you add them to /etc/skel/.Xdefaults then any new users you create will get them already)

xterm*VT100.Translations: #override\n\
        <KeyPress>BackSpace : string(0x7f)\n\
        <KeyPress>Delete: string(0x1b) string("[3~")

Once you've done this, you can get the 'Delete', 'Home' and 'End' keys to work in bash in the way you expect them to, by adding the following to /etc/profile:

bind '"\e[3~": delete-char'
bind '"\e[1~": beginning-of-line'
bind '"\e[4~": end-of-line'

Note that the default is for the cursor-cluster PgUp/PgDn keys are used for scrollback, whereas the numeric-pad PgUp/PgDn is actually sent to the application. This is important if you are trying to scroll within 'joe' for example. This can also be changed in .Xdefaults, but it's rather obscure.

Problems configuring X?

Here are some useful programs:

SuperProbe           -- attempts to determine your video hardware
Xconfigurator        -- creates /etc/X11/XF86Config
xf86config           -- another program to create XF86Config

Last updated 21 October 1997