Sources and Co

How to localize Firebox ?

The method is quite easy.

At first, go to the 'po/' directory and initialize LL.po or LL_CC.po from the firebox.pot file (LL is your language code and CC is your country code).

ex:
$ msginit -l pt initialize Portuguese.
$ msginit -l pt_BR initialize Brazilian Portuguese.

Then, fill the 'msgstr' items of the new .po file and update its header information. You can check the result using the following command :

$ msgfmt --check --statistics pt_BR.po

Finally, you can send the edited .po file to the mailing list.

Firebox-tools can be translated in the same way.

Why is it so hard to compile from SVN sources ?

The Subversion repository only contains files that were created or modified for the project. Thus there is no autotools related file, nor system dependent file like the Gettext header.

The main idea is to keep the repository as clean, simple and portable as possible.

In order to compile, user must type the following commands:

$ gettextize --no-changelog
$ rm po/Makevars.template
$ cp /usr/share/gettext/gettext.h src/
$ echo "timestamp" > stamp-h.in
$ aclocal
$ autoheader
$ automake --add-missing
$ autoconf
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local

All these operations are executed by the autogen.sh file.

Note: at least on Debian, the Gettext header displays warnings at compilation time, as it is not fully ANSI compliant.

What have I to make with the .tar.gz files on FreeBSD ?

The two files contain the ports for Firebox and its preferences editor.

These files need to be uncompressed. Then put the new created directories in /usr/ports/x11-wm/ and run make.

Misc

What about ICCCM/Motif/EWMH compliance ?

ICCCM is getting older and older. It has been extended by a new specification, EWMH. As certain parts of ICCCM are superseded by parts of EWMH, priority is given to support the newest one.

Moreover some ICCCM atoms are not really useful for the window management made by Firebox.

For the moment Motif is only used to manage xmms correctly !

Firebox currently supports 6 ICCCM atoms, only one Motif atom and 32 EWMH atoms. Full list can be viewed here.

What are the alternatives to Firebox ?

Fortunately there is a lot of others WM running X11 systems. Giles Orr has begun to list all of free managers, included links to reviews of some of them. You can read his work by visiting this page.

Interested visitors should have a look at the Bloodlines, too.

How tiny are lightweight Window Managers ?

Here is a small comparison between some of the most famous Window Manager. They were tested using the default configuration, but as they do not provide the same features, they can not be really compared. So this part has not to be taken too seriously.

creation	name	version	language	sloc	binary	install	libraries
1993	CTWM	3.6	C	28590	287k	912k	13
1998	aewm	1.3.10	C	2858	31k	376k	7
	Flwm	1.02	C++	3301	61k	92k	20
	screen	4.0.2	C	37618	293k	1.6M	7
1999	Oroborus	2.0.18	C	6558	72k	3.3M	11
1999	wimpwm	0.1.1	C	3683	445k	1.1M	11
2000	Blacbox	0.70.1	C++	17579	517k	6.8M	18
	larswm	7.5.3	C	6585	81k	312k	8
	Orobo ROX	0.9.8	C	10746	69k	80k	20
2001	Fluxbox	1.0rc3	C++	37170	1.3M	4.6M	22
2002	evilwm	0.99.25	C	1918	24k	56k	8
	Hackedbox	0.8.5	C++	11629	306k	3.5M	13
	Openbox	3.4	C	26806	251k	3.3M	31
	Ratpoison	1.4.1	C	12904	118k	888k	12
	WindowLab	1.33	C	2660	35k	80k	8
2004	cwm	3	C	5223	50k	268k	15
	JVM	1.8	C	15775	134k	200k	19
	wmii	3.5.1	C	8447	102k	860k	9
	YeahWM	0.3.5	C	1948	25k	52k	9
2005	dwm	4.2	C	1798	27k	56k	7
2005	TinyWM	1.3	C	92	4.6k	16k	7
2006	Firebox	0.4	C	11327	127k	196k	18
	Firebox	SVN 140 ^(*)	C	12230	129k	208k	11
	SithWM	1.1	C	1925	23k	68k	7

^(*) configured with ./configure --disable-xft --disable-xrender --disable-xshape --disable-png --disable-jpeg.

Notes:

Source lines of code are counted using sloccount.
Binaries size is computed with stripped binaries.
The number of libraries is obtained with ldd, including libc etc.

Extra notes:

No image required by install in CTWM package have been found.
The Python version of TinyWM has not been tested.