[linux-audio-user] Re: best window manager for making music

[pirrone]

Brian Dunn wrote:
> Thanks again, lau. You've help me sort through the bazillion options 
> out there and i'm now bedazzling myself with the glamor of fluxbox... 
> so fresh, yet so clean.
> For a while i was frustrated by the absence of a good dockapp alsa 
> mixer, then i discovered the beauty of the .fluxbox/keys file.  Mod4 
> +, rear speakers louder.  Mod4 -, rear speakers quieter.  sweet.
> amixer provides no mute toggle for rear out of an emu10k1. so i wrote 
> this goofy script and bound it to Mod4 m.
>
>        # Check if the Wave Surround level is already 0
> VOL=`amixer sget 'Wave Surround' | grep 'Front Left:' | cut 
> --delimiter=' '  --fields=6`
> if [ $VOL -gt 0 ]; then
>        #mute
>        #store the current wave surround volume in VOL
>        LASTVOL=`amixer sget 'Wave Surround' | grep 'Front Left:' | cut 
> --delimiter=' '  --fields=6`
>        #turn the sound all the way down.
>        amixer sset 'Wave Surround' 0
>        echo $LASTVOL > ~/.lastvol
> else
>        #unmute
>        amixer sset 'Wave Surround' `cat ~/.lastvol`
> fi
>
>
> is this like a really dumb way to add a mute toggle? This is like my 
> first real bash script, so any suggestions are welcome.  Here i'll get 
> the ball rolling: i should learn to use sed or awk so i don't have to 
> pipe grep and cut together.
>
> well, thanks  to ya'll my computer is looking and sounding sweeter 
> than ever and it's oh so customized.
>
> God Bless,
> Brian
>
>
Perfectly fine way to get Fluxbox to do what you need.  I've been using 
it for years and remain completely satisfied by the efficiency and 
productivity of working in this environment.  I'll share one thing with 
you on the chance that you find MC (Midnight Commander) as useful and 
powerful as I do.  First the entry from my ~/.fluxbox/keys file that 
brings it up with a "Mod1 f" in Eterm with everything turned off - no 
window frame, no title bar, no menu bar, no scroll bars, and with 
transparency:

Mod1 f  :ExecCommand Eterm --trans --borderless --scrollbar off 
--buttonbar off --geometry 100x44+185+65 --font 10x20 --foreground-color 
white -e mc >/dev/null 2>&1

Then the ~/.mc/ini [Colors] section that sets up transparency and other 
good display colors for the various file types:

[Colors]
base_color=normal=white,default:directory=white,default:marked=yellow,default:selected=gray,white:executable=brightgreen,default:link=lightgray,default:stalelink=brightred,default:special=brightblue,default:device=magenta,default:editnormal=white,default

Ok, that requires scrolling from here to the next state, but no real 
problem.  Anyway, what this will give you when you press Mod1 f is the 
magic appearance of MC "floating" in the middle of your Fluxbox screen 
with only the program's contents visible.  Everything else is 
transparent and the rest is simply superimposed on the screen.  If you 
do a ctrl-o to "shell out" of MC you'll see the command prompt eerily 
floating on the screen near the upper left.  Executing any command with 
standard output will have that text simply scroll upon the screen, again 
floating against a transparent background with no window, no frame, no 
title, no menu, no scroll bars, nothing but the content.

Sorry, but I still find that very cool, and along with 3DDesk where my 4 
workspaces zoom out to a carousel which whirls around allowing me to 
choose and zoom back into whichever one I need just at a push of Mod1 3, 
are the two things I always show a prospective "convert" whenever I demo 
one of my systems.

Frank