Pager-Classic - the AfterStep Classic Pager module

Pager-Classic is spawned by asclassic, so no command line invocation will work. From within the .steprc file, Pager-Classic is spawned as follows:

Module Pager 0 3

Popup "Module-Popup"
	Title   "Modules"
	Module  "Wharf"         Wharf
	Module  "NoClutter"     Clean
	Module  "Identify"      Ident
	Module  "Banner"        Banner
	Module  "Debug"         Debug
	Module  "SaveDesktop"   Save
	Module  "Pager"         Pager 0 3
EndPopup

The Pager-Classic module shows a miniature view of the AfterStep Classic desktops which are specified in the command line. This is a useful reminder of where your active windows are. Windows in the pager are shown in the same color as their asclassic decorations.

The pager can be used to change your viewport into the current desktop, to change desktops, or to move windows around.

Pressing mouse button 1 in the pager will cause you viewport to change to the selected page of the selected desk. If you click with button 1 in the desk-label area, you will switch desks but not pages within the desk.

Dragging mouse button 2 on a miniature view of a window will cause that window to be move to the location where you release the mouse button, but your viewport will not change. If you drag the window out of the pager and onto your desktop, a full size image of the window will appear for you to place. There is no way to pick up a full size image of the window and move it into the pager, however. Since some mice do not have button 2, I have made provisions to drag windows in the pager by using pressing modifier-1 (usually Alt) and dragging with button 3.

Clicking mouse button 3 on a location within the current desktop will cause the viewport to move to the selected location, but will not align the viewport to a page boundary. Dragging button 3 will cause the viewport to move as you drag. Button 3 operations are limited to the current desktop only.

When iconified, the pager will work as a fully functional current page only pager. Windows and viewports can be moved within the icon of the pager. Users will want to make sure that they have no lines similar to

Icon " Pager" whatever

The Clean program, and the concept for interfacing this module to the Window Manager, are all original work by Robert Nation.

Copyright 1994, Robert Nation. No guarantees or warranties or anything are provided or implied in any way whatsoever. Use this program at your own risk. Permission to use this program for any purpose is given, as long as the copyright is kept intact.

During initialization, Pager-Classic will eventually search a configuration file which describes the time-outs and actions to take. The configuration file is the same file that asclassic used during initialization.

If the Pager executable is linked to another name, i.e. ln -s Pager OtherPager, then another module called OtherPager can be started, with a completely different configuration than Pager, simply by changing the keyword Pager to OtherPager. This way multiple pager programs can be used.

You can direct the keyboard focus to any window on the current desktop by clicking with button 2 on its image in the pager. The window does not need to be visible, but it does need to be on the current page.

The invocation method was shown in the synopsis section

Pager-Classic reads the same .steprc file as fvwm reads when it starts up, and looks for certain configuration options:

*PagerGeometry geometry

Completely or partially specifies the pager windows location and geometry, in standard X11 notation. In order to maintain an undistorted aspect ratio, you might want to leave out either the width or height dimension of the geometry specification

*PagerRows rows

Tells afterstep how many rows of desks to use when laying out the pager window.

*PagerColumns columns

Tells afterstep how many columnss of desks to use when laying out the pager window.

*PagerIconGeometry geometry

Specifies a size (optional) and location (optional) for the pager's icon window. Since there is no easy way for Pager to determine the height of the icon's label, you will have to make an allowance for the icon label height when using negative y-coordinates in the icon location specification (used to specify a location relative to the bottom instead of the top of the screen).

*PagerStartIconic

Causes the pager to start iconified.

*PagerFont font-name

Specified a font to use to label the desktops. If font_name is "none" then no desktop labels will be displayed.

*PagerSmallFont font-name

Specified a font to use to label the window names in the pager. If not specified, the window labels will be omitted. Window labels seem to be fairly useless for desktop scales of 32 or greater.

*PagerFore color

Specifies the color to use to write the desktop labels, and to draw the page-grid lines.

*PagerBack color

Specifies the background color for the window.

*PagerHilight color

The active page and desk label will be highlighted by using this background pattern instead of the normal background.

*PagerLabel desk label

Assigns the text label to desk desk in the pager window. Useful for assigning symbolic names to desktops, ie

*PagerLabel 1 Mail
*PagerLabel 2 Maker
*PagerLabel 2 Matlab

DeskTopScale number

If the geometry is not specified, then a desktop reduction factor is used to calculate the pager's size. Things in the pager window are shown at 1/number of the actual size.

Robert Nation