# update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

Unfortunately of course many of the applications that I am using are native to KDE or Gnome and probably are still respecting their environment’s settings. In the end it was simply a case of editing:

~/.local/share/applications/defaults.list

And adding the following lines:

x-scheme-handler/http=chromium.desktop
x-scheme-handler/https=chromium.desktop

Now opening links from my terminal is correctly opening a new tab in Chromium, or running Chromium if it isn’t already.

Joy.

Window grouping: I love the fact that you can middle click on a window’s titlebar and drop it onto another window and the two windows join together - with the titlebar split in segments. You can switch between the applications by clicking on the relevant part of the titlebar, or use the Windows key with TAB - so just as Alt+Tab switches between windows, Windows+Tab switches between the applications grouped inside the current window.

Double-click to fill available space: I love the fact that you can open an application and just double-click on its titlebar to fill the available space. This feels so intuitive and just so damned right, that I struggle to understand why it is not the standard behaviour in all window managers and desktop environments.

Clicking on the desktop edge moves you to the next workspace: I’ve never really got on with multiple desktops/workspaces - it is difficult enough to keep track of multiple applications inside a single workspace, but pekwm has converted me. I find it just so intuitive that, by clicking on the edge of the desktop, that it it progresses you to the next desktop.

So what do you love about pekwm?

I have just been recommended to try the “tint2” panel. It looks lovely and minimalist, and has happily taken the kwalletmanager system tray icon; so hopefully will work on my laptop with battery and wireless monitors.

Whilst you’re looking at my screenshot, note the Window grouping between Google Chrome and Iceweasel and the two terminal windows grouped together. The window grouping feature really is very, very handy.

Installing tint2 is simple:

$ sudo apt-get install tint2

And then add tint2 to your ~/.pekwm/startup file:

tint2 &

If you need to configure it, then edit ~/.config/tint2/tint2rc; so far I have found the defaults to be okay.

Update: Battery monitor

To get the built in tint2 battery monitor, simply edit

~/.config/tint2/tint2rc:
battery = 1 battery_hide = never

Hunting the ‘net for anything to do with pekwm is a frustrating business. You can’t help thinking that there are only a handful of us that use it. I may post something about why I think pekwm is great, but that is a topic for another day.

As my laptop’s primary desktop environment is KDE, I wanted to use the KDE power management with pekwm, rather than install the Gnome Power Manager, which would bring in a load of Gnome dependencies. If you already have Gnome installed, then I suspect the Gnome Power Manager is for you.

There seem to be three parts to this:

1. Getting the power management daemon to run
2. Adding a power meter
3. Adding the configuration tool to the menu

Whilst these instructions are primarily for pekwm, I am sure that openbox, fluxbox and other *box window managers could use them with a little adjustment.

Power Management Daemon

In the ~/.pekwm/start file, add the lines:

kded4 & qdbus org.kde.kded /kded loadModule powerdevil &

If you do not want to restart pekwm to test, just run those two commands live.

Battery Meter

Update: Since writing this post I have discovered tint2 which includes a simple battery monitor.

What I really want is a battery level meter that will sit happily in Docker, but I failed in this quest. If you have any suggestions, please do let me know and I will update this post. In the meantime I have installed xbattbar, which gives a full thin width line at the bottom of your screen.

$ sudo apt-get install xbattbar

In the ~/.pekwm/start file, add the line:

xbattbar &

Power Management Configuration

It is quite possible that you will wish to configure your power management from within pekwm. To do this, add the following to your ~/.pekwm/menu file:

Entry = "Configure Powerdevil" { Actions = "Exec kcmshell4 powerdevilconfig & " }

And that appears to be a working solution for me, I hope it works for you too!