Enlightenment Window Manager
 

Relevant Links:

Enlightenment homepage
ELG Enlightenment Downloads

Enlightenment (aka E) is a very fast and stable window manager. It is especially good to use to speed up slower or older systems and also to help optimize a newer system with a lot of power.

Enlightenment has a great deal of features but is not necessarily for extremely lazy people. While it isn't really difficult to customize, it does tend to come with fairly generic defaults depending on the distro you are using. If you want to try out Enlightenment but want everything already customized, try out EvilEntity Linux - it comes with E already set up for you! For any other distro you would need to add it manually and then customize it.

For those who would like to try out E, I have written out some instructions and tips on how to customize it so that you can enjoy the benefits of using such an amazing window manager. (if you already have E installed, you can also middle click and choose the "help" function and find a lot of information there as well)

The first thing to look at is your menus. By default the E menus may be a bit jumbled and include/exclude certain things. I changed mine right away and it really helped make navigating easier. I have hand written three different E menus for three different distros. You can download whichever corresponds to your distro. If yours isn't available, use the Arch one as it is likely the most common. The menus are available in the ELG E Downloads link above and there is an install text document that you should read before installing the new menus.

Following getting the new menus working, you can use your right click feature and play around with the options there. See the help section specified earlier for information on these functions, it is very nicely explained.

The Pager(s)
For my own preference, I chose to use 4 multiple desktops but only use 1 virtual desktop. If you want to use more than one virtual desktop and you don't like how the screen flips when you move the mouse to the side of the screen, then you can disable edge flip. This all relates to your pager options, so if you want to see mini pictures of the different desktops you are using, you need to enable the pager. *You can drag and move the pager by pressing "Alt" and then left clicking and then draggging the box where you want it. Then you can press "Alt" and right click and choose "remember..." to save the settings. Take a look at the right click menu while you are there. Annhiliate will remove the window permanently, close will remove it for that session and there are other customizations available as well. To see an example of what I am talking about, check out this Screenshot - I am using the 23_oz_glass theme there.
The Iconbox
This is a great feature of E! Basically, it just minimizes whatever you are using to a small box that shows a small picture of that item. You can create an iconbox if you don't have one by middle clicking and going to desktop then selecting "create new iconbox". You can drag it where you want it as specified earlier and you can resize it by holding your mouse cursor over the edge of it and then dragging just like most other windows.
E Customization!

How to Add Backgrounds
Copy any picture you like to your /home/username/.enlightenment/backgrounds/ directory, then press ctrl-alt-end to refresh E. Then middle click on your desktop, go to Desktop then Backgrounds and you will be able to select your backgrounds there. You can use a different one for each desktop you have.

E Themes
There are several ways to make your use of E more interesting. One of which is to add themes. I have uploaded many themes to the ELG download link posted above nad have offered two methods of installation there. I have tested all the themes myself and they all worked fine for me. Make sure you read the Install file that is listed in that section before downloading and installing them.

E Epplets
Depending on which distro you are using, you may already have Epplets installed. If not, you may need to install them separately. If so, try a search on google to see if you can find some. If you are using Arch and have used my custom Arch E menus, then you will already have them on your menu as long as you have installed the package called "epplets-base". If you do happen to install them separately, then you will have to try them out for yourself.

If you are picky like me....
to get rid of the Eterm menu bar - press shift-ctrl-right click
to get rid of the Eterm menu bar permanently - edit the theme.cfg file which is found in /usr/local/share/Eterm/themes/Eterm/ in EE and otherwise may be found in /usr/share/Eterm/themes/Eterm/
open the theme.cfg file and scroll down right near the bottom and then you will see this:

Code:
# This section must also come after the menus if you want any buttons
# to launch menus. (If not, it can go anywhere.)
begin button_bar

you need to comment out the begin button_bar line like so:

Code:
# This section must also come after the menus if you want any buttons
# to launch menus. (If not, it can go anywhere.)
# begin button_bar

and that will prevent the menu from appearing.
How to edit your Emenus in Enlightenment

There are two ways to do this as far as I know. One way is to get E16menuedit which is a graphical user interface that allows you to edit your menus. It comes with some distros such as EvilEntity. Other distros may have it available on their repositories such as Debian orperhaps others. Otherwise, you can go to E16 menuedit at sourgeforge.. Once you have it installed and see what it looks like, it is very self-explanatory.

Of course in order for it to actually appear in your menu if it doesn't already, leads me into my preferred method of editing the Emenus. Some may feel it is a litte archaic but I find it easier once you get the hang of it. What I'm referring to is editing it in the terminal manually. You should find these menu files in the following directory: /home/username/.enlightenment/. Note that it is in a hidden directory. They will be called exactly what you see on your menu already. For example, you may see "configure.menu" or "internet.menu" and many others. The main one in there is called "file.menu". This one shows the actual Emenu on the screen with all of the subheadings. If you change anything on this file, it will affect how the menu looks on the screen when you first click on your desktop. Keep in mind that I have already custom designed three of these menus that are available in the downloads section as previously mentioned.

To actually edit one of these menus you would open one of them up with your favorite editor. I prefer to use nano, so for example:
cd /home/username/.enlightenment/
nano -w internet.menu
when opened, my actual menu shows this:
"Net"

" Mozilla" NULL exec "/usr/bin/mozilla"
" FireFox" NULL exec "/usr/bin/mozilla-firefox"
" Firebird" NULL exec "usr/bin/mozilla-firebird"
" Ayttm" NULL exec "/usr/local/bin/ayttm"
" Gaim" NULL exec "usr/bin/gaim"
" Ymessenger" NULL exec "/usr/bin/ymessenger"
" XChat" NULL exec "/usr/bin/xchat"
" Gftp" NULL exec "/usr/bin/gftp"
" Samba" NULL exec "/usr/bin/LinNeighborhood"
" LimeWire" NULL exec "/home/ctm/LimeWire/LimeWire"
" Xmule" NULL exec "/usr/bin/xmule"

* Keep in mind that anything that is not actually installed will not show on your menu on the screen even if it is listed in here. You have to install the application and have the same path as listed in the .menu file in order for it to show up.

So, if we break down what one of the lines actually means..

I'll choose the Ayttm example (A great multiprotocol messenger - see the software page for instructions and info on it!)
" Ayttm" NULL exec "/usr/local/bin/ayttm"

The " Ayttm" will represent what actually shows in your menu as the name of the application so you can choose whatever you like. NULL is used if you don't want to use an icon for it. If you want an icon to appear next to the name for this application, you would need to put in the path to the icon. So instead of NULL, you would put in /usr/share/icons/ayttmicon.xpm or whatever the path to the icon would be. I choose not to use icons as you can see from my example. The next part is "exec" which obviously tells it to run the program. The next line is the path to actual application to run it. After you have set everything up, you need to refresh E (ctrl-alt-end) in order for the changes to take effect.

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