Matchbox Vs E17

[gruso]

Someone on the blog asked this question, and I thought I'd bring it here. Why are many of the devs using E17 instead of Matchbox? Obviously the slick interface is big factor, but I'm thinking it takes more than a bit of eye candy to seduce a hacker.

What is E17's feature set like compared to that of Matchbox? What makes it better for Pandora?

 

[midna25]

First post!

Well... For one thing, you have the freedom to switch between GUIs at will. You can use Matchbox or whatever you want. It's easy (or so I hear.) But I think the eye candy is definitely a factor in the switch. Perhaps the team is looking to show that the Pandora isn't just for hackers and Linux users, but can be easily operated by everyone else too.

 

[gruso]

Thanks for that.

 

[dflemstr]

Here's my comparison, including my (as always biased) opinion about things:

• Differences in UI:
  1. E17 has its own suite of configuration applications along with its own GUI libraries (Almost like KDE has its own apps using Qt). The EFL libraries are very powerful and can do almost anything you throw at them, with a minimal resource usage. By contrast, Matchbox is a thin layer above the applications you want to run; it doesn't have a standard GUI toolkit but instead uses tools written using various different toolkits (like GTK and Qt and so on). It's of course possible to run an application that uses any toolkit in both WMs; I'm just talking about how the core programs of the WMs are designed.
  2. Enlightenment is a VM more geared towards desktop usage in general; you will see this by looking at the whole design of the WM. You won't see touchscreen-friendly buttons, or window management features optimized for low-resolution displays. Matchbox does this much better by providing a general window management design that is much more fingerfriendly and that uses larger widgets.
  3. However, Matchbox isn't really designed for the kind of device that the Pandora is, either. Matchbox has features that in general aren't useful on any kind of device other than mobile phones, like the oh-so-well-known "tab bar" thingie.
  4. Enlightenment generally uses more "bling" compared to Matchbox; you will see transparency and animations all over the place. Many of the effects don't tend to really look good, however; they aren't there to please the eye but instead to show off what the EFL platform is capable of.
• Features:
  1. Enlightenment has a lot more features than Matchbox has. The configuration options are almost as plentiful as they are in KDE
  2. ...which of course can be confusing for the end user. Matchbox has a much more restrictive design that prevents screwups in some situations.
  3. There's really not much to say about the WMs in general. They just manage your windows, what did you expect them to do? I could talk about the EFL libraries, that play an important role in symbiosis with the E17 WM, but those aren't really part of the window manager (kind of like how Qt works).
• Popularity:
  1. E17 is much more popular than Matchbox in general
  2. ...but is less popular on mobile devices when compared to Matchbox.

I myself will probably be using KDE (once I get it ported/packaged which should be a breeze) because I need some of the features KDE4 has (Akonadi, Strigi, Nepomuk etc) and want some of the new touch screen features in KDE 4.4, and because KDE has all the features that E17 and Matchbox have I don't see a reason why not to use it,

but if I had to choose between Matchie and E17, E17 would be the clear winner.

 

[MDave]

Would games have more resources and better performance with a lighter window manager? Is the difference worth it?

As much as I would like Enlightenment, if I can squeeze more fps and get more free RAM using something lighter like Matchbox, I'd use that instead.

 

[Coder_TimT]

---snip---
There's really not much to say about the WMs in general. They just manage your windows, what did you expect them to do? I could talk about the EFL libraries, that play an important role in symbiosis with the E17 WM, but those aren't really part of the window manager (kind of like how Qt works).
---snip---

But there is one fairly major difference to mention in how they manage windows. Matchbox is a full-screen window manager, meaning your "active" window will always be full screen(with possibly a title bar) and on top. There is no concept of multiple tiled or overlapping windows. For a limited resolution device, this approach has merit. E17 will offer the more traditional "full desktop" experience. But I'm still quite concerned about navigating a "full desktop" on a 4" screen. I personally think, that besides some possible desktop widgets like things, most stuff will need to be run full screen to be very usable. I could very well be proven wrong though and will actually need the device in hand to find out... Redacted after being informed that e17 now indeed has a comparable "full screen" mode that behave similarly to mb, but cooler.

In my opinion, this is a unique device that deserves a unique UI. I would love to see a sort of gmenu/iphone/maemo hybrid. Grid based launcher (gmenu/iphone), all programs fullscreen(alt-tab to cycle through or pick from task list), home screen with widgets like clock/cal/tasks/etc(maemo-ish), single hardware button toggles between home screen and last active task(iphone-ish at least in regards to the single hardware button), single unified interface to quickly and easily launch games/emulators and lovely X apps such as firefox, etc... Unfortunately, it's not near that simply to actually implement.

Anyway, I'm still leaning towards matchbox just because I'm worried about the usability of a full desktop environment on a tiny screen...but I have to say looking at screenshots of kde4, I would love me some plasmoids if it ran decently...

 

[dflemstr]

In my opinion, this is a unique device that deserves a unique UI. I would love to see a sort of gmenu/iphone/maemo hybrid. Grid based launcher (gmenu/iphone), all programs fullscreen(alt-tab to cycle through or pick from task list), home screen with widgets like clock/cal/tasks/etc(maemo-ish), single hardware button toggles between home screen and last active task(iphone-ish at least in regards to the single hardware button), single unified interface to quickly and easily launch games/emulators and lovely X apps such as firefox, etc... Unfortunately, it's not near that simply to actually implement.

Anyway, I'm still leaning towards matchbox just because I'm worried about the usability of a full desktop environment on a tiny screen...but I have to say looking at screenshots of kde4, I would love me some plasmoids if it ran decently...

Well, what you describe in the first section seems awfully similar to Moblin... We won't use Moblin as you probably know becuase it doesn't support X apps and isn't built for ARM processors, but it would be nice to have something similar to it.

KDE 4 embedded can come very close to that experience through the plasmoid setup (remember - plasma isn't just the widgets but also the panels, the actual desktop and various supporting Nepomuk data engines) including tabs and a desktop launcher grid. Take a look at the STasks plasmoid for instance; it's an excellent touchscreen optimized window switching plasmoid (albeit very similar to what's been proposed for Windows 7 unfortunately). The only issue might actually be memory usage because some Pandora applications might expect that 95% of the RAM is free on the device, which is impossible when using KDE (because it IS resource-heavy at times).

 

[BackAssward]

First post!

Well... For one thing, you have the freedom to switch between GUIs at will. You can use Matchbox or whatever you want. It's easy (or so I hear.) But I think the eye candy is definitely a factor in the switch. Perhaps the team is looking to show that the Pandora isn't just for hackers and Linux users, but can be easily operated by everyone else too.

Dude, Gruso knows this very well, look at the article he wrote and linked. I think the question is: Why do Dev's (who generally don't care about eye candy when developing) chose to use E17 for their development environment? Especially given that it (at the time they were using it) was not the official desktop manager that was going to ship with the Pandora. It would make more sense generally for them to use the official manager, so there must be some reason they chose to use E17 instead. What are those reasons.

As for the answer, I believe it has already been answered. I just wanted you to understand what the actual question was (or my interpretation of what he was asking anyway).

 

[gruso]

Yeah, you nailed it. Thanks for the responses so far everyone, interesting stuff.

 

[Raz]

In my opinion, this is a unique device that deserves a unique UI. I would love to see a sort of gmenu/iphone/maemo hybrid. Grid based launcher (gmenu/iphone), all programs fullscreen(alt-tab to cycle through or pick from task list), home screen with widgets like clock/cal/tasks/etc(maemo-ish), single hardware button toggles between home screen and last active task(iphone-ish at least in regards to the single hardware button), single unified interface to quickly and easily launch games/emulators and lovely X apps such as firefox, etc... Unfortunately, it's not near that simply to actually implement.

That does sound like something I'd want on my Pandora though since I've migrated here from an iPhone community

 

[raster]

you should research e17 a bit more. check out "illume" module - or for that matter - just select it when e starts - as your preferred profile. it's very "matchboxy" with some extra joy. that's the same wm - just a module has twisted it's ui to be more touchscreen/finger friendly for example. if you look at elementary (toolkit) it's entirely finger/touchscreen oriented right now. and it's a walk in the park to use. even in c. mind you EFL (the libraries built for E17) have one thing they aimed to do - make it easy to do custom ui's, make them efficient, flexible and themeable. things like edje help abstract the look of a ui to the code that drives it. it puts it off into a replacable data file (eg - theme).

but - yes. you can change wm at will. wm's will still work interchangable for most apps (only those that try and integrate into a particular env and assume a management policy or set of hooks, api's or features will suffer - your regular "pop up a window, maybe go fullscreen, etc." apps won't matter. performance won't be different either as thew wm is not involved in an app drawing in its window. if you do compositing... that's a different matter. one that would need a very lengthy discussion.

 

[dflemstr]

if you do compositing... that's a different matter. one that would need a very lengthy discussion.

Actually, since using the SGX on the Pandora really doesn't change its power consumption but instead improves the drawing performance radically, I would actually prefer if there was a compositing window manager for the Pandora. Less CPU stress, nicer UI and more efficient use of power resources.

 

[mindlord]

I installed E17 to see what all the hub-bub was about. It's a nice looking WM and is pretty well suited to the stylus and touchscreen way of doing things. I found it to be quirky, but functional. For example, try as I might I couldn't change the desktop icon font. And it's not even close to bulletproof because in trying to change the font I found 3 new ways to crash it. It does crash gracefully and restarts itself right where you left off.

However, E17 does have a module called Illume that magically makes it behave more or less like Matchbox with the fullscreen and decorationless apps. I found it hard to switch applications in this mode, but I might have been missing something obvious. So it looks like the Enlightenment team is looking to break into the embedded market.

I found it odd that there is not task list option for the "shelf", It can show you hidden and iconized apps, but not a list of all running apps. You're supposed to "middle click" to get that. Not that it's terrible, but "middle click" is not something the Pandora is designed to do. I know you can chord the left and right mouse buttons to trigger "middle click" in Linux, but on the Pandora that would mean, putting the stylus down/away to hit both the shoulder buttons, and pick the stylus back up just to change running apps. Some adjustments to the default behaviors will need to be addressed.

 

[Aimless_E]

I installed E17 to see what all the hub-bub was about. It's a nice looking WM and is pretty well suited to the stylus and touchscreen way of doing things. I found it to be quirky, but functional. For example, try as I might I couldn't change the desktop icon font. And it's not even close to bulletproof because in trying to change the font I found 3 new ways to crash it. It does crash gracefully and restarts itself right where you left off.

However, E17 does have a module called Illume that magically makes it behave more or less like Matchbox with the fullscreen and decorationless apps. I found it hard to switch applications in this mode, but I might have been missing something obvious. So it looks like the Enlightenment team is looking to break into the embedded market.

I found it odd that there is not task list option for the "shelf", It can show you hidden and iconized apps, but not a list of all running apps. You're supposed to "middle click" to get that. Not that it's terrible, but "middle click" is not something the Pandora is designed to do. I know you can chord the left and right mouse buttons to trigger "middle click" in Linux, but on the Pandora that would mean, putting the stylus down/away to hit both the shoulder buttons, and pick the stylus back up just to change running apps. Some adjustments to the default behaviors will need to be addressed.

Depending on how you installed e17 you will get (unfortunately) a very different experience. I have found that using the easy_e17.sh script to give the most stable version on PC's. Not sure why, but there you are. E17 has been in heavy development since ~2003 there aren't many developers working on it and some of the libraries are quite advanced so problems are to be expected but most are easily overcome or avoided with a stable release cycle. As far as embedded devices are concerned one of the programmers for the EFL (enlightenment foundation libraries) landed a contract to help create the interface for openmoko and that is where Illume came from, its not "new" but it is "niche".

Like some of the earlier posts e17 has configuration options for just about everything on the system. Including compositing support via the bling module or the compiz analog "echomorph" . The middle click action could be changed to be pandorabutton+tap, or tap and hold, or triple tap, etc. in the input dialog under settings.

Memory usage isn't a problem as e17 seems to run beautifully (not perfectly) on the n800 and older hardware. I would think that, given the pandora's stats, we have little to worry about. All in all if E17 becomes the defacto desktop for the "Advance" side of the Pandora it will help encourage more developers to look at the EFL and hopefully, maybe get a true stable release of E17 sometime before my 5 month old baby starts school.

Heres hoping.

 

[Sphinxter]

Would games have more resources and better performance with a lighter window manager? Is the difference worth it?

As much as I would like Enlightenment, if I can squeeze more fps and get more free RAM using something lighter like Matchbox, I'd use that instead.

You might have that backwards, Enlightenment is the one with a very small footprint and smoking performance.

 

[mindlord]

Okay, for those of you running *buntu and who want to see what E17 is all about, you can install it fairly simply by following this tutorial:
http://www.objectivelytrue.com/tag/jaunty-jackalope/

I found that I had to change one thing to get the apt-get line to work: change libglib-2.0-dev to libglib-dev

It will compile from source, so it will take some time. This makes it so you can choose E-17 from your session menu at login. I suggest activating the Illume module, and trying the Illume theme, it's spiffy even on a Desktop. I especially enjoy the ability to download themes right from the theme settings dialog. (BTW the steam punk theme is gorgeous)

Matchbox, is of course available in the Repos, so much easier to install. I tried it, it's suitable as a small WM, but given the choice between XFCE, Matchbox, and E17.. I still think I'll go XFCE. Depends on how much extra work the Pandora team put into E17.

 

[bzar]

Okay, for those of you running *buntu and who want to see what E17 is all about, you can install it fairly simply by following this tutorial:
http://www.objectivelytrue.com/tag/jaunty-jackalope/

Umm, I found this one easier: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Enlightenment

 

[MDave]

Would games have more resources and better performance with a lighter window manager? Is the difference worth it?

As much as I would like Enlightenment, if I can squeeze more fps and get more free RAM using something lighter like Matchbox, I'd use that instead.

You might have that backwards, Enlightenment is the one with a very small footprint and smoking performance.

Really? That seems rather odd! I'm all for Enlightenment then

 

[mindlord]

Okay, for those of you running *buntu and who want to see what E17 is all about, you can install it fairly simply by following this tutorial:
http://www.objectivelytrue.com/tag/jaunty-jackalope/

Umm, I found this one easier: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Enlightenment

Nice catch... the only advantage of using easy-e17.sh is that it will be the svn version. Using the repo is certainly preferable in most cases.

 

[Coder_TimT]

you should research e17 a bit more. check out "illume" module - or for that matter - just select it when e starts - as your preferred profile. it's very "matchboxy" with some extra joy. that's the same wm - just a module has twisted it's ui to be more touchscreen/finger friendly for example. if you look at elementary (toolkit) it's entirely finger/touchscreen oriented right now. and it's a walk in the park to use. even in c. mind you EFL (the libraries built for E17) have one thing they aimed to do - make it easy to do custom ui's, make them efficient, flexible and themeable. things like edje help abstract the look of a ui to the code that drives it. it puts it off into a replacable data file (eg - theme).

but - yes. you can change wm at will. wm's will still work interchangable for most apps (only those that try and integrate into a particular env and assume a management policy or set of hooks, api's or features will suffer - your regular "pop up a window, maybe go fullscreen, etc." apps won't matter. performance won't be different either as thew wm is not involved in an app drawing in its window. if you do compositing... that's a different matter. one that would need a very lengthy discussion.

Well, consider me enlightened(yes, bad pun intended). I knew there was something in the works for touchscreen devices from looking at the OpenMoko project every once in awhile, but I didn't realize it was actually there and usable. I just tried it out and it was pretty nifty. Definitely completely changed my stance on mb v. e17, since with e17 you can either have a traditional desktop environment or, by throwing a few switches, get a touchscreen-centric interface, complete with single press touchscreen events and even some kinetic scrolling.

Plus in my completely unscientific memory usage test, e17 came out on top. I took my numbers factoring out shared memory; I might have actually factored out too much shared memory as I didn't look to see if it was just shared among it's own libs or system ones, but I at least used the same approach for each system. All the pieces of matchbox(it was a matchbox2 install) took about 17MB at startup, while e17 seemed to come in at ~10MB. Unless I'm missing something, that's alot of eye-candy for that kind of memory footprint. Just fyi, I came up with ~40MB for xfce... I stopped digging through processes for GNOME at >50MB...

So count me onboard for e17. I also encourage whomever might shoot a video on the pandora to at least get/use version 16.999.062 as that is what I was using this machine and it has a much more modern looking monocromatic theme than other versions I've seen/used. Or maybe it's just what is packaged for Ubuntu Jaunty...regardless it looked awesome to me...