If you're looking for something simpler, with a sane out-of-the-box config, consider OpenBSD's cwm(1) -- the calm window manager. A portable version for Linux/BSD is available at https://github.com/leahneukirchen/cwm
I really believe that especially for something like a GUI, you should have a screenshot(s) on the readme.
I am generally looking for a lighter Window Manager based on wm2 [1] [2]... I even began writing one myself as I got tired of the normal options being really heavy. Currently working on modernizing it for touch/mouse dual input (no mode switching). FYI, the last shipped wm2 has tonnes of performance bugs I have been slowly working through.
It's a floating window manager that ... manages windows. As such, it can look wildly different, from config to config. Anyway, here's what mine looks like: https://i.arxius.io/14498fe6.png
I came back to fvwm, previously using cwm and spectrwm, just because I found annoying to lose control of my wm after sharing screen on zoom (a must have due to working remotely). Very happy with it, particularly after giving it a old school unix twist with https://github.com/yaoguai/fvwm-min
it was right before everyone went nuts with the alpha blending terminals and enlightenment wm and all that craziness. (i never got into that... too slow and buggy!)
i was a big fan of the one that looked like nextstep though. reminded me of my old next slab i picked up in high school.
I am surprised FVWM is still around. It was the first window manager I was exposed to in the 90s and my experience was very negative.
Its default configuration was terribly ugly and the software expose a bazillion of option to the user for customizing. At the time this seemed sort of cool but I learnt it is just very bad as it take a lot of your time to customize things and at the end it still looks amateurish.
Since then I consider good software those that have sane defaults out of the box and have only as few options as possible and only for doing useful customization.
I generally consider as bad software those that omit to take decisions and leave to the user the responsibility by exposing all the minute options. FVWM was a sort of champion in this respect.
To contrast, I have very fond memories of FVWM from the nineties, always liked its minimalism and default "padded" look (I mean the beleved buttons and bars -- basically what the use in the current website as its theme: https://www.fvwm.org/ ). FVWM was no-fuss to get things done, Englitenment and co were for the more Emo-types who liked "edgy" themes.
Later, I also used Windowmaker and Blackbox, and at some point I gave up and had a full-on KDE as the desktop.
I moved to WindowMaker that I loved for its elegance and to icewm. This latter had none of the elegance of windowmaker but it used very low memory resources and had a decent windows-like look. I considered blackbox and tried to use it but it was too minimalist for me.
Is there another "scrolling" window manager like FVWM which gives you a workspace larger than your screen but doesn't have an impenetrable configuration DSL?
