Continuing with our introduction to old-school Linux window managers, I would like to bring to you Window Maker. The Window Maker window manager was designed to look and feel like the old NeXT GUI.

Window Maker is a window manager that, while having elements of a desktop environment, does keep very strongly to the principles of a basic, light weight window manager. It has an extremely simple, mouse driven interface and in some ways operates in the old NextStep blueprint of functionality.

Window Maker is an X11 window manager originally designed to provide integration support for the GNUstep Desktop Environment. In every way possible, it reproduces the elegant look and feel of the NEXTSTEP user interface.

If you’ve never used Window Maker on your Linux desktop, you’re missing out. I’ve dabbled in nearly every window manager/desktop environment out there, and while all have their pros and cons, I always go back to Window Maker.

GnoMenu - A consolidated menu for gnome that brings eye candy to the world of the Gnome menu’s. Fully functional menu , supports themes , for a composited or non composited desktop. It can emulate the look and feel of the most beautiful menus of most modern desktops, and it can also use custom menus, due to its powerful theme XML engine.

The Gnome2 GlobalMenu project is an attempt to produce a GTK module and panel applet for gnome2 that acts as a global public menu for all gtk-powered applications. Instead of the application menu appearing on the actual window below the window manager "bar" it always appears on the panel.

Theming one's OS to look like a Mac is all the rage these days, but for the most part such modifications are superficial. However, Global Menu actually changes the user experience quite a bit. For those who haven't seen a Mac before, [do such people exist?] on Mac OS, the menu for applications is located in a bar at the top of the screen, rather than the top of the window, like in Windows and Gnome.

Window Maker is a fast, lightweight window manager based as closely as possible on the look and feel of the NeXTStep interface. (You may be familiar with NeXTStep an ancestor of Mac OSX, although the look and feel has changed a fair bit between the two.)

Mark Shuttleworth just announced the plan for the empty space on the right created by moving the window buttons (controls) to the left: Window Indicators or "windicators".

Window Indicators will be just like the current Panel Indicators: they will have an icon which indicates the state and clicking it brings up a menu.