It has been my goal to have a light-weight -- but featureful --
desktop for a long time.
<p>

For over seven years, I have ran blackbox.
<p>

But I also want icons, taskbar panel, menu at bottom (or top), pager,
and maybe a systemtray.
<p>

This webpage will attempt to briefly document my research in this.
<p>

<h2>fbpanel</h2>
Depends on gtk2+, pango, cairo, Xft, libpixman.
Provides plugins for clock, panel, system tray, menu, pager.
Has pop-up tool tips.
EWMH compliant.
<pre>
$ size /usr/pkg/bin/fbpanel 
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
  51497    1580     660   53737    d1e9 /usr/pkg/bin/fbpanel

$ ps -p 2196 -o pcpu,pmem,nvcsw,majflt,rss,rsz,start,time,tsiz,utime,vsz,comm
%CPU %MEM NVCSW MAJFLT  RSS  RSZ STARTED    TIME TSIZ    UTIME  VSZ COMMAND
 0.2  4.4  8264     14 7172 7172  6:43PM 0:09.39   52 8.807646 3440 fbpanel 
</pre>

<h2>fspanel</h2>
Depends on Xft.
Patches extra for internationalization.
It is only a taskbar panel and pager. It is very efficient.
No program launcher menu.
EWMH compliant.
No more development.
<pre>
$ size /usr/pkg/bin/fspanel
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
  10379     776     260   11415    2c97 /usr/pkg/bin/fspanel

%CPU %MEM NVCSW MAJFLT  RSS  RSZ STARTED    TIME TSIZ    UTIME VSZ COMMAND
 0.0  1.2   276      8 2020 2020  7:06PM 0:00.15   12 0.107769 248 fspanel
</pre>
<p>

<h2>taskbar</h2>
Depends on Xft and older imlib-1.
EWMH compliant.
No development since 2003.
Includes clock and sensors plugins.
Has tooltips.
No pager.
<pre>
$ size /usr/pkg/bin/taskbar
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
  41962    1760    1012   44734    aebe /usr/pkg/bin/taskbar

$ ps -p 18921 -o pcpu,pmem,nvcsw,majflt,rss,rsz,start,time,tsiz,utime,vsz,comm
%CPU %MEM NVCSW MAJFLT  RSS  RSZ STARTED    TIME TSIZ    UTIME VSZ COMMAND
 0.0  1.3   306      1 2148 2148  8:36PM 0:00.08   44 0.059702 156 taskbar
</pre>

The following is with small menu turned on and the libclock plugin loaded.
<pre>
%CPU %MEM NVCSW MAJFLT  RSS  RSZ STARTED    TIME TSIZ    UTIME VSZ COMMAND
 0.0  1.7   358      0 2792 2792  8:41PM 0:00.22   44 0.169751 352 taskbar
</pre>
<p>

<h2>kpanel</h2>
need to do ...

<h2>xfce4-panel</h2>
need to do ...

<hr>
TODO:
file managers and icon managers:
lighter-weight:idesk, dfm, rox;
kfm or gmc

<hr>
TODO:
window manager with taskbar/pager: icewm plus add icewmtray
<p>

<h2>jwm</h2>
Depends on Xft and png.
jwm window manager has taskbar, tray, pager, clock, popups.
TODO: I think tray is a dock and their terminology for a dock is
the systemtray. Check this?
<p>
May have problems with EWMH spec. fspanel and taskbar and fbpanel
don't work correct it seems (but work perfect with blackbox).
Seems to work somewhat though -- so maybe I am wrong.
Nevertheless, they are not needed.
TODO: add configuration so double-click on title bar will shade it.
TODO: maybe "FOOStyle" settings should just be put with the FOO settings.
<pre>
$ size /usr/pkg/bin/jwm
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
 114677    2128    1908  118713   1cfb9 /usr/pkg/bin/jwm

$  ps -p 3729 -o pcpu,pmem,nvcsw,majflt,rss,rsz,start,time,tsiz,utime,vsz,comm 
%CPU %MEM NVCSW MAJFLT  RSS  RSZ STARTED    TIME TSIZ    UTIME VSZ COMMAND
 0.0  3.3   206     30 3204 3204 10:45PM 0:00.67  116 0.588447 932 jwm 
</pre>

<h2>blackbox</h2>
Depends on libintl and standard X.
Has menu. Has dock.
No systemtray, no keybindings, no taskbar panel.
<pre>
$ size /usr/pkg/bin/blackbox
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
 364041   20972     600  385613   5e24d /usr/pkg/bin/blackbox

$ ps -p 16434 -o pcpu,pmem,nvcsw,majflt,rss,rsz,start,time,tsiz,utime,vsz,comm
%CPU %MEM NVCSW MAJFLT  RSS  RSZ STARTED    TIME TSIZ     UTIME  VSZ COMMAND
 0.0  1.0 47004    328 1572 1572 Fri05PM 0:23.20  344 12.513671 1860 blackbox
</pre>

bbkeys is keybinding tool (used with blackbox).
<pre>
$ size /usr/pkg/bin/bbkeys  
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
 128028   10368     928  139324   2203c /usr/pkg/bin/bbkey

$ ps -p 16568 -o pcpu,pmem,nvcsw,majflt,rss,rsz,start,time,tsiz,utime,vsz,comm
%CPU %MEM NVCSW MAJFLT RSS RSZ STARTED    TIME TSIZ    UTIME VSZ COMMAND
 0.0  0.6 17949    113 928 928 Fri05PM 0:02.32  124 1.060430 392 bbkeys
</pre>

<p>

Seems like running jwm would use less resources than adding various
other components together.

<hr>
NOTE: some of the above ps output is from different systems.