NAME

xwm - X Window System, window manager process

SYNOPSIS

xwm [ -cfgmrsz ] [ +function ] [ @delta ] [ fn=font ] [ fi=font ] [ host:display ]

DESCRIPTION

The window manager allows you to use the mouse to push a window to the top or bottom of the stack, turn a  window  into  an  icon,  resize  a window,  move a window elsewhere on the screen, attach the keyboard to a window (hierarchy) and circulate the window hierarchy.   The  window manager only manipulates top-level windows (i.e., direct decendents of the  root  window),  not  their  subwindows,  so  in  the   following, references to window refer only to top-level windows. 

Since xwm does  not  have  a  window  of  its  own  it steals certain button/key combinations and interprets them as operations  on  existing  windows.  The  key combination is specified on the command line with some subset of the options: ‘c’ (control), ‘s’ (shift), ‘m’ (meta) and ‘n’ (no-key). For example, if you specify the options -cm then the Control and Meta keys must be down at the time a mouse button is  depressed.   If  no  combination is specified in the command line, Meta is the default.  If ‘n’ is specified anywhere in the option list all keys will be ignored. 

For  each  mouse button, a different command is performed depending on whether the button is ‘clicked’ or ‘moved’, i.e., whether the mouse is moved  between  the  press  and  release  of  the button.  Some actual movement is allowed before the mouse  is  really  considered  to  have moved,  the  amount  of  movement  is settable (see below).  The mouse buttons perform the  commands  described  below.   For  any  of  these commands,  if  you press a button to start a command, and then want to abort the command, simply  press  one  of  the  other  buttons  before releasing the first button.  As each command is  being  performed  the mouse cursor will be changed to indicate which command is in effect. 

If  the  left  button is clicked in a window it will ‘push’ the window you are pointing at to the bottom of any stack of overlapping windows.  If  clicked  on  the  root window a ‘circulate down’ operation will be performed on the root  window  moving  the  top  most  window  in  the hierarchy to the bottom.  For any of these operations the mouse cursor will be a ‘dot’. 

The left button will also ‘iconify’ the window you point at if  it  is pressed  down  and then moved. When you release the button, the window will be made into an icon at  the  current  mouse  location.   If  the window  being iconified has its own icon, then that icon will be used.  If not xwm will create and maintain its own text  icon  using  the  name  of  the window   as   the initial text.  For any of these operations the mouse cursor will be an ‘icon’ cursor. 

The name displayed in an xwm owned text icon can be edited at any time by   placing   the   mouse   cursor  in  the  icon  and typing.  Note: Modifying text displayed in an icon window will modify the name of the window associated with that icon. The  delete  key  deletes  the  last character,  Control-U  deletes  the  entire  name,  any other printing characters are appended to the current name.  When the mouse cursor in an xwm text icon it will be a ‘text’ cursor (‘I bar’ cursor). 

If  you  click  the middle button on an icon, the window you iconified will reappear in its previous position on the screen and the icon will disappear.   For  this  operation  the  mouse cursor will be an ‘arrow cross’ cursor. 

The  middle button is used to resize a window by moving a corner or an edge.  If you press it on a window, a rubber  banded  outline  of  the window  will  be  displayed  (and a grid if you specify the ‘g’ option explained below) and moving the mouse will change  its  size,  leaving the  opposite  corner  or other edges fixed.  The corner or edge to be moved depends on the where the mouse is when the  button  is  pressed.  Imagine the window divided with grid of nine rectangles (the same grid that the ‘g’ option displays).  If the mouse is in  one  of  the  four corner  rectangles or the center rectangle, then the corner closest to the mouse will be moved; otherwise, the closest edge  will  be  moved.  When the button is released,  the  window  will   be   resized.    For these operations the mouse cursor will be an ‘arrow cross’ cursor. 

The  middle  button  can  also  be  used  to focus keyboard input to a specific window i.e., keyboard input will go to the  specified  window (hierarchy)  even  when  the  mouse is outside the window.  If the ’f’ option is specified clicking the middle button twice on a window  will attach the keyboard to that window.  Clicking the middle button on the background will detach the keyboard  from  any  window  (actually,  it attaches  it  to the background window).  For this operation the mouse cursor will be an ’arrow cross’ cursor. 

The right button, if clicked in a window, will ‘pull’ the  window  you are  pointing  at  to the top of any stack of overlapping windows.  If clicked on  the  root  window  a  ‘circulate  up’  operation  will  be performed  moving  the bottom most window in the hierarchy to the top.  For these operations the mouse cursor will be a ‘circle’ cursor. 

The right button will also move the window you are pointing at  if  it is  pressed down and then moved.  An outline of the window (and a grid if you specified the ’g’ option) will appear, and will move  with  the mouse  cursor.   When you release the right button, the window will be moved to the current location of the outline.  For this operation  the mouse cursor will be a ’circle’ cursor. 

OPTION SUMMARY:

c The ‘c’ (control) option specifies that the Control key must be held down for xwm to listen to mouse button operations. 

f The ‘f’ (focus) option specifies that a double-click on the middle button will focus keyboard input events to the specified window. 

g The (grid)  option  turns  on  a  tick-tack-toe  like  grid  that  will be displayed inside the ‘window box’ during window  movement  and  resize operations. 

m The ‘m’ (meta)  option  specifies  that the Meta key must be held down for xwm to listen to mouse button operations. 

n The ‘n’ (no-key)  option  specifies  no  keys may be down when performing mouse button operation. 

r The ‘r’ (reverse) option indicates that icons should  be  displayed  as  white text  on  a  black  background,  rather  than  black  text  on a white background. 

s The ‘s’ (shift) options indicates that the Shift key must be held down for xwm to listen to mouse button operations. 

z The ‘z’ (zap) option turns on a special ‘zap’ effect that is intended to  draw your  attention  to  icons as they are created and windows as they are moved. 

ARGUMENT SUMMARY:

+function
This argument allows you to specify a  cursor  display  function.   It should  be  followed  by an integer specifying the code of the display function.  See the Xlib document for details of  available  functions. The default function is GXcopy.

@delta This  argument  allows you to specify a mouse delta value.  This value determines how far the mouse must move with a button down  before  the iconify,  move and  change operations begin.  The default is 5 pixels.  Note that if you define  a  large  delta,  you  can  still  make  fine adjustments by first moving far away and then moving back. 

fn=font This  argument  allow  you  to specify a text font to be used in pop up information display.  The default font is 6x10. 

fi=font This  argument  allow  you  to specify an icon text font.  The default font is 6x10. 

host:display
This argument allow you to specify the the host and display number  on which xwm will operate.  For example ‘xwm orpheus:1’ would start up  the  window manager on display one on the machine orpheus.  By default, xwm uses the host  and  display  number  stored  in  the  environment  variable DISPLAY,  and  therefore this argument is not normally specified.  The window manager can be running anywhere, and you can run more than  one manager per display (provided that they do not attempt to use the same mouse button / key combinations, see below). 

X DEFAULTS

BodyFont
Set the default font for information display.

IconFont
Set the default font for text icons.

InternalBorder
Set the space between the text and window border in text icons.

BorderWidth
Set the border width of text icons.

ReverseVideo
Display text icons in reverse video?

ENVIRONMENT

DISPLAY
To get default host and display number.

SEE ALSO

X(1), X(8C)

AUTHOR

Copyright 1985, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Tony Della Fera, DEC MIT Project Athena

Based upon previous ‘xwm’ by Bob Scheifler, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science