| ICEWM(1) | User Commands | ICEWM(1) |
icewm - lightweight X11 window manager
icewm [OPTIONS]
icewm is a window manager for the X11 window system. It aims to be small, fast and familiar to new users.
icewm is called a re-parenting window manager, because it draws small frames around application windows. By dragging this frame with the mouse, windows are resized or moved.
Because windows may overlap, icewm is also a stacking window manager. Many windows may exist, some hidden behind others.
icewm supports a configurable number of virtual desktops. These are called workspaces. Related windows are grouped on a dedicated workspace. By switching between workspaces, the user can attend to different tasks, while keeping oversight. This is supported by a task bar and a pager.
The installation comes with several themes. Choose a theme via a menu.
icewm is compliant with the ICCCM and EWMH window manager specifications.
The icewm package includes several programs:
Each of the IceWM executables supports the following options:
The icewm program supports some additional options:
On startup icewm launches the task bar at the bottom of the screen. The task bar consists from left to right of the following components:
The Menu button in the lower left corner gives access to the icewm root menu. This menu has sub-menus to start applications, to control icewm settings, and the icewm Logout menu.
The Show Desktop button unmaps all application windows to fully uncover the desktop.
The Window List Menu button gives access to a menu with a list of active windows for the current work space and a list of work spaces with sub-menus for their active application windows.
The Toolbar is a list of icons for applications which are defined in the toolbar configuration file.
The Workspace List shows one button for each work space. The current work space is indicated by a pressed button. Pressing another work space button switches to that work space. The work spaces are defined in the preferences file. When "PagerShowPreview" is turned on a small graphical summary for each workspace is shown.
The Task Pane consists of a list of wide buttons for each application which is running on the current work space, or all workspaces if "TaskBarShowAllWindows=1". Each task button shows the application icon and the application title. The active application is indicated by a pressed button. This is the application which has input focus. Pressing another button activates that application: it is brought to the foreground and receives input focus. Other mouse controlled activities on the window buttons are: dragging window buttons with the left mouse button to rearrange the order, closing the application window with "Alt" + middle button, lowering the application window with "Ctrl" + middle button, or bringing the application window to the current workspace with "Shift" + middle button if "TaskBarShowAllWindows=1".
If there are not many application buttons then a stretch of plain task bar is visible. Clicking on it with the right mouse button gives the task bar menu. Even with a full task pane, this menu can be usually accessed by right-clicking the bottom right corner of the taskbar.
The Tray Applet shows system tray objects.
The APM Applet shows battery power status.
The Net Applet shows network activity. Network devices to monitor are given by the "NetworkStatusDevice" option.
The Memory Applet monitors memory usage.
The CPU Applet monitors processor utilization.
The Mailbox Applet monitors mailbox status changes. See the section MAILBOX MONITORING below.
The Clock Applet shows the current time and date. It is configured by the "TimeFormat" option.
The Task Bar Collapse button collapses the task bar and hides it.
Not all icewm applets may show up on the task bar. They must have been enabled during configuration of the icewm software. Their appearance is also controlled by options in the preferences file.
Of all visible windows only one can be the active window. This is the window which has input focus. It is the primary receiver of keyboard and mouse events and hence one can interact with the application which created that window. A primary task of a window manager is to allow the user to switch input focus between different windows. The primary means to do this is the mouse pointer. By moving the mouse pointer over the screen to another window, and perhaps also by clicking on a window, input focus can be directed.
The "FocusMode" option controls the way icewm gives input focus to applications. It is initialized by the focus_mode configuration file. The focus mode is set via the Focus menu. icewm supports six focus models:
All non-Custom focus modes override these ten options.
Apart from the mouse, icewm supports changing input focus in two other ways. Both involve the keyboard. The first uses the "QuickSwitch" window. It is activated by pressing "Alt+Tab" or "Alt+Shift+Tab". A window pops up in the centre of the screen with a narrow band over the next or previous window which will receive input focus when the "Alt" key is released. By repeatedly pressing "Alt+Tab" or "Alt+Shift+Tab" one can cycle through all windows.
The second keyboard method involves pressing "Alt+Esc" or "Alt+Shift+Esc". Input focus is immediately changed to the next or previous window, which will be raised to make it fully visible.
And finally, there is another way which is a hybrid of keyboard and mouse control. It involves the "QuickSwitch" popup explained before, after pressing "Alt+Tab" and while still holding "Alt" a left click on one of the list items causes the activation of the related window.
A second important task of a window manager is to place new windows on the screen. By default icewm chooses a placement with minimal overlap, but this is determined by the "SmartPlacement" option in the preferences file. If "SmartPlacement" is turned off then windows are placed in sequence from left to right and top to bottom. One can also turn on "ManualPlacement". Then new windows appear initially in the top left corner and the mouse cursor changes into a fist. By moving the fist cursor to a suitable location and clicking the new window will appear at the mouse click location.
Windows can overlap. Which window appears on top is determined by three features. Newer windows appear over older windows. By clicking on a window it is raised to the top. But both are overruled by the window layer. Windows can be placed in different layers via the Layers menu. Click with the right mouse button on the window frame and select Layer. From there choose one of seven window layers. These are ordered from higher to lower. Windows in higher layers appear over windows in lower layers.
icewm supports multiple virtual desktops called work spaces. A work space is like a screen where a subset of all application windows are mapped. Thanks to multiple work spaces we can more easily manage a large number of applications. The number of work spaces and their names are configurable in the preferences file through the "WorkspaceNames" option. By default four workspaces are created with the names 1, 2, 3 and 4 thus:
WorkspaceNames=" 1 ", " 2 ", " 3 ", " 4 "
This syntax is typical for icewm options which receive multiple values. It is a list of comma-separated values each of which can be quoted.
The work spaces are visible on the toolbar. One can switch to a different work space by pressing the work space button in the toolbar, but after becoming familiar with the 'keyboard shortcuts' below one will want to use a hotkey to choose a work space. If the "EdgeSwitch" options is enabled in the preferences file (with sub-options "HorizontalEdgeSwitch" and "VerticalEdgeSwitch") then one can move to the next or previous workspace by moving the mouse to the edge of the screen. The "ContinuousEdgeSwitch" option enables continuous movement to subsequent workspaces. The "EdgeSwitchDelay" option says how long to wait before a change of workspace occurs.
To move an application window to a different work space one can use a keyboard shortcut. Another option is to select the Move To submenu in the window menu of the window frame.
If EnableAddressBar=1 then KeySysAddressBar="Alt+Ctrl+Space" activates the address bar in the task bar. If ShowAddressBar=1 it is always shown. This is a command-line in the task bar where a shell command can be typed. Pressing "Enter" will execute the command. AddressBarCommand="/bin/sh" will be used to execute the command. On "Control+Enter" the command is executed in a terminal as given by TerminalCommand. The address bar maintains a history which is navigable by the Up and Down keys. It supports command completion using "Tab" or "Ctrl+I". A rich set of editing operations is supported, including cut-/copy-/paste-operations.
The window list window shows a list of all workspaces. For each workspace it shows the window titles of the windows which are mapped on it. The bottom entry reads "All Workspaces". It holds the sticky windows. These windows are mapped in all workspaces.
The window list window is normally hidden. Choose one of the following four methods to make it visible:
A single-click on a window entry selects it. A group of windows can be selected by "Shift+Pointer_Button1" or by dragging with the left mouse button. Use "Ctrl+Pointer_Button1" to individually select windows in a multi-selection. A right mouse click over a selection will popup the system menu for this selection. To close the selected windows, press "Delete". Press "Shift+Delete" to forcefully kill them. Right mouse click below the sticky windows for a menu with window arranging actions.
Double-click on a workspace to switch to it. Double-click on a window to activate it. Or navigate by arrow keys and press Enter. The space bar toggles a selection of a window. "Ctrl+a" and "Ctrl+/" will select the entire list of windows. "Ctrl+\\" deselects everything. Press the first letter of a window title to navigate to it and select it. If titles of multiple windows start with the same letter then repeatedly pressing the first letter cycles over those windows. "Home" selects the first entry and "End" the last. "PageUp" and "PageDown" move up or down by ten entries. Combine this with the "Shift" key to extend a selection over the range of motion.
The task bar can show one or more icons to reflect the status of a mailbox. The mailbox can be a local file or a remote POP or IMAP account. For this a couple of options must be set. First, TaskBarShowMailboxStatus must be enabled, which it is by default. Then the location of the mailbox must be set. Icewm first looks for MailBoxPath in preferences. If this is unset, it looks at the environment variables "MAILPATH" and "MAIL". MailBoxPath may contain a space-separated list of mailboxes, while "MAILPATH" may contain a colon-separated list of mailboxes. If a mailbox starts with a slash "/", then it is a local file, otherwise a URL. These are six examples of possible mailboxes:
file:///var/spool/mail/captnmark
file:///home/captnmark/Maildir/
pop3://markus:%2f%40%3a@maol.ch/
pop3s://markus:password@pop.gmail.com/
imap://mathias@localhost/INBOX.Maillisten.icewm-user
imaps://mathias:password@imap.gmail.com/INBOX
The POP3S and IMAPS schemes use "openssl" for TLS/SSL encryption. Note that for IceWM to access Gmail you must first configure your Gmail account to enable POP3 or IMAP access. Make sure you have secure file permissions on your IceWM preferences file and the directory which contains it.
Reserved characters in the password, like slash, at and colon can be specified using escape sequences with a hexadecimal encoding like %2f for the slash or %40 for the at sign. For example, to hex-encode "!p@a%s&s~" use this Perl snippet:
perl -e 'foreach(split("", $ARGV[0])) { printf "%%%02x", ord($_); };
print "\n";' '!p@a%s&s~'
Which will print:
%21%40%23%24%25%5e%26%2a%7e
This is the hex-encoded password. However, it is unwise to store a password in your preferences. Consider a wallet extension for IceWM.
IceWM will check a mailbox periodically. The period in seconds can be set by the MailCheckDelay option, which is 30 seconds by default.
Whenever new mail arrives, the mailbox icon will be highlighted. The color will indicate if the mail has been read or not. Hovering the mouse over the mailbox icon will show a tooltip with more details. A command can be also be run on new mail. Set the NewMailCommand option. Its environment will have these variables set by IceWM:
To control keyboard layouts on the task bar, define in preferences the option KeyboardLayouts to a comma-separated list of your preferred keyboard layouts. For example:
KeyboardLayouts="de","fr","jp"
A keyboard layout can simply be a name. Usually this is a two-letter country code. See the directory /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols for a list of available keyboard layouts for your system. If it is enclosed in double quotes, it can also be a space-separated list of command-line arguments to an invocation of the "setxkbmap" program.
The first layout is the default. It will be installed when icewm starts. The task bar will show the current keyboard layout. If an icon can be found for the first two letters of the layout, then that icon will be shown. Otherwise the first two letters of the name of the layout will be shown.
Click on the current keyboard layout to cycle through all the available keyboard layouts. Click with the right mouse button to open a menu of all available keyboard layouts.
It is also possible to configure a default keyboard layout for each program individually in the icewm-winoptions(5) file. Whenever such a program receives input focus, icewm will install this configured keyboard layout automatically. The keyboard status on the task bar will be updated to reflect this.
Please note that for keyboard layout switching to work, the "setxkbmap" program must be installed. To see your current keyboard layout settings, do "setxkbmap -query".
icewm supports a large number of hotkeys to activate some behaviour with a single key combination. These are all configurable in the preferences file. Here we give their preferences name, followed by their default value in double quotes, and a short descriptions of their effect:
You can control windows by a modified mouse button press:
The title frame of a window also listens for mouse clicks. Left double clicking maximizes the window ("TitleBarMaximizeButton=1"). Middle double clicking rolls up the window ("TitleBarRollupButton=2"). Pressing a mouse button and moving it will move the window. "Alt+Pointer_Button1" lowers the window.
When the mouse is on the window frame then a left click raises the window. Dragging with the left button down resizes the window. Clicking the right button pops up the context menu. Dragging with the right button moves the window.
Clicking on the desktop activates a menu. The middle button shows the window list ("DesktopWinListButton=2"). The right button shows the root menu ("DesktopMenuButton=3"). If you press "Ctrl+Alt" then the mouse wheel will focus all applications in turn.
icewm supports the following signals:
icewm looks for configuration files in the following directories, in the given order, until it finds one:
See icewm-env(5).
See icewm-focus_mode(5).
key "Ctrl+Shift+r" icesh restart
See icewm-keys(5).
See icewm-menu(5).
See icewm-preferences(5).
See icewm-programs(5).
See icewm-theme(5).
prog "Mozilla Firefox" firefox /usr/bin/firefox --private-window
See icewm-toolbar(5).
See icewm-winoptions(5).
See icewm-startup(5).
See icewm-shutdown(5).
IceWM supports window opacity and transparency in connection with an external compositor like compton(1) or picom(1). If a client window sets the "_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY" property on its window, then icewm will copy this to the outer frame window, where the compositor will read it and adjust the opacity accordingly.
The opacity can also be set in the icewm-winoptions(5) file. icesh(1) can control the opacity level of running applications.
The _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE properties which icewm sets on its windows are DIALOG, NOTIFICATION, POPUP_MENU and TOOLTIP. The output of "icesh windows" shows their WM_CLASS values. These can be helpful to configure compton.
Examples of the above configuration files can be found in the default installation path or in the system-wide defaults. See the output of "icewm --directories" for their locations.
ICCCM 2.0: partial. NetWM/EWMH: extensive. See the file COMPLIANCE in the distribution for full details.
icehelp(1), icesh(1), icesound(1), icewm-env(5), icewm-focus_mode(5), icewm-keys(5), icewm-menu(5), icewm-menu-fdo(1), icewm-menu-xrandr(1), icewm-preferences(5), icewm-prefoverride(5), icewm-programs(5), icewm-session(1), icewm-set-gnomewm(1), icewm-shutdown(5), icewm-startup(5), icewm-theme(5), icewm-toolbar(5), icewm-winoptions(5), icewmbg(1), icewmhint(1), setxkbmap(1), Xorg(1), Xserver(1), xinit(1), xprop(1), xwininfo(1), wmctrl(1).
icewm had no known bugs at the time of release. Please report bugs for current versions to the source code repository at <https://github.com/bbidulock/icewm/issues>.
Brian Bidulock <mailto:bidulock@openss7.org>.
See --copying for full copyright notice and copying permissions.
IceWM is licensed under the GNU Library General Public License. See the COPYING file in the distribution or use the --copying flag to display copying permissions.
| 2021-02-09 | icewm 2.1.2 |