vtwm - Virtual Tab Window Manager for the X Window System
vtwm [ -d display ] [ -f
initfile ] [ -m [ m4-options ] ] [ -p ] [
-s ] [ -v ]
vtwm is a window manager for the X Window System. It
provides titlebars, shaped windows, several forms of icon management,
user-defined macro functions, click-to-type and pointer-driven keyboard
focus, and user-specified key and pointer button bindings.
This program is usually started by the user's session manager or
startup script. When used from xdm(1) or xinit(1) without a
session manager, vtwm is frequently executed in the foreground as the
last client. When run this way, exiting vtwm causes the session to be
terminated (i.e., logged out).
By default, application windows are surrounded by a border with a
titlebar at the top. The titlebar contains the window's name, a rectangular
area that indicates when the window is receiving keyboard input, and three
function boxes known as "titlebar buttons". Pressing pointer
Button1 (usually the left-most button unless it has been changed with
xmodmap(1)) on any of these titlebar features will invoke the
function associated with them.
With the default interface, windows are iconified by clicking
(pressing and then immediately releasing) the titlebar button that looks
like a dot. Conversely, windows are deiconified by clicking in the
associated icon or entry in the icon manager (see the descriptions of the
variable ShowIconManager and the function f.showiconmgr in the
BINDINGS section).
Windows are resized by pressing the titlebar button that resembles
a group of nested squares, dragging the pointer over the edge that is to be
moved, and releasing the pointer when the window is the desired size.
Similarly, windows are moved by pressing in the title or highlight area,
dragging it to the new location, and then releasing when the window is in
the desired position. Just clicking in the title or highlight area raises
the window without moving it.
Pressing the titlebar button with the down arrow in it brings up a
menu with many other functions that may be applied to the window.
When new windows are created, vtwm will honor any size and
location information requested by the user (usually through -geometry
command line argument or X11 resources for the individual applications).
With the default configuration, Clicking pointer Button1 will position the
window at the current position and give it the default size. Pressing
pointer Button2 (usually the middle pointer button) and dragging the window
will give the window its current position but allow the sides to be resized
as described above. Clicking pointer Button3 (usually the right pointer
button) will give the window its current position but attempt to make it
long enough to touch the bottom of the screen.
The default behavior during these operations is to represent the
window with an outline of the client window and its titlebar, lines crossing
within the client window. Alternatively, vtwm may be configured to
draw the window completely, but it is not recommended unless yours is a fast
system.
vtwm is based upon the twm(1) window manager, but
adds extra functionality in the form of a virtual desktop. The virtual
desktop is an area larger than the physical screen. The real screen is
considered to be a window onto portions of the virtual desktop showing
whatever windows are present in that area of the desktop. To help navigate
around the desktop, vtwm creates a new window, of the name VTWM
Desktop, which shows the entire desktop using a small scale. In the
Virtual Desktop window, all windows that exist are displayed and various
options are provided to recognize the identity of the different windows (see
the descriptions of the variables DesktopDisplayBackground,
DesktopDisplayForeground, DesktopDisplayBorder and
VirtualDesktopFont).
To provide a consistent workspace, the option is provided of
nailing windows onto the real screen. When a window is nailed, it is
considered stuck to the real screen no matter what part of the desktop is
currently being displayed.
Normally, a few standard utilities are nailed down: the icon
manager, the desktop view, a load average chart, a clock, and a mail
notifier. The f.nail (or its alias, f.stick) function can be
used to change the nailed status of any window; see the BINDINGS
section for details.
The root window of the display is unchanged by this program and
utilities such as xsetroot(1) will continue to work unmodified.
vtwm accepts the following command line options:
- -d display
- This option specifies the X server to use.
- -f
[initfile]
- This option specifies the name of the startup file to use. By default,
vtwm will look in the user's home directory for files named
.vtwmrc.N, .vtwmrc, .twmrc.N, or .twmrc (where
'N' is a screen number). It also looks for system-wide default
files; see the CUSTOMIZATION section below for details. If
initfile is not provided, this specifies that vtwm should
disregard any startup files it finds, and use only the defaults that are
compiled in (intended for testing compiled-in defaults).
- -m
[options]
- This option causes vtwm to preprocess the startup file using the
m4(1) macro processor. The options will be passed verbatim
to m4 along with those symbols that vtwm declares. Note that
options itself should be quoted, to prevent unwanted processing
that may occur by the shell, etc.
- -p
- This option indicates that vtwm should attempt to write it's PID to
$HOME/vtwm.pid on startup, and delete that file on shutdown. This
file may be useful as a lock file, or for determining the correct
vtwm process for a particular user. If the file cannot be written
on startup, a bell will sound, but vtwm will continue.
- -s
- This option indicates that only the default screen (as specified by the
-d option or by the DISPLAY environment variable) should be
managed. By default, vtwm will attempt to manage all screens on the
display.
- -v
- This option indicates that vtwm should print messages to the stderr
device when an unexpected event occurs. This can be be useful for
debugging applications, but may be distracting in regular use.
Much of vtwm's appearance and behavior can be controlled by
providing a startup file in one of the following locations (searched in
order for each screen being managed when vtwm begins):
- $HOME/.vtwmrc.screennumber
- The screennumber is a small positive number (e.g., 0, 1, etc.)
representing the screen number (e.g., the last number in the DISPLAY
environment variable host:displaynum.screennum) that would be used
to contact that screen of the display. This is intended for displays with
multiple screens of differing visual types.
- $HOME/.vtwmrc
- This is the usual name for an individual user's startup file.
- $VTWMDIR/twm/system.vtwmrc
- If neither of the preceding files are found, vtwm will look in this
file for a default configuration. Note that the variable is defined
only in the Makefile, and is often set and tailored by the site
administrator to provide convenient menus or familiar bindings for novice
users.
- $HOME/.twmrc.screennumber
- $HOME/.twmrc
- $VTWMDIR/twm/system.twmrc
- When none of the .vtwmrc files can be found, vtwm reverts to
acting like twm(1), and searches for these three .twmrc
variants. Note that the variable is defined only in the
Makefile.
This search algorithm allows both twm(1) and vtwm to
coexist peacefully at an installation. Since vtwm is a superset of
twm(1), it can even used to replace the latter, and users who have
only a .twmrc-style file should not notice much difference.
If no startup files are found, or if vtwm is told to ignore
them, vtwm will use built-in defaults as described in the
DESCRIPTION section above, though the system.vtwmrc file, if
re-configured before the build, may intervene. The only X11 resource used by
vtwm is bitmapFilePath for a colon-separated list of
directories to search when looking for bitmap and pixmap files (for more
information, see the Athena Widgets manual and xrdb(1)).
vtwm startup files are logically broken up into three types
of specifications: Variables, Bindings, Menus.
The Variables section must come first and is used to
describe the fonts, colors, cursors, border widths, icon and window
placement, highlighting, autoraising, layout of titles, warping, and use of
the icon manager.
The Bindings section usually comes second and is used to
specify the functions that should be to be invoked when keyboard and pointer
buttons are pressed in windows, icons, titles, and frames.
The Menus section gives any user-defined menus (containing
functions to be invoked or commands to be executed).
Variable names and keywords are case-insensitive. Strings must be
surrounded by double quote characters (e.g., "blue") and
are case-sensitive. A sharp sign ('#') outside of a string causes the
remainder of the line in which the character appears to be treated as a
comment.
A powerful feature of vtwm as of version 5.4.6 is that it
can use m4(1) to pre-process it's startup files. When vtwm is
started with -m, it will open a file for input as described above,
but will process that file through m4 before parsing it. So, you can
use m4 macros to perform operations at runtime. This makes it very
easy to work when you use many different displays, etc. For example, if you
want to set the lower right section of the screen to be your
IconRegion, you can use m4 directives and pre-defined symbols
to calculate the region you want:
define(IRegion, translit(eval(WIDTH/3)*eval(HEIGHT/2)+eval(WIDTH-WIDTH/3)-0, *, x))
IconRegion "IRegion" SOUTH EAST 75 25
will define the lower half, and right-hand third of the screen. The symbols
WIDTH and HEIGHT are calculated by vtwm for m4 to
use. The following symbols are pre-defined by vtwm:
- SERVERHOST
- This variable is set to the name of the machine that is running the X
server.
- CLIENTHOST
- The machine that is running the X clients (i.e., "vtwm",
"xterm", etc.).
- HOSTNAME
- The canonical hostname running the clients (i.e., a fully-qualified
version of CLIENTHOST).
- USER
- The name of the user running the program. Gotten from the
environment.
- HOME
- The user's home directory. Gotten from the environment.
- VERSION
- The X major protocol version. As seen by ProtocolVersion().
- REVISION
- The X minor protocol revision. As seen by ProtocolRevision().
- VENDOR
- The vendor of your X server (i.e., "MIT X Consortium").
- RELEASE
- The release number of your X server. For MIT X11R5, this is
"5".
- WIDTH
- The width of your display in pixels.
- HEIGHT
- The height of your display in pixels.
- X_RESOLUTION
- The X resolution of your display in pixels per meter.
- Y_RESOLUTION
- The Y resolution of your display in pixels per meter.
- PLANES
- The number of bit planes your display supports in the default root
window.
- BITS_PER_RGB
- The number of significant bits in an RGB color. (log base 2 of the number
of distinct colors that can be created. This is often different from the
number of colors that can be displayed at once.)
- TWM_TYPE
- Tells which twm derivative is running. It will always be set to
"vtwm" in this program. This is useful for protecting parts of
your startup file that twm proper won't understand (like
VirtualDesktop) so that it is still usable with other
twm-based programs.
- CLASS
- Your visual class. Will return one of "StaticGray",
"GrayScale", "StaticColor", "PseudoColor",
"TrueColor", "DirectColor", or, if it cannot determine
what you have, "NonStandard".
- COLOR
- This will be either "Yes" or "No". This is just a
wrapper around the above definition. Returns "Yes" on
"*Color", and "No" on "StaticGray" and
"GrayScale".
- I18N
- This will be either "Yes" or "No" depending on whether
support for internationalization has been compiled in.
- XPM
- This will be either "Yes" or "No" depending on whether
support for pixmap image files has been compiled in.
- SOUND
- This will be either "Yes" or "No" depending on whether
support for sound has been compiled in.
- REGEX
- This will be either "Yes" or "No" depending on whether
support for regular expressions ("RE"s) has been compiled
in.
Note that any symbols passed to m4 on the command line that
conflict with these will not be anticipated or dealt with by vtwm;
you will be at the mercy of your particular m4.
Note also that if vtwm's preparation for executing
m4 fails, the startup file will be processed normally, and will choke
on the first m4 macro encountered.
Finally, be aware that m4 preprocessing can cause things
often found in startup files to break. For example, quotes and backquotes in
shell commands will be badly messed up by m4's own internal quoting
mechanism. This particular problem can be worked around by placing
changequote(,) at the top of your startup file.
Invoking vtwm with both the -m and -v options
will print the m4 command with all symbols expanded.
Many of the aspects of vtwm's user interface are controlled
by variables that may be set in the user's startup file. Some of the options
are enabled or disabled simply by the presence of a particular keyword.
Other options require keywords, numbers, strings, or lists of all of
these.
Lists are surrounded by braces and are usually separated by
whitespace or a newline. For example:
AutoRaise { "emacs" "VTWM*" "x*clock" "Xmh" "XTerm" }
or
AutoRaise
{
"emacs"
"VTWM*"
"x*clock"
"Xmh"
"XTerm"
}
When a variable containing a list of strings representing windows
is searched (e.g., to determine whether or not to enable autoraise as shown
above), a string must be a case-sensitive match to the window's name (given
by the WM_NAME window property), or the class name or class class (both
given by the WM_CLASS window property). The preceding example would enable
autoraise on windows named "emacs", all vtwm-specific
windows, any clocks installed whose name starts with an 'x' (asclock
will not autoraise), and all xmh and xterm windows (which are
of class "XTerm" and "Xmh", respectively). See the
WILDCARDS section for details on what the asterisks ('*') mean.
String arguments that are interpreted as filenames (see the
Pixmaps, Cursors, and IconDirectory variables below)
will prepend the user's directory (specified by the HOME environment
variable) if the first character is a tilde ('~'). If, instead, the first
character is a colon (':'), the name is assumed to refer to one of the
internal bitmaps that are used to create 2D titlebar buttons, the 2D icon
manager button, and the 2D menu pull-right icon. Finally, if the first five
characters are ":xpm:", the name is assumed to refer to one of the
built-in pixmaps that can used to create 3D titlebar buttons, the 3D icon
manager button, and the 3D menu pull-right icon. See the IMAGE AND AUDIO
FORMATS section for further details.
The following variables may be specified in the vtwm
startup file. Lists of window names are indicated by win-list, and
optional arguments are shown in square brackets. Any default values are
based on the distributed system.vtwmrc files, and if none is
mentioned, the default setting is "off", "disabled", or
"none".
- AppletRegion
geomstr vgrav hgrav hgrid vgrid { win-list }
- This variable specifies an area on the root window in which the windows
listed in win-list are placed. The geomstr is a quoted
string containing a standard geometry specification for the region size
and location. If more than one AppletRegion is specified, windows
will be put into succeeding regions that have the window listed when the
first is full. The vgrav argument should be either North or
South and is used to control whether windows are first filled in
from the top or bottom of the region. Similarly, the hgrav argument
should be either East or West and is used to control whether
windows should be filled in from the left or right. Windows are laid out
in a grid with cells hgrid pixels wide and vgrid pixels
high. Note that the smallest dimension of the region must be at least the
size of the largest window in it, including frame and titlebar, in the
same direction. This variable is intended to simplify management of all
those little tool applications like xcb(1), xbiff(1),
xload(1), etc. that are used regularly.
- AutoPan
N
- This variable allows the screen to automatically pan by N% of a
real screen when the pointer approaches the edge of the screen. The pan
will be in the direction of the edge approached. The default is
100, effectively "paging" across the virtual
desktop.
- AutoPanBorderWidth
pixels
- If AutoPan is turned on, when the pointer goes within the specified
number of pixels of the real screen's border, the screen is panned.
The default value is 5.
- If AutoPan is turned on and NaturalAutopanBehavior turned
off, this variable specifies how far, in pixels, you want the pointer to
move away from the inner edge of the autopan border when autopanning. The
default value is 2 pixels.
- AutoPanWarpWithRespectToRealScreen
N
- With this option turned on, the pointer is warped by N% as many
pixels on the real screen as the screen is scrolled, or by
(AutoPanBorderWidth + AutoPanExtraWarp)
pixels, whichever is greater. See
NaturalAutopanBehavior for a more thorough discussion of this and some
recommended settings.
- AutoRaise [{
win-list }]
- This variable specifies a list of windows (all windows if win-list
is omitted) to be automatically raised whenever the pointer has come to
rest in a window for the amount of time specified by the RaiseDelay
variable. This action can be interactively enabled or disabled on
individual windows using the function f.autoraise.
- AutoRaiseDelay
milliseconds
- A synonym for RaiseDelay.
- AutoRelativeResize
- This variable indicates that dragging out a window size (either when
initially sizing the window with pointer Button2 or when resizing it)
should not wait until the pointer has crossed the window edges. Instead,
moving the pointer automatically causes the nearest edge or edges to move
by the same amount. This allows the resizing windows that extend off the
edge of the screen. If the pointer is in the center of the window, or if
the resize is begun by pressing a titlebar button, vtwm will still
wait for the pointer to cross a window edge (to prevent accidents). This
option is particularly useful for people who like the press-drag-release
method of sweeping out window sizes.
- BeNiceToColormap
- This variable specifies that stippled lines be used for the bevel colors
when any of the 3D variables are set, to conserve on colormap
allocations.
- BorderBevelWidth
pixels
- Tells vtwm to use 3D-looking window borders, and specifies the
width in pixels of the bevel. The color of the 3D border is
BorderTileBackground, and if NoHighlight is not selected,
the border of the Focus window is BorderColor. The default is
0 if vtwm is built with 2D features, or 2 when
vtwm is built with 3D features.
- BorderColor
string [{ wincolorlist }]
- This variable specifies the default color of the border to be placed
around all non-iconified windows, and may only be given within a
Color or Monochrome list. The optional wincolorlist
specifies a list of window and color name pairs for specifying particular
border colors for different types of windows. For example:
BorderColor "gray50"
{
"XTerm" "red"
"xmh" "green"
}
- The default is "gray70".
- BorderTileBackground
string [{ wincolorlist }]
- This variable specifies the default background color in the gray pattern
used in unhighlighted borders (only if NoHighlight hasn't been
set), and may only be given within a Color or Monochrome
list. The optional wincolorlist allows per-window colors to be
specified. The default is "gray60".
- BorderTileForeground
string [{ wincolorlist }]
- This variable specifies the default foreground color in the gray pattern
used in unhighlighted borders (only if NoHighlight hasn't been
set), and may only be given within a Color or Monochrome
list. The optional wincolorlist allows per-window colors to be
specified. The default is "gray60".
- BorderWidth
pixels
- This variable specifies the width in pixels of the border surrounding all
client window frames if ClientBorderWidth has not been specified.
This value is also used to set the border size of windows created by
vtwm (such as the icon manager). The default is 2 if
vtwm is built with 2D features, or 6 when vtwm is
built with 3D features.
- ButtonBevelWidth
pixels
- Tells vtwm to use 3D-looking window buttons. It specifies the width
in pixels of the bevel. The default is 0 if vtwm is built
with 2D features, or 1 when vtwm is built with 3D
features.
- ButtonIndent
pixels
- This variable specifies the size of titlebar buttons, expressed as a
difference from the titlebar font height, and normally means that titlebar
buttons will shrink (built-in images) or be cropped (external images)
accordingly. A negative value is accepted, however, indicating that
titlebar buttons should be larger than the titlebar font. Setting this to
a negated FramePadding value, with TitleButtonBorderWidth
set to 0, makes titlebar buttons as tall and wide as possible. The default
is 0 if vtwm is built with with 2D features, or -2
when vtwm is built with 3D features.
- ButtonColorIsFrame
- This variable specifies that the titlebar buttons will be the same color
as the window frame. It is set by default if vtwm is built with 3D
features.
- ClearBevelContrast
contrast
- Indicates to vtwm how to calculate the clear bevel color for 3D
items. The value is a compressed to the range 0 and 100. The formula used
is:
clear.{RGB} = (65535 - color.{RGB}) * (contrast / 100)
- The default is 40 if vtwm is built with 3D features.
- ClientBorderWidth
- This variable indicates that width of a window's frame should be set to
the border width as specified by the client, rather than to the value of
BorderWidth. If BorderBevelWidth is non-zero, however, this
variable is ignored.
- Color {
colors-list }
- This variable specifies a list of color assignments to be made if the
default display is capable of displaying more than simple black and white.
The colors-list is made up of the following color variables and
their values: DefaultBackground, DefaultForeground,
MenuBackground, MenuForeground, MenuTitleBackground,
MenuTitleForeground, and MenuShadowColor. The following
color variables may also be given a list of window and color name pairs to
allow per-window colors to be specified (see BorderColor for
details): BorderColor, DesktopDisplayForeground,
DesktopDisplayBackground, RealScreenForeground,
RealScreenBackground, VirtualForeground,
VirtualBackground, DekstopDisplayBorder,
IconManagerHighlight, BorderTitleBackground,
BorderTitleForeground, TitleBackground,
TitleForeground, IconBackground, IconForeground,
IconBorderColor, IconManagerBackground, and
IconManagerForeground. For example:
Color
{
MenuBackground "gray50"
MenuForeground "blue"
BorderColor "red"
{
"XTerm" "yellow"
}
TitleForeground "yellow"
TitleBackground "blue"
}
- All of these color variables may also be specified for the
Monochrome variable, allowing the same initialization file to be
used on both color and monochrome displays.
- ConstrainedMoveTime
milliseconds
- This variable specifies the length of time between button clicks needed to
begin a constrained move operation. Double clicking within this amount of
time when invoking f.move will cause the window only to be moved in
a horizontal or vertical direction. Setting this value to 0 will disable
constrained moves. The default is 400 milliseconds.
- Cursors {
cursor-list }
- This variable specifies the glyphs that vtwm should use for various
pointer cursors. Each cursor may be defined either from the cursor
font or from two bitmap files. Shapes from the cursor font may be
specified directly as:
where cursorname is one of the cursor names listed
below, and string is the name of a glyph as found in the file
/usr/include/X11/cursorfont.h (without the "XC_" prefix). If the
cursor is to be defined from bitmap files, the following syntax is used
instead:
cursorname "image" "mask"
where
image and
mask specify the names of
files containing the glyph image and mask in
bitmap(1) form. The bitmap
files are located in the same manner as icon bitmap files. The following
example shows the default cursor definitions:
Cursors
{
Frame "top_left_arrow"
Title "top_left_arrow"
Icon "top_left_arrow"
IconMgr "top_left_arrow"
Move "fleur"
Resize "fleur"
Menu "sb_left_arrow"
Button "hand2"
Wait "watch"
Select "dot"
Destroy "pirate"
Door "exchange"
Virtual "rtl_logo"
Desktop "dotbox"
}
- DarkBevelContrast
contrast
- Indicates to vtwm has to calculate the dark bevel color for 3D
items. The value is a comprised between 0 and 100. The formula used
is:
dark.{RGB} = color.{RGB} * ((100 - contrast) / 100)
- The default is 40 if vtwm is built with 3D features.
- DecorateTransients
- This variable indicates that transient windows (those containing a
WM_TRANSIENT_FOR property) should have titlebars. By default, transients
are not reparented.
- DefaultBackground
string
- This variable specifies the background color to be used for sizing and
information windows. The default is "maroon" for color
displays or "gray50" for monochrome displays.
- DefaultForeground
string
- This variable specifies the foreground color to be used for sizing and
information windows. The default is "gray85".
- DeiconifyToScreen
- When deiconifying a window, by default, the window will be placed at its
previous geometry in the virtual desktop. With this variable set,
vtwm ensures that the window will be placed somewhere on the real
screen.
- DesktopDisplayBackground
color [{ win-list }]
- This variable sets the backgrounds of the little windows inside the
Virtual Desktop window, AND it sets the backgrounds of menu entries in the
VTWM Windows menu -- unless you specify
OldFashionedVtwmWindowsMenu. The default color is used for
the default background of windows not named in the list. The optional
win-list is a list of window names and colors, for example:
DesktopDisplayBackground "purple"
{
"zwgc" "green"
}
- The default is "gray60".
- DesktopDisplayBorder
color [{ win-list }]
- This variable sets the border color in the virtual desktop representation
window to color. The win-list is in the same format as
TitleForeground and other similar variables.
DesktopDisplayBorder "black"
{
"zwgc" "green"
}
- The default is "black".
- DesktopDisplayForeground
color [{ win-list }]
- If both this and the VirtualDesktopFont variable are set, then the
names of the windows will be written in the window representations shown
in the desktop. This entry also sets foreground colors for entries in the
VTWM Windows menu. The format of this variable is the same as that
used for DesktopDisplayBackground. The default is
"gray85".
- DontDeiconifyTransients
- This variable sees that iconified transient windows of an iconified parent
window aren't deiconified when that parent is, thus preserving their
state. Default behavior is to deiconify all transient subwindows of the
ancestor window when it is deiconified.
- DontIconifyByUnmapping
{ win-list }
- This variable specifies a list of windows that should not be iconified by
simply unmapping the window (as would be the case if
IconifyByUnmapping had been set). This is frequently used to force
some windows to be treated as icons while other windows are handled by the
icon manager.
- DontInterpolateTitles
- This variable specifies a modification to the InterpolateMenuColors
behavior. It will cause vtwm to not apply color interpolation to
any titles in the middle of the menu. So, f.title strings that
appear in the middle of the menu (ie, without a specific color defined for
them) will inherit the default MenuTitle foreground and background
colors.
- DontMoveOff
- This variable indicates that windows should not be allowed to be moved off
the screen. It can be overridden by the f.forcemove function.
- DontShowInDisplay
{ list }
- This variable specifies a list of clients that should not appear in the
desktop display. The default is:
DontShowInDisplay
{
"VTWM *"
"xclock"
"xload"
}
- DontShowInTwmWindows
{ list }
- DontShowInVtwmWindows
{ list }
- These variables specify a list of clients that should not appear in the
VTWM Windows menu.
- DontSqueezeTitle
[{ win-list }]
- This variable indicates that titlebars should not be squeezed to their
minimum size as described under SqueezeTitle below. If the optional
window list is supplied, only those windows will be prevented from being
squeezed.
- DoorBackground
color [{ door-list }]
- Specifies background colors of doors. The default is
"maroon" for color displays or "gray50"
for monochrome displays.
- DoorBevelWidth
pixels
- Tells vtwm to use 3D-looking doors, and specifies the width in
pixels of the bevel. The default is 0 if vtwm is built with
2D features, or 1 when vtwm is built with 3D features.
- DoorFont
string
- This variable specifies the font to be used for text in doors. This must
be set in order to see the doors. The default is
"-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-100-*-*-*-*-*-*".
- DoorForeground
color [{ door-list }]
- Specifies foreground colors of doors. The default is
"gray85".
- Doors {
door-list }
- This variable is used to create doors, which are teleports. Each item in
the door-list has the following format:
"winname" "location" "jumpTo"
- Windows with the name winname appear with geometry and position as
defined in location, and warp the user to jumpTo when
f.enterdoor is executed inside them. Doors have a class of
"VTWM Door".
- EnhancedExecResources
- By default, f.exec variables behaved as they always did in
vtwm. You would have to append " &" to all of your
variables in order to execute them without blocking the window manager.
With this option turned on, you don't have to; vtwm will
automatically append " &" to the f.exec variable
unless the last non-space character is either '&' or (in case
you still want a command to block the window manager) ';'. For example, in
a variable such as:
the window manager will be blocked so that
"foo" and "bar" can be executed; "baz" is the
only command which will NOT block the window manager. If you want all these
commands to be backgrounded, try the following:
f.exec "{ foo; bar; baz }" # note that "{" and "}"
# are shell keywords; they
# MUST be separated by
# spaces.
- If you still want a command to block the window manager, you would
use:
f.exec "xset fp rehash;" # vtwm will not append " &"
# because ';' is the last
# non-space character.
- This behavior was inspired by that of vuewm(1), Hewlett-Packard's
workspace implementation of mwm(1).
- FixManagedVirtualGeometries
- FixTransientVirtualGeometries
- These are bug workarounds that *should* fix the way most windows' virtual
geometries are handled, i.e., they should be on the real screen if the
parent windows are on the real screen, no matter where the virtual desktop
is (xv(1) is one example of how these don't work). They are
both set by default.
- ForceIcons
- This variable indicates that icon image files specified in the
Icons variable should override any client-supplied images.
- FramePadding
pixels
- This variable specifies the distance between the titlebar font or the
titlebar button height, whichever is greater, and the window frame,
enlarging the titlebar as required. See also ButtonIndent, for how
it influences the titlebar. The default is 2 pixels.
- IconBackground
string [{ win-list }]
- This variable specifies the background color of icons, and may only be
specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The optional
win-list is a list of window names and colors so that per-window
colors may be specified. See the BorderColor variable for a
complete description of the win-list. The default is
"maroon" for color displays or "gray50"
for monochrome displays.
- IconBevelWidth
pixels
- Tells vtwm to use 3D-looking icons, and specifies the width in
pixels of the bevel. The default is 0 if vtwm is built with
2D features, or 2 when vtwm is built with 3D features.
- IconBorderColor
string [{ win-list }]
- This variable specifies the color of the border used for icon windows, and
may only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list.
The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so that
per-window colors may be specified. See the BorderColor variable
for a complete description of the win-list. The default is
"gray85".
- IconBorderWidth
pixels
- This variable specifies the width in pixels of the border surrounding icon
windows. The default is 2 if vtwm is built with 2D features,
or 0 when vtwm is built with 3D features.
- IconDirectory
string
- This variable specifies the directory that should be searched if an image
file cannot be found in any of the directories in the
bitmapFilePath variable.
- IconFont
string
- This variable specifies the font to be used to display icon names within
icons. The default is
"-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-100-*-*-*-*-*-*".
- IconForeground
string [{ win-list }]
- This variable specifies the foreground color to be used when displaying
icons, and may only be specified inside of a Color or
Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window
names and colors so that per-window colors may be specified. See the
BorderColor variable for a complete description of the
win-list. The default is "gray85".
- IconifyByUnmapping
[{ win-list }]
- This variable indicates that windows should be iconified by being unmapped
without trying to map any icons. If the optional win-list is
provided, only those windows will be iconified by simply unmapping.
Windows that have both this and the IconManagerDontShow options set
may not be accessible unless the user has provided bindings to the warp
functions (f.warp and the like) while WarpUnmapped is set,
or by the VTWM Windows menu. It is set by default.
- IconManagerBackground
string [{ win-list }]
- This variable specifies the background color to use for icon manager
entries, and may only be specified inside of a Color or
Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window
names and colors so that per-window colors may be specified. See the
BorderColor variable for a complete description of the
win-list. The default is "maroon" for color
displays or "gray50" for monochrome displays.
- IconManagerBevelWidth
pixels
- Tells vtwm to use 3D-looking icon manager entries, and specifies
the width in pixels of their bevels. The default is 0 if
vtwm is built with 2D features, or 1 when vtwm is
built with 3D features.
- IconManagerDontShow
[{ win-list }]
- This variable indicates that the icon manager should not display any
windows. If the optional win-list is given, only those windows will
not be displayed. This variable is used to prevent windows that are rarely
iconified (such as xclock or xload) from taking up space in
the icon manager. The default is:
IconManagerDontShow
{
"VTWM *"
"xclock"
"xload"
}
- IconManagerFont
string
- This variable specifies the font to be used when displaying icon manager
entries. The default is
"-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-100-*-*-*-*-*-*".
- IconManagerForeground
string [{ win-list }]
- This variable specifies the foreground color to be used when displaying
icon manager entries, and may only be specified inside of a Color
or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of
window names and colors so that per-window colors may be specified. See
the BorderColor variable for a complete description of the
win-list. The default is "gray85".
- IconManagerGeometry
string [ columns ]
- This variable indicates that a default icon manager is to be created, with
the geometry specified with string. The string argument
should be a standard X geometry specification, specifying the initial size
and/or location. The icon manager window is then broken into
columns pieces and scaled according to the number of entries in the
icon manager. Extra entries are wrapped to form additional rows. The
default string is "+0+0", and the default
columns is 1.
- IconManagerHighlight
string [{ win-list }]
- This variable specifies the border color to be used when highlighting the
icon manager entry that currently has the focus, and can only be specified
inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The optional
win-list is a list of window names and colors so that per-window
colors may be specified. See the BorderColor variable for a
complete description of the win-list. The default is
"black".
- IconManagers
{ iconmgr-list }
- This variable specifies a list of icon managers to create, in addition to
the default icon manager if IconManagerGeometry is used. Each item
in the iconmgr-list has the following format:
"winname" ["iconname"] "geometry" columns
where winname is the name of the windows that
should be put into this icon manager, iconname is the name of that icon
manager window's icon, geometry is a standard geometry specification,
and columns is the number of columns in this icon manager as described
in IconManagerGeometry. For example:
IconManagers
{
"XTerm" "300x5+800+5" 5
"myhost" "400x5+100+5" 2
}
- Clients whose name or class is "XTerm" will have an entry
created in the "XTerm" icon manager. Clients whose name was
"myhost" would be put into the "myhost" icon
manager.
- IconManagerShow
{ win-list }
- This variable specifies a list of windows that should appear in the icon
manager. When used in conjunction with the IconManagerDontShow
variable, only the windows in this list will be shown in the icon manager.
By default, all windows are shown except those in
IconManagerDontShow.
- IconRegion
geomstr vgrav hgrav hgrid vgrid
- This variable specifies an area on the root window in which icons are
placed if no specific icon location is provided by the client. The
geomstr is a quoted string containing a standard geometry
specification for the region size and location. If more than one
IconRegion line is given, icons will be put into the succeeding
regions when the first is full. The vgrav argument should be either
North or South and is used to control whether icons are
first filled in from the top or bottom of the region. Similarly, the
hgrav argument should be either East or West and is
used to control whether icons should be filled in from the left or right.
Icons are laid out in a grid with cells hgrid pixels wide and
vgrid pixels high. Note that the smallest dimension of the region
must be at least the size of the largest icon in it in the same direction.
Note also that many applications change their icon name as they run, and
no provision is made to reformat the icon regions if any icon changes size
accordingly.
- Icons {
win-list }
- This variable specifies a list of window names and the image filenames
that should be used as their icons. For example:
Icons
{
"XTerm" "xterm.icon"
"xfd" "xfd_icon"
}
- Windows that match "XTerm" and would not be iconified by
unmapping, and would try to use the icon image in the file
"xterm.icon". If ForceIcons is specified, this image will
be used even if the client has requested its own icon image.
- IgnoreModifiers
modlist
- This variable specifies the "shift states" to ignore when
determining if an event is bound by vtwm. In this example:
the CapsLock and NumLock states will be ignored. Note
that the use of this variable can generate quite a bit of X protocol network
traffic; modlist should be kept as small as possible. See also the
BINDINGS section.
- InfoBevelWidth
pixels
- Tells vtwm to use 3D-looking identify, move and resize windows, and
specifies the width in pixels of the bevel. The default is 0 if
vtwm is built with 2D features, or 2 when vtwm is
built with 3D features.
- InfoFont
string
- This variable specifies the font to be used for in the identify window.
The default is
"-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-100-*-*-*-*-*-*".
- This variable indicates that menu entry colors should be interpolated
between entry specified colors. In this example:
Menu "mymenu"
{
"Title" ("black":"red") f.title
"entry1" f.nop
"entry2" f.nop
"entry3" ("white":"green") f.nop
"entry4" f.nop
"entry5" ("red":"white") f.nop
}
the foreground colors for "entry1" and
"entry2" will be interpolated between black and white, and the
background colors between red and green. Similarly, the foreground for
"entry4" will be half-way between white and red, and the background
will be half-way between green and white.
- LessRandomZoomZoom
- With this option turned on, this makes random zooms a bit less
"random" and a bit more visible. This might make a better visual
bell, depending on your personal taste.
- MakeTitle {
win-list }
- This variable specifies a list of windows on which a titlebar should be
placed and is used to request titles on specific windows when
NoTitle has been set.
- MaxWindowSize
string
- This variable specifies a geometry in which the width and height give the
maximum size for a given window. This is typically used to restrict
windows to the size of the screen. The default is
"30000x30000".
- This variable specifies the background color used for menus, and can only
be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The
default is "maroon" for color displays or
"gray50" for monochrome displays.
- Tells vtwm to use 3D-looking menus, and specifies the width in
pixels of the bevel. The default is 0 if vtwm is built with
2D features, or 2 when vtwm is built with 3D features.
- This variable specifies the font to use when displaying menus. The default
is
"-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*".
- This variable specifies the foreground color used for menus, and can only
be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The
default is "gray85".
- When the contents of a menu would make it taller than the display, moving
the pointer within pixels of the top or bottom of the menu causes
it to scroll the entries. The default value is 2.
- This variable specifies the number of entries to scroll when the pointer
is moved within the area defined by MenuScrollBorderWidth. The
default is 3 entries.
- MenuShadowColor
string
- This variable specifies the color of the shadow behind pull-down menus and
can only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list.
The default is "black".
- This variable specifies the background color for f.title entries in
menus, and can only be specified inside of a Color or
Monochrome list. The default is "gray70".
- This variable specifies the font to be used in menu titles. The default is
"-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*".
- This variable specifies the foreground color for f.title entries in
menus and can only be specified inside of a Color or
Monochrome list. The default is "maroon" for color
displays or "gray50" for monochrome displays.
- Monochrome
{ colors }
- This variable specifies a list of color assignments that should be made if
the screen has a depth of 1. See the description of Colors.
- MoveDelta
pixels
- This variable specifies the number of pixels the pointer must move before
the f.move and f.resize functions and initial menu
highlighting starts working. See also the f.deltastop function. The
default is 3 pixels.
- NailedAbove
- This variable causes nailed windows to be physically above non-nailed
windows. The f.nailedabove function can be used to toggle this
setting.
- NailedDown
{ list }
- This variable gives a list of clients that are nailed initially.
The default is:
NailedDown
{
"VTWM *"
"xclock"
"xload"
}
- NaturalAutopanBehavior
- By default, when autopanning, the pointer is warped by only
(AutoPanBorderWidth + AutoPanExtraWarp)
pixels on the real screen. With this option turned on,
the pointer is warped on the real screen by as many pixels as the screen is
scrolled, or the above value, whichever is greater. Thus, the pointer does not
normally move very much (only by AutoPanExtraWarp) in relation to the
virtual desktop.
- This works really well on faster X terminals and workstations, although
for slower ones, you may want to use the following:
AutoPanWarpWithRespectToRealScreen 50
to achieve a similar effect. Setting
NaturalAutopanBehavior has the exact same effect as using the
variable
AutoPanWarpWithRespectToRealScreen 100
- NoBackingStore
- This variable indicates that vtwm's windows should not request
backing store to minimize repainting. This is typically used with servers
that can repaint faster than they can handle backing store.
- NoBorder [{
win-list }]
- This variable indicates that windows should not have borders. If the
optional win-list is given, only those windows will not have
borders.
- NoBorderDecorations
- This variable indicates that the 3D borders of titled windows should not
have the little divots adorning the corners.
- NoCaseSensitive
- This variable indicates that case should be ignored when sorting icon
names in an icon manager. This option is typically used with applications
that capitalize the first letter of their icon name.
- NoDefaultMouseOrKeyboardBindings
- This variable indicates that vtwm should not supply the default
pointer and keyboard bindings. This option should only be used if the
startup file contains a completely new set of pointer and keyboard
bindings and definitions. See also NoDefaults.
- NoDefaults
- This variable indicates that vtwm should not supply the default
titlebar buttons and bindings. This option should only be used if the
startup file contains a completely new set of bindings and definitions.
This function has the effect of setting both
NoDefaultMouseOrKeyboardBindings and
NoDefaultTitleButtons.
- NoDefaultTitleButtons
- This variable indicates that vtwm should not supply the default
titlebar buttons. This option should only be used if the startup file
contains a completely new set of titlebar button definitions. See also
NoDefaults.
- NoGrabServer
- This variable indicates that vtwm should minimize server grabs when
popping up menus and moving or resizing windows.
- NoHighlight
[{ win-list }]
- This variable indicates that borders should not be highlighted to track
the location of the pointer. If the optional win-list is given,
highlighting will only be disabled for those windows. When the border is
highlighted, it will be drawn in the current BorderColor. When the
border is not highlighted, it will be stippled with an gray pattern using
the current BorderTileForeground and BorderTileBackground
colors. It is set by default if vtwm is built with 3D
features.
- NoIconManagerFocus
- This variable indicates that vtwm should not set focus to windows
corresponding to their entries in an icon manager. Normally, vtwm
sets the focus so that events from an icon manager are delivered to the
application. Typically, this is set to facilitate icon manager bindings
that would otherwise be delivered to the application.
- NoIconManagerHighlight
- This variable indicates that icon manager entries will not be highlighted
to track the location of the pointer. This is independant of the
NoHighlight variable.
- NoIconManagers
- This variable indicates that no icon manager should be created.
- NoIconifyIconManagers
- This variable indicates that no icon manager should be iconified.
- NoMenuShadows
- This variable indicates that menus should not have drop shadows drawn
behind them. This is typically used with slower servers since it speeds up
menu drawing at the expense of making the menu slightly harder to
read.
- NoOpaqueMove
[{ win-list }]
- NoOpaqueResize
[{ win-list }]
- These variables indicate that the f.move and f.resize
functions should change just a window's outline. If the optional
win-list is given, only those windows will be affected. These are
usually used to narrow the scope of "global" OpaqueMove
and OpaqueResize variables.
- NoPrettyTitles
- If you don't mind long titles butting up against the right edge of short
titlebars and icon managers. Disables the default behavior of using
ellipses to indicate a truncated title.
- NoRaiseOnDeiconify
- NoRaiseOnMove
- NoRaiseOnResize
- NoRaiseOnWarp
- These variables indicate that windows should not be raised after a
deiconify, move, resize, or warp operation, and are typically used to
preserve the window stacking order. Note that the pointer may end up in an
occluding window when these variables are used.
- NoSaveUnders
- This variable indicates that menus should not request save-unders to
minimize window repainting following menu selection. It is typically used
with displays that can repaint faster than they can handle
save-unders.
- NoStackMode
[{ win-list }]
- This variable indicates that client window requests to change stacking
order should be ignored. If the optional win-list is given, only
requests on those windows will be ignored. This is typically used to
prevent applications from relentlessly popping themselves to the front of
the window stack.
- NoTitle [{
win-list }]
- This variable indicates that windows should not have titlebars. If the
optional win-list is given, only those windows will not have
titlebars. MakeTitle may be used with this option to force
titlebars to be put on specific windows. The default is:
NoTitle
{
"VTWM *"
"xclock"
"xload"
}
- NoTitleFocus
- This variable indicates that vtwm should not set keyboard input
focus to each window as it is entered. Normally, vtwm sets the
focus so that focus and key events from the titlebar and icon managers are
delivered to the application. If the pointer is moved quickly and
vtwm is slow to respond, input can be directed to the old window
instead of the new. This option is typically used to prevent this
"input lag" and to work around bugs in older applications that
have problems with focus events.
- NoTitleHighlight
[{ win-list }]
- This variable indicates that the highlight area of the titlebar, which is
used to indicate the window that currently has the input focus, should not
be displayed. If the optional win-list is given, only those windows
will not have highlight areas. This and the SqueezeTitle options
can be set to substantially reduce the amount of screen space required by
titlebars.
- NotVirtualGeometries
- This variable indicates that vtwm should assume that user
geometries should be relative to the current virtual window, as opposed to
absolute. If you set this, then "xterm -geometry +20+20"
specifies a position in the current view; otherwise, it would specify a
position in the top-left view. It is set by default.
- NoWindowRing
{ win-list }
- This variable specifies a list of windows that will not be added to the
list along which the f.warpring function cycles. See also
WindowRing.
- By default, the VTWM Windows menu will use the same colors that you
see in the panner. This variable disables that behavior.
- OpaqueMove
[{ win-list }]
- OpaqueResize
[{ win-list }]
- These variables indicate that the f.move and f.resize
functions should actually change the window instead of just an outline so
that the user can immediately see what the window will look like. If the
optional win-list is given, only those windows will be affected
"opaquely". These options are typically used on fast systems
(particularly when NoGrabServer is set).
- PanDistanceX
N
- PanDistanceY
N
- These variables define a grid of screens for the virtual desktop,
expressed as N% of a real screen. When the f.snap function
is called, the real screen will be moved to the closest grid location. The
(mis)naming of these variables is for historical reasons. The default
value is 100, effectively setting up "pages" in the
virtual desktop.
- PanResistance
milliseconds
- This variable indicates how hard it should be to pan to an adjacent
virtual screen. It specifies how long the pointer must be within
AutoPanBorderWidth pixels of the real screen's edge. Values equal
to 0 or greater than 10000 disables this feature. The
default is 750 milliseconds.
- PauseOnExit
N
- PauseOnQuit
N
- These variables define a delay on exit, expressed in seconds. They allow
the (vtwm stop) and f.quit sounds time to play before the
connection to rplayd(8) is closed.
- Pixmaps {
pixmaps }
- This variable specifies a list of images that define the appearance of
various windows. Each entry is a keyword indicating the window to set,
followed by a string giving the name of the image. Built-in and external
images may be freely mixed, given the constraints described in the
IMAGE AND AUDIO FORMATS section. The following windows may be
specified thus:
Pixmaps
{
TitleHighlight ":xpm:sunkenbox"
RealScreenPixmap "scaledbackground.xpm"
VirtualBackgroundPixmap "gray1"
MenuIconPixmap ":xpm:rarrow"
IconManagerPixmap ":xpm:zoom"
}
- By default, the TitleHighlight is an even, stippled pattern if
vtwm is built with 2D features, or "sunken" lines when
vtwm is built with 3D features. The MenuIconPixmap is a
right arrow by default (rendered 3D as appropriate), and the default
IconManagerPixmap is either the X logo or a "raised" box,
for 2D or 3D features, respectively.
- PointerPlacement
- This variable indicates that windows with no specified geometry should be
placed with the window origin at the location of the mouse pointer or, if
WarpSnug is specified, as close as possible to that location such
that the window fits onto the real screen. If RandomPlacement is
also set then it takes precedence.
- PrettyZoom
- If Zoom is turned on, this makes the associated animation look just
a little nicer, depending on your personal taste. This makes the zoom
slower, however, so you may have to decrease the value of the Zoom
variable.
- RaiseDelay
milliseconds
- For windows that are to be automatically raised when the pointer enters
(see the AutoRaise variable and the f.autoraise function)
this variable specifies the length of time the pointer should rest in the
window before it is raised. The default is 0 milliseconds.
- RaiseOnStart
- This variable specifies that the raise which would normally occur at the
end of a move or resize operation (subject to MoveDelta,
NoRaiseOnMove, and NoRaiseOnResize) will occur at the start
of the operation. This may be useful when OpaqueMove and/or
OpaqueResize are specified. Note that cancelling a move or resize
operation with this variable set will not preserve the window stacking
order.
- RandomPlacement
- This variable indicates that windows with no specified geometry should be
placed in a pseudo-random location instead of having the user drag an
outline (or the window itself if the OpaqueMove variable is set) to
the preferred location.
- RealScreenBackground
string
- See RealScreenForeground.
- RealScreenBorderWidth
pixels
- This value specifies the border width of the RealScreen window (see
RealScreenForeground). The default value is 0 pixels.
- RealScreenForeground
string
- Inside what vtwm calls the virtual desktop window, but which we
might call the "panner", is a little window that shows where the
physical screen is located in virtual space. The vtwm source code
calls this little window the RealScreen. By default, it has no border, and
can be distinguished from the normal backdrop of the panner only by its
color or image. Its foreground color has no meaning unless you give it an
image. (It can be given a border with RealScreenBorderWidth.)
- RealScreenPixmap
string
- Names an image file used to decorate the RealScreen window. A sample is
provided, nestedsqu.xbm, but your mileage may vary as the size of
your screen varies! It is easy to find out the size of this window and to
create any image file of type bitmap(1) or pixmap(1) for it;
that is the recommended procedure.
- ResizeFont
string
- This variable specifies the font to be used for in the dimensions window
when resizing windows. The default is
"-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*".
- ResizeRegion
location
- This variable specifies the area on the screen to display the resize
window. The location should be one of NorthWest,
NorthEast, SouthWest, SouthEast, or
Centered.
- RestartPreviousState
- This variable indicates that vtwm should attempt to use the
WM_STATE property on client windows to tell which windows should be
iconified and which should be left visible. This is typically used to try
to regenerate the state that the screen was in before the previous window
manager was shutdown. It is set by default.
- RightHandSidePulldownMenus
- Pull-down menus can appear when the pointer is to the right of the center
of their parent menu, or they can appear when the pointer is closer to the
right edge of their parent menu. This option enables the latter behavior,
and is the default.
- SaveColor {
colors-list }
- This variable indicates a list of color assignments to be stored as pixel
values in the root window property _MIT_PRIORITY_COLORS. Clients may elect
to preserve these values when installing their own colormap. Note that use
of this mechanism is a way an for application to avoid the
"technicolor" problem, whereby useful screen objects such as
window borders and titlebars disappear when a programs custom colors are
installed by the window manager. For example:
SaveColor
{
BorderColor
TitleBackground
TitleForeground
"red"
"green"
"blue"
}
- This would place on the root window 3 pixel values for borders and
titlebars, as well as the three color strings, all taken from the default
colormap.
- ShallowReliefWindowButton
- This indicates that the features of built-in 3D titlebar buttons, the 3D
icon manager button the 3D menu pull-right icon, and the 3D titlebar
highlight area should be rendered with a "flatter" appearance.
It is set by default if vtwm is built with 3D features.
- ShowIconManager
- This variable indicates that the icon manager window should be displayed
when vtwm is started. It can always be brought up using the
f.showiconmgr function.
- SnapRealScreen
- This variable causes the real screen to snap to a grid defined in
PanDistanceX and PanDistanceY increments whenever the
representation moves. The f.snaprealscreen function can be used to
toggle this setting.
- SortIconManager
- This variable indicates that entries in the icon manager should be sorted
alphabetically rather than by simply appending new windows to the end. It
is set by default.
- SoundHost
string
- This variable specifies what machine (by its TCP/IP hostname) is
running the rplayd(8) daemon. If not specified, the local machine
is tried. If rplayd(8) cannot be accessed, sound will be toggled
off.
- Sounds {
sound-list }
- This variable is a list of identifiers and associated sound files. It
contains entries of the form:
"identifier" "soundfile" [volume]
where identifier is any function described in the
BINDINGS section except f.playsound, f.sounds, and
f.separator, as well as these event identifiers: (vtwm start),
(vtwm stop), (client map), (client unmap), (menu
map), (menu unmap), (info unmap), (autopan event),
and (bell event). The soundfile is the full pathname of the
sound file to play for the associated identifier, and volume
sets the volume for which to play that sound (see also SoundVolume).
Note that the list entries must be quoted:
Sounds
{
"(vtwm start)" "/usr/share/sounds/wowee.wav"
"(vtwm stop)" "/usr/share/sounds/seeya.wav"
"f.exec" "/usr/share/sounds/click.au" 50
"(client map)" "/usr/share/sounds/ping.au" 50
"f.delete" "/usr/share/sounds/doh1.wav"
"f.deletedoor" "/usr/share/sounds/doh2.wav"
"f.destroy" "/usr/share/sounds/doh3.wav"
"(client unmap)" "/usr/share/sounds/ping.au"
}
- This example points out that some identifiers
"overlap":
f.beep > (bell event) f.exec > (client map)
f.delete > (client unmap) f.menu > (menu map)
f.deletedoor > (client unmap) f.quit > (vtwm stop)
f.destroy > (client unmap) f.version = f.identify
- In these cases, the function takes precedence over the event when both
would otherwise play.
- SoundVolume
N
- This variable sets the overall volume for which to play sounds, expressed
as N% of maximum. Default is 25 (1/4 attenuation).
- SqueezeTitle
[{ squeeze-list }]
- This variable indicates that vtwm should attempt to use the SHAPE
extension to make titlebars occupy only as much screen space as they need,
rather than extending all the way across the top of the window. The
optional squeeze-list may be used to control the location of the
squeezed titlebar along the top of the window. It contains entries of the
form:
"name" justification num denom
where name is a window name, justification
is either left, center, or right, and num and
denom are numbers specifying a ratio for the relative position about
which the titlebar is located, measured from left to right. A ratio of 0/0
indicates that the justification is absolute, A non-zero numerator with
a zero denominator indicates a pixel count, and the justification is
ignored entirely for any other ratio. For example:
SqueezeTitle
{
"XTerm" left 0 0
"xterm1" left 1 3
"xterm2" right 2 3
"oclock" center 0 0
"emacs" right 0 0
}
- The DontSqueezeTitle list can be used to turn off squeezing on
certain titles. It is set by default.
- StartIconified
[{ win-list }]
- This variable indicates that client windows should initially be left as
icons until explicitly deiconified by the user. If the optional
win-list is given, only those windows will be started iconic. This
is useful for programs that do not support an -iconic command line
option or resource.
- StaticIconPositions
- This variable alters icon placement such that they will maintain their
positions on the virtual desktop when not nailed and
DeiconifyToScreen is not used. This is most applicable when
SnapRealScreen and AutoPan is used with PanDistanceX
and PanDistanceY values to simulate ctwm(1) workspaces.
- This variable alters menu interaction. By default, a menu item is selected
when a pointer button is released over it. This variable causes menu items
to be selected on the next button press event.
- This variable is similar to StayUpMenus, except that if any menu
items are selected, the menu interaction reverts to the old behavior. For
example, suppose you have the right pointer button bound to bring up a
menu with a title bar. Clicking the right button and releasing it (over
the title bar) will bring up the menu and have it stay up until you click
on a menu item. Clicking the right button, moving the pointer to a menu
item, and releasing the right button will activate that menu item and
dismiss the menu.
- Sticky {
list }
- A synonym for NailedDown.
- StickyAbove
- A synonym for NailedAbove.
- StrictIconManager
- This variable causes icon managers to list only those windows that are in
an iconified state.
- TitleBackground
string [{ win-list }]
- This variable specifies the background color used in titlebars, and may
only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The
optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so that
per-window colors may be specified. The default is
"maroon" for color displays or "gray50"
for monochrome displays.
- TitleBevelWidth
pixels
- Tells vtwm to use 3D-looking titlebars, and specifies the width in
pixels of the bevel that surrounds the titlebar. If the value of
ButtonIndent added to FramePadding equals zero, the bevel
will be bound to the text and highlight area. The default is 0 if
vtwm is built with 2D features, or 1 when vtwm is
built with 3D features..
- TitleButtonBorderWidth
pixels
- This variable specifies the width in pixels of the border surrounding
titlebar buttons, drawn in the TitleForeground color. The default
is 1 if vtwm is built with 2D bitmaps, or 0 when
vtwm is built with 3D pixmaps.
- TitleFont
string
- This variable specifies the font to used for displaying window names in
titlebars. The default is
"-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*".
- TitleForeground
string [{ win-list }]
- This variable specifies the foreground color used in titlebars, and may
only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The
optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so that
per-window colors may be specified. The default is
"maroon" for color displays or "gray50"
for monochrome displays.
- TitlePadding
pixels
- This variable specifies the distance between titlebar buttons in the
titlebar. Note that distances between buttons and the title, the title and
the highlight area, and the highlight area and buttons, are all set to a
hard-coded value. The default is 5 if vtwm is built with 2D
features, or 0 when vtwm is built with 3D features.
- UnknownIcon
string
- This variable specifies the filename of an image file to be used as the
default icon. This image will be used as the icon of all clients which do
not provide an icon image and are not listed in the Icons
list.
- UsePPosition
string [{ win-list }]
- This variable specifies whether or not vtwm should honor
program-requested locations (given by the PPosition flag in the
WM_NORMAL_HINTS property), in the absence of a user-specified position.
The argument string may have one of three values:
"off" (the default) indicating that vtwm should
ignore the program-supplied position, "on" indicating
that the position should be used, and "non-zero"
indicating that the position should used if it is other than (0,0) (for
working around a bug in older toolkits). The optional win-list is a
list of window names and arguments that will override the global
string argument. For example:
UsePPosition "off"
{
"MPlayer" "on"
}
- VirtualBackground
string
- This is the background color for the panner, a.k.a. the Virtual Desktop
window. The default is "maroon" for color displays or
"gray50" for monochrome displays.
- VirtualBackgroundPixmap
string
- Names an image file to decorate the panner.
- VirtualForeground
string
- Foreground for the panner; has no use unless you specify a panner image of
type bitmap(1).
- VirtualDesktop
geometry scale
- This variable must be set to enable the virtual desktop features of
vtwm. If this variable is not set, vtwm will behave in the
same manner as twm. This variable specifies where to place the
virtual desktop window and its size. The geometry is a standard X
geometry specification and defines the size and location of the window
containing the desktop representation.
- The scale parameter specifies the scaling of the virtual desktop
window compared to the desktop. The size specification can be given in
three ways: If size is larger than the screen size, it represents the size
of the whole desktop, and the virtual window desktop size will then be
size divided by scale. When size times scale is smaller than
the screen size, size represents the number of screens that should fit in
the desktop. Otherwise size represents the size of the virtual desktop
window, and the currently accessible virtual desktop is then scale
times the size of the desktop window. Using the default as an
example:
VirtualDesktop "5x2-0-0" 16
With scale set to 16, and a physical screen
size of 1024x768, the desktop area is 1/16 the size of the screen times the
number of screens specified:
(5 * (1024 / 16)) x (2 * (768 / 16)) = 320 x 96
- The size of the desktop can be changed dynamically, by simply resizing the
virtual desktop window.
- VirtualDesktopBevelWidth
pixels
- Tells vtwm to use a 3D-looking virtual desktop, and specifies the
width in pixels of the bevel. The default is 0 if vtwm is
built with 2D features, or 1 when vtwm is built with 3D
features.
- VirtualDesktopFont
font
- This variable causes font to be used when displaying the names of
windows in the virtual desktop display. If this variable is not set, then
names will not be displayed. The DesktopDisplayForeground should
also be set for this feature to be useful. The default is
"-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--*-75-*-*-*-*-*-*".
- VirtualReceivesMotionEvents
- VirtualSendsMotionEvents
- These variables indicate that changes to the position and dimension of
windows on the real screen will be reflected in the virtual desktop as
they occur, and visa-versa.
- WarpCentered
string
- By default, on warps to windows, the pointer goes to either the center of
the titlebar, or in the absence of, the center of the top border member.
This variable specifies that the pointer should warp to the center of the
window depending on the string argument: "on"
indicates all windows, "titled" indicates titled windows
only, "untitled" indicates untitled windows only, and
"off" (the default) indicating the default behavior. Note
that warps to icon managers are exceptional: The pointer always goes to
either the active entry, or in the absence of, the top entry.
- WarpCursor
[{ win-list }]
- This variable indicates that the pointer should be warped into windows
when they are deiconified. If the optional win-list is given, the
pointer will only be warped when those windows are deiconified. It is set
by default.
- WarpSnug
- With this variable set, the warp functions (f.warp and the like)
will fit the entire window on the screen, i.e., they'll be snugged on the
real screen.
- WarpToTransients
- This variable indicates that the pointer should be warped into transient
windows when they are created.
- WarpUnmapped
- This variable indicates that the warp functions (f.warp and the
like) should deiconify any iconified windows they encounter. This is
typically used to make a key binding that will pop a particular window
(such as xmh), no matter where it is. The default is for the
functions to ignore iconified windows.
- WarpVisible
- This variable indicates that the warp functions f.warpclassnext,
f.warpclassprev, f.warpring, and f.warpto should
restrict themselves to windows that are on the screen. The default is for
the functions to traverse the entire virtual desktop.
- WarpWindows
- When warping to a window, by default the real screen will be moved to find
the window on the virtual desktop. With this set, the window itself will
be warped to the real screen, moving the window in the virtual
desktop.
- WindowRing
[{ win-list }]
- This variable specifies that when windows are created, they should be
added to the list that the f.warpring function operates on. If the
optional win-list is given, then only those windows will be
included in the window ring. See also NoWindowRing and
f.ring.
- XorValue
number
- This variable specifies the value to use when drawing window outlines for
moving and resizing. This should be set to a value that will result in a
variety of distinguishable colors when exclusive-or'ed with the contents
of the user's typical screen. Setting this variable to 1 often gives nice
results if adjacent colors in the default colormap are distinct. By
default, vtwm will attempt to cause temporary lines to appear at
the opposite end of the colormap from the graphics.
- Zoom [ count
]
- This variable indicates that outlines suggesting movement of a window to
and from its iconified state should be displayed whenever a window is
iconified or deiconified. The optional count argument specifies the
number of outlines to be drawn. The default count is 8.
- ZoomZoom
- This variable modifies zooms such that a random place will be used for the
source or destination when there isn't an appropriate window (e.g., an
icon, icon manager entry, or client window). Default behavior inhibits
zooms when there aren't appropriate windows, except for the
f.zoomzoom function.
The following variables must be set after the fonts have been
assigned, so it is usually best to put them at the end of the variables or
beginning of the bindings sections:
- DefaultFunction
function
- This variable specifies the function to be executed when a key or button
event is received for which no binding is provided. This is typically
bound to f.nop, f.beep, or a menu containing window
operations.
- WindowFunction
function
- This variable specifies the function to execute when a window is selected
from the VTWM Windows menu. If this variable is not set (default),
the window will be deiconified and raised. It is strongly recommended that
if this is set, the function includes provision for deiconifying
windows.
After the desired variables have been set, functions may be
attached titlebar buttons and key and pointer buttons. Titlebar buttons may
be added from the left or right side and appear in the titlebar from
left-to-right according to the order in which they are specified. Key and
pointer button bindings may be given in any order.
Titlebuttons specifications must include the name of the image to
use in the button box and the function to be invoked when a pointer button
is pressed within them:
LeftTitleButton "image" = function
or
RightTitleButton "image" = function
See the ButtonIndent and FramePadding variables and
the IMAGE AND AUDIO FORMATS section for details on the image
specification.
Key and pointer button specifications must give the modifiers that
must be pressed, over which parts of the screen the pointer must be, and
what function is to be invoked. Keys are given as strings containing the
appropriate keysym name; buttons are given as the keywords
Button1-Button5:
"FP1" = modlist : context : function
Button1 = modlist : context : function
The modlist is any combination of the modifier names
shift, control, lock, meta, mod1,
mod2, mod3, mod4, or mod5 (which may be
abbreviated as s, c, l, m, m1, m2,
m3, m4, m5, respectively) separated by a vertical bar
(|). Similarly, the context is any combination of window,
title, icon, root, frame, virtual,
desktop, door, iconmgr, their first letters
(iconmgr abbreviation is m, door has no abbreviation),
or all, separated by a vertical bar. It is rumored that window class
names will also work. The function is any of the f. keywords
described below. For example, the default startup file contains the
following bindings:
Button1 = : root : f.menu "VTWM Windows"
Button1 = m : window | icon : f.function "move-or-lower"
Button2 = m : window | icon : f.iconify
Button3 = m : window | icon : f.move
Button1 = : title : f.move
Button2 = : title : f.raiselower
Button1 = : icon : f.function "move-or-iconify"
Button2 = : icon : f.iconify
Button1 = : iconmgr : f.iconify
Button2 = : iconmgr : f.iconify
A user who wanted to be able to manipulate windows from the
keyboard could use the following bindings:
"F1" = : all : f.iconify
"F2" = : all : f.raiselower
"F3" = : all : f.warpring "next"
"F4" = : all : f.warpto "xmh"
"F5" = : all : f.warpto "emacs"
"F6" = : all : f.colormap "next"
"F7" = : all : f.colormap "default"
"F20" = : all : f.warptoscreen "next"
"Left" = m : all : f.backiconmgr
"Right" = m | s : all : f.forwiconmgr
"Up" = m : all : f.upiconmgr
"Down" = m | s : all : f.downiconmgr
Note, however, that using all for button or key bindings is
almost always a bad idea, since it prevents all applications from receiving
those events; this can cripple text and graphics editors that otherwise
expect to see those buttons or keys (see also the IgnoreModifiers
variable, and the f.bindbuttons, f.bindkeys,
f.unbindbuttons, and f.unbindkeys functions).
vtwm provides many more window manipulation primitives than
can be conveniently stored in a titlebar, menu, or set of key bindings.
Although a small set of defaults are supplied (unless either
NoDefaults, NoDefaultMouseOrKeyboardBindings, or
NoDefaultTitleButtons is specified), most users will want to have
their most common operations bound to key and button strokes. To do this,
vtwm associates names with each of the primitives and provides
user-defined functions for building higher level primitives and
menus for interactively selecting among groups of functions.
User-defined functions contain the name by which they are
referenced in calls to f.function and a list of other functions to
execute. For example:
Function "move-or-lower" { f.move f.deltastop f.lower }
Function "move-or-iconify" { f.move f.deltastop f.iconify }
Function "restore-colormap" { f.colormap "default" f.lower }
The function name must be used in f.function exactly as it
appears in the function specification.
VTWM PROFILE. If a function called "VTWM Profile"
is defined within the startup file, that function will be executed upon
startup or restarting of the window manager. For example:
AutoPan 25
Function "VTWM Profile"
{
f.autopan
}
gives AutoPan a value but turns autopanning off initially (it won't have
a value unless AutoPan is set in the startup file; see f.autopan
below), in case you want to turn it on sometime later.
In the descriptions below, if the function is said to operate on
the selected window, but is invoked from a root menu, the cursor will be
changed to the Select cursor and the next window to receive a button
press will be chosen:
- ! string
- This is an abbreviation for f.exec string.
- ^ string (OBSOLETE --- use a clipboard client)
- This is an abbreviation for f.cut string.
- f.autopan
- If autopan wasn't configured in your .vtwmrc file, this does nothing. If,
however, it was configured, this toggles the current autopan state. The
reason for this command is that autopan is sometimes nice to have, but it
interferes with using sticky windows that are near the edge of the screen.
With this command, you get the best of both worlds.
- f.autoraise
- This function toggles whether or not the selected window is raised
whenever entered by the pointer. See the description of the variable
AutoRaise.
- f.backiconmgr
- This function warps the pointer to the previous column in the current icon
manager, wrapping back to the previous row if necessary.
- f.beep
- This function sounds the keyboard bell.
- f.bindbuttons
- f.bindkeys
- These functions enable vtwm's pointer or keyboard bindings for the
selected window. These are only needed if the bindings have been disabled
with the f.unbindbuttons or f.unbindkeys functions. Be
careful what you bind these functions to; f.bindkeys bound to a
window context key will not be accessable after f.unbindkeys is
invoked for the window!
- f.bottomzoom
- This function is similar to the f.fullzoom function, but resizes
the window to fill only the bottom half of the screen.
- f.circledown
- This function lowers the top-most window that occludes another
window.
- f.circleup
- This function raises the bottom-most window that is occluded by another
window.
- f.colormap
string
- This function rotates the colormaps (obtained from the WM_COLORMAP_WINDOWS
property on the window) that vtwm will display when the pointer is
in this window. The argument string may have one of the following
values: "next", "prev", and
"default". It should be noted here that in general, the
installed colormap is determined by keyboard focus. A pointer driven
keyboard focus will install a private colormap upon entry of the window
owning the colormap. Using the click to type model, private colormaps will
not be installed until the user presses a pointer button on the target
window.
- f.cut string
(OBSOLETE --- use a clipboard client)
- This function places the specified string (followed by a newline
character) into the root window property CUT_BUFFER0.
- f.cutfile
(OBSOLETE --- use a clipboard client)
- This function reads the file indicated by the contents of the CUT_BUFFER0
window property and replaces the cut buffer.
- f.deiconify
- This function deiconifies the selected window. If the window is not an
icon, this function does nothing.
- f.delete
- This function sends the WM_DELETE_WINDOW message to the selected window if
the client application has requested it through the WM_PROTOCOLS window
property. The application is supposed to respond to the message by
removing the window. If the window has not requested WM_DELETE_WINDOW
messages, the keyboard bell will be rung indicating that the user should
choose an alternative method. Note this is very different from
f.destroy. The intent here is to delete a single window, not
necessarily the entire application.
- f.deletedoor
- This function deletes a door.
- f.deltastop
- This function allows a user-defined function to be aborted if the pointer
has been moved more than MoveDelta pixels. See the example
definition given for Function "move-or-lower" at the
beginning of the section.
- f.destroy
- This function instructs the X server to close the display connection of
the client that created the selected window. This should only be used as a
last resort for shutting down runaway clients. See also
f.delete.
- This action sometimes leaves a runaway process that consumes CPU cycles;
you should always try to use the applications own quit function, rather
than this one.
- f.downiconmgr
- This function warps the pointer to the next row in the current icon
manger, wrapping to the beginning of the next column if necessary.
- f.enterdoor
- This function activates this door. Typically one binds:
Button1 = : door : f.enterdoor
Button2 = : door : f.enterdoor
Button3 = : door : f.enterdoor
- f.exec
string
- This function passes the argument string to /bin/sh for execution.
In multiscreen mode, if string starts a new X client without giving
a display argument, the client will appear on the screen from which this
function was invoked.
- f.file
string (OBSOLETE --- use a clipboard client)
- This function assumes string is a file name. This file is read into
the window server's cut buffer.
- f.focus
- This function toggles the keyboard focus of the server to the selected
window, changing the focus rule from pointer-driven if necessary. If the
selected window already was focused, this function executes an
f.unfocus.
- f.forcemove
- This function is like f.move except that it ignores the
DontMoveOff variable.
- f.forwiconmgr
- This function warps the pointer to the next column in the current icon
manager, wrapping to the beginning of the next row if necessary.
- f.fullzoom
- This function resizes the selected window to the full size of the display
or else restores the original size if the window was already zoomed.
- f.function
string
- This function executes the user-defined function whose name is specified
by the argument string.
- f.hbzoom
- This function is a synonym for f.bottomzoom.
- f.hidedesktopdisplay
- This function unmaps the desktop display.
- f.hideiconmgr
- This function unmaps the current icon manager when selected from a client
window, and unmaps all icon managers when selected from the root
window.
- f.horizoom
- This variable is similar to the f.zoom function except that the
selected window is resized to the full width of the display.
- f.htzoom
- This function is a synonym for f.topzoom.
- f.hzoom
- This function is a synonym for f.horizoom.
- f.iconify
- This function iconifies or deiconifies the selected window or icon,
respectively.
- f.identify
- This function displays a summary of the name and geometry of the selected
window. Clicking the pointer or pressing a key in the window will dismiss
it. If the function is invoked on a desktop representation of a window,
the real window which is represented will be identified.
- f.lefticonmgr
- This function similar to f.backiconmgr except that wrapping does
not change rows.
- f.leftzoom
- This variable is similar to the f.bottomzoom function but causes
the selected window is only resized to the left half of the display.
- f.lower
- This function lowers the selected window.
- This function invokes the menu specified by the argument string.
Cascaded menus may be built by nesting calls to f.menu.
- f.move
- This function drags an outline of the selected window (or the window
itself if the OpaqueMove variable is set) until the invoking
pointer button is released, at which time the window is raised (subject to
RaiseOnStart, MoveDelta, and NoRaiseOnMove). Double
clicking within the number of milliseconds given by
ConstrainedMoveTime warps the pointer to the center of the window
and constrains the move horizontally or vertically, depending on pointer
movement. To abort the move, press another button before releasing the
invoking button.
- f.movescreen
- Moves a window (or possibly the real screen) inside the desktop display.
To abort the move, press another button before releasing the invoking
button. By default, the bindings using the desktop context are
defined as:
Button1 = : desktop : f.movescreen
Button2 = : desktop : f.movescreen
- This is useful if you want to reset the default keyboard and pointer
bindings via NoDefaultMouseOrKeyboardBindings and use some of your
own for the virtual desktop, e.g.:
NoDefaultMouseOrKeyboardBindings
Button1 = : desktop : f.movescreen
Button2 = : desktop : f.warp
Button3 = : desktop : f.iconify
- This function is not useful under any context other than
"desktop".
- f.nail
- This function nails or unnails the selected window onto the real screen;
the current value of this property is toggled on the window.
- f.nailedabove
- This function toggles the setting of the NailedAbove variable.
- f.namedoor
- This function, bound to the door context, pastes a name from CUT_BUFFER0
into the selected door (see the BINDINGS section for details).
- f.newdoor
- This function creates a new door with it's destination and name set to the
real screen's current position in the virtual desktop.
- f.nexticonmgr
- This function warps the pointer to the next icon manager containing any
windows on the current or any succeeding screen.
- f.nop
- This function does nothing and is typically used with the
DefaultFunction or WindowFunction variables or to introduce
blank lines in menus.
- f.panup
N
- f.pandown
N
- f.panleft
N
- f.panright
N
- These functions move the real screen by N% of the screen dimension
in the indicated direction. These are ideally bound to the cursor
keys:
"Up" = : root : f.panup "100"
"Down" = : root : f.pandown "100"
"Left" = : root : f.panleft "100"
"Right" = : root : f.panright "100"
- f.playsound
soundfile
- This function plays the specified sound at SoundVolume volume. The
soundfile must be the full pathname of the sound file. This is a
rather "expensive" function compared to that provided by the
Sounds variable, and should be avoided.
- f.previconmgr
- This function warps the pointer to the previous icon manager containing
any windows on the current or preceding screens.
- f.quit
- This function causes vtwm to restore the window's borders and exit.
If vtwm is the last client invoked from xdm, this will
result in a server reset, and the user's session will be logged out.
- Users who stay logged in for long periods (days or weeks), or who like to
change window managers, or experiment with them, may find it desirable to
use a relatively simple application, such as xbiff(1), as the last
application in their .xinitrc or .xsession file, letting the
window manager start earlier, and run in the background. This allows
changing window managers without logging out, and also makes it much less
likely that a session will be abruptly terminated by a bug in a complex
program like a window manager. The one drawback to this approach is that
f.quit then no longer terminates the session: you need to use
f.delete or f.destroy on that last application to
logout.
- f.raise
- This function raises the selected window.
- f.raiselower
- This function raises the selected window to the top of the stacking order
if it is occluded by any windows, otherwise the window will be
lowered.
- f.refresh
- This function causes all windows to be refreshed.
- f.resetdesktop
- This function moves the real display to (0,0)
- f.resize
- This function drags an outline of the selected window (or the window
itself if the OpaqueResize variable is set) after crossing a border
(or by setting AutoRelativeResize) until the invoking pointer
button is released, at which time the window is raised (subject to
RaiseOnStart, MoveDelta, and NoRaiseOnResize). To
abort the resize, press another button before releasing the invoking
button.
- f.restart
- This function kills and restarts vtwm. See also
f.startwm.
- f.righticonmgr
- This function is similar to f.nexticonmgr except that wrapping does
not change rows.
- f.rightzoom
- This variable is similar to the f.bottomzoom function except that
the selected window is only resized to the right half of the display.
- f.ring
- Selects a window and adds it to the WindowRing list, or removes it
if it was already in the ring. This command makes f.warpring much
more useful, by making its configuration dynamic.
- f.saveyourself
- This function sends a WM_SAVEYOURSELF message to the selected window if it
has requested the message in its WM_PROTOCOLS window property. Clients
that accept this message are supposed to checkpoint all state associated
with the window and update the WM_COMMAND property as specified in the
ICCCM. If the window has not requested this message, the keyboard bell
will be rung.
- f.separator
- Valid only in menus. The effect is to add a line separator between the
previous and the following entry. The name selector part in the menu is
not used (but must be present).
- f.setrealscreen
geomstr
- This function sets the real screen to the virtual coordinates specified.
The geomstr is a quoted string containing a standard geometry
specification.
- f.showdesktopdisplay
- This function maps the desktop display.
- f.showiconmgr
- This function maps the current icon manager when selected from a client
window, and maps all icon managers when selected from the root
window.
- f.snap
- This function snaps the real screen to a grid defined on virtual space
with PanDistanceX and PanDistanceY increments.
- f.snaprealscreen
- This function toggles the setting of SnapRealScreen.
- f.snugdesktop
- moves the display to try to fit all partially visible windows completely
on the screen.
- f.snugwindow
- moves the display to try to fit the selected window completely on the
screen
- f.sorticonmgr
- This function sorts the entries in the current icon manager
alphabetically. See the variable SortIconManager.
- f.sounds
- This function toggles the playing of sounds. It's a "mute"
function.
- f.squeezecenter
- f.squeezeleft
- f.squeezeright
- Selects a window and makes its title appear as though you had configured
it as
or
or
respectively. These make squeezed titles much more useful
because their configuration is dynamic.
- f.startwm
commandline
- This function kills vtwm, and starts up the window manager as
specified by commandline. A trailing ampersand and/or environment
variables should not be used. See also f.restart.
- f.staticiconpositions
- This function toggles the setting of StaticIconPositions.
- f.stick
- This function is a synonym for f.nail.
- f.stickyabove
- This function is synonymous with the f.nailedabove function.
- f.stricticonmgr
- This function toggles the setting of StrictIconManager.
- f.title
- This function provides a centered, unselectable item in a menu definition.
It should not be used in any other context.
- f.topzoom
- This variable is similar to the f.bottomzoom function except that
the selected window is only resized to the top half of the display.
- f.twmrc
- Synonymous with f.restart. Historically, this function was intended
to cause the startup customization file to be re-read.
- f.unbindbuttons
- f.unbindkeys
- These functions disable vtwm's pointer or keyboard bindings for the
selected window, allowing events to pass directly to the application.
These are useful, for example, when running another window manager within
Xnest or Xvnc.
- f.unfocus
- This function resets the focus back to pointer-driven. This should be used
when a focused window is no longer desired.
- f.upiconmgr
- This function warps the pointer to the previous row in the current icon
manager, wrapping to the last row in the same column if necessary.
- f.version
- This function causes the vtwm version window to be displayed. This
window will be displayed until a pointer button is pressed or the pointer
is moved from one window to another.
- f.virtualgeometries
- This function toggles the setting of NotVirtualGeometries.
- f.vlzoom
- This function is a synonym for f.leftzoom.
- f.vrzoom
- This function is a synonym for f.rightzoom.
- f.warp
- Warp the cursor to the selected window. This is only useful if the window
is selected via the icon manager.
- f.warpclassnext
string
- f.warpclassprev
string
- These functions warp the pointer to the next or previous window in the
specified class indicated by the argument string. If string
is "VTWM", only icon managers, doors, and the Virtual
Desktop window are considered. If string empty (i.e.,
""), the class of the window with focus is used. If the
window is iconified, it will be deiconified if the variable
WarpUnmapped is set or else ignored.
- f.warpring
string
- This function warps the pointer to the next or previous window (as
indicated by the argument string, which may be
"next" or "prev") specified in the
WindowRing variable. If the window is iconified, it will be
deiconified if the variable WarpUnmapped is set or else
ignored.
- f.warpsnug
- This function toggles the setting of WarpSnug.
- f.warpto
string
- This function warps the pointer to the window which has a name or class
that matches string. The string may be a VTWM-style
wildcard, but not a regular expression (see the WILDCARDS
section for details). If the window is iconified, it will be deiconified
if the WarpUnmapped variable is set, or else ignored.
- f.warptoiconmgr
string
- This function warps the pointer to the icon manager entry associated with
the window containing the pointer in the icon manager specified by the
argument string. If string is empty (i.e.,
""), the current icon manager is chosen. If the window is
iconified, it will be deiconified if the variable WarpUnmapped is
set or else ignored.
- f.warptonewest
- This function warps the pointer to the most recently created window. If
the window is iconified, it will be deiconified if the variable
WarpUnmapped is set or else ignored.
- f.warptoscreen
string
- This function warps the pointer to the screen specified by the argument
string. String may be a number (e.g., "0"
or "1"), the word "next" (indicating the
current screen plus 1, skipping over any unmanaged screens), the word
"back" (indicating the current screen minus 1, skipping
over any unmanaged screens), or the word "prev"
(indicating the last screen visited.
- f.warpvisible
- This function toggles the setting of WarpVisible.
- f.winrefresh
- This function is similar to the f.refresh function except that only
the selected window is refreshed.
- f.zoom
- This function is similar to the f.fullzoom function, except that
the only the height of the selected window is changed.
- f.zoomzoom
- This function makes a zoom outline from a random place to another random
place (see the Zoom and ZoomZoom variables). It's silly, but
can be used as a visual bell in place of f.beep. See also the
LessRandomZoomZoom variable.
Functions may be grouped and interactively selected using pop-up
(when bound to a pointer button) or pull-down (when associated with a
titlebar button) menus. Each menu specification contains the name of the
menu as it will be referred to by f.menu, optional default foreground
and background colors, the list of item names and the functions they should
invoke, and optional foreground and background colors for individual
items:
Menu "menuname" [ ("deffore":"defback") ]
{
string1 [ ("fore1":"back1")] function1
string2 [ ("fore2":"back2")] function2
...
stringN [ ("foreN":"backN")] functionN
}
The menuname is case-sensitive. The optional deffore
and defback arguments specify the foreground and background colors
used on a color display to highlight menu entries. The string portion
of each menu entry will be the text which will appear in the menu. The
optional fore and back arguments specify the foreground and
background colors of the menu entry when the pointer is not in the entry.
These colors will only be used on a color display. The default is to use the
colors specified by the MenuForeground and MenuBackground
variables. The function portion of the menu entry is one of the
functions, including any user-defined functions, or additional menus.
There is a special menu named VTWM Windows which contains
the names of all of the client and vtwm-supplied windows. Selecting
an entry will cause the WindowFunction to be executed on that window.
If WindowFunction hasn't been set, the window will be deiconified and
raised. This menu uses the same colors as the little windows in the panner.
This feature still honors the traditional TwmWindows menu name of
yore.
vtwm supports several different ways of manipulating
iconified windows. The common image-and-text style may be laid out by hand
or automatically arranged as described by the IconRegion variable. In
addition, a terse grid of icon names, called an icon manager, provides a
more efficient use of screen space as well as the ability to navigate among
windows from the keyboard.
An icon manager is a window that contains names of selected or all
windows currently on the display. In addition to the window name, a small
button using the default iconify symbol will be displayed to the left of the
name when the window is iconified. By default, clicking on an entry in the
icon manager performs f.iconify. To change the actions taken in the
icon manager, use the iconmgr context when specifying button and
keyboard bindings.
Moving the pointer into the icon manager also directs keyboard
focus to the indicated window when NoIconManagerFocus is not set
(setting the focus explicitly or else sending synthetic events if
NoTitleFocus is set). Using the f.upiconmgr,
f.downiconmgr f.lefticonmgr, and f.righticonmgr
functions, the input focus can be changed between windows directly from the
keyboard.
vtwm supports many images on its own (referred to as
"internal" or "built-in" in this document), divided into
two types, bitmaps and pixmaps. They are differentiated from
file images by either a colon (':') or the string ":xpm:" as the
first character(s) of the name, respectively:
:darrow scaled in any, n/a for highlight
:delete / :xlogo centered in any drawable
:dot / :iconify centered in any drawable
:menu scaled in any drawable
:rarrow scaled in any, n/a for highlight
:resize scaled in any drawable
:xpm:bar scaled in any drawable
:xpm:box scaled in any drawable
:xpm:darrow scaled in any, n/a for highlight
:xpm:dot centered in any drawable
:xpm:lines scaled in any drawable
:xpm:menu scaled in any drawable
:xpm:raisedbox scaled, for highlight only
:xpm:raisedlines scaled, for highlight only
:xpm:rarrow scaled in any, n/a for highlight
:xpm:resize scaled in any drawable
:xpm:sunkenbox scaled, for highlight only
:xpm:sunkenlines scaled, for highlight only
:xpm:zoom scaled in any drawable
vtwm also supports a single image file format by default,
the X Window System bitmap (files typically carrying an extension of
".xbm"), for two-color images. However, when built with the
XPM library, vtwm will also support the X Window System pixmap (files
typically carrying an extension of ".xpm"), for full-color
images.
All image types and sources can be freely mixed within the
variables that use them, given the behavior listed above, and with the
following additional exceptions: The Icons and UnknownIcon
variables don't recognize the built-in images, the RealScreenPixmap,
TitleHighlight, and VirtualBackgroundPixmap entries of the
Pixmaps variable don't recognize the built-in images, only titlebar
buttons can accomodate external images that would be larger than the default
space allocated for them (in any other case, the image will be cropped to
fit), and only the RealScreenPixmap, TitleHighlight, and
VirtualBackgroundPixmap entries of the Pixmaps variable will
tile small images into the space allocated for them.
The icon manager drawable is hard-coded to 11x11 pixels, the menu
drawable is MenuFont pixels square, and titlebar buttons are
(TitleFont - (2 * ButtonIndent))
pixels square. The titlebar highlight area is
(titlebar height - (2 * FramePadding) - 2)
pixels high, where titlebar height is determined by TitleFont or
the titlebar button height, whichever is greater, and FramePadding.
The root window can be decorated with whatever image files that
are supported by X Window System utilities and applications
(xloadimage(1), xsetroot(1), xv(1), etc.).
If vtwm is built with sound support, several audio file
formats are supported, not by vtwm per se, but by the
rplayd(8) daemon. Currently, the AU, AIFF, WAV, and VOC formats are
natively supported, but see also rplay.helpers(5).
vtwm supports "wildcarding" when matching windows
against a variable's win-list. By default, the question mark ('?')
represents any single character, the asterisk ('*') represents any zero or
more characters, and brackets ('[' and ']') represent any characters listed
within them. The backslash ('\') "escapes" any one character,
allowing these reserved characters to be used literally.
vtwm can support a richer method of character substitution,
called regular expressions, or "RE"s. If vtwm
is built with REs, many more "wildcard" rules are added. A
description of REs is beyond the scope of this document; see the
re_format(7) or egrep(1) man pages.
vtwm distinguishes REs from strings by enclosing them in
forward slashes ('/'). The two may be freely mixed; changing the example in
the VARIABLES section to:
AutoRaise
{
"emacs"
"VTWM*"
/x.*clock/ # was "x*clock"
"Xmh"
"XTerm"
}
accomplishes the same thing. This is but a simple example of RE usage, and as
such doesn't demonstrate or leverage their capabilities.
It is possible to issue an f.restart via a Unix signal, to
ease debugging of vtwm resource files. To do this, send a
SIGUSR1 to the vtwm process ID (written to
$HOME/vtwm.pid). See kill(1) or slay(1).
There are precious few safeguards against binding functions to
objects inappropriately, especially where the virtual desktop is
concerned.
Double clicking very fast to get the constrained move function
will sometimes cause the window to move, even though the pointer is not
moved.
It is possible to ‘lose’ windows in the virtual
desktop by placing them in a large desktop area, then shrinking the desktop
so as to remove them from view. They are still there, of course, but are
unreachable until the
See the BUGS file in the distribution for others.
- $HOME/.vtwmrc.screen-number
- $HOME/.vtwmrc
- $VTWMETCMDIR/vtwm/system.vtwmrc
- $HOME/.twmrc.screen-number
- $HOME/.twmrc
- $VTWMETCMDIR/twm/system.vtwmrc
- are files vtwm will search for and use as its configuration file.
They are searched for in the order shown, and the first readable file
found is used.
- $HOME/vtwm.pid
- contains the ID of the user's vtwm process; see the description of
the -p option above.
- DISPLAY
- This variable is used to determine which X server to use. It is also set
during f.exec so that programs come up on the proper screen.
- HOME
- This variable is used as the prefix for files that begin with a tilde and
for locating the vtwm startup file.
Tom LaStrange, Solbourne Computer; Jim Fulton, MIT X Consortium;
Steve Pitschke, Stardent Computer; Keith Packard, MIT X Consortium; Dave
Payne, Apple Computer; Nick Williams <njw@athena.mit.edu>; Dave
Edmondson, Santa Cruz Operation, <davided@sco.com>; Dana Chee,
Bellcore (R5 conversion), <dana@thumper.bellcore.com>; Warren Jessop,
University of Washington, <whj@cs.washington.edu>; Gilligan
<thoth@reef.cis.ufl.edu>; Tim Ramsey <tar@math.ksu.edu>; Ralph
Betza <gnohmon@ssiny.com>; Michael Kutzner
<futzi@uni-paderborn.de>; Stig Ostholm <ostholm@ce.chalmers.se>;
M. Eyckmans <mce@ping.be>; Tony Brannigan <tbrann@ox.ac.uk>;
Alec Wolman <wolman@crl.dec.com>; <gdmr@dcs.edinburgh.ac.uk>;
Marcel Mol <marcel@duteca.et.tudelft.nl>; Darren S. Embry
<dsembr01@starbase.spd.louisville.edu>; Chris P. Ross
<cross@eng.umd.edu>; Paul Falstad <pf@z-code.z-code.com>; D. J.
Hawkey Jr., (version 5.4), <hawkeyd@visi.com>, with Erik Agsjo
<erik.agsjo@aktiedirekt.com>, Ugen Antsilevitch
<ugen@xonix.com>, Nelson H. F. Beebe <beebe@math.utah.edu>,
Michael Dales <michael@dcs.gla.ac.uk>, Jennifer Elaan
<jen@elaan.com>, Michel Eyckmans <mce@ping.be>, Callum Gibson
<callum.gibson@db.com>, Jason Gloudon <jdg@world.std.com>,
Nicholas Jacobs <nicholas_jacobs@hotmail.com>, Caveh Frank Jalali
<caveh@eng.sun.com> Takeharu Kato
<magician@maekawa.is.uec.ac.jp>, Goran Larsson
<hoh@lorelei.approve.se>, Rolf Neugebauer
<neugebar@dcs.gla.ac.uk>, Jonathan Paisley <jp@dcs.gla.ac.uk>,
Steve Ratcliffe <sterat@dial.pipex.com>, Seth Robertson
<seth@baka.org>, Mehul N. Sanghvi
<mehul@kirsun.ne.mediaone.net>, Tim Wiess <tim@zetaflops.net>,
acknowledging Claude Lecommandeur, (ctwm), <lecom@sic.epfl.ch>
Copyright 1988 Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation
Copyright 1989 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Copyright 1990 Dave Edmondson
Copyright 1990 Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine
Copyright 1990, 1991 Groupe Bull
Copyright 2001 David J. Hawkey Jr.
See the copyright notices in the vtwm source distribution
for copyright license statements. On Debian systems, these may also be found
in the file /usr/share/doc/vtwm/copyright.
bitmap(1), ctwm(1), m4(1), mwm(1),
pixmap(1), regex(7) or egrep(1), rplayd(8),
tvtwm(1), twm(1), vuewm(1), X(1), xdm(1),
xinit(1), xmodmap(1), xrdb(1), Xserver(1)