NAME

     wmanager-loop — loop running window managers chosen with wmanager

SYNOPSIS

     wmanager-loop [OPTIONS ...]

DESCRIPTION

     The wmanager-loop program starts either the window manager specified by the WM variable or
     the first window manager listed in ~/.wmanagerrc (or an X terminal emulator if none), and
     when it exits, runs wmanager(1) to prompt the user for the next window manager.  It loops
     doing this until the user chooses “Exit this session” in wmanager(1).  Any options given to
     wmanager-loop will be passed on to wmanager(1).

     If the WM environment variable is set, the wmanager-loop program tries to interpret it as a
     window manager specification in the following ways in the specified order:

     •   a full path to an executable file to run as the window manager;

     •   the name of a window manager listed in the /.wmanagerrc file; e.g.  “fluxbox” would
         match the following line:

               fluxbox=/usr/bin/startfluxbox

     •   the program name of a window manager listed in the /.wmanagerrc file; e.g.
         “startfluxbox” would match the above example.

     •   the start of such a program name; e.g.  “start” would match the above example.

     •   the end of such a program name; e.g.  “box” would match the above example.

     If the WM variable is set and there is more than one line in ~/.wmanagerrc that matches the
     specification, wmanager-loop will exit with an error message.

     As mentioned above, if no window manager is specified in the WM environment variable or
     found in the ~/.wmanagerrc file, the wmanager-loop program attempts to start an X terminal
     emulator.  If the WMTERM environment variable is set, the wmanager-loop program uses it as
     the path to the emulator.  Otherwise it searches the user's path for a program named
     “x-terminal-emulator”, “urxvt”, “rxvt”, or “xterm” in this order, and starts the first one
     found using its full path.  If none of the common terminal emulators on the above list is
     found, the wmanager-loop program just runs “xterm” in the hope that something will come up
     on the user's display.

ENVIRONMENT

     The wmanager-loop program uses the following environment variables:

     WM      The name, path, or partial path to the first window manager to execute.

     WMTERM  The name of the X terminal emulator to execute if no window manager could be found
             in the ~/.wmanagerrc file.  If not specified, the wmanager-loop program searches the
             user's path as described above.

EXAMPLE

     To start using wmanager-loop, create a ~/.wmanagerrc file - generally with
     wmanagerrc-update(1) - and add something like the following at the end of your ~/.xsession
     file:

           exec wmanager-loop -geometry +570+585

SEE ALSO

     wmanager(1), wmanagerrc-update(1)

HISTORY

     The wmanager-loop program was written by Tommi Virtanen in 2000 and later modified by Peter
     Pentchev.  This manual page was originally written in perldoc format by Tommi Virtanen in
     2000, and converted to mdoc format and updated by Peter Pentchev in 2008.

AUTHORS

     Tommi Virtanen ⟨tv@debian.org⟩
     Peter Pentchev ⟨roam@ringlet.net⟩