Provided by: vtwm_5.4.7-7_amd64 
NAME
vtwm - Virtual Tab Window Manager for the X Window System
SYNOPSIS
vtwm [ -d display ] [ -f initfile ] [ -m [ m4-options ] ] [ -p ] [ -s ] [ -v ]
DESCRIPTION
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.
THE VIRTUAL DESKTOP
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.
OPTIONS
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.
CUSTOMIZATION
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.
M4 PREPROCESSING
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.
VARIABLES
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.
AutoPanExtraWarp pixels
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:
cursorname "string"
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:
f.exec "foo; bar; baz"
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:
IgnoreModifiers l | m2
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-*-*-*-*-*-*".
InterpolateMenuColors
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".
MenuBackground string
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.
MenuBevelWidth pixels
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.
MenuFont string
This variable specifies the font to use when displaying menus. The default is
"-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*".
MenuForeground string
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".
MenuScrollBorderWidth pixels
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.
MenuScrollJump entries
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".
MenuTitleBackground string
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".
MenuTitleFont string
This variable specifies the font to be used in menu titles. The default is
"-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*".
MenuTitleForeground string
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.
OldFashionedTwmWindowsMenu
OldFashionedVtwmWindowsMenu
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.
StayUpMenus
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.
StayUpOptionalMenus
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.
SPECIAL VARIABLES
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.
BINDINGS
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.
f.menu string
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
SqueezeTitle center 0 0
or
SqueezeTitle left 0 0
or
SqueezeTitle right 0 0
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.
MENUS
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.
ICONS
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.
IMAGE AND AUDIO FORMATS
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).
WILDCARDS
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.
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
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).
BUGS
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.
FILES
$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.
ENVIRONMENT
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.
AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
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
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.
SEE ALSO
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)