Provided by: fvwm3_1.1.3+ds-1_amd64 
NAME
fvwm3commands - fvwm built-in commands
LIST OF FVWM COMMANDS
The command descriptions below are grouped together in the following sections. The sections are hopefully
sorted in order of usefulness to the newcomer.
• Menu commands
• Miscellaneous commands
• Commands affecting window movement and placement
• Commands for focus and mouse movement
• Commands controlling window state
• Commands for mouse and key bindings
• The Style command (controlling window styles)
• Other commands controlling window styles
• Commands controlling the virtual desktop
• Commands for user functions and shell commands
• Conditional commands
• Module commands
• Quit, restart and session management commands
• Colorsets
• Color gradients
Miscellaneous Commands
BugOpts [option [bool]], ...
This command controls several workarounds for bugs in third party programs. The individual options
are separated by commas. The optional argument bool is a boolean argument and controls if the bug
workaround is enabled or not. It can either be "True" or "False" to turn the option on or off, or
"toggle" to switch is back and forth. If bool is omitted, the default setting is restored.
DebugRandR activates monitor layout debug messages.
FlickeringMoveWorkaround disables ConfigureNotify events that are usually sent to an application
while it is moved. If some windows flicker annoyingly while being moved, this option may help you.
Note that if this problem occurs it is not an fvwm bug, it is a problem of the application.
MixedVisualWorkaround makes fvwm install the root colormap before it does some operations using the
root window visuals. This is only useful when the -visual option is used to start fvwm and then only
with some configurations of some servers (e.g. Exceed 6.0 with an 8 bit PseudoColor root and fvwm
using a 24 bit TrueColor visual).
The ModalityIsEvil option controls whether Motif applications have the ability to have modal dialogs
(dialogs that force you to close them first before you can do anything else). The default is to not
allow applications to have modal dialogs. Use this option with care. Once this option is turned on,
you have to restart fvwm to turn it off.
RaiseOverNativeWindows makes fvwm try to raise the windows it manages over native windows of the X
server’s host system. This is needed for some X servers running under Windows, Windows NT or Mac OS
X. Fvwm tries to detect if it is running under such an X server and initializes the flag accordingly.
RaiseOverUnmanaged makes fvwm try to raise the windows it manages over override_redirect windows.
This is used to cope with ill-mannered applications that use long-lived windows of this sort,
contrary to ICCCM conventions. It is useful with the Unmanaged style option too.
FlickeringQtDialogsWorkaround suppresses flickering of the focused window in some modules when using
KDE or QT applications with application modal dialog windows. By default this option is turned on.
This option may be visually disturbing for other applications using windows not managed by fvwm.
Since these applications are rare it is most likely safe to leave this option at its default.
QtDragnDropWorkaround suppresses the forwarding of unknown ClientEvent messages to windows — usually
this is harmless, but Qt has problems handling unrecognised ClientEvent messages. Enabling this
option might therefore help for Qt applications using DragnDrop. This option is off by default.
EWMHIconicStateWorkaround is needed by EWMH compliant pagers or taskbars which represent windows
which are on a different desktops as iconified. These pagers and taskbars use a version of the EWMH
specification before version 1.2 (the current KDE 2 & 3 versions). These pagers and taskbars use the
IconicState WM_STATE state to determine if an application is iconified. This state, according to the
ICCCM, does not imply that a window is iconified (in the usual sense). Turning on this option forces
fvwm to establish an equivalence between the IconicState WM_STATE state and the iconified window.
This violates ICCCM compliance but should not cause big problems. By default this option is off.
With the DisplayNewWindowNames enabled, fvwm prints the name, icon name (if available), resource and
class of new windows to the console. This can help in finding the correct strings to use in the Style
command.
When the ExplainWindowPlacement option is enabled, fvwm prints a message to the console whenever a
new window is placed or PlaceAgain, is used. The message explains on which desk, page, screen and
position it was placed and why. This option can be used to figure out why a specific window does not
appear where you think it should.
The DebugCRMotionMethod option enables some debugging code in the ConfigureRequest handling routines
of fvwm. It is not helpful for the user, but if you report a bug to the fvwm team we may ask you to
enable this option.
The TransliterateUtf8 option enables transliteration during conversions from utf-8 strings. By
default fvwm will not transliterate during conversion, but will fall back to alternate strings
provided by the clients if conversion from utf-8 fails due to characters which have no direct
correspondence in the target charecter set. Some clients however neglect to set non utf-8 properties
correctly in which case this option may help.
BusyCursor [Option bool], ...
This command controls the cursor during the execution of certain commands. Option can be DynamicMenu,
ModuleSynchronous, Read, Wait or *. An option must be followed by a boolean argument bool. You can
use commas to separate individual options. If you set an option to "True", then when the
corresponding command is run, fvwm displays the cursor of the WAIT context of the CursorStyle
command. "False" forces to not display the cursor. The default is:
BusyCursor DynamicMenu False, ModuleSynchronous False, \
Read False, Wait False
The * option refers to all available options.
The Read option controls the PipeRead command.
The DynamicMenu option affects the DynamicPopupAction and MissingSubmenuFunction options of the
AddToMenu command. If this option is set to "False", then the busy cursor is not displayed during a
dynamic menu command even if this command is a Read or PipeRead command and the Read option is set to
"True".
The ModuleSynchronous option affects the ModuleSynchronous command. If this option is set to "False",
then the busy cursor is not displayed while fvwm waits for a module started by ModuleSynchronous to
complete its startup.
The Wait option affects only the root cursor. During a wait pause the root cursor is replaced by the
busy cursor and fvwm is still fully functional (you can escape from the pause, see the EscapeFunc
command). If you want to use this option and if you do not use the default root cursor, you must set
your root cursor with the CursorStyle command.
ClickTime [delay]
Specifies the maximum delay in milliseconds between a button press and a button release for the
Function command to consider the action a mouse click. The default delay is 150 milliseconds.
Omitting the delay value resets the ClickTime to the default.
ClickTime also specifies the delay between two clicks to be interpreted as a double-click.
ColormapFocus FollowsMouse | FollowsFocus
By default, fvwm installs the colormap of the window that the cursor is in. If you use
ColormapFocus FollowsFocus
then the installed colormap is the one for the window that currently has the keyboard focus.
CursorStyle context [num | name | None | Tiny | file [x y] [fg bg]]
Defines a new cursor for the specified context. Note that this command can not control the shapes an
applications uses, for example, to indicate that it is busy. The various contexts are:
POSITION (top_left_corner)
used when initially placing windows
TITLE (top_left_arrow)
used in a window title-bar
DEFAULT (top_left_arrow)
used in windows that do not set their cursor
SYS (hand2)
used in one of the title-bar buttons
MOVE (fleur)
used when moving or resizing windows
RESIZE (sizing)
used when moving or resizing windows
WAIT (watch)
used during certain fvwm commands (see BusyCursor for details)
MENU (top_left_arrow)
used in menus
SELECT (crosshair)
used when the user is required to select a window
DESTROY (pirate)
used for Destroy, Close, and Delete commands
TOP (top_side)
used in the top side-bar of a window
RIGHT (right_side)
used in the right side-bar of a window
BOTTOM (bottom_side)
used in the bottom side-bar of a window
LEFT (left_side)
used in the left side-bar of a window
TOP_LEFT (top_left_corner)
used in the top left corner of a window
TOP_RIGHT (top_right_corner)
used in the top right corner of a window
BOTTOM_LEFT (bottom_left_corner)
used in the bottom left corner of a window
BOTTOM_RIGHT (bottom_right_corner)
used in the bottom right corner of a window
TOP_EDGE (top_side)
used at the top edge of the screen
RIGHT_EDGE (right_side)
used at the right edge of the screen
BOTTOM_EDGE (bottom_side)
used at the bottom edge of the screen
LEFT_EDGE (left_side)
used at the left edge of the screen
ROOT (left_ptr)
used as the root cursor
The defaults are shown in parentheses above. If you ever want to restore the default cursor for a
specific context you can omit the second argument.
The second argument is either the numeric value of the cursor as defined in the include file
X11/cursorfont.h or its name (without the XC_ prefix). Alternatively, the xpm file name may be specified.
The name can also be None (no cursor) or Tiny (a single pixel as the cursor).
# make the kill cursor be XC_gumby (both forms work):
CursorStyle DESTROY 56
CursorStyle DESTROY gumby
Alternatively, the cursor can be loaded from an (XPM, PNG or SVG) image file. If fvwm is compiled with
Xcursor support, full ARGB is used, and (possibly animated) cursor files made with the xcursorgen program
can be loaded. Otherwise the cursor is converted to monochrome.
The optional x and y arguments (following a file argument) specifies the hot-spot coordinate with 0 0 as
the top left corner of the image. Coordinates within the image boundary are valid and overrides any
hot-spot defined in the (XPM/Xcursor) image file. An invalid or undefined hot-spot is placed in the
center of the image.
CursorStyle ROOT cursor_image.png 0 0
The optional fg and bg arguments specify the foreground and background colors for the cursor, defaulting
to black and white (reverse video compared to the actual bitmap). These colors are only used with
monochrome cursors. Otherwise they are silently ignored.
CursorStyle ROOT nice_arrow.xpm yellow black
DefaultFont [fontname]
DefaultFont sets the default font to font fontname. The default font is used by fvwm whenever no
other font has been specified. To reset the default font to the built-in default, omit the argument.
The default font is used for menus, window titles, icon titles as well as the geometry feedback
windows during a move or resize operation. To override the default font in a specific context, use
the Style * Font, Style * IconFont, or MenuStyle commands.
DefaultIcon filename
Sets the default icon which is used if a window has neither an client-supplied icon nor an icon
supplied via the Icon option of the Style command.
DefaultLayers bottom put top
Changes the layers that are used for the StaysOnBottom, StaysPut, StaysOnTop Style options.
Initially, the layers 2, 4 and 6 are used.
Deschedule [command_id]
Removes all commands that were scheduled with the id command_id with the Schedule command from the
list of commands to be executed unless they were already executed. If the command_id is omitted, the
value of the variable $[schedule.last] is used as the id.
Emulate Fvwm | Mwm | Win
This command is a catch all for how miscellaneous things are done by fvwm. Right now this command
affects where the move/resize feedback window appears and how window placement is aborted. To have
more Mwm- or Win-like behavior you can call Emulate with Mwm or Win as its argument. With Mwm resize
and move feedback windows are in the center of the screen, instead of the upper left corner. This
also affects how manual placement is aborted. See the ManualPlacement description.
EscapeFunc
By default the key sequence Ctrl-Alt-Escape allows for escaping from a Wait pause and from a locked
ModuleSynchronous command. The EscapeFunc command used with the Key command allows for configuring
this key sequence. An example:
Key Escape A MC -
Key Escape A S EscapeFunc
replaces the Ctrl-Alt-Escape key sequence with Shift-Escape for aborting a Wait pause and
ModuleSynchronous command. EscapeFunc used outside the Key command does nothing.
FakeClick [command value] ...
This command is mainly intended for debugging fvwm and no guarantees are made that it works for you.
FakeClick can simulate mouse button press and release events and pass them to fvwm or the
applications. The parameters are a list of commands which consist of pairs of command tokens and
integer values, The press and release commands are followed by the appropriate mouse button number
and generate a button press or release event on the window below the pointer. The wait commands
pauses fvwm for the given number of milliseconds. The modifiers command simulates pressing or
releasing modifier keys. The values 1 to 5 are mapped to Mod1 to Mod5 while 6, 7 and 8 are mapped to
Shift, Lock and Control. The modifier is set for any further button events. To release a modifier
key, use the corresponding negative number. The depth command determines to which window the button
events are sent. With a depth of 1, all events go to the root window, regardless of the pointer’s
position. With 2, the event is passed to the top level window under the pointer which is usually the
frame window. With 3, events go to the client window. Higher numbers go to successive sub windows.
Zero (0) goes to the smallest window that contains the pointer. Note that events propagate upward.
FakeClick depth 2 press 1 wait 250 release 1
This simulates a click with button 1 in the parent window (depth 2) with a delay of 250 milliseconds
between the press and the release. Note: all command names can be abbreviated with their first
letter.
FakeKeypress [command value] ...
This command is mainly intended for debugging fvwm and no guarantees are made that it works for you.
FakeKeypress can simulate key press and release events and pass them to fvwm or applications. The
parameters are a list of commands which consist of pairs of command tokens and values. The press and
release commands are followed by a key name. The key name is a standard X11 key name as defined in
/usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h, (without the XK_ prefix), or the keysym database
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XKeysymDB. The wait, modifiers and depth commands are the same as those used by
FakeClick.
Save all GVim sessions with: "Esc:w\n"
All (gvim) FakeKeypress press Escape \
press colon \
press w \
press Return
Save & exit all GVim sessions with: "Esc:wq\n"
All (gvim) FakeKeypress press Escape \
press colon \
press w \
press q \
press Return
Send A to a specific window:
WindowId 0x3800002 FakeKeypress press A
Note: all command names can be abbreviated with their first letter.
ImagePath path
Specifies a colon separated list of directories in which to search for images (both monochrome and
pixmap). To find an image given by a relative pathname, fvwm looks into each directory listed in
turn, and uses the first file found.
If a directory is given in the form "/some/dir;.ext", this means all images in this directory have
the extension ".ext" that should be forced. The original image name (that may contain another
extension or no extension at all) is not probed, instead ".ext" is added or replaces the original
extension. This is useful, for example, if a user has some image directories with ".xpm" images and
other image directories with the same names, but ".png" images.
The path may contain environment variables such as $HOME (or ${HOME}). Further, a '+' in the path is
expanded to the previous value of the path, allowing appending or prepending to the path easily.
For example:
ImagePath $HOME/icons:+:/usr/include/X11/bitmaps
LocalePath path
Specifies a colon separated list of "locale path" in which to search for string translations. A
locale path is constituted by a directory path and a text domain separated by a semicolon (';'). As
an example the default locale path is:
/install_prefix/share/locale;fvwm
where install_prefix is the fvwm installation directory. With such a locale path translations are
searched for in
/install_prefix/share/locale/lang/LC_MESSAGES/fvwm.mo
where lang depends on the locale. If no directory is given the default directory path is assumed. If
no text domain is given, fvwm is assumed. Without argument the default locale path is restored.
As for the ImagePath command, path may contain environment variables and a '+' to append or prepend
the locale path easily.
For example, the fvwm-themes package uses
LocalePath ";fvwm-themes:+"
to add locale catalogs.
The default fvwm catalog contains a few strings used by the fvwm executable itself (Desk and
Geometry) and strings used in some default configuration files and FvwmForm configuration. You can
take a look at the po/ subdirectory of the fvwm source to get the list of the strings with a possible
translation in various languages. At present, very few languages are supported.
The main use of locale catalogs is via the "$[gt.string]" parameter:
DestroyMenu MenuFvwmWindowOps
AddToMenu MenuFvwmWindowOps "$[gt.Window Ops]" Title
+ "$[gt.&Move]" Move
+ "$[gt.&Resize]" Resize
+ "$[gt.R&aise]" Raise
+ "$[gt.&Lower]" Lower
+ "$[gt.(De)&Iconify]" Iconify
+ "$[gt.(Un)&Stick]" Stick
+ "$[gt.(Un)Ma&ximize]" Maximize
+ "" Nop
+ "$[gt.&Close]" Close
+ "$[gt.&Destroy]" Destroy
gives a menu in the locale languages if translations are available.
Note that the FvwmScript module has a set of special instructions for string translation. It is out
of the scope of this discussion to explain how to build locale catalogs. Please refer to the GNU
gettext documentation.
PrintInfo subject [verbose]
Print information on subject to debug log file, which defaults to $HOME/.fvwm/fvwm3-output.log .
Environment variables $FVWM_USERDIR and $FVWM3_LOGFILE can alter this default. For this logfile to be
written, either fvwm3 has to be started with -v option or SIGUSR2 signal can be used to toggle
opening/closing debug log file.
An optional integer argument to debug log file, which defaults to $HOME/.fvwm/fvwm3-output.log .
Environment variables $FVWM_USERDIR and $FVWM3_LOGFILE can alter this default. For this logfile to be
written, either fvwm3 has to be started with -v option or SIGUSR2 signal can be used to toggle
opening/closing debug log file.
An optional integer argument verbose defines the level of information which is given. The current
valid subjects are:
Colors which prints information about the colors used by fvwm. This useful on screens which can only
display 256 (or less) colors at once. If verbose is one or greater the palette used by fvwm is
printed. If you have a limited color palette, and you run out of colors, this command might be
helpful.
ImageCache which prints information about the images loaded by fvwm. If verbose is one or greater all
images in the cache will be listed together with their respective reuse.
Locale which prints information on your locale and the fonts that fvwm used. verbose can be 1 or 2.
nls which prints information on the locale catalogs that fvwm used
bindings which prints information on all the bindings fvwm has: key and mouse bindings. verbose has
no effect with this option.
infostore which prints information on all entries in the infostore, listing the key and its value.
verbose has no effect with this option.
Schedule [Periodic] delay_ms [command_id] command
The command is executed after about delay_ms milliseconds. This may be useful in some tricky setups.
The command is executed in the same context window as the Schedule command. An optional integer
argument command_id may be given in decimal, hexadecimal or octal format. This id can be used with
the Deschedule command to remove the scheduled command before it is executed. If no id is given, fvwm
uses negative id numbers, starting with -1 and decreasing by one with each use of the Schedule
command. Note that the Schedule command and its arguments undergo the usual command line expansion,
and, when command is finally executed, it is expanded again. It may therefore be necessary to quote
the parts of the command that must not be expanded twice.
Note: A window’s id as it is returned with $[w.id] can be used as the command_id. Example:
Current Schedule 1000 $[w.id] WindowShade
The Schedule command also supports the optional keyword Periodic which indicates that the command
should be executed every delay_ms. Example:
Schedule Periodic 10000 PipeRead '[ -N "$MAIL" ] && echo \
Echo You have mail'
Use the Deschedule command to stop periodic commands.
State state [bool]
Sets, clears or toggles one of the 32 user defined states which are associated with each window. The
state is a number ranging from 0 to 31. The states have no meaning in fvwm, but they can be checked
in conditional commands like Next with the State condition. The optional argument bool is a boolean
argument. "True" sets the given state, while "False" clears it. Using "toggle" switches to the
opposite state. If the bool argument is not given, the state is toggled.
WindowList [(conditions)] [position] [options] [double-click-action]
Generates a pop-up menu (and pops it up) in which the title and geometry of each of the windows
currently on the desktop are shown.
The format of the geometry part is: desk(layer): x-geometry sticky, where desk and layer are the
corresponding numbers and sticky is empty or a capital S. The geometry of iconified windows is shown
in parentheses. Selecting an item from the window list pop-up menu causes the interpreted function
"WindowListFunc" to be run with the window id of that window passed in as $0. The default
"WindowListFunc" looks like this:
AddToFunc WindowListFunc
+ I Iconify off
+ I FlipFocus
+ I Raise
+ I WarpToWindow 5p 5p
You can destroy the built-in "WindowListFunc" and create your own if these defaults do not suit you.
The window list menu uses the "WindowList" menu style if it is defined (see MenuStyle command).
Otherwise the default menu style is used. To switch back to the default menu style, issue the command
DestroyMenuStyle WindowList
Example:
MenuStyle WindowList SelectOnRelease Meta_L
The conditions can be used to exclude certain windows from the window list. Please refer to the
Current command for details. Only windows that match the given conditions are displayed in the window
list. The options below work vice versa: windows that would otherwise not be included in the window
list can be selected with them. The conditions always override the options.
The position arguments are the same as for Menu. The command double-click-action is invoked if the
user double-clicks (or hits the key rapidly twice if the menu is bound to a key) when bringing the
window list. The double-click-action must be quoted if it consists of more than one word.
The double-click-action is useful to define a default window if you have bound the window list to a
key (or button) like this:
# Here we call an existing function, but
# it may be different. See the default
# WindowListFunc definition earlier in this
# man page.
AddToFunc SwitchToWindow
+ I WindowListFunc
Key Tab A M WindowList "Prev SwitchToWindow"
Hitting Alt-Tab once it brings up the window list, if you hit it twice the focus is flipped between
the current and the last focused window. With the proper SelectOnRelease menu style (see example
above) a window is selected as soon as you release the Alt key.
The options passed to WindowList are separated by commas and can be Geometry / NoGeometry /
NoGeometryWithInfo, NoDeskNum, NoLayer, NoNumInDeskTitle, NoCurrentDeskTitle, MaxLabelWidth width,
TitleForAllDesks, Function funcname, Desk desknum, CurrentDesk, NoIcons / Icons / OnlyIcons, NoNormal
/ Normal / OnlyNormal, NoSticky / Sticky / OnlySticky, NoStickyAcrossPages / StickyAcrossPages /
OnlyStickyAcrossPages, NoStickyAcrossDesks / StickyAcrossDesks / OnlyStickyAcrossDesks, NoOnTop /
OnTop / OnlyOnTop, NoOnBottom / OnBottom / OnlyOnBottom, Layer m [n], UseSkipList / OnlySkipList,
NoDeskSort, ReverseOrder, CurrentAtEnd, IconifiedAtEnd, UseIconName, Alphabetic / NotAlphabetic,
SortByResource, SortByClass, NoHotkeys, SelectOnRelease ,ShowPage, ShowPageX, ShowPageY, ShowScreen.
(Note - normal means not iconic, sticky, or on top)
With the SortByResource option windows are alphabetically sorted first by resource class, then by
resource name and then by window name (or icon name if UseIconName is specified). ReverseOrder also
works in the expected manner.
With the SortByClass option windows are sorted just like with SortByResource, but the resource name
is not taken into account, only the resource class.
The SelectOnRelease option works exactly like the MenuStyle option with the same name, but overrides
the option given in a menu style. By default, this option is set to the left
key. To switch it off, use SelectOnRelease without a key name.
If you pass in a function via Function funcname, it is called within a window context of the selected
window:
AddToFunc IFunc I Iconify toggle
WindowList Function IFunc, NoSticky, CurrentDesk, NoIcons
If you use the Layer m [n] option, only windows in layers between m and n are displayed. n defaults
to m. With the ReverseOrder option the order of the windows in the list is reversed.
With the CurrentAtEnd option the currently focused window (if any) is shown at the bottom of the
list. This is mostly intended for simulating the Alt-Tab behavior in another GUI.
IconifiedAtEnd makes iconified windows be moved to the end of the list. This is also from another
GUI.
The NoGeometry option causes fvwm to not display the geometries as well as the separators which
indicate the different desktops. NoGeometryWithInfo removes the geometries, but keep the desktop
information and indicates iconic windows. NoDeskNum causes fvwm to not display the desktop number in
the geometry or before the window title with the NoGeometryWithInfo option. NoNumInDeskTitle is only
useful if a desktop name is defined with the DesktopName command. It causes fvwm to not display the
desktop number before the desktop name. By default, the WindowList menu have a title which indicates
the current desk or the selected desktop if the Desk condition is used. The NoCurrentDeskTitle option
removes this title. TitleForAllDesks causes fvwm to add a menu title with the desk name and/or number
before each group of windows on the same desk. With NoLayer, the layer of the window is not
displayed. The options ShowPage, ShowPageX and ShowPageY enable displaying the page of the window
rounded multiples of the display size. With ShowScreen, the window’s screen name is displayed.
The MaxLabelWidth option takes the number of characters to print as its argument. No more than that
many characters of the window name are visible.
If you wanted to use the WindowList as an icon manager, you could invoke the following:
WindowList OnlyIcons, Sticky, OnTop, Geometry
(Note - the Only options essentially wipe out all other ones... but the OnlyListSkip option which
just causes WindowList to only consider the windows with WindowListSkip style.)
XSync
When XSync is called, the X function with the same name is used to send all pending X requests to the
server. This command is intended for debugging only.
XSynchronize [bool]
The XSynchronize command controls whether X requests are sent to the X server immediately or not.
Normally, requests are sent in larger batches to save unnecessary communication. To send requests
immediately, use "True" as the argument, to disable this use "False" or to toggle between both
methods use "Toggle" or omit the bool argument. Fvwm defaults to synchronized requests when started
with the --debug option. This command is intended for debugging only.
+
Used to continue adding to the last specified decor, function or menu. See the discussion for
AddToDecor, AddToFunc, and AddToMenu.
Window Movement and Placement
AnimatedMove x y [Warp]
Move a window in an animated fashion. Similar to Move command. The options are the same, except they
are required, since it doesn’t make sense to have a user move the window interactively and
animatedly. If the optional argument Warp is specified the pointer is warped with the window.
GeometryWindow Hide | Show | Colorset n | Position x y | Screen S
Configures the position or size window that is usually shown when a window is moved or resized
interactively. This can be used to hide, show, change the colorset, change the location, or change
the screen of the geometry window. Multiple options can be set at once separated by spaces. Details
of each option are described below.
GeometryWindow Hide [Never | Move | Resize]
Hides or switches off the geometry window. If the optional parameters Move or Resize are given, it
will only hide the geometry window during the respective operation. The parameter Never will switch
the geometry back on again (equivalent to Show).
GeometryWindow Show [Never | Move | Resize]
Shows or switches on the geometry window (equivalent to Hide Never). If the optional parameters Move
or Resize are given, it will only show the geometry window during the respective operation. The
parameter Never will switch the geometry window off (equivalent to Hide).
GeometryWindow Colorset _cset_
Sets colorset of the gometry window to cset. Use the literal option default for cset to use the
default colorset.
GeometryWindow Position [+|-]_x_[p] [+|-]_y_[p]
Configures the position the geometry window appears. x and y are the relative coordinates as a
percentage of the screen size. If a leading '-' is provided the coordinates are computed from the
left/bottom of the screen respectively. If the coordinates are appended with a 'p', they are
interpreted as the number of pixels from the respective screen edge. If no position arguments are
given, the geometry window’s position will return to its default state of the upper left corner or
the center if emulating MWM.
GeometryWindow Screen _RANDRNAME_
Configure which screen the geometry window is shown on. By default the geometry window is shown on
the current screen. If a valid RANDRNAME is provided, the geometry window will always be shown on
that screen. Use current as the RANDRNAME to return the default.
Examples:
# Position the geometry window in the center of the screen
GeometryWindow Position 50 50
# Position the geometry window next to the RightPanel
GeometryWindow Position -120p 0
# Use colorset 2 for the geometry window
GeometryWindow Colorset 2
# Only show the geometry window on the primary monitor
GeometryWindow Screen $[monitor.primary]
# Hide the geometry window
GeometryWindow Hide
Layer [arg1 arg2] | [default]
Puts the current window in a new layer. If arg1 is non zero then the next layer is the current layer
number plus arg1. If arg1 is zero then the new layer is arg2.
As a special case, default puts the window in its default layer, i.e. the layer it was initially in.
The same happens if no or invalid arguments are specified.
Lower
Allows the user to lower a window. Note that this lowers a window only in its layer. To bring a
window to the absolute bottom, use
AddToFunc lower-to-bottom
+ I Layer 0 0
+ I Lower
Move [options]
Allows the user to move a window. If called from somewhere in a window or its border, then that
window is moved. If called from the root window, then the user is allowed to select the target
window. Move can be called with various options to either start an interactive move, specify the
position to move, or a direction.
Move without options starts an interactive move. The window may snap to other windows and screen
boundaries, configurable with the SnapAttraction style. Moving a window to the edge of the screen can
be used to drag the window to other pages. (See EdgeScroll, and the EdgeMoveDelay style for more
information.)
Holding down Alt disables snapping and allows one to switch pages without any delay. Interactive
movement can be aborted with the Escape key or any mouse button not set to place the window. By
default mouse button 2 is set to cancel the move operation. To change this you may use the Mouse
command with special context 'P' for Placement.
The window condition PlacedByButton can be used to check if a specific button was pressed to place
the window (see Current command).
If the single argument pointer is given, the top left corner of the window is moved to the pointer
position before starting an interactive move; this is mainly intended for internal use by modules
like FvwmPager.
Move pointer
To move a window in a given direction until it hits another window, icon, or screen boundary use:
Move shuffle [options] _direction_(s)
The direction can be North/N/Up/U, East/E/Right/R, South/S/Down/D, or West/W/Left/L. The window will
move in the given direction until it hits another window or the EwmhBaseStruts/screen boundary. When
a window is at the EwmhBaseStruts/screen boundary, it will move to the next monitor in the given
direction, if it exists. If a window is outside of the current working area (partly off screen), it
will move to the edge of the working area. Windows will honor the EWMH working area and stop at the
EwmhBaseStruts unless the literal option ewmhiwa is given. If multiple direction(s) are given, the
window will move the directions in the order of the sequence stated.
The literal option Warp will warp the mouse pointer to the window. The literal option all_windows
will consider all windows on the same monitor instead of just the windows in the path the window is
moving. This allows moving to the boundary of a window it is next too. The literal option both_sides
will consider both the close side and the far side of the window (by default only the close side is
considered).
If the literal option snap followed by a snap type of windows, icons, or same is given, then the
window will only stop if it hits another window, icon, or the same type. If the literal option layers
followed by two integers specifying a min layer and max layer is given, then only windows on the
layers between min and max layers will stop the window. For example:
# Shuffle the window Right.
Move shuffle Right
# Shuffle Up, only consider windows on Layer 3.
Move shuffle layers 3 3 Up
# Shuffle Left then Up
Move shuffle Left Up
# Shuffle Up then Left (may not be same position as above)
Move shuffle Up Left
Move can be used to moved a window to a specified position:
Move [screen _S_] [desk _N_] [w | m | v]_x_[p | w] \
[w | m | v]_y_[p | w] [Warp] [ewmhiwa]
This will move the window to the x and y position (see below). By default, the EWMH working area of
each monitor is honoured (the working area for each monitor is set via EwmhBaseStruts and honors any
strut hints provided by windows on the monitor). This means that if a window is placed outside the
working area, the position of the window will be adjusted to fit inside the working area of the
screen the center of the window is on. If the trailing option ewmhiwa is given, then the window
position will ignore the working area and its position will not be adjusted (this option is needed to
move windows off the screen and to have full control of where it is placed). If the option Warp is
given then the pointer is warped to the window.
If the literal option screen followed by a RandR screen name S is specified, the coordinates are
interpreted as relative to the given screen. The width and height of the screen are used for the
calculations instead of the display dimensions. The screen is interpreted as in the MoveToScreen
command.
If the literal option desk followed by a desk number N is specified, place the window on the
specified desk after it has been moved. This can serve two purposes, first you can move a window’s
position and desk in a single command. Second when a window is moved between monitors, its desk is
updated to be the same as the new monitor. This option can override that behavior by specifying which
desk the window should end up on.
The positional arguments x and y can specify an absolute or relative position from either the
left/top (positive values) or right/bottom (negative values) of the global screen (the bounding box
that contains all monitors) or specified screen. By default, the numeric value given is interpreted
as a percentage of the screen’s width/height, but a trailing 'p' changes the interpretation to mean
pixels, while a trailing 'w' means percent of the window width/height. To move the window relative to
its current position, add the 'w' (for "window") prefix before the x and/or y value. To move the
window to a position relative to the current location of the pointer, add the 'm' (for "mouse")
prefix. To move the window relative to the virtual screen coordinates, add the 'v' (for "virtual
screen") prefix. This is mostly for internal use with FvwmPager, but can be used to give exact
coordinates on the virtual screen and is best used with the 'p' suffix. To leave either coordinate
unchanged, "keep" can be specified in place of x or y.
For advanced uses, the arguments x and y can be used multiple times, but without the prefix 'm' or
'w'. (See complex examples below).
Simple Examples:
# Interactive move
Mouse 1 T A Move
# Move window to top left is at (10%,10%)
Mouse 2 T A Move 10 10
# Move top left to (10pixels,10pixels)
Mouse 3 T A Move 10p 10p
More complex examples (these can be bound as actions to keystrokes, etc.; only the command is shown,
though):
# Move window so bottom right is at bottom
# right of screen
Move -0 -0
# Move window so top left corner is 10 pixels
# off the top left screen edge
Move +-10 +-10
# Move window 5% to the right, and to the
# middle vertically
Move w+5 50
# Move window up 10 pixels, and so left edge
# is at x=40 pixels
Move 40p w-10p
# Move window to the mouse pointer location
Move m+0 m+0
# Move window to center of screen (50% of screen
# position minus 50% of widow size).
Move 50-50w 50-50w
See also the AnimatedMove command.
MoveToDesk [prev | arg1 [arg2] [min max]]
Moves the selected window to another desktop. The arguments are the same as for the GotoDesk command.
Without any arguments, the window is moved to the current desk.
MoveThreshold [pixels]
When the user presses a mouse button upon an object fvwm waits to see if the action is a click or a
drag. If the mouse moves by more than pixels pixels it is assumed to be a drag.
Previous versions of fvwm hardwired pixels to 3, which is now the default value. If pixels is
negative or omitted the default value (which might be increased when 16000x9000 pixel displays become
affordable) is restored.
MoveToPage [options] [x[p | w] y[p | w]] | [prev]
Moves the selected window to another page (x,y). The upper left page is (0,0), the upper right is
(M,0), where M is one less than the current number of horizontal pages specified in the DesktopSize
command. Similarly the lower left page is (0,N), and the lower right page is (M,N). Negative page
numbers refer to pages from the rightmost/lowest page. If x and y are not given, the window is moved
to the current page (a window that has the focus but is off-screen can be retrieved with this).
Moving windows to a page relative to the current page can be achieved by adding a trailing 'p' after
any or both numerical arguments. To move the window relative to its current location, add a trailing
'w'. To move a window to the previous page use prev as the single argument.
Windows are usually not moved beyond desk boundaries.
Possible options are wrapx and wrapy to wrap around the x or y coordinate when the window is moved
beyond the border of the desktop. For example, with wrapx, when the window moves past the right edge
of the desktop, it reappears on the left edge. The options nodesklimitx and nodesklimity allow moving
windows beyond the desk boundaries in x and y direction (disabling the wrapx and wrapy options).
Examples:
# Move window to page (2,3)
MoveToPage 2 3
# Move window to lowest and rightmost page
MoveToPage -1 -1
# Move window to last page visited
MoveToPage prev
# Move window two pages to the right and one
# page up, wrap at desk boundaries
MoveToPage wrapx wrapy +2p -1p
MoveToScreen [screen]
Moves the selected window to another screen. The screen argument must be a valid RandR name.
OpaqueMoveSize [percentage]
Tells fvwm the maximum size window with which opaque window movement should be used. The percentage
is percent of the total screen area (may be greater than 100). With
OpaqueMoveSize 0
all windows are moved using the traditional rubber-band outline. With
OpaqueMoveSize unlimited
or if a negative percentage is given all windows are moved as solid windows. The default is
OpaqueMoveSize 5
which allows small windows to be moved in an opaque manner but large windows are moved as
rubber-bands. If percentage is omitted or invalid the default value is set. To resize windows in an
opaque manner you can use the ResizeOpaque style. See the Style command.
PlaceAgain [Anim] [Icon]
Causes the current window’s position to be re-computed using the initial window placement logic. The
window is moved to where it would have been if it were a new window that had just appeared. Most
useful with Smart or Clever (ReallySmart) placement. With the optional argument Anim an animated move
is used to place the window in its new position. With the additional option Icon, the icon is placed
again instead.
Raise
Allows the user to raise a window. Note that this raises a window only in its layer. To bring a
window to the absolute top, use
AddToFunc raise-to-top
+ I Layer 0 ontop
+ I Raise
where ontop is the highest layer used in your setup.
RaiseLower
Alternately raises and lowers a window. The window is raised if it is obscured by any window (except
for its own transients when RaiseTransient style is used; see the Style command) otherwise it is
lowered.
Resize [[frame] [direction dir] [warptoborder automatic] [fixeddirection] width[p | c | wa | da] height[p
| c]]
Allows for resizing a window. If called from somewhere in a window or its border, then that window is
resized. If called from the root window then the user is allowed to select the target window.
Resize without options starts an interactive resize.
If the EdgeResizeDelay style is set or the Alt key is held down, the window can be resized across the
edge of the screen.
The operation can be aborted with the Escape key or by pressing any mouse button (except button 1
which confirms it).
If the optional arguments width and height are provided, then the window is resized so that its
dimensions are width by height. The units of width and height are percent-of-screen, unless a letter
'p' is appended to one or both coordinates, in which case the location is specified in pixels. With a
'c' suffix the unit defined by the client application (hence the c) is used. With the suffix 'wa' the
value is a percentage of the width or height size of the EWMH working area, and with the suffix 'da'
it is a percentage of the width or height of the EWMH dynamic working area. So you can say
Resize 80c 24c
to make a terminal window just big enough for 80x24 characters.
If the width or height is prefixed with the letter 'w' the size is not taken as an absolute value but
added to the current size of the window. Example:
# Enlarge window by one line
Resize keep w+1c
Both, width and height can be negative. In this case the new size is the screen size minus the given
value. If either value is "keep", the corresponding dimension of the window is left untouched. The
new size is the size of the client window, thus
Resize 100 100
may make the window bigger than the screen. To base the new size on the size of the whole fvwm
window, add the frame option after the command. The options fixeddirection, direction and
warptoborder are only used in interactive move operations. With fixeddirection the same border is
moved even if the pointer moves past the opposite border. The direction option must be followed by a
direction name such as "NorthWest", "South" or "East" (you get the idea). Resizing is started
immediately, even if the pointer is not on a border. If the special option automatic is given as a
direction argument, then the direction to resize is calculated based on the position of the pointer
in the window. If the pointer is in the middle of the window, then no direction is calculated. The
warptoborder option can be used to warp the pointer to the direction indicated. As with the automatic
option for direction, the border to warp to is calculated based on the pointer’s proximity to a given
border. Also, if resizing is started by clicking on the window border, the pointer is warped to the
outer edge of the border.
AddToFunc ResizeSE I Resize Direction SE
Mouse 3 A M ResizeSE
Resize [bottomright | br x y]
An alternate syntax is used if the keyword bottomright or in short br follows the command name. In
this case, the arguments x and y specify the desired position of the bottom right corner of the
window. They are interpreted exactly like the x and y arguments of the Move command. Actually, any of
the options accepted by the Move command can be used.
ResizeMaximize [resize-arguments]
Combines the effects of Resize and Maximize in a single command. When used on a maximized window, the
window is resized and is still in the maximized state afterwards. When used on an unmaximized window,
the window is resized and put into the maximized state afterwards. This is useful if the user wants
to resize the window temporarily and then return to the original geometry. The resize-arguments are
the same as for the Resize command.
ResizeMove resize-arguments move-arguments
This command does the same as the Resize and Move commands, but in a single call which is less
visually disturbing. The resize-arguments are exactly the same arguments as for the Resize command
and the move-arguments are exactly the same arguments as for the Move command except the pointer
option which is not supported by the ResizeMove command.
Examples:
# Move window to top left corner and cover
# most of the screen
ResizeMove -10p -20p 0 0
# Grow the focused window towards the top of screen
Current Resize keep w+$[w.y]p keep 0
Note: Fvwm may not be able to parse the command properly if the option bottomright of the Resize
command is used.
ResizeMoveMaximize resize-arguments move-arguments
Combines the effects of ResizeMove and Maximize in a single command. When used on a maximized window,
the window is resized and moved and is still in the maximized state afterwards. When used on an
unmaximized window, the window is resized and put into the maximized state afterwards. This is useful
if the user wants to resize the window temporarily and then return to the original geometry. The
resize-arguments and move-arguments are the same as for the ResizeMove command.
RestackTransients
This command regroups the transients of a window close to it in the stacking order as if the window
had just been lowered and then raised. The position of the window itself is not altered. Only windows
that use either the RaiseTransient or LowerTransient style are affected at all. When
RestackTransients is used on a transient window with the StackTransientParent style set, it is
redirected to the parent window.
SetAnimation milliseconds-delay [fractions-to-move-list]
Sets the time between frames and the list of fractional offsets to customize the animated moves of
the AnimatedMove command and the animation of menus (if the menu style is set to animated; see
MenuStyle command). If the fractions-to-move-list is omitted, only the time between frames is
altered. The fractions-to-move-list specifies how far the window should be offset at each successive
frame as a fraction of the difference between the starting location and the ending location. e.g.:
SetAnimation 10 -.01 0 .01 .03 .08 .18 .3 \
.45 .6 .75 .85 .90 .94 .97 .99 1.0
Sets the delay between frames to 10 milliseconds, and sets the positions of the 16 frames of the
animation motion. Negative values are allowed, and in particular can be used to make the motion
appear more cartoonish, by briefly moving slightly in the opposite direction of the main motion. The
above settings are the default.
XorPixmap [pixmap]
Selects the pixmap with which bits are xor’ed when doing rubber-band window moving or resizing. This
has a better chance of making the rubber-band visible if XorValue does not give good results. An
example pixmap resize.rainbow.xpm is provided with the icon distribution. To turn the XorPixmap off
again use the XorValue command or omit the pixmap argument.
XorValue [number]
Changes the value with which bits are xor’ed when doing rubber-band window moving or resizing. Valid
values range from zero to the maximum value of an unsigned long integer on your system. Setting this
value is a trial-and-error process. The default value 0 tries to find a value that gives a good
contrast to black and white. The default value is used if the given number is omitted or invalid.
Focus & Mouse Movement
CursorBarrier [destroy] [options] [left top right bottom]
A cursor barrier is a box that the cursor cannot be moved outside of (unless warped with CursorMove
or WarpToWindow). The left, top, right, and bottom values give the percent distance the box is placed
from each of the corresponding edges of the desktop. If the values end with a p, they are interpreted
as pixel amounts instead. If the option coords is given, the values are interpreted as the left/top
and right/bottom coordinates of the box’s corners. If the option screen RandRname is given, the
positions are computed relative to the specified monitor. Use screen c to place the barrier on the
current monitor.
Multiple barriers can be created by calling CursorBarrier multiple times. This allows creating
multiple regions to confine the cursor to (such as each monitor in a multi-monitor setup), then use
CursorMove or WarpToWindow to move the cursor between the barriers. If the command destroy is
included, all barriers are destroyed allowing free movement of the mouse again. If destroy is
followed by an integer N, only that barrier is destroyed (barriers are numbered in the order they are
created starting at 0). If the integer is negative, this counts backwards, such as "-1" is the most
recent created barrier, "-2" is the second most recent, and so on. When a barrier is destroyed, this
renumbers all barriers after it. In practice this is best used with destroy -1 to destroy the most
recent barrier without affecting any previously created barriers.
By default the key binding ctrl+shift+D will destroy all cursor barriers by calling CursorBarrier
destroy.
Here are some examples:
# A barrier 15% from left/right and 10% from top/bottom.
CursorBarrier 15 10 15 10
# A barrier to confine the mouse to the current monitor.
CursorBarrier screen c
# A barrier to confine the mouse to a selected window
Pick CursorBarrier coords $[w.x]p $[w.y]p \
$[math.+.$[w.x],$[w.width]]p $[math.+.$[w.y],$[w.height]]p
# Destroy all barriers
CursorBarrier destroy
Note that if the CURSOR_BARRIER limit is hit, all defined CursorBarriers are undefined. In pratice,
this is unlikely to happen though. If it does, a message is printed to fvwm3’s debug logs.
CursorBarrier only works if fvwm is complied with the XFixes extension.
CursorMove [screen RANDRNAME] horizontal[p] vertical[p]
Without the screen option, CusorMove moves the mouse cursor a horizontal distance and vertical
distance from its current position. The values are expressed as either a percent of the virtual
desktop size, or a pixel distance by appending a 'p' to the value. Either or both entries may be
negative. For example,
# Move down and right by one full page.
CursorMove 100 100
# Move down two full pages.
CursorMove 0 200
# Move half page right and quarter page up.
CursorMove 50 -25
# Move left 100 pixels and down 50 pixels.
CursorMove -100p 50p
If the option screen followed by a valid RandR monitor name is included, CursorMove will move the
cursor to the absolute position (starting at the top left corner) given by the arguments, as either
percent values of the monitor’s size, or an absolute location with the 'p' suffix. For example,
# Move cursor to center of monitor DP-1
CursorMove screen DP-1 50 50
# Move cursor to the exact location (400, 200) of monitor DP-2
CursorMove screen DP-2 400p 200p
When moving to a specified screen, the horizontal and vertical values are always shifted to be inside
the current page of the specified monitor. For instance '50', '150', and '-150' will all be the
center of the monitor, and will not change monitor’s page. Use GotoPage to change the page of a
specified monitor. Negative values can be used to specify distance from the right/bottom corner of
the monitor.
CusorMove can only move the cursor relative to its current position, or to an absolute position on a
given monitor. To move the cursor relative to a window, use WarpToWindow.
FlipFocus [NoWarp]
Executes a Focus command as if the user had used the pointer to select the window. This command
alters the order of the WindowList in the same way as clicking in a window to focus, i.e. the target
window is removed from the WindowList and placed at the start. This command is recommended for use
with the Direction command and in the function invoked from WindowList.
Focus [NoWarp]
Sets the keyboard focus to the selected window. If the NoWarp argument is given, this is all it does.
Otherwise it also moves the viewport or window as needed to make the selected window visible. This
command does not automatically raise the window. Does not warp the pointer into the selected window
(see WarpToWindow function). Does not de-iconify. This command does not alter the order of the
WindowList, it rotates the WindowList around so that the target window is at the start.
When the NoWarp argument is given, Focus cannot transfer the keyboard focus to windows on other
desks.
To raise and/or warp a pointer to a window together with Focus or FlipFocus, use a function, like:
AddToFunc SelectWindow
+ I Focus
+ I Iconify false
+ I Raise
+ I WarpToWindow 50 8p
WarpToWindow [!raise | raise] x[p] y[p]
Warps the cursor to the associated window and raises it (unless the option !raise is present). The
parameters x and y default to percentage of window down and in from the upper left hand corner (or
number of pixels down and in if 'p' is appended to the numbers). If a number is negative the opposite
edge is used and the direction reversed. This command works also with windows that are not managed by
fvwm. In this case fvwm does not bring the window onto the screen if it is not visible. For example
it is possible to warp the pointer to the center of the root window:
WindowId root WarpToWindow 50 50
Window State
Close
If the window accepts the delete window protocol a message is sent to the window asking it to
gracefully remove itself. If the window does not understand the delete window protocol then the
window is destroyed as with the Destroy command. Note: if the window accepts the delete window
protocol but does not close itself in response, the window is not deleted.
Delete
Sends a message to a window asking that it remove itself, frequently causing the application to exit.
Destroy
Destroys an application window, which usually causes the application to crash and burn.
Iconify [bool]
Iconifies a window if it is not already iconified or de-iconifies it if it is already iconified. The
optional argument bool is a boolean argument. "True" means only iconification is allowed, while
"False" forces de-iconification. Using "toggle" switches between iconified and de-iconified states.
There are a number of Style options which influence the appearance and behavior of icons (e.g.
StickyIcon, NoIcon).
For backward compatibility, the optional argument may also be a positive number instead of "True", or
a negative number instead of "False". Note that this syntax is obsolete, and will be removed in the
future.
Maximize [flags] [bool | forget] [horizontal[p]] [vertical[p]]
Without its optional arguments (or if the bool bit has the value "toggle") Maximize causes the window
to alternately switch from a full-screen size to its normal size. To force a window into maximized
(normal) state you can use a "True" or "False" value for the bool argument.
With just the parameter "forget" a maximized window reverts back into normal state but keeps its
current maximized size. This can be useful in conjunction with the commands ResizeMaximize and
ResizeMoveMaximize. If the window is not maximized, nothing happens.
With the optional arguments horizontal and vertical, which are expressed as percentage of a full
screen, the user can control the new size of the window. An optional suffix 'p' can be used to
indicate pixels instead of percents of the screen size. If horizontal is greater than 0 then the
horizontal dimension of the window is set to horizontal*screen_width/100. If the value is smaller
than 0 the size is subtracted from the screen width, i.e. -25 is the same as 75. If horizontal is
"grow", it is maximized to current available space until finding any obstacle. The vertical resizing
is similar. If both horizontal and vertical values are "grow", it expands vertically first, then
horizontally to find space. Instead of the horizontal "grow" argument, "growleft" or "growright" can
be used respectively "growup" and "growdown".
The optional flags argument is a space separated list containing the following key words: fullscreen,
ewmhiwa, growonwindowlayer, growonlayers, keepgrowing, all_windows, both_sides, and screen.
fullscreen causes the window to become fullscreened if the appropriate EWMH hint is set. ewmhiwa
causes fvwm to ignore the EWMH working area. growonwindowlayer causes the various grow methods to
ignore windows with a layer other than the current layer of the window which is maximized. The
growonlayers option must have two integer arguments. The first one is the minimum layer and the
second one the maximum layer to use. Windows that are outside of this range of layers are ignored by
the grow methods. A negative value as the first or second argument means to assume no minimum or
maximum layer. The all_windows option will consider all windows on the same monitor in the direction
the window is growing. This can be used to grow a window to the edge of a window it is next to. The
option both_sides will consider both sides of other windows when growing (by default only the close
side is considered). This can be used to grow a window to the boundaries of a window it is currently
inside of. keepgrowing will allow the window to keep growing beyond any window boundary it is
currently touching until it grows into the next closest window boundary. screen must have an argument
which specifies the screen on which to operate.
Here are some examples. The following adds a title-bar button to switch a window to the full vertical
size of the screen:
Mouse 0 4 A Maximize 0 100
The following causes windows to be stretched to the full width:
Mouse 0 4 A Maximize 100 0
This makes a window that is half the screen size in each direction:
Mouse 0 4 A Maximize 50 50
To expand a window horizontally until any other window is found:
Mouse 0 4 A Maximize 0 grow
To expand a window until any other window on the same or a higher layer is hit.
Mouse 0 4 A Maximize growonlayers $[w.layer] -1 grow grow
To expand a window but leave the lower 60 pixels of the screen unoccupied:
Mouse 0 4 A Maximize 100 -60p
Values larger than 100 can be used with caution.
Refresh
Causes all windows on the screen to redraw themselves. All pending updates of all windows' styles and
looks are applied immediately. E.g. if Style or TitleStyle commands were issued inside a fvwm
function.
RefreshWindow
Causes the chosen window to redraw itself. All pending updates of the window’s style and look are
applied immediately. E.g. if Style or TitleStyle commands were issued inside a fvwm function.
Stick [bool]
If the bool argument is empty or "toggle", the Stick command makes a window sticky if it is not
already sticky, or non-sticky if it is already sticky. To make a window sticky regardless of its
current state the bool argument must be "True". To make it non-sticky use "False".
StickAcrossPages [bool]
Works like Stick but only sticks a window across pages, not across desks.
StickAcrossDesks [bool]
Works like Stick but only sticks a window across desks, not across pages.
WindowShade [bool] | [[ShadeAgain] direction]
Toggles the window shade feature for titled windows. Windows in the shaded state only display a
title-bar. If bool is not given or "toggle", the window shade state is toggled. If bool is "True",
the window is forced to the shaded state. If bool is "False", then the window is forced to the
non-shaded state. To force shading in a certain direction, the direction argument can be used. Any of
the strings "North", "South", "West", "East", "NorthWest", "NorthEast", "SouthWest", "SouthEast" or
"Last" can be given. The direction can be abbreviated with the usual one or two letters "N", "NW",
etc. Using a direction on a window that was already shaded unshades the window. To shade it in a
different direction, use the ShadeAgain option. The direction Last shades the window in the direction
it last was shaded. If the window has never been shaded before it is shaded as if no direction had
been given. Windows without titles can be shaded too. Please refer also to the options
WindowShadeSteps, WindowShadeShrinks, WindowShadeScrolls, WindowShadeLazy, WindowShadeAlwaysLazy and
WindowShadeBusy options of the Style command. Examples:
Style * WindowShadeShrinks, WindowShadeSteps 20, \
WindowShadeLazy
Mouse 1 - S WindowShade North
Mouse 1 [ S WindowShade West
Mouse 1 ] S WindowShade E
Mouse 1 _ S WindowShade S
Note: When a window that has been shaded with a direction argument changes the direction of the
window title (see TitleAtTop Style option), the shading direction does not change. This may look very
strange. Windows that were shaded without a direction argument stay shaded in the direction of the
title bar.
For backward compatibility, the optional argument may also be 1 to signify "on", and 2 to signify
"off". Note that this syntax is obsolete, and will be removed in the future.
Mouse & Key Bindings
IgnoreModifiers [Modifiers]
Tells fvwm which modifiers to ignore when matching Mouse or Key bindings. IgnoreModifiers affects the
ClickToFocus style too. This command belongs into your config. If you issue it when your fvwm session
is already up and running the results are unpredictable. The should appear before any applications or
modules are started in your config file (e.g. with the Exec command).
Modifiers has the same syntax as in the Mouse or Key bindings, with the addition of 'L' meaning the
caps lock key. The default is "L". Modifiers can be omitted, meaning no modifiers are ignored. This
command comes in handy if the num-lock and scroll-lock keys interfere with your shortcuts. With
XFree86 '2' usually is the num-lock modifier and '5' refers to the scroll-lock key. To turn all
these pesky modifiers off you can use this command:
IgnoreModifiers L25
If the Modifiers argument is the string "default", fvwm reverts back to the default value "L".
Important This command creates a lot of extra network traffic, depending on your CPU, network
connection, the number of Key or Mouse commands in your configuration file and the number of
modifiers you want to ignore. If you do not have a lightning fast machine or very few bindings you
should not ignore more than two modifiers. I.e. do not ignore
if you have no problem with it. In the FAQ you can find a better solution of this problem.
EdgeCommand [screen RANDRNAME] [direction [Function]]
Binds a specified fvwm command Function to an edge of the screen. Direction may be one of "North",
"Top", "West", "Left", "South", "Bottom", "Right" and "East". If Function is omitted the binding for
this edge is removed. If EdgeCommand is called without any arguments all edge bindings are removed.
If the literal option screen followed by a RandR screen name RANDRNAME is given, the command is set
only for the given monitor.
Function is executed when the mouse pointer enters the invisible pan frames that surround the visible
screen. The binding works only if EdgeThickness is set to a value greater than 0. If a function is
bound to an edge, scrolling specified by EdgeScroll is disabled for this edge. It is possible to bind
a function only to some edges and use the other edges for scrolling. This command is intended to
raise or lower certain windows when the mouse pointer enters an edge. FvwmAuto can be used get a
delay when raising or lowering windows. The following example raises FvwmButtons if the mouse pointer
enters the top edge of the screen.
# Disable EdgeScrolling but make it possible
# to move windows over the screen edge
EdgeResistance -1
Style * EdgeMoveDelay 250
Style * EdgeMoveResistance 20
# Set thickness of the edge of the screen to 1
EdgeThickness 1
# Give focus to FvwmButtons if the mouse
# hits top edge
EdgeCommand Top Next (FvwmButtons) Focus
# Make sure the Next command matches the window
Style FvwmButtons CirculateHit
Module FvwmButtons
Module FvwmAuto 100 "Silent AutoRaiseFunction" \
"Silent AutoLowerFunction"
# If any window except FvwmButtons has
# focus when calling this function
# FvwmButtons are lowered
DestroyFunc AutoLowerFunction
AddToFunc AutoLowerFunction
+ I Current (!FvwmButtons) All (FvwmButtons) Lower
# If FvwmButtons has focus when calling this function raise it
DestroyFunc AutoRaiseFunction
AddToFunc AutoRaiseFunction
+ I Current (FvwmButtons) Raise
Normally, the invisible pan frames are only on the screen edges that border virtual pages. If a
screen edge has a command bound to it, the pan frame is always created on that edge.
EdgeLeaveCommand [screen RANDRNAME] [direction [Function]]
Binds a specified fvwm command Function to an edge of the screen. Direction may be one of "North",
"Top", "West", "Left", "South", "Bottom", "Right" and "East". If Function is omitted the binding for
this edge is removed. If EdgeLeaveCommand is called without any arguments all edge bindings are
removed. If the literal option screen followed by a RandR screen name RANDRNAME is given, the command
is set only for the given monitor.
Function is executed when the mouse pointer leaves the invisible pan frames that surround the visible
screen. The binding works only if EdgeThickness is set to a value greater than 0. If a function is
bound to an edge, scrolling specified by EdgeScroll is disabled for this edge. It is possible to bind
a function only to some edges and use the other edges for scrolling. This command is intended to
raise or lower certain windows when the mouse pointer leaves an edge. FvwmAuto can be used get a
delay when raising or lowering windows. See example for EdgeCommand
Normally, the invisible pan frames are only on the screen edges that border virtual pages. If a
screen edge has a command bound to it, the pan frame is always created on that edge.
Key [(window)] Keyname Context Modifiers Function
Binds a keyboard key to a specified fvwm command, or removes the binding if Function is '-'. The
syntax is the same as for a Mouse binding except that the mouse button number is replaced with a
Keyname. Normally, the key binding is activated when the key is pressed. Keyname is a standard X11
key name as defined in /usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h, (without the XK_ prefix), or the keysym database
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XKeysymDB. Only key names that are generated with no modifier keys or with just
the
key held are guaranteed to work. The Context and Modifiers fields are defined as in the Mouse
binding. However, when you press a key the context window is the window that has the keyboard focus.
That is not necessarily the same as the window the pointer is over (with SloppyFocus or
ClickToFocus). Note that key bindings with the 'R' (root window) context do not work properly with
SloppyFocus and ClickToFocus. If you encounter problems, use the PointerKey command instead. If you
want to bind keys to a window with SloppyFocus or ClickToFocus that are supposed to work when the
pointer is not over the window, fvwm assumes the pointer is over the client window (i.e. you have to
use the 'W' context).
The special context 'M' for menus can be used to (re)define the menu controls. It be used alone or
together with 'T', 'S', 'I', '[', ']', '-' and '_'. See the Menu Bindings section for details.
The following example binds the built-in window list to pop up when
is hit, no matter where the mouse pointer is:
Key F11 A SCM WindowList
Binding a key to a title-bar button causes that button to appear. Please refer to the Mouse command
for details.
Mouse [(window)] Button Context Modifiers Function
Defines a mouse binding, or removes the binding if Function is '-'. Button is the mouse button
number. If Button is zero then any button performs the specified function. Note that only mouse
buttons 1 to 5 are fully supported by X11. Any number above this works only partially. Complex
functions can not be used with these buttons and neither any operation that requires dragging the
pointer with the button held. This is due to limitations of X11. By default, the highest allowed
button number is 9.
Context describes where the binding applies. Valid contexts are 'R' for the root window, 'W' for an
application window, 'D' for a desktop application (as kdesktop or Nautilus desktop), 'T' for a window
title-bar, 'S' for a window side, top, or bottom bar, '[', ']', '-' and '_' for the left, right, top
or bottom side only, 'F' for a window frame (the corners), '<', '^', '>' and 'v' for the top left,
top right, bottom right or bottom left corner, 'I' for an icon window, or '0' through '9' for
title-bar buttons, or any combination of these letters. 'A' is for any context. For instance, a
context of "FST" applies when the mouse is anywhere in a window’s border except the title-bar
buttons. Only 'S' and 'W' are valid for an undecorated window.
The special context 'M' for menus can be used to (re)define the menu controls. It can be used alone
or together with 'T', 'S', 'I', '[', ']', '-' and '_'. See the Menu Bindings section for details.
The special context 'P' controls what buttons that can be used to place a window. When using this
context no modifiers are allowed (Modifiers must be N), no window is allowed, and the Function must
be one of PlaceWindow, PlaceWindowDrag, PlaceWindowInteractive, CancelPlacement, CancelPlacementDrag,
CancelPlacementInteractive or -.
PlaceWindow makes Button usable for window placement, both for interactive and drag move.
CancelPlacement does the inverse. That is makes Button to cancel move for both interactive and drag
move. It may however not override how new windows are resized after being placed. This is controlled
by the Emulate command. Also a window being dragged can always be placed by releasing the button hold
while dragging, regardless of if it is set to PlaceWindow or not.
PlaceWindowDrag and PlaceWindowInteractive/CancelPlacementDrag and CancelPlacementInteractive work as
PlaceWindow/CancelPlacement with the exception that they only affect either windows dragged / placed
interactively.
- is equivalent to CancelPlacement.
The following example makes all buttons but button 3 usable for interactive placement and makes drag
moves started by other buttons than one cancel if button 1 is pressed before finishing the move:
Mouse 0 P N PlaceWindow
Mouse 3 P N CancelPlacement
Mouse 1 P N CancelPlacementDrag
By default, the binding applies to all windows. You can specify that a binding only applies to
specific windows by specifying the window name in brackets. The window name is a wildcard pattern
specifying the class, resource or name of the window you want the binding to apply to.
The following example shows how the same key-binding can be used to perform different functions
depending on the window that is focused:
Key (rxvt) V A C Echo ctrl-V-in-RXVT
Key (*term) V A C Echo ctrl-V-in-Term
Key (*vim) V A C --
Key V A C Echo ctrl-V-elsewhere
A '--' action indicates that the event should be propagated to the specified window to handle. This
is only a valid action for window-specific bindings.
This example shows how to display the WindowList when Button 3 is pressed on an rxvt window:
Mouse (rxvt) 3 A A WindowList
Note that Fvwm actually intercepts all events for a window-specific binding and (if the focused
window doesn’t match any of the bindings) sends a synthetic copy of the event to the window. This
should be transparent to most applications, however (for security reasons) some programs ignore these
synthetic events by default - xterm is one of them. To enable handling of these events, add the
following line to your ~/.Xdefaults file:
XTerm*allowSendEvents: true
Modifiers is any combination of 'N' for no modifiers, 'C' for control, 'S' for shift, 'M' for Meta,
'L' for Caps-Lock or 'A' for any modifier. For example, a modifier of "SM" applies when both the
and
keys are down. X11 modifiers mod1 through mod5 are represented as the digits '1' through '5'. The
modifier 'L' is ignored by default. To turn it on, use the IgnoreModifiers command.
Function is one of fvwm’s commands.
The title-bar buttons are numbered with odd numbered buttons on the left side of the title-bar and
even numbers on the right. Smaller-numbered buttons are displayed toward the outside of the window
while larger-numbered buttons appear toward the middle of the window (0 is short for 10). In summary,
the buttons are numbered:
1 3 5 7 9 0 8 6 4 2
The highest odd numbered button which has an action bound to it determines the number of buttons
drawn on the left side of the title bar. The highest even number determines the number of right side
buttons which are drawn. Actions can be bound to either mouse buttons or keyboard keys.
PointerKey [(window)] Keyname Context Modifiers Function
This command works exactly like the Key command. The only difference is that the binding operates on
the window under the pointer. Normal key bindings operate on the focused window instead. The
PointerKey command can for example be used to bind keys to the root window if you are using
SloppyFocus or ClickToFocus. However, some applications (xterm is one example) are unable to handle
this key anymore, even if the pointer is over the xterm window. It is recommended to use the
PointerKey command only for key combinations that are not needed in any application window.
Example:
Style * SloppyFocus
PointerKey f1 a m Menu MainMenu
Controlling the Virtual Desktop
DesktopName desk name
Defines the name of the desktop number desk to name. This name is used in the WindowList command and
in the FvwmPager where it override the Label configuration option. Moreover, if consecutive names
starting from desktop 0 are defined, then these names can be used by any EWMH compliant application
(as a pager).
DesktopConfiguration global | per-monitor | shared
This command controls the behaviour of how desktops should be managed by FVWM. By default, for all
screens detected by FVWM through RandR support, the option of global means that all windows on the
same desk across monitors is treated as one — hence, when a change of desktop/page happens, the same
change occurs across all monitors.
With per-monitor , each RandR monitor has a separate copy of desktops, and hence function
independently of one another when switching desks/pages.
When shared is set, the desktops are shared amongst all monitors. So for example, with the following
number of desktops defined with two monitors ([] is monitor1, and <> is monitor2):
[0] 1 2 <3> 4
Moving between desktops would still honor the monitor the desktop is being requested on. If monitor1
wanted to switch to desktop 3, then that desktop is exchanged with monitor2 such that the following
showed the active desktop on both monitors:
<0> 1 2 [3] 4
This concept is similar to how spectrwm or xmonad handles desktops.
Note: these each DesktopConfiguration mode can be changed on-the-fly.
DesktopSize HorizontalxVertical
Defines the virtual desktop size in units of the physical screen size.
EdgeResistance delay, EdgeResistance scrolling moving [screen-scrolling]
Tells how hard it should be to change the desktop viewport by moving the mouse over the edge of the
screen. The parameter tells how many milliseconds the pointer must spend on the screen edge before
fvwm moves the viewport. This is intended for people who use
EdgeScroll 100 100
but find themselves accidentally flipping pages when they do not want to. If -1 is given as the
delay, scrolling is disabled completely.
The second form of invocation with two or three arguments is obsolete and should be replaced with the
following three commands as needed:
EdgeResistance scrolling
Style * EdgeMoveDelay scrolling
Style * EdgeMoveResistance moving
or
Style * EdgeMoveResistance moving screen-scrolling
Fvwm does this substitution automatically and prints a warning.
EdgeScroll [screen RANDRNAME] horizontal[p] vertical[p] [wrap | wrapx | wrapy]
Specifies the percentage of a page to scroll when the cursor hits the edge of a page. The optional
'screen RANDRNAME' specifies the RandR monitor which this setting should apply to, ignoring all other
monitors. Without this option, it applies the value to all monitors. A trailing 'p' changes the
interpretation to mean pixels. If you do not want any paging or scrolling when you hit the edge of a
page include
EdgeScroll 0 0
in your config file, or possibly better, set the EdgeThickness to zero. See the EdgeThickness
command. If you want whole pages, use
EdgeScroll 100 100
Both horizontal and vertical should be positive numbers.
If the horizontal and vertical percentages are multiplied by 1000 or one of the keywords wrap, wrapx
and wrapy is given then scrolling wraps around at the edge of the desktop. If
EdgeScroll 100000 100000
is used fvwm scrolls by whole pages, wrapping around at the edge of the desktop.
EdgeThickness [screen RANDRNAME] 0 | 1 | 2
This is the width or height of the invisible window that fvwm creates on the edges of the screen that
are used for the edge scrolling feature.
The optional 'screen RANDRNAME' specifies the RandR monitor which this setting should apply to,
ignoring all other monitors. Without this option, it applies the value to all monitors.
In order to enable page scrolling via the mouse, four windows called the "pan frames" are placed at
the very edge of the screen. This is how fvwm detects the mouse’s presence at the window edge.
Because of the way this works, they need to be at the top of the stack and eat mouse events, so if
you have any kind of error along the lines of: "mouse clicks at the edge of the screen do the wrong
thing" you’re having trouble with the pan frames and (assuming you do not use the mouse to flip
between pages) should set the EdgeThickness to 0.
A value of 0 completely disables mouse edge scrolling, even while dragging a window. 1 gives the
smallest pan frames, which seem to work best except on some servers.
2 is the default.
Pan frames of 1 or 2 pixels can sometimes be confusing, for example, if you drag a window over the
edge of the screen, so that it straddles a pan frame, clicks on the window, near the edge of the
screen are treated as clicks on the root window.
EwmhBaseStruts screen RANDRNAME left right top bottom
Where left, right, top and bottom are positive or null integers which define bands at the edge of the
screen. If screen is given, followed by the RANDRNAME of a given display, then the EwmhBaseStruts are
defined for just RANDRNAME. left defines a band on the left of your screen of width left, right
defines a band on the right of your screen of width right, top defines a band on the top of your
screen of height top and bottom defines a band on the bottom of your screen of height bottom. The
unit is the pixel and the default is 0 0 0 0. These areas define additional reserved space to the
reserved space defined by some ewmh compliant applications. This is used to compute the Working Area.
See the Extended Window Manager Hints section for a definition of the Working Area.
EwmhNumberOfDesktops num [max]
This command is useful only for an ewmh compliant pager or taskbar (as kpager or kicker taskbar) and
not for fvwm modules ( FvwmPager or FvwmIconMan). It causes a compliant application to consider at
least num desktops (desktop 0 to desktop num-1). The optional argument max causes a compliant
application to never consider more than max desktops. If max is 0 (the default) there is no
limitation. The actual number of desktops is determined dynamically. It is at least num, but it can
be d if there is a window on desktop d-1 (or if the current desktop is desktop d-1) and d is less or
equal to max or max is null. Moreover, a compliant pager can ask to change num itself. This is
accepted by fvwm only if this number is less than or equal to max or if max is null. Note that
negative desktops are not supported by the ewmh specification. The default is 4 0.
GotoDesk [screen RANDRNAME] [prev | arg1 [arg2] [min max]]
Switches the current viewport to another desktop (workspace, room). The current monitor is used in
per-monitor and shared DesktopConfiguration, unless the literal screen followed by a valid RandR
monitor name is included.
The command takes 1, 2, 3, or 4 arguments. A single argument is interpreted as a relative desk
number. Two arguments are understood as a relative and an absolute desk number. Three arguments
specify a relative desk and the minimum and maximum of the allowable range. Four arguments specify
the relative, absolute, minimum and maximum values. If a literal prev is given as the single
argument, the last visited desk number is used.
If arg1 is non zero then the next desktop number is the current desktop number plus arg1.
If arg1 is zero then the new desktop number is arg2. (If arg2 is not present, then the command has no
effect.)
If min and max are given, the new desktop number is no smaller than min and no bigger than max.
Values out of this range are truncated (if you gave an absolute desk number) or wrapped around (if
you gave a relative desk number).
The syntax is the same as for MoveToDesk, which moves a window to a different desktop.
The number of active desktops is determined dynamically. Only desktops which contain windows or are
currently being displayed are active. Desktop numbers must be between 0 and 2147483647 (is that
enough?). Negative desktop numbers are not supported by the EWMH specifications and are no longer
supported in fvwm.
GotoDeskAndPage screen | prev | desk xpage ypage
Switches the current viewport to another desktop and page, similar to the GotoDesk and GotoPage
commands. The new desk is desk and the new page is (xpage,ypage).
GotoPage screen | prev | [options] x[p] y[p]
Moves the desktop viewport to page (x,y). The upper left page is (0,0), the upper right is (M,0),
where M is one less than the current number of horizontal pages specified in the DesktopSize command.
The lower left page is (0,N), and the lower right page is (M,N), where N is the desktop’s vertical
size as specified in the DesktopSize command. To switch to a page relative to the current one add a
trailing 'p' after any or both numerical arguments.
Possible options are wrapx and wrapy to wrap around the x or y coordinate when the viewport is moved
beyond the border of the desktop.
The name of the RandR screen.
To go to the last visited page use prev as the first argument. The GotoPage function should not be
used in a pop-up menu.
Examples:
# Go to page (2,3)
GotoPage 2 3
# Go to lowest and rightmost page
GotoPage -1 -1
# Go to last page visited
GotoPage prev
# Go two pages to the right and one page up
GotoPage +2p -1p
Scroll [screen RANDRNAME] [horizonal[p] vertical[p] | reverse]
Scrolls the virtual desktop’s viewport by horizontal pages in the x-direction and vertical pages in
the y-direction or starts interactive scrolling of the viewport. Either or both entries may be
negative. Both horizontal and vertical values are expressed in percent of pages, so
Scroll 100 100
means to scroll down and right by one full page.
Scroll 50 25
means to scroll right half a page and down a quarter of a page. The Scroll function should not be
called from pop-up menus. Normally, scrolling stops at the edge of the desktop.
If the horizontal and vertical percentages are 100 or more and are multiplied by 1000 then scrolling
wraps around at the edge of the desktop. If
Scroll 100000 0
is executed over and over fvwm moves to the next desktop page on each execution and wraps around at
the edge of the desktop, so that every page is hit in turn.
If the letter 'p' is appended to each coordinate (horizontal and/or vertical), then the scroll amount
is measured in pixels.
Without arguments or if the option reverse is given interactive scrolling takes place. The viewport
scrolls as the mouse is moved. With the reverse option scrolling is done in opposite direction of the
mouse movement, and without it scrolling in the same direction as the mouse.
The binding
Mouse 1 A CM Scroll reverse
gives an effect of grabbing and dragging the viewport with button 1 if Control and Meta is pressed.
If screen is given, followed by the RANDRNAME of a given display, then the specified screen is
scrolled. This is only useful if using per-monitor or shared DesktopConfiguration and wanting to
scroll a monitor other than the current monitor. Interactive scrolling always scrolls the current
monitor.
User Functions and Shell Commands
AddToFunc [name [I | J | M | C | H | D action]]
Begins or adds to a function definition. Here is an example:
AddToFunc Move-or-Raise I Raise
+ M Move
+ D Lower
The function name is "Move-or-Raise", and it could be invoked from a menu or a mouse binding or key
binding:
Mouse 1 TS A Move-or-Raise
The name must not contain embedded whitespace. No guarantees are made whether function names with
embedded whitespace work or not. This behavior may also change in the future without further notice.
The letter before the action tells what kind of action triggers the command which follows it. 'I'
stands for "Immediate", and is executed as soon as the function is invoked. 'J' is similar to
"Immediate" but is delayed until a button is pressed or released or the pointer is moved, or the
function completes. It is always executed before the other function actions. 'M' stands for "Motion",
i.e. if the user starts moving the mouse. 'C' stands for "Click", i.e., if the user presses and
releases the mouse button. 'H' stands for "Hold", i.e. if the user presses a mouse button and holds
it down for more than ClickTime milliseconds. 'D' stands for "Double-click". The action 'I' causes an
action to be performed on the button-press, if the function is invoked with prior knowledge of which
window to act on.
There is a number of predefined symbols that are replaced by certain values if they appear on the
command line. Please refer to the Command Expansion section for details.
Warning Please read the comments on executing complex functions in the section Scripting and Complex
Functions.
Examples:
If you call
Key F10 R A Function MailFunction xmh "-font fixed"
and "MailFunction" is
AddToFunc MailFunction
+ I Next ($0) Iconify off
+ I Next (AcceptsFocus, $0) Focus
+ I None ($0) Exec exec $0 $1
Then the last line of the function becomes
+ I None (xmh) Exec exec xmh -font fixed
The expansion is performed as the function is executed, so you can use the same function with all
sorts of different arguments. You could use
Key F11 R A Function MailFunction zmail "-bg pink"
in the same config, if you wanted. An example of using "$[w.id]" is:
AddToFunc PrintFunction
+ I Raise
+ I Exec xdpr -id $[w.id]
Note that "$$" is expanded to '$'.
Another example: bind right mouse button within the window button number 6 (this is a minimize button
for the win95 theme) to iconify all windows of the same resource:
AddToFunc FuncIconifySameResource "I" All ($0) Iconify on
Mouse 3 6 A FuncIconifySameResource $[w.resource]
Beep
As might be expected, this makes the terminal beep.
DestroyFunc function
Deletes a function, so that subsequent references to it are no longer valid. You can use this to
change the contents of a function during a fvwm session. The function can be rebuilt using AddToFunc.
DestroyFunc PrintFunction
Echo string
Prints a message to the debug log file, which requires logging to be enabled. See the -v option or
PrintInfo for more information on both enabling debug logging and the log file location. Potentially
useful for debugging things in your config or getting the value of variables.
Echo Beginning style definitions...
Echo Current desk $[desk.n].
EchoFuncDefinition function
The EchoFuncDefinition is similar to the Echo command but prints the definition for the given
function to the debug log file. It is useful to find out how fvwm handles quoting and for debugging
functions.
Exec command
Executes command. You should not use an ampersand '&' at the end of the command. You probably want to
use an additional "exec" at the beginning of command. Without that, the shell that fvwm invokes to
run your command stays until the command exits. In effect, you’ll have twice as many processes
running as you need. Note that some shells are smart enough to avoid this, but it never hurts to
include the "exec" anyway.
The following example binds function key
in the root window, with no modifiers, to the exec function. The program rxvt is started with an
assortment of options.
Key F1 R N Exec exec rxvt -fg yellow -bg blue \
-e /bin/tcsh
Note that this function doesn’t wait for command to complete, so things like:
Exec "echo AddToMenu ... > /tmp/file"
Read /tmp/file
do not work reliably (see the PipeRead command).
ExecUseShell [shell]
Makes the Exec command use the specified shell, or the value of the $SHELL environment variable if no
shell is specified, instead of the default Bourne shell (/bin/sh).
ExecUseShell
ExecUseShell /usr/local/bin/tcsh
Function FunctionName
Used to bind a previously defined function to a key or mouse button. The following example binds
mouse button 1 to a function called "Move-or-Raise", whose definition was provided as an example
earlier in this man page. After performing this binding fvwm executes the "move-or-raise" function
whenever button 1 is pressed in a window’s title-bar.
Mouse 1 T A Function Move-or-Raise
The keyword Function may be omitted if FunctionName does not coincide with an fvwm command.
Warning: Please read the comments on executing complex functions in the section Scripting and Complex
Functions.
InfoStoreAdd key value
Stores the value at the given key. This is useful to store generic information used in the lifetime
of an fvwm config file. For example storing program preferences for opening video files.
The purpose of this command is to store internal information to fvwm which can be used bu fvwm
functions, or when opening programs of a certain type. Previous to this command the only way to do
this was via SetEnv but this is discouraged because it places such information in the environment,
which pollutes it and makes the information global to other processes started by fvwm which may then
modify them which might not be what’s wanted. Hence the point of InfoStoreAdd is to still allow for
such information to be stored, but kept internal to fvwm.
In this way, one can build up as many key/value pairs as needed. Recalling the value of a given key
happens through fvwm’s usual expansion mechanism. See the Command Expansion section for more details.
For example:
InfoStoreAdd teddybearprog xteddy
# Echo the value of teddybearprog
Echo $[infostore.teddybearprog]
Removing an entry from the InfoStore is done with the InfoStoreRemove command.
InfoStoreRemove key
Removes an entry at the given key from the InfoStore. Example:
InfoStoreRemove teddybearprog
Nop
Does nothing. This is used to insert a blank line or separator in a menu. If the menu item
specification is
AddToMenu MyMenu " " Nop
then a blank line is inserted. If it looks like
+ "" Nop
then a separator line is inserted. Can also be used as the double-click action for Menu or Popup.
PipeRead command [quiet]
Causes fvwm to read commands from the output of the command. This command is executed by /bin/sh as
if you typed it on the command line. If the command consists of more than one word it must be quoted.
Useful for building up dynamic menu entries based on a directories contents, for example. If the
keyword Quiet follows the command no message is produced if the command is not found.
Example:
AddToMenu HomeDirMenu
PipeRead 'for i in $HOME/*; \
do echo "+ $i Exec xterm -e vi $i"; done'
Note: The PipeRead changes the pointer to a watch cursor by default during execution. However, some
commands, for example xwd, need to take control of the pointer themselves and do not work. To disable
the watch cursor, use the command prior to PipeRead
BusyCursor Read off
The PipeRead command executes synchronously. If you want to Exec something, but need the command to
run synchronously, you might do something like:
PipeRead 'command 1>&2'
The redirection causes any output from the program to go to stderr instead of being read as a
sequence of commands by fvwm. PipeRead returns 1 if the given command could be executed or -1 if not
(see the section Conditional Commands for the meaning of return codes).
Read filename [quiet]
Causes fvwm to read commands from the file named filename. If the keyword Quiet follows the command
no message is produced if the file is not found. If the file name does not begin with a slash ('/'),
fvwm looks in the user’s data directory, then the system data directory. The user’s data directory is
by default $HOME/.fvwm. It can be overridden by exporting FVWM_USERDIR set to any other directory.
The Read command returns 1 if the given file could be read or -1 if not (see the section Conditional
Commands for the meaning of return codes).
SetEnv variable value
Set an environment variable to a new value, similar to the shell’s export or setenv command. The
variable and its value are inherited by processes started directly by fvwm. For example:
SetEnv height HEIGHT
Silent command
A number of commands require a window to operate on. If no window was selected when such a function
is invoked the user is asked to select a window. Sometimes this behavior is unwanted, for example if
the function was called by a module and the window that was selected at first does not exist anymore.
You can prevent this by putting Silent in front of the fvwm command. If a function that needs a
window is called with Silent without a window selected, it simply returns without doing anything. If
Silent is used on a user defined function it affects all function and sub function calls until the
original function exits.
Another usage of Silent is with binding commands Key, PointerKey and Mouse, this disables error
messages.
Silent also disables the error message for non-existent commands. Note: This command is treated as a
prefix to its command. Expansion of the command line is done as if Silent was not there.
Examples:
Silent Move 0 0
Silent User_defined_function
# do not complain on keyboards without "Help" key
Silent Key Help R A Popup HelpMenu
UnsetEnv [variable]
Unset an environment variable, similar to shell’s export or unsetenv command. The variable then is
removed from the environment array inherited by processes started directly by fvwm.
Wait window
This command is intended to be used in fvwm functions only. It causes execution of a function to
pause until a new window matching window appears. This can be a window’s name, class, or resource
string. It may contain the wildcards '*' and '?', which are matched in the usual Unix filename
manner. This is particularly useful in the "InitFunction" if you are trying to start windows on
specific desktops:
AddToFunc InitFunction
+ I Exec exec xterm -geometry 80x64+0+0
+ I Wait xterm
+ I GotoDesk 0 2
+ I Exec exec xmh -font fixed -geometry \
507x750+0+0
+ I Wait xmh
+ I GotoDesk 0 0
The above function starts an xterm on the current desk, waits for it to map itself, then switches to
desk 2 and starts an xmh. After the xmh window appears control moves to desk 0.
Fvwm remains partially functional during a wait, but any input from the modules is queued up and
processed only after the window appears or the command is aborted. For example, windows can not be
focused with FvwmIconMan or FvwmPager during a wait.
You can escape from a Wait pause by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Escape (where Alt is the first modifier). To
redefine this key sequence see the EscapeFunc command.
Status On | Off
Turns status either On or Off. This sends information in JSON format down a named pipe (set via
FVWM_STATUS_PIPE env var) about the current desks and number of windows, etc. This is meant to
provide a fast means of supplying third-party tools information about what’s happening in Fvwm. For
example, the JSON could be manipulated and sent to tools such as lemonbar, polybar, etc.
The format of the JSON blob looks like this:
{
"version": 3,
"current_screen": "HDMI2",
"screens": {
"HDMI2": {
"randr_order": 0,
"current_client": "n6tadam@shuttle: ~",
"desktops": {
"0": {
"number": 0,
"is_urgent": false,
"is_current": true,
"number_of_clients": 5
},
},
},
},
}
These sections repeat for all screens/groups/etc, depending on how many there are of each.
Conditional Commands
Conditional commands are commands that are only executed if certain conditions are met. Most conditional
commands work on windows, like Next, ThisWindow or All. There is one conditional command, Test, that
works on global conditions unrelated to windows. The syntax of the conditions is described below. For
readability, the list of conditions is located at the end of this section.
Return Codes
All commands in this section (unless specifically stated for the command) also have a return code
that can be 1 (if the condition was met) or 0 (if the condition was not met). Some commands may
return -1 which means that an error occurred and the return code is useless. The Break command
returns -2. Additionally, the return codes of commands run in a complex functions are passed to the
invoking complex function. The return code is used by the TestRc command. Please refer to the
commands' description for examples. The return code can also be accessed through the variable
$[cond.rc]. Non conditional commands do not modify the return code of the last conditional command.
Important note: return codes are only defined inside functions created with the AddToFunc command and
are not inherited by sub functions. To run a command without altering the return code, the KeepRc
command can be used.
The Ring of Windows
Fvwm stores windows in a ring internally. Think of the focused window as a cursor on the current
position in the ring. The Next command and many other commands search forwards through the ring for a
matching window, and Prev searches backwards. The windows in the ring are either ordered by creation
time (if the !FPSortWindowlistByFocus, NeverFocus or MouseFocus styles are used) or by the last time
they had the focus.
List of Conditional Commands
All [options] [(conditions)] command
Execute command on all windows meeting the conditions. It returns 1 if any window matches the
condition and 0 otherwise. The execution starts at the top of the window ring and continues
towards the bottom. The options can be any combination of Reverse and UseStack. If the option
Reverse is given the execution order is reversed. The option UseStack makes All use the stacking
order instead of the window ring when walking through windows. See the Conditions section for a
list of conditions.
This command implies the conditions CirculateHit, CirculateHitIcon and CirculateHitShaded. They
can be turned off by specifying !CirculateHit etc. explicitly.
Any [(conditions)] command
Performs command if any window which satisfies all conditions exists. The command is run in the
context of the root window. See the Conditions section for a list of conditions.
Break [levels]
If the break command is used in a function, function execution is terminated immediately. Further
commands of the function are not processed. Normally, all nested invocations of complex functions
are left. An optional integer number levels may be given to break out of the given number of
nested functions and continue execution of a higher level function. The Break command always has
the return code -2. Example:
AddToFunc PickWindowRaiseAndDeiconify
+ I Pick
+ I TestRc (Error) Break
+ I Raise
+ I Iconify off
Current [(conditions)] command
Performs command on the currently focused window if it satisfies all conditions. See the
Conditions section for a list of conditions.
This command implies the conditions CirculateHit, CirculateHitIcon and CirculateHitShaded. They
can be turned off by specifying !CirculateHit etc. explicitly.
Direction [FromPointer] direction [(conditions)] command
Performs command (typically Focus) on a window in the given direction which satisfies all
conditions. Normally, the center of the currently focused window or the context window in which
the command was invoked is taken as the starting point. Lacking such a window, or when the
FromPointer option is given, the current position of the pointer is taken as the starting point.
The direction may be one of "North", "Northeast", "East", "Southeast", "South", "Southwest",
"West", "Northwest" and "Center". Which window Direction selects depends on angle and distance
between the center points of the windows. Closer windows are considered a better match than those
farther away. The Center direction simply selects the window closest to the starting point.
Returns -1 if an invalid direction was given. See the Conditions section for a list of
conditions.
KeepRc command
Runs the command but does not alter the return code of the previous command. Note: KeepRc is
treated as a prefix to its command. Expansion of the command line is done as if KeepRc was not
there.
Next [(conditions)] command
Performs command (typically Focus) on the next window which satisfies all conditions. If the
command is running in a window context, it starts looking for a matching window from there.
Otherwise it starts at the focused window. See Conditions section for a list of conditions.
None [(conditions)] command
Performs command if no window which satisfies all conditions exists. The command is run in the
context of the root window. Returns 1 if no window matches the conditions and 0 otherwise. See
Conditions section for a list of conditions.
This command implies the conditions CirculateHit, CirculateHitIcon and CirculateHitShaded. They
can be turned off by specifying !CirculateHit etc. explicitly.
NoWindow command
Performs command, but removes the window context if any. This is not really a conditional
command, but a prefix that may be useful in menu items that should operate without a window even
if such menu is bound to window decorations.
Pick [(conditions)] command
Pick works like Function if invoked in the context of a window. If invoked in the root window, it
first asks the user to pick a window and then executes the command in the context of that window.
This avoids annoying multiple selections with complex functions. The command is executed only if
the given conditions are met. Returns -1 if no window was selected. See Conditions section for a
list of conditions.
This command implies the conditions CirculateHit, CirculateHitIcon and CirculateHitShaded. They
can be turned off by specifying !CirculateHit etc. explicitly.
PointerWindow [(conditions)] command
Performs command if the window under the pointer satisfies all conditions. Returns -1 if there is
no window under the pointer. See Conditions section for a list of conditions.
This command implies the conditions CirculateHit, CirculateHitIcon and CirculateHitShaded. They
can be turned off by specifying !CirculateHit etc. explicitly.
Prev [(conditions)] command
Performs command (typically Focus) on the previous window which satisfies all conditions. If the
command is running in a window context, it starts looking for a matching window from there.
Otherwise it starts at the focused window. See Conditions section for a list of conditions.
ScanForWindow [FromPointer] dir1 dir2 [(conditions)] command
Performs command (typically Focus) on a window in the given direction which satisfies all
conditions. Normally, the center of the currently focused window or the context window in which
the command was invoked is taken as the starting point. Lacking such a window, or when the
FromPointer option is given, the current position of the pointer is taken as the starting point.
The direction dir1 may be one of "North", "NorthEast", "East", "SouthEast", "South", "SouthWest",
"West", and "NorthWest". Which window ScanForWindow selects depends first on the position along
the primary axis given by dir1. If any windows have the exact same coordinate along the primary
axis, the secondary direction is used to order the windows. The direction dir2 may be one of the
same set of values as dir1. If dir2 is not perfectly perpendicular to dir1, ScanForWindow returns
a failure. When using ScanForWindow repeatedly with the same arguments, it is guaranteed that all
windows matching the conditions will eventually be found. If the focus reaches a limit along the
primary axis, it will wrap around to the opposite side. Returns -1 if an invalid direction was
given. See Conditions section for a list of conditions.
Test [(test-conditions)] command
Performs command if all test-conditions are satisfied. The test-conditions are keywords with
possible arguments from the list below and are separated by commas or whitespace. They include:
Version operator x.y.z, EnvIsSet varname, EnvMatch varname pattern, EdgeHasPointer direction,
EdgeIsActive direction, Start, Init, Restart, Exit, Quit, ToRestart, True, False, F, R, W, X and
I. A test-condition prefixed with "!" is negated.
The Version operator x.y.z test-condition is fulfilled if the logical condition of the expression
is true. Valid operator values are: >=, >, <=, <, == and !=.
Example:
Test (Version >= 2.5.11) Echo 2.5.11 or later.
The EnvIsSet varname test-condition is true if the given environment variable is set. The
EnvMatch varname pattern test-condition is true if pattern matches the given environment or
infostore variable value. (See InfoStoreAdd). The pattern may contain special "*" and "?" chars.
The "varname" is coded without the leading dollar sign ($).
The EdgeHasPointer [direction] test-condition is true if the edge in the given direction
currently contains the pointer. The EdgeIsActive [direction] test-condition is true if the edge
in the given direction currently is active. An edge is active, and can contain a pointer if
either a command is bound to it or edge scroll is available in that direction. The direction may
be one of * Any, North, Top, Up, West, Left, South, Bottom, Down, Right* and * East. If no
direction is specified Any* is assumed.
The Start test-condition is the same as either Init or Restart. It is only true on startup or
restart prior and during StartFunction execution. The Exit test-condition is the same as either
Quit or ToRestart. It is only valid on shutdown during ExitFunction function execution.
The True and False test-conditions are unconditionally true and false.
Additionally, if a test-condition name is not recognized, the Error return code is set and the
command is not executed.
The F file, R file, W file, X file and I file test-conditions test for existence of the given
[F]ile (possibly with [R]ead/[W]rite permissions), e[X]ecutable (in $PATH), or the [I]mage (in
ImagePath).
Example:
AddToFunc StartFunction I Test (Init) Exec exec xterm
AddToFunc VerifyVersion
+ I Test (Version 2.5.*) Echo 2.5.x detected
+ I TestRc (NoMatch) \
Test (!Version 2.6.*) Echo Future version
+ I TestRc (NoMatch) \
Echo 2.6.x is detected
Test (F $[FVWM_USERDIR]/local-config) Read local-config
Test (X xterm-utf16) Exec exec xterm-utf16
TestRc [([!]returncode)] command
Performs command if the last conditional command returned the value returncode. Instead of the
numeric values 0 (no match), 1 (match), -1 (error), and -2 (break) the symbolic names "NoMatch",
"Match", "Error" and "Break" can be used. If no returncode is given, the default 0 is assumed. If
the return code is prefixed with '!', the command is executed if returncode does not match the
value returned by the conditional command. The TestRc command can only be used inside functions.
If the command is another conditional command, the previous return code is replaced by the new
one. Example:
AddToFunc ToggleXterm
+ I All (my_xtermwindow) Close
+ I TestRc (NoMatch) Exec xterm -T my_xtermwindow
ThisWindow [(conditions)] command
ThisWindow executes the specified command in the context of the current operand window. If there
is no operand window (it is invoked in the root window), the command is ignored. ThisWindow is
never interactive. The command is executed only if the given conditions are met. It returns -1 if
used outside a window context. See Conditions section for a list of conditions.
This command implies the conditions CirculateHit, CirculateHitIcon and CirculateHitShaded. They
can be turned off by specifying "!CirculateHit" etc. explicitly.
WindowId [id] [(conditions)] | [root] command
The WindowId command looks for a specific window id and runs the specified command on it. The
second form of syntax retrieves the window id of the root window. The window indicated by id may
belong to a window not managed by fvwm. Although most commands can not operate on such windows,
there are some exceptions, for example the WarpToWindow command. Returns -1 if no window with the
given id exists. See Conditions section for a list of conditions.
This command implies the conditions CirculateHit, CirculateHitIcon and CirculateHitShaded. They
can be turned off by specifying !CirculateHit etc. explicitly.
Examples:
WindowId 0x34567890 Raise
WindowId root 1 WarpToWindow 50 50
WindowId $0 (Silly_Popup) Delete
In the past this command was mostly useful for functions used with the WindowList command, or for
selective processing of FvwmEvent calls (as in the last example), but currently these handler
functions are called within a window context, so this command is not really needed in these
cases. Still it may be useful if, for example, the window id should be stored in the environment
variable for a further proceeding.
Pick SetEnv BOOKMARKED_WINDOW $[w.id]
WindowId $[BOOKMARKED_WINDOW] WarpToWindow
Conditions
The conditions that may be given as an argument to any conditional command are a list of keywords
separated by commas, enclosed in parentheses. Unless stated otherwise, conditional commands accept
all the conditions listed below. Note that earlier versions of fvwm required the conditions to be
separated by whitespace instead of commas and enclosed in brackets instead of parentheses (this is
still supported for backward compatibility).
In addition, the conditions may include one or more window names to match to. If more than one window
name is given, all of them must match. The window name, icon name, class, and resource are considered
when attempting to find a match. Each name may include the wildcards '*' and '?', and may consist of
two or more alternatives, separated by the character '|', which acts as an OR operator. (If OR
operators are used, they must not be separated by spaces from the names.) Each window name can begin
with '!', which prevents command if any of the window name, icon name, class or resource match.
However, '!' must not be applied to individual names in a group separated by OR operators; it may
only be applied to the beginning of the group, and then it operates on the whole group.
Examples:
Next ("Netscape|konqueror|Mozilla*") WarpToWindow 99 90
This goes to the next web browser window, no matter which of the three named web browsers is being
used.
Next ("Mozilla*", "Bookmark*") WarpToWindow 99 90
This goes to Mozilla’s bookmark manager window, ignoring other Mozilla windows and other browsers'
bookmark windows.
All ("XTerm|rxvt", !console) Iconify
This iconifies all the xterm and rxvt windows on the current page, except that the one named
"console" (with the -name option to xterm) is excluded.
Next (!"FvwmPager|FvwmForm*|FvwmButtons") Raise
Next (!FvwmPager, !FvwmForm*, !FvwmButtons) Raise
These two commands are equivalent; either one raises the next window which is not one of the named
fvwm modules.
Any condition can be negated by using a an exclamation mark ('!') directly in front of its name.
AcceptsFocus, AnyScreen, CirculateHit, CirculateHitIcon, CirculateHitShaded, Closable, CurrentDesk,
CurrentGlobalPage, CurrentGlobalPageAnyDesk, CurrentPage, CurrentPageAnyDesk, CurrentScreen, Desk,
FixedPosition, FixedSize, Focused, HasBorders, HasHandles, HasPointer, HasTitle, TitleAtTop,
TitleAtBottom, TitleAtLeft, TitleAtRight, Iconic, Iconifiable, Layer [n], Maximizable, Maximized,
Overlapped, PlacedByButton n, PlacedByButton3, PlacedByFvwm, Raised, Shaded, State n, Sticky,
StickyAcrossDesks, StickyAcrossPages, StickyIcon, StickyAcrossDesksIcon, StickyAcrossPagesIcon,
Transient, Visible.
The AcceptsFocus condition excludes all windows that do not want the input focus (the application has
set the "Input hints" for the window to False) and do not use the Lenience option of the Style
command. Also, all windows using the NeverFocus style are ignored. Note: !Lenience is equivalent to
the deprecated option NoLenience.
With the AnyScreen condition used together with any of the Current... conditions, windows that do not
intersect the screen containing the mouse pointer are considered for a match too. For example:
# Focus next window on current page,
# regardless of screen
Next (CurrentPage, AnyScreen) Focus
The CirculateHit and CirculateHitIcon options override the CirculateSkip and CirculateSkipIcon Style
attributes for normal or iconic windows. The CirculateHitShaded option overrides the
CirculateSkipShaded Style. All three options are turned on by default for the Current command. They
can be turned off by specifying !CirculateHit etc. explicitly. Note: Do not confuse these conditions
with the style options of the same name. Specifically,
Style foo CirculateSkip
Next (foo, CirculateHit) ...
is not the same as
Style foo CirculateHit ...
Next (foo)
The prior selects windows with the name foo only in the Next command. In the second example, these
windows are always matched in all conditional commands.
The Closable condition matches only windows that are allowed to be closed.
The CurrentDesk condition matches only windows that are on the current desk.
The CurrentGlobalPage condition matches only windows that are on the current page of the current
desk, regardless of which screen the window is on. This condition implicitly activates the
CurrentDesk condition.
The CurrentGlobalPageAnyDesk condition matches only windows that are on the current page of any desk,
regardless of RandR screen .
The CurrentPage condition matches only windows that are on the current page of the current desk. This
condition implicitly activates the CurrentDesk condition.
The CurrentPageAnyDesk and CurrentScreen conditions matches only windows that are on the current page
of any desk.
The Screen [name] condition matches only windows which are on the specified screen.
The Desk [n] condition matches only windows which are on the specified desk.
The FixedPosition condition excludes all windows that do not have a fixed position, either set
through WM hints or the Style option FixedPosition. Example:
DestroyFunc ToggleFixedGeometry
AddToFunc ToggleFixedGeometry
+ I Pick (FixedPosition) \
WindowStyle VariablePosition, VariableSize
+ I TestRc (NoMatch) WindowStyle FixedPosition, FixedSize
The FixedSize condition excludes all windows that do not have a fixed size, either set through WM
hints or the Style option FixedSize.
The Focused matches on the window that currently has the keyboard focus. This is not useful for the
Current command but can be used with the other conditional commands.
The HasBorders condition excludes all windows that do not have borders.
The HasHandles condition excludes all windows that do not have resize handles.
The HasPointer condition excludes all windows that do not contain the pointer.
The HasTitle condition excludes all windows that do not have a titlebar.
The TitleAtTop, TitleAtBottom, TitleAtLeft, TitleAtRight conditions test for the titlebar at that
window location.
The Iconic condition matches only iconic windows.
The Iconifiable condition matches only windows that are allowed to be iconified.
The Layer [n] condition matches only windows on the specified layer. The optional argument of the
Layer condition defaults to the layer of the focused window. The negation !Layer switches off the
Layer condition.
The Maximizable condition matches only windows that are allowed to be maximized.
The Maximized condition matches only maximized windows.
The Overlapped condition matches only windows that are overlapped by other windows on the same layer
(or unmanaged windows if the option RaiseOverUnmanaged of the BugOpts command is used). Note that
this condition can be slow if you have many windows or if RaiseOverUnmanaged is used and the
connection to the X server is slow.
The PlacedByButton n condition is fulfilled if the last interactive motion of the window (with the
Move command or as ManualPlacement) was ended by pressing mouse button n. Example:
Mouse 1 T A Function MoveWindow
DestroyFunc MoveWindow
AddToFunc MoveWindow
+ C Move
+ C ThisWindow (PlacedByButton 5) WindowShade off
+ C TestRc (Match) Maximize on 0 100
+ C ThisWindow (PlacedByButton 4) WindowShade on
The PlacedByButton3 condition has the same meaning as PlacedByButton 3. It remains only for backward
compatibility.
The PlacedByFvwm condition excludes all windows that have been placed manually or by using the user
or program position hint.
The Raised conditions matches only windows that are fully visible on the current viewport and not
overlapped by any other window.
The Shaded conditions matches only shaded windows (see WindowShade command).
The State n or !State n conditions match only windows with the specified integer state set (or
unset). See the State command for details. The argument may range from 0 to 31.
The Sticky, StickyAcrossDesks and StickyAcrossPages match only windows that are currently sticky,
sticky across all desks or sticky across all pages. Please refer to the Style options with the same
name and the commands Stick, StickAcrossDesks and StickAcrossPages for details.
The StickyIcon, StickyAcrossDesksIcon and StickyAcrossPagesIcon match only windows that become
sticky, sticky across all desks or sticky across all pages when they are in iconified state.
The Transient condition matches only windows that have the "transient" property set by the
application. This it usually the case for application popup menus and dialogs. The FvwmIdent module
can be used to find out whether a specific window is transient.
The Visible condition matches only windows that are at least partially visible on the current
viewport and not completely overlapped by other windows.
Module Commands
Fvwm maintains a database of module configuration lines in a form
*<ModuleName>: <Config-Resource>
where <ModuleName> is either a real module name or an alias.
This database is initially filled from config file (or from output of -cmd config command), and can be
later modified either by user (via FvwmCommand) or by modules.
When modules are run, they read appropriate portion of database. (The concept of this database is similar
to one used in X resource database).
Commands for manipulating module configuration database are described below.
* module_config_line
Defines a module configuration. module_config_line consists of a module name (or a module alias) and
a module resource line. The new syntax allows a delimiter, a colon and optional spaces, between the
module name and the rest of the line, this is recommended to avoid conflicts.
*FvwmPager: WindowBorderWidth 1
*FvwmButtons-TopRight: Geometry 100x100-0+0
*FvwmButtons-Bottom: Geometry +0-0
DestroyModuleConfig module_config
Deletes module configuration entries, so that new configuration lines may be entered instead. This
also sometimes the only way to turn back some module settings, previously defined. This changes the
way a module runs during a fvwm session without restarting. Wildcards can be used for portions of the
name as well.
The new non-conflicting syntax allows a delimiter, a colon and optional spaces between the module
name and the rest of the line. In this case a module name (or alias) can’t have wildcards.
DestroyModuleConfig FvwmButtons*
DestroyModuleConfig FvwmForm: Fore
DestroyModuleConfig FvwmIconMan: Tips*
KillModule modulename [modulealias]
Causes the module which was invoked with name modulename to be killed. The name may include
wildcards. If modulealias is given, only modules started with the given alias are killed.
# kill all pagers
KillModule FvwmPager
Module FvwmEvent SoundEvent
KillModule FvwmEvent SoundEvent
Module modulename [moduleparams]
Specifies a module with its optional parameters which should be spawned. Currently several modules,
including FvwmButtons, FvwmEvent, FvwmForm, FvwmPager, FvwmScript support aliases. Aliases are useful
if more than one instance of the module should be spawned. Aliases may be configured separately using
* syntax. To start a module FvwmForm using an alias MyForm, the following syntax may be used:
Module FvwmForm MyForm
At the current time the available modules (included with fvwm) are FvwmAnimate (produces animation
effects when a window is iconified or de-iconified), FvwmAuto (an auto raise module), FvwmBacker (to
change the background when you change desktops), FvwmBanner (to display a spiffy XBM, XPM, PNG or
SVG), FvwmButtons (brings up a customizable tool bar), FvwmCommandS (a command server to use with
shell’s FvwmCommand client), FvwmConsole (to execute fvwm commands directly), FvwmEvent (trigger
various actions by events), FvwmForm (to bring up dialogs), FvwmIconMan (a flexible icon manager),
FvwmIdent (to get window info), FvwmPager (a mini version of the desktop), FvwmPerl (a Perl
manipulator and preprocessor), FvwmProxy (to locate and control obscured windows by using small proxy
windows), FvwmRearrange (to rearrange windows), FvwmScript (another powerful dialog toolkit), These
modules have their own man pages. There may be other modules out on there as well.
Modules can be short lived transient programs or, like FvwmButtons , can remain for the duration of
the X session. Modules are terminated by the window manager prior to restarts and quits, if possible.
See the introductory section on modules. The keyword Module may be omitted if modulename is distinct
from all fvwm commands.
ModuleListenOnly modulename [moduleparams]
This command works like the Module command, but fvwm never sends any messages to the module. This may
be handy to write a module as a shell script that is triggered by external events without the burden
to answer packets sent by fvwm. For example, a module written as a shell script may change labels of
the FvwmButtons module to implement a simple clock.
ModulePath path
Specifies a colon separated list of directories in which to search for modules. To find a module,
fvwm searches each directory in turn and uses the first file found. Directory names on the list do
not need trailing slashes.
The ModulePath may contain environment variables such as $HOME (or ${HOME}). Further, a '+' in the
path is expanded to the previous value of the path, allowing easy appending or prepending to the
path.
For example:
ModulePath ${HOME}/lib/fvwm/modules:+
The directory containing the standard modules is available via the environment variable
$FVWM_MODULEDIR.
ModuleSynchronous [Expect string] [Timeout secs] modulename
The ModuleSynchronous command is very similar to Module. Fvwm stops processing any commands and user
input until the module sends a string beginning with "NOP FINISHED STARTUP" back to fvwm. If the
optional Timeout is given fvwm gives up if the module sent no input back to fvwm for secs seconds. If
the Expect option is given, fvwm waits for the given string instead. ModuleSynchronous should only be
used during fvwm startup to enforce the order in which modules are started. This command is intended
for use with the (currently hypothetical) module that should be in place before other modules are
started.
Warning: It is quite easy to hang fvwm with this command, even if a timeout is given. Be extra
careful choosing the string to wait for. Although all modules in the fvwm distribution send back the
"NOP FINISHED STARTUP" string once they have properly started up, this may not be the case for third
party modules. Moreover, you can try to escape from a locked ModuleSynchronous command by using the
key sequence
(see the EscapeFunc).
ModuleTimeout timeout
Specifies how many seconds fvwm waits for a module to respond. If the module does not respond within
the time limit then fvwm kills it. timeout must be greater than zero, or it is reset to the default
value of 30 seconds.
SendToModule modulename string
Sends an arbitrary string (no quotes required) to all modules, whose alias or name matching
modulename, which may contain wildcards. This only makes sense if the module is set up to understand
and deal with these strings though. Can be used for module to module communication, or implementation
of more complex commands in modules.
Session Management Commands
Quit
Exits fvwm, generally causing X to exit too.
Restart [window_manager [params]]
Causes fvwm to restart itself if window_manager is left blank, or to switch to an alternate window
manager (or other fvwm version) if window_manager is specified. If the window manager is not in your
default search path, then you should use the full path name for window_manager.
This command should not have a trailing ampersand. The command can have optional parameters with
simple shell-like syntax. You can use ~ (is expanded to the user’s home directory) and environmental
variables $VAR or ${VAR}. Here are several examples:
Key F1 R N Restart
Key F1 R N Restart fvwm1 -f .fvwmrc
Key F1 R N Restart xterm -n '"X console"' -T \"X\ console\" -e fvwm
Note, currently with multi headed displays, restart of fvwms on different screens works
independently.
Restart --pass-args window_manager
The same as Restart without parameters but the name for the current window manager is replaced with
the specified window_manager and original arguments are preserved.
Restart --dont-preserve-state [other-params]
The same as
Restart [other-params]
but it does not save any window states over the restart.
Without this option, Restart preserves most per-window state by writing it to a file named
.fs-restart-$HOSTDISPLAY in the user’s home directory.
SaveSession
Causes a session manager (if any) to save the session. This command does not work for xsm, it seems
that xsm does not implement this functionality. Use Unix signals to manage xsm remotely.
SaveQuitSession
Causes a session manager (if any) to save and then shutdown the session. This command does not work
for xsm, it seems that xsm does not implement this functionality. Use Unix signals to manage xsm
remotely.
Colorsets
Colorsets are a powerful method to control colors. Colorsets create appearance resources that are shared
by fvwm and its modules. When a colorset is modified all parts of fvwm react to that change. A colorset
includes a foreground color, background color, shadow and highlight color (often based on the background
color), background face (this includes images and all kinds of gradients). There is a way to render
background face and specify other color operations.
Colorset num [options]
Creates or modifies colorset num. Colorsets are identified by this number. The number can start at
zero and can be a very large number.
Warning: The highest colorset number used determines memory consumption. Thus, if you define
'Colorset 100000', the memory for 100001 colorsets is used. Keep your colorset numbers as small as
possible.
By convention, colorsets are numbered like this:
# 0 = Default colors
# 1 = Inactive windows
# 2 = Active windows
# 3 = Inactive menu entry and menu background
# 4 = Active menu entry
# 5 = greyed out menu entry (only bg used)
# 6 = module foreground and background
# 7 = hilight colors
If you need to have more colors and do not want to reinvent the wheel, you may use the convention
used in fvwm-themes, it defines the meaning of the first 40 colorsets for nearly all purposes:
http://fvwm-themes.sourceforge.net/doc/colorsets
Each colorset has four colors, an optional pixmap and an optional shape mask. The four colors are
used by modules as the foreground, background, highlight and shadow colors. When a colorset is
created it defaults to a foreground of black and background of gray. The background and foreground
are marked as "average" and "contrast" (see later) so that just specifying a pixmap or gradient gives
sensible results.
options is a comma separated list containing some of the keywords: fg, Fore, Foreground, bg, Back,
Background, hi, Hilite, Hilight, sh, Shade, Shadow, fgsh, Pixmap, TiledPixmap, AspectPixmap,
Transparent, RootTransparent, Shape, TiledShape, AspectShape, NoShape, ?Gradient, Tint, fgTint,
bgTint, Alpha, fgAlpha, Dither, NoDither, IconTint, IconAlpha, Plain.
fg, Fore and Foreground take a color name as an argument and set the foreground color. The special
name Contrast may be used to select a color that contrasts well with the background color. To reset
the foreground color to the default value you can simply omit the color name.
bg, Back and Background take a color name as an argument and set the background color. It also sets
the highlight and shadow colors to values that give a 3d effect unless these have been explicitly set
with the options below. The special name Average may be used to select a color that is the average
color of the pixmap. If the pixmap is tinted with the Tint option, the tint is not taken in account
in the computation of the average color. You should use the bgTint option to get the "real" average
color. The background color is reset to the default value if the color name is omitted.
hi, Hilite and Hilight take a color name as an argument and set the highlight color. If the highlight
color is not explicitly set, the default is to calculate it from the background color. To switch back
to the default behavior the color name can be omitted.
sh, Shade and Shadow take a color name as an argument and set the shadow color. If the shadow color
is not explicitly set, the default is to calculate it from the background color. To switch back to
the default behavior the color name can be omitted.
fgsh takes a color name as an argument and sets the color used by the shadowing font effect. See the
Font Shadow Effects section of the fvwm man page. By default this color is computed from the
foreground and background colors. To switch back to the default the color name can be omitted.
Pixmap, TiledPixmap and AspectPixmap take a file name as an argument, search the ImagePath and use it
as the background pixmap. Any transparent parts are filled with the background color. Not specifying
a file name removes any existing image from the colorset. TiledPixmap produces repeated copies of the
image with no scaling, Pixmap causes the image to be stretched to fit whatever object the colorset is
applied to and AspectPixmap stretches to fit but retains the image aspect ratio.
Transparent creates a transparent background pixmap. The pixmap is used as a window background to
achieve root transparency. For this you should use the ParentalRelativity option to the Style
command. A subsequent root background change may be detected or not, this depends on the program used
to set the background. If you use fvwm-root, xsetbg (xli), FvwmBacker with solid or colorset colors
or a recent version of Esetroot (>= 9.2) a background change is detected. If background changes are
not detected (e.g., if you use xv or xsetroot) you can force detection by using the -d option of
fvwm-root:
xv -root -quit mybg.png; fvwm-root -d
Due to the way X implements transparency no guarantees can be made that the desired effect can be
achieved. The application may even crash. If you experience any problems with this option, do not use
it.
Using outline move and resize (see the OpaqueMoveSize command and the ResizeOpaque Style option) as
well as setting the WindowShadeShrinks style may help. The transparency achieved with Transparent
depends on whether the colorset is applied to the foreground or the background of a window. In the
second case the transparency is relative to the parent window of the window on which the colorset is
defined. For example:
Colorset 12 VGradient 200 grey30 grey60
Colorset 17 Transparent
*FvwmIconMan: Colorset 12
*FvwmIconMan: PlainColorset 17
gives an IconMan with a vertical grey gradient background and the buttons use the background (by
transparency). To obtain a (root) transparent IconMan:
Colorset 12 Transparent
Colorset 17 Transparent
Colorset 18 Transparent
Colorset 19 Transparent
*FvwmIconMan: Colorset 12
*FvwmIconMan: PlainColorset 17
*FvwmIconMan: FocusColorset 18
*FvwmIconMan: IconColorset 19
The Colorset IconMan option defines the IconMan window background, but the PlainColorset and the
FocusColorset are drawn on the foreground. So, the transparency of the IconMan buttons is achieved by
drawing nothing. Now if this IconMan is swallowed in an FvwmButtons as:
FvwmButtons:(Colorset 10, Swallow "FvwmIconMan" 'FvwmIconMan')
then, FvwmIconMan becomes a child of FvwmButtons and it is transparent relative to FvwmButtons. So,
in this case FvwmIconMan uses Colorset 10 as background. If you want root transparency use the
RootTransparent option. FvwmButtons FvwmIconMan, and FvwmIdent, are relatively simple. There is one
main colorset option which defines the background of the window and the other colorsets (if any) are
drawn on the foreground. The case of FvwmProxy is simpler, the two colorsets refer to the window
backgrounds. FvwmPager is more complicated as almost everything in the pager are windows with some
parental relations (the mini windows are the child and the desktops are the parents and all this is
complicated by the hilighted page). So, the colorsets apply to the background of these windows. You
should experiment. For FvwmForm and FvwmScript the situation is similar. There is a main window (a
child of the root window) which corresponds to the main colorset and most of the widgets are windows
which are children of the main window. Tint may work or not with the Transparent option. When the
colorset is drawn on the foreground Tint should work. In some cases, tinting may be very slow.
Tinting may work with fvwm menu (without animation). Tinting may work better if your X server has
backing store enabled (try xdpyinfo to see if this the case). There is a chance that the backing
store support of your X server does not work well with the terrible hack used to Tint the
ParentRelative Pixmap. So, to get tinted root transparency it is more safe to use the RootTransparent
option.
RootTransparent [ buffer ] creates a root transparent background. To make this option work, you must
use an Esetroot compatible program, fvwm-root with the --retain-pixmap option or FvwmBacker with the
RetainPixmap option (and colorset or solid backgrounds). The buffer keyword is useful only when the
Tint option is used too. This speeds up creation of windows which use the colorset (useful for fvwm
menus) at the cost of memory usage. It also speeds up opaque move and resize which can be
unacceptably slow without buffer. However, this option may add a lot of memory to your X server
(depending on the size of the image used to set the background). In summary, using outline move and
resize for modules which use such a colorset may be a good idea.
Shape, TiledShape and AspectShape take a file name as an argument, search the ImagePath and use it as
the shape bitmap. TiledShape produces repeated copies of the bitmap with no scaling, Shape causes the
bitmap to be stretched to fit whatever object the colorset is applied to and AspectShape stretches to
fit but retains the bitmap aspect ratio. If the file is a pixmap in xpm format the shape mask (all
opaque pixels) of the pixmap is used. For png and svg images, the shape mask is equivalent to all not
completely transparent pixels (alpha > 0).
Warning Due to the way X11 implements shapes you cannot take back making windows shaped. You may have
to restart fvwm or the shaped application.
?Gradient ... creates a pixmap and stretches it to fit the window. ?Gradient may be one of HGradient,
VGradient, DGradient, BGradient, SGradient, CGradient, RGradient or YGradient. The gradient types are
as follows: H is horizontal; V is vertical; D is diagonal from top left to bottom right; B is a
backwards diagonal from bottom left to top right; S is concentric squares; C is concentric circles; R
is a radar like pattern and Y is a Yin Yang style (but without the dots). Please refer to the Color
Gradients section for the syntax of gradients.
Tint takes 2 arguments, a color and a percentage between 0 and 100. It causes the image defined using
?Pixmap or ?Gradient to be tinted with the specified color using the percentage. If the image is
transparent Tint tints only the image part. Unfortunately, a colorset background specified using the
Transparent option can give strange results. See the Transparent option for details. With no
arguments this option removes the tint.
fgTint takes 2 arguments, a color and a percentage between 0 and 100. It causes the color defined
using fg to be tinted with the specified color using the percentage. With no arguments this option
removes the tint.
bgTint takes 2 arguments, a color and a percentage between 0 and 100. It causes the color defined
using bg to be tinted with the specified color using the percentage. If the sh and hi colors are not
specified, they are recomputed from the tinted bg color. With no arguments this option removes the
tint.
Alpha takes a percentage between 0 and 100 as an argument. It causes fvwm to merge the image defined
using ?Pixmap or ?Gradient with the bg color using the percentage. If the percentage is 0 the image
is hidden and if it is 100 the image is displayed as usual (no merge). The default is 100 and it is
restored if no argument is given.
fgAlpha takes a percentage between 0 and 100 as an argument. It causes fvwm to merge the text and the
colorset background using the percentage. If the percentage is 0 the text is hidden and if it is 100
the text is displayed as usual (no merge). This option has an effect only with fonts loaded by Xft,
see the Font Names and Font Loading section. The default is 100 and it is restored if no argument is
given.
Dither causes fvwm to dither the image defined using ?Pixmap or ?Gradient. This is useful only with
displays with depth less than or equal to 16 (i.e., on displays which can only display less than
65537 colors at once). The dithering effect lets you simulate having more colors available that you
actually have. NoDither causes fvwm to do not dither the images. Dither is the default if the depth
is less than or equal to 8 (a screen with 256 colors or less). In depth 15 (32768 colors) and 16
(65536 colors), the default is NoDither, however this effect can be useful with images which contain
a lot of close colors. For example a fine gradient looks more smooth.
IconTint takes 2 arguments, a color and a percentage between 0 and 100. It causes fvwm or a module to
tint the "icons" which are rendered into the colorset background with the specified color using a
percentage. Here "icons" means, fvwm Icons, fvwm menu icons, MiniIcons which represent applications
in various modules, images loaded by modules (e.g., images specified by the Icon FvwmButtons button
option) ...etc. With no arguments this option removes the icon tint.
IconAlpha takes a percentage between 0 and 100 as an argument. It causes fvwm to merge the "icons"
which are rendered into the colorset background using this percentage. The default is 100 and it is
restored if no argument is given.
Note: It is equivalent to use "Tint a_color rate" and "Alpha a" if a = 100 and the bg color is
a_color. This equivalence does not hold for IconAlpha and IconTint as the background can be an image
or a gradient (and not a uniform color background). However, in some cases you can achieve (almost)
the same effect by using IconTint in the place of IconAlpha. This is preferable as, in general,
IconAlpha generates more redrawing than IconTint.
NoShape removes the shape mask from the colorset while Plain removes the background pixmap or
gradient.
Examples
Colorset 3 fg tan, bg navy
If necessary this creates colorsets 0, 1, 2 and 3 and then changes colorset 3 to have a foreground of
tan, a background of navy.
Colorset 3 bg "navy blue"
changes the background color of colorset 3 to navy blue. The foreground and pixmap are unchanged.
Colorset 3 AspectPixmap large_murky_dungeon.xpm
causes depression.
Colorset 3 bg Average
Sets the background color and the relief colors to match the background pixmap. This is the default
setting but it must be used if a background color was specified and is now not required.
Colorset 3 YGradient 200 3 blue 1000 navy 1 blue 1000 navy
Adds a Yin Yang gradient background pixmap to colorset 3. If the background is set to average it is
recomputed along with the foreground if that is set to contrast.
#!/bin/sh
FvwmCommand "Colorset 7 fg navy, bg gray"
while true
do
FvwmCommand "Colorset 7 fg gray"
sleep 1
FvwmCommand "Colorset 7 fg navy"
sleep 1
done
Makes colorset 7 blink.
The color names used in colorsets are saved as fvwm variables which can be substituted in any fvwm
command. For example:
AddToFunc InitFunction
+ I Exec exec xterm -fg $[fg.cs0] -bg $[bg.cs0]
Where $[fg.cs0] is the foreground color of colorset zero. Please refer to the Command Expansion
section for more information.
CleanupColorsets
Resets a definition of all colorsets.
Color Gradients
A color gradient is a background that changes its color gradually from one hue to a different one.
Color gradients can be used by various commands and modules of fvwm. There are eight types of
gradients: HGradient is a horizontal gradient, VGradient is vertical, DGradient is diagonal from top
left to bottom right, BGradient is backwards diagonal from bottom left to top right, SGradient is
concentric squares, CGradient is concentric circles, RGradient is a radar like pattern and YGradient
is a Yin Yang style (but without the dots).
The color gradient syntax has two forms:
?Gradient colors start-color end-color
This form specifies a linear gradient. The arguments denote the total number of colors to allocate
(between 2 and 1000), the initial color and the final color.
Example:
TitleStyle VGradient 20 rgb:b8/ce/bc rgb:5b/85/d0
?Gradient colors segments color length color [length color] ...
The second form specifies a nonlinear gradient. The arguments are: the total number of colors to
allocate (between 2 and 1000), then the number of segments. For each segment, specify the starting
color, a relative length, then the ending color. Each subsequent segment begins with the second color
of the last segment. The lengths may be any non-negative integers. The length of one segment divided
by the sum of all segments lengths is the fraction of the colors that are used for the segment.
Examples:
Colorset 0 DGradient 128 2 lightgrey 50 blue 50 white
# 20% gradient from red to blue,
# 30% from blue to black,
# 50% from black to grey
Colorset 0 DGradient 100 3 Red 20 Blue 30 Black 50 Grey
# 50% from blue to green, then
# 50% from yellow to red
Colorset 0 HGradient 128 3 Blue 1000 Green 1 Yellow 1000 Red
Note: Some gradient styles may be slow and consume huge amounts of memory, so if you encounter
performance problems with them you may be better off by not using them. To improve performance you
can try one or all of the following:
Turn hilighting of the active menu item other than foreground color off:
MenuStyle <style> Hilight3DOff, !HilightBack
Make sure sub menus do not overlap the parent menu. This can prevent menus being redrawn every time a
sub menu pops up or down.
MenuStyle <style> PopupOffset 1 100
Run your X server with backing storage. If your X Server is started with the -bs option, turn it off.
If not try the -wm and +bs options:
startx -- -wm +bs
You may have to adapt this example to your system (e.g. if you use xinit to start X).
2025-10-05 FVWM3COMMANDS(1)