Provided by: fvwm_2.6.5.ds-4.1_amd64 
NAME
FvwmTabs - a generic tabbing module for the fvwm window manager.
SYNOPSIS
FvwmTabs is spawned by fvwm, so no command line invocation is possible.
DESCRIPTION
The FvwmTabs module is capable of swallowing any fvwm window & treating it as a tab in a tab-manager
window. A tab-manager is sometimes called a tabber.
Each tab-manager can store any number of windows, each in its own tab. The number of tab-managers is
limited only by system resources. Tab-managers can even be nested/swallowed within other tab-managers.
(ie. a tab-manager can be added as an individual tab to another tab-manager.)
INVOCATION
FvwmTabs can be invoked by inserting the line "Module FvwmTabs" in your .fvwmrc file. This can be placed
on a line by itself, if FvwmTabs is to be spawned during fvwm's initialization, or can be bound to a menu
or mouse button or keystroke to invoke it later.
INSTALLING DEPENDENCIES
FvwmTabs requires 2 CPAN modules (that are NOT distributed with fvwm) to be installed on your system.
They are Tk and X11::Protocol.
They are available at: <http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/N/NI/NI-S/Tk-804.027.tar.gz> and
<http://search.cpan.org/~smccam/X11-Protocol-0.56/>.
To install either package:
tar zxvf $name.tar.gz ; cd $name ; perl Makefile.PL ; make install
FvwmTabs will tell you if you do not have these packages installed when you (try to) start it.
CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
FvwmTabs reads the same config file as fvwm when it starts up.
The following options are recognised by FvwmTabs:
*FvwmTabs: activeFG color
The text color of the button for the visible tab. The default color is yellow.
*FvwmTabs: activeBG color
The backgound color of the button for the visible tab. The default color is MidnightBlue.
*FvwmTabs: inactiveFG color
The text color of the buttons for the invisible tabs. The default color is antiquewhite.
*FvwmTabs: inactiveBG color>
The backgound color of the buttons for the invisible tabs. The default color is royalblue.
*FvwmTabs: titleFG color
The text color used in the titlebar. The default color is black.
*FvwmTabs: titleBG color
The background color used in the titlebar. The default color is antiquewhite.
*FvwmTabs: activeRelief style
The relief style to use for active buttons. style can be either raised, flat or sunken. The default
style is sunken.
*FvwmTabs: inactiveRelief style
The relief style to use for inactive buttons. style can be either raised, flat or sunken. The default
style is flat.
*FvwmTabs: buttonYPadding pixels
How much padding to use around top and bottom of tab buttons. The default value is 3 pixels.
*FvwmTabs: pollRate ms
Specifies how often to check for X events. ms is time in milliseconds. The default value, 250, should
be fine for most users. If you are on a very slow machine you may wish to increase this.
*FvwmTabs: buttonFont font
The font to use on the tab buttons. The default font is Helvetica -12 bold.
*FvwmTabs: titleFont font
The font to use on the titlebar. The default font is Helvetica -12.
*FvwmTabs: menuFont font
The font to use on the menus. The default font is Helvetica -12.
*FvwmTabs: fontSelector fontProgram
The external font chooser program to launch when dynamically changing fonts. The default fontProgram
is gfontsel --print -f "%f". Anti-gnome users might try xfontsel -print -pattern "%f". If set to
none, no font menu options will appear.
*FvwmTabs: autoSwallowClass className [tabManagerId], ...
*FvwmTabs: autoSwallowResource resourceName [tabManagerId], ...
*FvwmTabs: autoSwallowName name [tabManagerId], ...
Specify windows to swallow automatically. These are comma-separated lists that specify the
class/resource/name of a window & an optional tab-manager id into which the window should be
swallowed. By default, the tab-manager id increments from zero - ie. 0 is the first tab-manager
created, 1 the second, etc, but it may be overridden by specifying an argument to the NewTabber
function. (No whitespace is allowed in tabber ids.) You can alternatively specify 'any' or
'lastFocus' which will put the window in the tab-manager with the least number of tabs or the last
focused tab-manager, respectively. If no tab-manager number is specified, an implicit default value
of 'any' is used. Note that className/resourceName/name can be a (Perl) regular expression.
*FvwmTabs: balloonBG color
The backgound color of the balloon popups that appear over the tab buttons. The default color is
#C0C080.
*FvwmTabs: balloonFont font
The font to use on the balloon popups. The default font is Helvetica -12.
*FvwmTabs: balloonWait ms
How long the mouse cursor must pause (in milliseconds) over a tab button before the balloon pops up.
The default value is 250.
*FvwmTabs: balloonMsg msg
Message to display in balloon popups. The default value is %tabNo:\n%iconText\n%title.
*FvwmTabs: autoResize bool
bool can be either true or false. If true, windows in the tab-manager automatically resize to the
dimensions of the largest window in the tab-manager. The default value is false. If the user performs
an explicit resize of a tab-manager window, all windows in the tab-manager are resized to the new
window size.
*FvwmTabs: stateFile file
FvwmTabs has the ability to preserve its state (ie. remember the windows it has swallowed as tabs)
b/w fvwm restarts. file specifies the name of a temporary file to record the state in, so it can be
reconstructed when FvwmTabs restarts. The default file is "$FVWM_USERDIR/.fvwmtabs.state".
*FvwmTabs: fixedSizeTabs bool
bool can be either true or false. If true, the tab-manager will ensure each tab-button has the same
dimensions. If false, the selected tab is expanded so that it is fully visible. The default value is
false.
*FvwmTabs: showTitlebar bool
Show internal titlebar. If set to true a titlebar appears below the row of tab-buttons & displays the
title associated with the current window. This titlebar is capable of displaying long or multi-line
titles. The default value is true.
*FvwmTabs: useTMTitlebar bool
Add the title associated with the selected tab to the tab-manager titlebar. (ie. the titlebar at the
top of the window, distinct from the titlebar below the tab-buttons.) Default value is true.
*FvwmTabs: dragDropIcon imageFile
Specify the icon to display when performing a drag-&-drop operation to reorder the tab-buttons.
FvwmTabs will search the ImagePath for this image unless an absolute filename (ie. filename begins
with '/') is specified. The default value is none. If none (or an invalid file) is specified a * is
used.
*FvwmTabs: bBuggyFocus bool
FvwmTabs tries to work around a limitation in Perl/Tk (there is no way to access the timestamp
associated with WM_TAKE_FOCUS events). On some systems this doesn't work and sometimes tab-managers
have trouble acquiring the focus. If this happens to you, try setting this option to true. This can
lead to focussing race-conditions (tab-managers temporarily "steal" focus in some situations) but
this is less annoying than not being able to focus at all.
*FvwmTabs: enableSwallowDND bool
Swallow windows that (are moved to) overlap a tabber. Note: drag-&-drop can be enabled for individual
tabbers via the menu. The default value is true.
*FvwmTabs: swallowDNDTolerance tol
Determines how much a window must overlap a tabber for it to be swallowed when drag-&-drop is
enabled. If the value has a %-sign appended to it, windows must overlap by the specified percentage
of the current size of the tabber. If no %-sign is present, the value is treated in units of pixels.
The default value is 10 (pixels).
*FvwmTabs: useIconsOnTabs bool
Show the mini icon associated with each window on its tab button. Note: mini icons for apps that use
EWMH icons look a bit distorted. This is because of the poor image resizing algorithm used in Tk.
This should be rectified in the near future. The default value is true.
*FvwmTabs: killIcon image
Image to use on kill toolbar button. Default is none.
*FvwmTabs: addIcon image
Image to use on add toolbar button. Default is none.
*FvwmTabs: swallowIcon image
Image to use on add toolbar button when tabber will swallow next window to popup. Default is none. By
using a separate icon to addIcon, this option provides visual feedback on when a tabber will
unconditionally swallow the next window to popup.
*FvwmTabs: releaseIcon image
Image to use on release toolbar button. Default is none.
*FvwmTabs: menuIcon image
Image to use on menu toolbar button. Default is none.
FVWM FUNCTIONS FOR KEY BINDINGS
A number of fvwm functions are available once the FvwmTabs module is started.
NewTabber
Create a new tabber. Optional argument is tabber name. No whitespace is allowed in the tabber name.
Can also prefix --geometry argument.
Example: NewTabber --geometry=+200+400 scottie
Tabize
Add a window (as a tab) to a tabber.
NextTab
Show/select the next tab.
PrevTab
Show/select the previous tab.
LastTab
Show/select the last selected tab (if there was one).
ReleaseTab
Release a tabbed window back to fvwm.
ReleaseIconifyTab
Release a tabbed window back to fvwm & iconify it.
ReleaseAllTabs
Release all windows in a tab-manager back to fvwm.
ReleaseIconifyAllTabs
Release all windows in a tab-manager back to fvwm & iconify them.
CloseTabber
Destroy a tab-manager. All windows in the tab-manager are released back to fvwm.
AddTab
Pick a new window to add to a tab-manager. Selecting this option & clicking on a window will add the
selected window to the tab-manager.
MultiAddTab
Pick & add new windows to a tab-manager until ESC is pressed.
ShowTab tabNo
Show/select tab tabNo in the tab-manager. tabNo is zero-based. ie. 0 is the first tab, 1 is the
second, etc.
AddToTabber
Add a window (as a tab) to a tab-manager.
SwapLeft
Swap the selected window with the window on its immediate left.
SwapRight
Swap the selected window with the window on its immediate right.
SelectTabber
Select a tab-manager for a new window to be added to.
EnableDND
Swallow windows that (are moved to) overlap a tabber.
KEY BINDINGS
By default, FvwmTabs reads a default user configuration file FvwmTabs-DefaultSetup which defines several
useful key-bindings for FvwmTabs. You can tell FvwmTabs NOT to read this file with "SetEnv
FvwmTabs_NoDefaultSetup" - this environment variable must be set before starting the module.
All of the key bindings can be changed using the standard fvwm Key command & making use of the
aforementioned fvwm functions. ie.
Key (FvwmTabs*) A A CM Function AddTab
Then, pressing Ctrl-Alt-a (when the focus is in a tab-manager) will allow you to click on a window to add
to the tab-manager.
The default key bindings (set in the FvwmTabs-DefaultSetup file) are:
Ctrl-Alt-a
AddTab
Ctrl-Alt-c
CloseTabber
Ctrl-Alt-i
ReleaseIconifyTab
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-I
ReleaseIconifyAllTabs
Ctrl-Alt-l
LastTab
Ctrl-Alt-m
MultiAddTab
Ctrl-Alt-n & Ctrl-Alt-Tab
NextTab
Ctrl-Alt-p
PrevTab
Ctrl-Alt-r
ReleaseTab
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-R
ReleaseAllTabs
Ctrl-Alt-t
NewTabber
Ctrl-Alt-num
ShowTab num.
Ctrl-Alt-Left
SwapLeft
Ctrl-Alt-Right
SwapRight
MOUSE BINDINGS
Mouse bindings on Tab Buttons
Mouse-1 on a tab-button displays the window associated with the tab.
Mouse-2 on a tab-button releases the window associated with the tab back to the window manager as a
standalone window.
Mouse-3 on a tab-button releases the window associated with the tab back to the window manager &
iconifies it.
The tab-buttons can be reordered with a drag-&-drop operation initiated with Ctrl-Mouse-2. A dragged tab
is inserted before the tab-button onto which it is dropped.
Mouse bindings on Toolbar Icons
Mouse-1 on the "menu" button will bring up a menu of options. See MENU BINDINGS.
Mouse-1 on the "release" button will release the selected window from the tabber.
Mouse-2 on the "release" button will release all windows from the tabber, and iconify them.
Mouse-3 on the "release" button will release all windows from the tabber.
Mouse-1 on the "add" button will add the next window you click on to the tabber.
Mouse-2 on the "add" button will add the next window to popup to the tabber.
Mouse-3 on the "add" button will add every window you click on (until you press Esc) to the tabber.
Mouse-1 on the "kill" button will Close the selected window.
Mouse-2 on the "kill" button causes FvwmTabs to try to kill the selected window itself.
Mouse-3 on the "kill" button will Kill the selected window.
MENU BINDINGS
Mouse-1 on the "menu" button will bring up a menu of options:
Release All will release all tabbed programs back to the window manager as standalone windows.
Release All (Iconify) will release all tabbed programs back to the window manager as iconised standalone
windows.
Add will add the next mouse-clicked window to the tab-manager.
Add Next will add the next window that is created to the tab-manager.
Multi Add keeps adding mouse-clicked windows to a tab-manager until the escape key is pressed. Useful for
adding multiple windows to a tab-manager at once.
Font shows a sub-menu enabling you to dynamically configure the button/title/menu fonts, using the
external program identified by the fontSelector option.
Show Titlebar toggles the display of the titlebar below the tab-buttons.
Window Tabizer Dialog will popup a dialog box for specifying windows to swallow. Windows can be specified
explicitly (by name) or by using a (Perl) regular expression matcher. (Note: / character is automatically
escaped.)
The menu options between the separators will display the window/tab associated with the text. (The menu
text is actually the title associated with the window. The text on each tab-button is the icon name.)
About pops up a dialog with version/developer information.
Close will close the FvwmTabs window, invoking Release All in the process.
BUGS
• Tab-managers don't take focus when iconified.
• FvwmTabs doesn't obey "ClickToFocus" mode.
• FvwmTabs has a problem swallowing shaded windows.
• Using "Maximise" to resize tab-manager windows prevents dynamic resizing from working.
Please send bug reports, feature requests & queries about FvwmTabs to the fvwm mailing list:
fvwm@fvwm.org. Be sure to include the word "FvwmTabs" somewhere in the subject line.
TODO
Features to be added to FvwmTabs in the future (in no particular order):
• Colorset support. (use Colorset tracker from fvwm-perllib)
• Use Ctrl-Mouse-1 instead of Ctrl-Mouse-2 to reorder (drag-&-drop) windows.
• option: menu item to sort tabs by name, file extension, etc.
• For autoSwallow options that specify a tab-manager, create the tab-manager if it doesn't already
exist. (default behaviour is not to swallow it)
FVWMTABS HOMEPAGE
There is some useful information about FvwmTabs, including a short tutorial, on the authors website:
<http://members.optusnet.com.au/~scottsmedley/fvwmtabs/>.
LICENSING
FvwmTabs is GPL software.
See <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
AUTHOR
Scott Smedley <ss@aao.gov.au>