Provided by: fvwm_2.6.5.ds-4.1_amd64 
NAME
FvwmTheme - an fvwm module for managing the appearance of fvwm and its modules
SYNOPSIS
ModuleSynchronous Timeout 5 FvwmTheme
FvwmTheme can only be invoked by fvwm. Command line invocation of the FvwmTheme module will not work.
DESCRIPTION
FvwmTheme creates appearance resources that may be shared by fvwm and other modules. It reads an initial
configuration and also reacts to configuration commands and messages sent from fvwm so that the resources
can be dynamically changed.
INVOCATION
Starting with 2.5.1, FvwmTheme is obsolete, please read fvwm man page about the built-in colorsets
solution. However, all options are still the same, so this man page defines the exact Colorset syntax.
FvwmTheme must be spawned as a module by fvwm.
It is highly suggested that FvwmTheme is invoked before any other modules that use the colorsets provided
by FvwmTheme. Thus FvwmTheme has to be invoked with the 'ModuleSynchronous' command by inserting the
line 'ModuleSynchronous Timeout 5 FvwmTheme' in the .fvwm2rc file right after the ImagePath has been
defined. Invoking FvwmTheme from the InitFunction, StartFunction or RestartFunction or later can cause
excessive redrawing of already running modules. It is highly suggested that the configuration lines for
FvwmTheme appear in the configuration file before FvwmTheme is started. You can find a proper sample
fvwm setup at the end of this document. It is pointless to run more than one FvwmTheme so there is no
provision for using an alias name.
CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
FvwmTheme supports some configuration options.
*FvwmTheme: Colorset n options
Creates or modifies colorset n. 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.
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.
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, NoShape and 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 one 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 tries to create a transparent background pixmap. The pixmap may be used as a window
background to achieve root transparency. For this you should use the ParentalRelativity fvwm
style. The 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 a solid or a colorset colors
or a recent version of Esetroot (>= 9.2) a background change should be 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) 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, IconMan become a child of FvwmButtons and it is transparent relative to FvwmButtons. So, in
this case IconMan uses Colorset 10 as background. If you want root transparency use the
RootTransparent option. FvwmButtons, FvwmIconMan, FvwmIdent, FvwmScroll and FvwmTaskBar 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 FvwmWinList and
FvwmProxy are simpler. With FvwmWinList all the colorsets are drawn on the foreground and with
FvwmProxy 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 the other cases, tinting works in some exceptional cases (and may
be very slow). Tinting may work with fvwm menu (without animation). In the other case tinting may
work if your X server has backing store enabled (try xdpyinfo to see if this the case). But,
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 of the pixmap is used.
Warning: Due to the way X11 implements shapes and the implementation of the FvwmTheme module 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,
we are not that mad). Please refer to the COLOR GRADIENTS section in the fvwm man page 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 of fvwm man page. 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 will look 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.
COMMANDS
The following fvwm command may be executed at any time to alter the colorsets. It may be bound to a menu
item or typed into a module such as FvwmConsole.
SendToModule FvwmTheme Colorset options
The syntax is the same as the configuration option.
EXAMPLES
*FvwmTheme: Colorset 3 fg wheat, bg navy
If necessary this creates colorsets 0, 1, 2 and 3 and then changes colorset 3 to have a foreground of
wheat, a background of navy.
*FvwmTheme: Colorset 3 bg "navy blue"
changes the background color of colorset 3 to navy blue. The foreground and pixmap are unchanged.
*FvwmTheme: Colorset 3 AspectPixmap large_murky_dungeon.xpm
Causes depression.
*FvwmTheme: 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.
*FvwmTheme: 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 "SendToModule FvwmTheme Colorset 7 fg navy, bg gray"
while true
do
FvwmCommand "SendToModule FvwmTheme Colorset 7 fg gray"
sleep 1
FvwmCommand "SendToModule FvwmTheme Colorset 7 fg navy"
sleep 1
done
Makes colorset 7 blink.
The color names used in colorsets can be substituted in any fvwm command. Please refer to the COMMAND
EXPANSION section in the fvwm man page and the example below for a description.
SAMPLE FVWM CONFIGURATION
Below you can find a fvwm configuration file that demonstrates the use of the FvwmTheme module. The
order in which FvwmTheme and the other modules are configured and started is important.
# where your images are
ImagePath <put your image path here>
#
# FvwmTheme
#
# The FvwmTheme setup must be first in the config file,
# right after the paths are set.
#
# Instead of the *FvwmTheme: Colorset... lines below you
# could read in a file with these commands. So to change
# your color scheme you can simply copy a different file
# over your palette file and restart fvwm:
#
# Read /home/my_user_name/.fvwm/.fvwm_palette
#
# 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
*FvwmTheme: Colorset 0 fg black, bg rgb:b4/aa/94
*FvwmTheme: Colorset 1 fg black, bg rgb:a1/b2/c8
*FvwmTheme: Colorset 2 fg black, bg rgb:da/9a/68
*FvwmTheme: Colorset 3 fg black, bg rgb:b4/aa/94, \
VGradient 100 dtcolor5 rgb:b4/aa/94
*FvwmTheme: Colorset 4 fg black, bg rgb:b4/aa/94
*FvwmTheme: Colorset 5 fg rgb:d2/bf/a8, \
bg rgb:b4/aa/94
*FvwmTheme: Colorset 6 fg black, bg rgb:b4/aa/94, \
VGradient 100 dtcolor5 rgb:b4/aa/94
*FvwmTheme: Colorset 7 fg black, bg rgb:94/ab/bf
# run FvwmTheme before anything else is done
ModuleSynchronous Timeout 5 FvwmTheme
#
# general setup
#
Style * Colorset 1
Style * HilightColorset 2
MenuStyle * MenuColorset 3
MenuStyle * ActiveColorset 4
MenuStyle * GreyedColorset 5
#
# Applications
#
AddToFunc InitFunction
+ I Exec exec xterm -fg $[fg.cs0] -bg $[bg.cs0]
#
# module setup
#
# ... more FvwmPager config lines ...
*FvwmPager: Colorset * 6
*FvwmPager: BalloonColorset * 6
*FvwmPager: HilightColorset * 7
*FvwmPager: WindowColorsets 1 2
# ... more FvwmIconMan config lines ...
*FvwmIconMan: Colorset 6
*FvwmIconMan: FocusColorset 2
*FvwmIconMan: FocusAndSelectColorset 2
*FvwmIconMan: PlainColorset 6
*FvwmIconMan: SelectColorset 6
*FvwmIconMan: TitleColorset 6
# ... more FvwmButtons config lines ...
*FvwmButtons: Colorset 6
# sample button passing color to xterm
*FvwmButtons: (Title xterm, \
Action "Exec exec xterm -fg $[fg.cs6] -bg[bg.cs6]")
# ... more FvwmWharf config lines ...
*FvwmWharf: Colorset 6
# ... more FvwmIdent config lines ...
*FvwmIdent: Colorset 6
# ... more FvwmWinList config lines ...
*FvwmWinList: Colorset 1
*FvwmWinList: FocusColorset 2
*FvwmWinList: IconColorset 1
# ... more FvwmTaskBar config lines ...
*FvwmTaskBar: Colorset 6
*FvwmTaskBar: IconColorset 6
*FvwmTaskBar: TipsColorset 0
If you need to have more colors and don't 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
BUGS
Initialization of fvwm, FvwmTheme and the other modules is tricky. Please pay close attention to the
text in the INVOCATION section. The example above demonstrates the proper way to get a FvwmTheme setup
running.
AUTHOR
Prefers to remain anonymous. With help from Brad Giaccio and Dominik Vogt.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1999 Joey Shutup. No guarantees or warranties or anything are provided or implied in any
way whatsoever. Use this program at your own risk. Permission to use this program for any purpose is
given, as long as the copyright is kept intact.
3rd Berkeley Distribution 20 April 2012 (2.6.5) FvwmTheme(1)