fvwm2
FVWM(2.xx) FVWM(2.xx)
NAME
fvwm2 - F(?) Virtual Window Manager (version 2.xx) for X11
SYNOPSIS
fvwm [ options ]
DESCRIPTION
Fvwm is a window manager for X11. It is a derivative of
twm, redesigned to minimize memory consumption, provide a
3-D look to window frames, and provide a simple virtual
desktop. Version 2.xx uses only slightly more memory than
1.xx, mostly due to some global options being able to be
window specific now.
Fvwm provides both a large virtual desktop and multiple
disjoint desktops which can be used separately or
together. The virtual desktop allows you to pretend that
your video screen is really quite large, and you can
scroll around within the desktop. The multiple disjoint
desktops allow you to pretend that you really have several
screens to work at, but each screen is completely unre
lated to the others.
Fvwm provides keyboard accelerators which allow you to
perform most window-manager functions, including moving
and resizing windows, and operating the window-manager's
menus, using keyboard shortcuts.
Fvwm has also blurred the distinction between configura
tion commands and built-in commands that most window-man
agers make. Configuration commands typically set fonts,
colors, menu contents, key and mouse function bindings,
while built-in commands typically do things like raise and
lower windows. Fvwm makes no such distinction, and
allows, to the extent that is practical, anything to be
changed at any time.
Other noteworthy differences between Fvwm and other X11
window managers are the introduction of the SloppyFocus
and per-window focus methods. SloppyFocus is focus-fol
lows-mouse, but focus is not removed from windows when the
mouse leaves a window and enters the root window. When
sloppy focus is used as the default focus style, it is
nice to make windows in which you do not typically type
into (xmag, xman, xgraph, xclock, xbiff, etc) click-to-
focus, so that your terminal window doesn't lose focus
unnecessarily.
COPYRIGHTS
Since fvwm is derived from twm code it shares twm's copy
rights. Since nearly every line of twm code has been
changed, the twm copyright has been removed from most of
the individual code files. I do still recognize the
influence of twm code in the overall package, so fvwm's
copyright is still considered to be the same as twm's.
Please consult the COPYING file that has come with your
distribution for details.
ANATOMY OF A WINDOW
Fvwm puts a decorative border around most windows. This
border consists of a bar on each side and a small "L"
shaped section on each corner. There is an additional top
bar called the title bar which is used to display the name
of the window. In addition, there are up to 10 title-bar
buttons. The top, side, and bottom bars are collectively
known as the side-bars. The corner pieces are called the
frame.
Unless the standard defaults files are modified, pressing
mouse button 1 in the title or side-bars will begin a move
operation on the window. Pressing button 1 in the corner
frame pieces will begin a resize operation. Pressing but
ton 2 anywhere in the border brings up an extensive list
of window operations.
Up to ten title-bar buttons may exist. Their use is com
pletely user definable. The default configuration has a
title-bar button on each side of the title-bar. The one
on the left is used to bring up a list of window options,
regardless of which mouse button is used. The one on the
right is used to iconify the window. The number of title-
bar buttons used depends on which ones have mouse actions
bound to them. See the section on the "Mouse" configura
tion parameter below.
THE VIRTUAL DESKTOP
Fvwm provides multiple virtual desktops for users who wish
to use them. The screen is a viewport onto a desktop
which may be larger than the screen. Several distinct
desktops can be accessed (concept: one desktop for each
project, or one desktop for each application, when view
applications are distinct). Since each desktop can be
larger than the physical screen, divided into m by n pages
which are each the size of the physical screen, windows
which are larger than the screen or large groups of
related windows can easily be viewed.
The (m by n) size (i.e. number of pages) of the virtual
desktops can be changed any time, by using the DeskTopSize
built-in command. All virtual desktops must be (are) the
same size. The total number of distinct desktops need not
be specified, but is limited to approximately 4 billion
total. All windows on a range of desktops can be viewed
in the Pager, a miniature view of the desktops. The pager
is an accessory program, called a module, which is not
essential for the window manager to operate. Windows may
also be listed, along with their geometries, in a window
list, accessible as a pop-up menu, or as a separate win
dow, called the FvwmWinList (another module).
"Sticky" windows are windows which transcend the virtual
desktop by "Sticking to the screen's glass." They always
stay put on the screen. This is convenient for things
like clocks and xbiff's, so you only need to run one such
gadget and it always stays with you. Icons can also be
made to stick to the glass, if desired.
Window geometries are specified relative to the current
viewport. That is:
xterm -geometry +0+0
will always show up in the upper-left hand corner of the
visible portion of the screen. It is permissible to spec
ify geometries which place windows on the virtual desktop,
but off the screen. For example, if the visible screen is
1000 by 1000 pixels, and the desktop size is 3x3, and the
current viewport is at the upper left hand corner of the
desktop, then invoking:
xterm -geometry +1000+1000
will place the window just off of the lower right hand
corner of the screen. It can be found by moving the mouse
to the lower right hand corner of the screen and waiting
for it to scroll into view.
A geometry specified as something like:
xterm -geometry -5-5
will generally place the window's lower right hand corner
5 pixels from the lower right corner of the visible por
tion of the screen. Not all applications support window
geometries with negative offsets. Some will place the win
dow's upper right hand corner 5 pixels above and to the
left of the upper left hand corner of the screen; others
may do just plain bizarre things.
There are several ways to cause a window to map onto a
desktop or page other than the currently active one. The
geometry technique mentioned above (specifying x,y coordi
nates larger than the physical screen size), however, suf
fers from the limitation of being interpreted relative to
the current viewport: the window will not consistently
appear on a specific page, unless you always invoke the
application from the same page.
A better way to place windows on a different page or desk
from the currently mapped viewport is to use the StartsOn
Page style specification (the successor to the older
StartsOnDesk style) in the .fvwm2 configuration file. The
placement is consistent: it does not depend on your cur
rent location on the virtual desktop.
Some applications that understand standard Xt command line
arguments and X resources, like xterm and xfontsel, allow
the user to specify the start-up desk or page on the com
mand line:
xterm -xrm "*Desk:1"
will start an xterm on desk number 1;
xterm -xrm "*Page:3 2 1"
will start an xterm two pages to the right and one down
from the upper left hand page of desk number 3. Not all
applications understand the use of these options, however.
You could achieve the same results with the following
lines in your
XTerm*Desk: 1
or
XTerm*Page: 3 2 1
INITIALIZATION
During initialization, fvwm will search for a configura
tion file which describes key and button bindings, and a
few other things. The format of these files will be
described later. First, fvwm will search for a file named
.fvwm2rc in the user's home directory, then in
${sysconfdir} (typically /usr/local/etc). Failing that,
it will look for system.fvwm2rc in ${sysconfdir} for sys
tem-wide defaults. If that file is not found, fvwm will
be basically useless.
Fvwm will set two environment variables which will be
inherited by its children. These are $DISPLAY which
describes the display on which fvwm is running. $DISPLAY
may be unix:0.0 or :0.0, which doesn't work too well when
passed through rsh to another machine, so $HOSTDISPLAY
will also be set and will use a network-ready description
of the display. $HOSTDISPLAY will always use the TCP/IP
transport protocol (even for a local connection) so $DIS
PLAY should be used for local connections, as it may use
Unix-domain sockets, which are faster.
Fvwm has three special functions for initialization:
StartFunction, which is executed on startups and restarts;
InitFunction and RestartFunction, which are executed dur
ing Initialization and Restarts (respectively) just after
StartFunction. These may be customized in a user's rc
file via the AddToFunc facility (described later) to start
up modules, xterms, or whatever you'd like to have started
by fvwm.
Fvwm also has a special exit function: ExitFunction, exe
cuted when exiting or restarting before actually quitting
or anything else. It could be used to explicitly kill
modules, etc.
COMPILATION OPTIONS
Fvwm has a number of compile-time options to reduce memory
usage by limiting the use of certain features. If you
have trouble using a certain command or feature, check to
see if support for it was included at compile time.
Optional features are described in the config.h file.
ICONS
The basic Fvwm configuration uses monochrome bitmap icons,
similar to twm. If XPM extensions are compiled in, then
color icons similar to ctwm, MS-Windows, or the Macintosh
icons can be used. In order to use these options you will
need the XPM package, as described in the INSTALL.fvwm
file.
If both the SHAPE and XPM options are compiled in you will
get shaped color icons, which are very spiffy.
MODULES
A module is a separate program which runs as a separate
Unix process but transmits commands to fvwm to execute.
Users can write their own modules to do any weird or
bizarre manipulations without bloating or affecting the
integrity of fvwm itself.
Modules MUST be spawned by fvwm so that it can set up two
pipes for fvwm and the module to communicate with. The
pipes will already be open for the module when it starts
and the file descriptors for the pipes are provided as
command line arguments.
Modules can be spawned during fvwm at any time during the
X session by use of the Module built-in command. Modules
can exist for the duration of the X session, or can per
form a single task and exit. If the module is still
active when fvwm is told to quit, then fvwm will close the
communication pipes and wait to receive a SIGCHLD from the
module, indicating that it has detected the pipe closure
and has exited. If modules fail to detect the pipe clo
sure fvwm will exit after approximately 30 seconds anyway.
The number of simultaneously executing modules is limited
by the operating system's maximum number of simultaneously
open files, usually between 60 and 256.
Modules simply transmit text commands to the fvwm built-in
command engine. Text commands are formatted just as in
the case of a mouse binding in the .fvwm2rc setup file.
Certain auxiliary information is also transmitted, as in
the sample module FvwmButtons. The FvwmButtons module is
documented in its own man page.
ICCCM COMPLIANCE
Fvwm attempts to be ICCCM 1.1 compliant. In addition,
ICCCM states that it should be possible for applications
to receive ANY keystroke, which is not consistent with the
keyboard shortcut approach used in fvwm and most other
window managers. In particular you cannot have the same
keyboard shortcuts working with your fvwm2 and another
fvwm2 running within Xnest (a nested X server). The same
problem exists with mouse bindings.
The ICCCM states that windows possessing the property
WM_HINTS(WM_HINTS):
Client accepts input or input focus: False
should not be given the keyboard input focus by the window
manager. These windows can take the input focus by them
selves, however. A number of applications set this prop
erty, and yet expect the window-manager to give them the
keyboard focus anyway, so fvwm provides a window-style,
"Lenience", which will allow fvwm to overlook this ICCCM
rule.
M4 PREPROCESSING
M4 pre-processing is handled by a module in fvwm-2.0. To
get more details, try man FvwmM4. In short, if you want
fvwm to parse your files with m4, then replace the word
"Read" with "FvwmM4" in your .fvwm2rc file (if it appears
at all), and start fvwm with the command
fvwm -cmd "FvwmM4 .fvwm2rc"
CPP PREPROCESSING
Cpp is the C-language pre-processor. fvwm-2.0 offers cpp
processing which mirrors the m4 pre-processing. To find
out about it, re-read the M4 section above, but replace
"m4" with "cpp".
AUTO-RAISE
Windows can be automatically raised when it receives
focus, or some number of milliseconds after it receives
focus, by using the auto-raise module, FvwmAuto.
OPTIONS
These are the command line options that are recognized by
fvwm:
-blackout
The screen is blacked out during window recaptures
and startup. This option is provided for backwards
compatibility only.
-cmd config_command
Causes fvwm to use config_command instead of "Read
.fvwm2rc" as its initialization command. (Note
that up to 10 -f and -cmd parameters can be given,
and they are executed in the order specified.)
-d displayname
Manage the display called "displayname" instead of
the name obtained from the environment variable
$DISPLAY.
-debug Puts X transactions in synchronous mode, which dra
matically slows things down, but guarantees that
fvwm's internal error messages are correct. Also
causes fvwm to output debug messages while running.
-f config_file
Causes fvwm to Read config_file instead of
".fvwm2rc" as its initialization file. This is
equivalent to -cmd "Read config_file".
-h A short usage description is printed.
-s On a multi-screen display, run fvwm only on the
screen named in the $DISPLAY environment variable
or provided through the -d option. Normally, fvwm
will attempt to start up on all screens of a multi-
screen display.
-version
Print the version of fvwm to stderr.
CONFIGURATION FILES
The configuration file is used to describe mouse and but
ton bindings, colors, the virtual display size, and
related items. The initialization configuration file is
typically called ".fvwm2rc". By using the "Read" built-
in, it is easy to read in new configuration files as you
go.
Lines beginning with '#' will be ignored by fvwm. Lines
starting with '*' are expected to contain module
configuration commands (rather than configuration commands
for fvwm itself).
Fvwm makes no distinction between configuration commands
and built-in commands, so anything mentioned in the built-
in commands section can be placed on a line by itself for
fvwm to execute as it reads the configuration file, or it
can be placed as an executable command in a menu or bound
to a mouse button or a keyboard key. It is left as an
exercise for the user to decide which function make sense
for initialization and which ones make sense for run-time.
BUILT IN FUNCTIONS
Fvwm supports a set of built-in functions which can be
bound to keyboard or mouse buttons. If fvwm expects to
find a built-in function in a command, but fails, it will
check to see if the specified command should have been
"Function (rest of command)" or "Module (rest of com
mand)". This allows complex functions or modules to be
invoked in a manner which is fairly transparent to the
configuration file.
Example: the .fvwm2rc file contains the line "HelpMe".
Fvwm will look for a built-in command called "HelpMe", and
will fail. Next it will look for a user-defined complex
function called "HelpMe". If no such user defined func
tion exists, Fvwm will try to execute a module called
"HelpMe".
In previous versions of fvwm, quoting was critical and
irrational in the .fvwmrc file. As of fvwm-2, most of
this has been cleared up. Quotes are required only when
needed to make fvwm consider two or more words to be a
single argument. Unnecessary quoting is allowed. If you
want a quote character in your text, you must escape it by
using the backslash character. For example, if you have a
pop-up menu called Window-Ops, then you don't need quotes:
Popup Window-Ops, but if you replace the dash with a
space, then you need quotes: Popup "Window Ops".
AddButtonStyle button [ state ] [ style ] [-- [!]flag ...]
Adds a button style to button. button can be a
button number, or one of "All," "Left," or "Right."
state can be "ActiveUp," "ActiveDown" or "Inac
tive." If state is omitted, then the style is
added to every state. If the button style and
flags are enclosed in parentheses, then multiple
state definitions can be placed on a single line.
Flags for additional button styles cannot be
changed after definition.
Buttons are drawn in the order of definition,
beginning with the most recent ButtonStyle, fol
lowed by those added with AddButtonStyle. To clear
the button style stack, change style flags, or for
descriptions of available styles and flags, see the
ButtonStyle command. Examples:
ButtonStyle 1 Pixmap led.xpm -- Top Left
ButtonStyle 1 ActiveDown HGradient 8 grey \
black
ButtonStyle All -- UseTitleStyle
AddButtonStyle 1 ActiveUp (Pixmap a.xpm) \
ActiveDown (Pixmap b.xpm -- Top)
AddButtonStyle 1 Vector 4 50x30@1 70x70@0 \
30x70@0 50x30@1
Initially for this example all button states are
set to a pixmap. The second line replaces the
ActiveDown state with a gradient (it overrides the
pixmap assigned to it in the line before, which
assigned the same style to every state). Then, the
UseTitleStyle flag is set for all buttons, which
causes fvwm to draw any styles set with TitleStyle
before drawing the buttons. Finally, AddButton
Style is used to place additional pixmaps for both
ActiveUp and ActiveDown states and a Vector button
style is drawn on top of all state.
AddTitleStyle [ state ] [ style ] [ -- [!]flag ... ]
Adds a title style to the title bar. state should
be one of "ActiveUp," "ActiveDown," or "Inactive."
If state is omitted, then the style is added to
every state. If the style and flags are enclosed
in parentheses, then multiple state definitions can
be placed on a single line. This command is quite
similar to the AddButtonStyle command (see above).
Title bars are drawn in the order of definition,
beginning with the most recent TitleStyle, followed
by those added with AddTitleStyle. To clear the
title style stack, change style flags, or for the
descriptions of available styles and flags, see the
TitleStyle and ButtonStyle commands.
AddToDecor decor
Add or divert commands to the decor named decor. A
decor is a name given to the set of commands which
affect button styles, title-bar styles, border
styles, hilight colors, and window fonts. If decor
does not exist it is created; otherwise the exist
ing decor is modified.
Created decors start out exactly like the default
fvwm decor without any style definitions. A given
decor may be applied to a set of windows with the
UseDecor option of the Style command. Modifying an
existing decor will affect windows which are cur
rently assigned to it.
AddToDecor is similar in usage to the AddToMenu and
AddToFunc commands, except that menus and functions
are replaced by ButtonStyle, AddButtonStyle,
TitleStyle, AddTitleStyle, BorderStyle, Hilight
Color and WindowFont commands. Decors created with
AddToDecor can be manipulated with ChangeDecor,
DestroyDecor, UpdateDecor, and the UseDecor Style
option.
The following example creates a decor and style,
both named "flatness." Despite having the same
name, they are distinct entities:
AddToDecor flatness
+ ButtonStyle All ActiveUp (-- flat) \
Inactive (-- flat)
+ TitleStyle -- flat
+ BorderStyle -- HiddenHandles NoInset
+ HilightColor white navy
Style "flatness" UseDecor flatness, \
Color white/grey40,HandleWidth 4
Style "xterm" UseStyle flatness
An existing window's decor may be reassigned with
ChangeDecor, or a Style command followed by a
Recapture. The decorations of all windows or of a
specific decor can be updated with UpdateDecor
(useful after decorations are modified; changing
Style options requires a Recapture instead). A
decor can be destroyed with DestroyDecor.
AddToFunc [ name [ trigger action] ]
Begins or add to a function definition. Here's an
example:
AddToFunc Move-or-Raise "I" Raise
+ "M" Move
+ "D" Lower
The function name is Move-or-Raise, and could be
invoked from a menu or a mouse binding or key bind
ing:
Mouse 1 TS A Move-or-Raise
The quoted portion of the function tells what kind
of action will trigger the command which follows
it. "I" stands for Immediate, and is executed as
soon as the function is invoked. "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 in a short period of time
(ClickTime milliseconds). "D" stands for double-
click. The action "I" will cause an action to be
performed on the button-press, if the function is
invoked with prior knowledge of which window to act
on.
The special symbols $d, $w and $0 through $9 are
available in the ComplexFunctions or Macros, or
whatever you want to call them. Within a macro, $w
is expanded to the window-id (expressed in hex,
i.e. 0x10023c) of the window for which the macro
was called and $d is expanded to the current desk
number. $0 through $9 are the arguments to the
macro, so if you call
Key F10 R A Function MailFunction \
xmh "-font fixed"
and MailFunction is
AddToFunc MailFunction
+ "I" Next ($0) Iconify -1
+ "I" Next ($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 exe
cuted, so you can use the same function with all
sorts of different arguments. I could use
Key F11 R A Function MailFunction \
zmail "-bg pink"
in the same .fvwm2rc, if I wanted. An example of
using $w is:
AddToFunc PrintFunction
+ "I" Raise
+ "I" Exec xdpr -id $w
Note that $$ is expanded to $.
AddToMenu menu-name [ menu-label action ]
Begins or adds to a menu definition. Typically a
menu definition looks like this:
AddToMenu Utilities "Utilities" Title
+ "Xterm" Exec exec xterm -e tcsh
+ "Rxvt" Exec exec rxvt
+ "Remote Logins" Popup Remote-Logins
+ "Top" Exec exec rxvt -T Top -n \
Top -e top
+ "Calculator" Exec exec xcalc
+ "Xman" Exec exec xman
+ "Xmag" Exec exec xmag
+ "emacs" Exec exec xemacs
+ "Mail" MailFunction \
xmh "-font fixed"
+ "" Nop
+ "Modules" Popup Module-Popup
+ "" Nop
+ "Exit Fvwm" Popup Quit-Verify
The menu could be invoked via
Mouse 1 R A Menu Utilities Nop
or
Mouse 1 R A Popup Utilities
There is no end-of-menu symbol. Menus do not have
to be defined in a contiguous region of the
.fvwm2rc file. The quoted portion in the above
examples is the menu-label, which will appear in
the menu when the user pops it up. The remaining
portion is a built-in command which should be exe
cuted if the user selects that menu item. An empty
menu-label ("") and the Nop function can be used to
insert a separator into the menu.
Titles can be used within the menu. If you add the
option "top" behind the keyword "Title", the title
will be added to the top of the menu. If there was
a title already, it is overwritten.
AddToMenu Utilities "Tools" Title top
All text up to the first TAB in the menu label is
aligned to the left side of the menu, all text
right of the first TAB is aligned to the right
side. All other TABs are replaced by spaces.
If the menu-label contains an ampersand ('&'), the
next character is taken as a hotkey for the menu
item. Hotkeys are underlined in the label. To get a
literal '&', insert '&&'.
If the menu-label contains a sub-string which is
set off by stars, then the text between the stars
is expected to be the name of an xpm-icon or
bitmap-file to insert in the menu. To get a lit
eral '*', insert '**'.For example
+ "Calculator*xcalc.xpm*" Exec exec xcalc
inserts a menu item labeled "calculator" with a
picture of a calculator above it. The following:
+ "*xcalc.xpm*" Exec exec xcalc
Omits the "Calculator" label, but leaves the pic
ture.
If the menu-label contains a sub-string which is
set off by percent signs, then the text between the
percent signs is expected to be the name of an xpm-
icon or bitmap-file to insert to the left of the
menu label. To get a literal '%', insert '%%'. For
example
+ "Calculator%xcalc.xpm%" Exec exec xcalc
inserts a menu item labeled "calculator" with a
picture of a calculator to the left. The follow
ing:
+ "%xcalc.xpm%" Exec exec xcalc
Omits the "Calculator" label, but leaves the pic
ture. The pictures used with this feature should
be small (perhaps 16x16).
If the menu-name (not the label) contains a sub-
string which is set off by at signs ("@"), then the
text between them is expected to be the name of an
xpm or bitmap file to draw along the left side of
the menu (a "side pixmap"). You will probably want
to use the SidePic option of the MenuStyle command
instead. To get a literal '@', insert '@@'. For
example
AddToMenu "StartMenu@linux-menu.xpm@"
creates a menu with a picture in its bottom left
corner.
If the menu-name contains also a sub-string set of
by '^'s, then the text between '^'s is expected to
be the name a of X11 color and the column contain
ing the side picture will be colorized with that
color. You can set this color for a menu style
using the SideColor option of the MenuStyle com
mand. To get a literal '^', insert
AddToMenu "StartMenu@linux-menu.xpm@^blue^"
creates a menu with a picture in its bottom left
corner and colorizes with blue the region of the
menu containing the picture.
In all the above cases, the name of the resulting
menu is name specified, stripped of the substrings
between the various delimiters.
AnimatedMove x y [ Warp ]
Move a window in an animated way. Similar to Move
command, below. 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.
Beep As might be expected, this makes the terminal beep.
BorderStyle [ state ] [ style ] [ -- [!]flag ... ]
Defines a border style for windows. state can be
either "Active" or "Inactive." If state is omit
ted, then the style is set for both states. If the
style and flags are enclosed in parentheses, then
multiple state definitions can be specified per
line.
style is a subset of the available ButtonStyles,
and can only be TiledPixmap (uniform pixmaps which
match the bevel colors work best this way). If an
"!" is prefixed to any flag, flag behavior is
negated. If style is not specified, then one can
change flags without resetting the style.
The "HiddenHandles" flag hides the corner handle
dividing lines on windows with handles (this option
has no effect for NoHandle windows). By default,
HiddenHandles is disabled.
The "NoInset" flag supplements HiddenHandles. If
given, the inner bevel around the window frame is
not drawn. If HiddenHandles is not specified, this
flag has no effect.
To decorate the active and inactive window borders
with a textured pixmap, one might specify:
BorderStyle Active TiledPixmap marble.xpm
BorderStyle Inactive TiledPixmap granite.xpm
BorderStyle Active -- HiddenHandles NoInset
To clear the style for both states:
BorderStyle Simple
To clear for a single state:
BorderStyle Active Simple
To unset a flag for a given state:
BorderStyle Inactive -- !NoInset
Title-bar buttons can inherit the border style with
the UseBorderStyle flag (see ButtonStyle).
ButtonStyle button [ state ] [ style ] [ -- [!]flag ... ]
Sets the button style for a title-bar button. but
ton is the title-bar button number between 0 and 9,
or one of "All," "Left," "Right," or "Reset." But
ton numbering is described in the Mouse section
(see below). If the style and flags are enclosed
in parentheses, then multiple state definitions can
be specified per line.
state refers to which button state should be set.
Button states are defined as follows: "ActiveUp"
and "ActiveDown" refer to the unpressed and pressed
states for buttons on active windows; while the
"Inactive" state denotes buttons on inactive win
dows.
If state is ActiveUp, ActiveDown, or Inactive, that
particular button state is set. If state is omit
ted, every state is set. Specifying a style
destroys the current style (use AddButtonStyle to
avoid this).
If style is omitted, then state-dependent flags can
be set for the primary button style without
destroying the current style. Examples (each line
should be considered independent):
ButtonStyle Left -- flat
ButtonStyle All ActiveUp (-- flat) \
Inactive (-- flat)
The first line sets every state of the left buttons
to flat, while the second sets only the ActiveUp
and Inactive states of every button to flat (only
flags are changed; the buttons' individual styles
are not changed).
If you want to reset all buttons to their defaults:
ButtonStyle Reset
To reset the ActiveUp button state of button 1 to
the default:
ButtonStyle 1 ActiveUp Default
To reset all button states of button 1 to the
default of button number 2:
ButtonStyle 1 Default 2
For any given button, multiple state definitions
can be given on one line by enclosing the style and
flags in parentheses. If only one definition per
line is given the parentheses can be omitted.
flags affect the specified state. If an "!" is
prefixed to any flag, its behavior is negated. The
available state-dependent flags for all styles are
described here (the next ButtonStyle entry deals
with state-independent flags).
"Raised" causes a raised relief pattern to be
drawn.
"Sunk" causes a sunken relief pattern to be drawn.
"Flat" inhibits the relief pattern from being
drawn.
"UseTitleStyle" causes the given button state to
render the current title style before rendering the
button's own styles. The Raised, Flat, and Sunk
TitleStyle flags are ignored since they are redun
dant in this context.
"UseBorderStyle" causes the button to inherit the
decorated BorderStyle options.
Raised, Sunk, and Flat are mutually exclusive, and
can be specified for the initial ButtonStyle only.
UseTitleStyle and UseBorderStyle are also mutually
exclusive (both can be off however). The default
is Raised with both UseBorderStyle and UseTi
tleStyle left unset.
There is an important note for the ActiveDown
state. When a button is pressed, the relief is
inverted. Because of this, to obtain a sunken
ActiveDown state you must specify the opposite of
the desired relief (i.e. to obtain a pressed-in
look which is raised, specify Sunk for ActiveDown).
This behavior is consistent, but may seem confusing
at first.
Button styles are classified as non-destructive,
partially destructive, or fully destructive. Non-
destructive styles do not affect the image. Par
tially destructive styles can obscure some or all
parts of the underlying image (i.e. Pixmap). Fully
destructive styles obscure the entire underlying
image (i.e. Solid or one of the gradient styles).
Thus, if stacking styles with AddButtonStyle (or
AddTitleStyle for title bars), use care in sequenc
ing styles to minimize redraw.
The available styles and their arguments now follow
(depending on compilation options, some button
styles may be unavailable).
The "Simple" style does nothing. There are no
arguments, and this style is an example of a non-
destructive button style.
The "Default" style conditionally accepts one argu
ment: a number which specifies the default button
number to load. If the style command given is But
tonStyle or AddButtonStyle, the argument is
optional (if given, will override the current but
ton). If a command other than ButtonStyle or
AddButtonStyle is used, the number must be speci
fied.
The "Solid" style fills the button with a solid
color. The relief border color is not affected.
The color should be specified as a single argument.
This style is fully destructive.
The "Vector" style draws a line pattern. Since
this is a standard button style, the keyword "Vec
tor" is optional. The specification is a little
cumbersome:
ButtonStyle 2 Vector 4 50x30@1 70x70@0 \
30x70@0 50x30@1
then the button 2 decoration will use a 4-point
pattern consisting of a line from (x=50,y=30) to
(70,70) in the shadow color (@0), and then to
(30,70) in the shadow color, and finally to (50,30)
in the highlight color (@1). Is that too confus
ing? See the sample .fvwm2rc for a few examples.
This style is partially destructive.
The "VGradient" and "HGradient" styles denote gra
dient styles. The H and V prefixes denote both
horizontal and vertical directions.
This style has two forms:
The first form specifies a linear gradient.
Arguments: total number of colors to allocate
(between 2 and 128), the initial color, and the
final color.
The second form specifies a nonlinear gradient.
Arguments: total number of colors to allocate
(between 2 and 128), then the number of segments.
For each segment, specify the starting color,
percentage to increment, then ending color. Each
subsequent segment begins with the color of the
last segment. All of the percentages must add up
to 100.
Example:
TitleStyle VGradient 16 3 Red 20 Blue 30 \
Black 50 Grey
The gradient styles are fully destructive.
The "Pixmap" style displays a pixmap. A pixmap
should be specified as an argument. For example,
the following would give button 2 the same pixmap
for both states, and button 4 different pixmaps for
the up, down and inactive states.
ButtonStyle 2 Pixmap my_pixmap.xpm
ButtonStyle 4 ActiveUp (Pixmap up.xpm) \
ActiveDown (Pixmap down.xpm)
ButtonStyle 4 Inactive Pixmap inactive.xpm
The pixmap specification can be given as an abso
lute or relative pathname (see PixmapPath). If the
pixmap cannot be found, the button style reverts to
Simple. Flags specific to the Pixmap style are
"Left," "Right," "Top," and "Bottom." These can be
used to justify the pixmap (default is centered for
both directions). Pixmap transparency is used for
the color "None." This style is partially destruc
tive.
The "MiniIcon" style draws the window's miniature
icon in the button, which is specified with the
MiniIcon option of the Style command. This button
style accepts no arguments. Example:
Style "*" MiniIcon mini-bx2.xpm
Style "xterm" MiniIcon mini-term.xpm
Style "Emacs" MiniIcon mini-doc.xpm
ButtonStyle 1 MiniIcon
The "TiledPixmap" style accepts a pixmap to be
tiled as the button background. One pixmap is
specified as an argument. Pixmap transparency is
not used. This style is fully destructive.
ButtonStyle button - [!]flag ...
Sets state-independent flags for the specified but
ton. State-independent flags affect button behav
ior. Each flag is separated by a space. If an "!"
is prefixed to the flag then the flag behavior is
negated. The special flag "Clear" clears any
existing flags.
The following flags are usually used to tell fvwm
which buttons should be affected by MWM function
hints. This is not done automatically since you
might have buttons bound to complex functions, for
instance.
"MWMDecorMenu" should be assigned to title bar but
tons which display a menu. The default assignment
is the leftmost button. When a window with the
MWMFunctions Style option requests not to show this
button, it will be hidden.
"MWMDecorMin" should be assigned to title bar but
tons which minimize or iconify the window. The
default assignment is the second button over from
the rightmost button. When a window with the MWM
Functions Style option requests not to show this
button, it will be hidden.
"MWMDecorMax" should be assigned to title bar but
tons which maximize the window. The default
assignment is the rightmost button. When a window
with the MWMFunctions Style option requests not to
show this button, it will be hidden.
ChangeDecor decor
Changes the decor of a window to decor. decor is
"Default," or the name of a decor defined with
AddToDecor. If decor is invalid, nothing occurs.
If called from somewhere in a window or its border,
then that window is affected. If called from the
root window the user will be allowed to select the
target window. ChangeDecor only affects attributes
which can be set using the AddToDecor command.
ChangeDecor "CustomDecor1"
ChangeMenuStyle menustyle menu ...
Changes the menu style of "menu" to "menustyle",
you may specified more than one menu in each
ChangeMenuStyle.
ChangeMenuStyle pixmap1 Screensavers ScreenLock
ClickTime [ delay ]
Specifies the maximum delay (in milliseconds)
between a button press and a button release for the
Function built-in to consider the action a mouse
click. The default delay is 150 milliseconds.
Omitting the delay value resets the ClickTime to
the default.
Close If the window accepts the delete window protocol a
message is sent to the window asking it to grace
fully remove itself. If the window does not under
stand the delete window protocol then the window is
destroyed.
ColorLimit limit
Specifies a limit on the colors used in pixmaps
used by fvwm. Zero (the default) sets no
limit. Fvwm uses pixmaps for icons, mini-
icons, and pixmap borders and titles. This command
limits pixmap colors to a set of colors that
starts out with common colors. The current list
contains about 60 colors and starts with white,
black, grey, green, blue, red, cyan, yellow,
and magenta. The command "ColorLimit 9" would
limit pixmaps to these 9 colors.
It makes the most sense to put this command at the
front of the definitions that contain mini-icons.
Solid frame and title colors (including shadows and
gradients) are not controlled by this command.
ColormapFocus FollowsMouse|FollowsFocus
By default, fvwm installs the colormap of the win
dow that the cursor is in. If you use ColormapFo
cus FollowsFocus, then the installed colormap will
be the one for the window that currently has the
keyboard focus.
Current (conditions) command
Performs command on the current window if it satis
fies all conditions. Conditions include "Iconic",
"!Iconic", "Visible", "!Visible", "Sticky",
"!Sticky", "Maximized", "!Maximized", "Transient",
"!Transient", "Raised", "!Raised", "CurrentDesk",
"CurrentPage", and "CurrentPageAnyDesk". In addi
tion, the condition may include a window name to
match to. The window name may include the wild
cards * and ?. The window name, icon name, class,
and resource will be considered when attempting to
find a match. The window name can begin with !
which will prevent command if any of the window
name, icon name, class or resource match.
Note that earlier versions of fvwm2 required the
conditions to be enclosed in brackets instead of
parentheses (this is still supported for backwards
compatibility).
CursorMove horizontal vertical
Moves the mouse pointer by horizontal pages in the
X direction and vertical pages in the Y direction.
Either or both entries may be negative. Both hori
zontal and vertical values are expressed in percent
of pages, so "CursorMove 100 100" means to move
down and right by one full page. "CursorMove 50
25" means to move right half a page and down a
quarter of a page. Alternatively, the distance can
be specified in pixels by appending a 'p' to the
horizontal and/or vertical specification. For
example "CursorMove -10p -10p" means move ten pix
els up and ten pixels left. The CursorMove func
tion should not be called from pop-up menus.
CursorStyle context cursornum
Defines a new cursor for the specified context.
The various contexts are:
POSITION (XC_top_left_corner)
used when initially placing windows
TITLE (XC_top_left_arrow)
used in a window title-bar
DEFAULT (XC_top_left_arrow)
used in windows that don't set their cursor
SYS (XC_hand2)
used in one of the title-bar buttons
MOVE (XC_fleur)
used when moving or resizing windows
WAIT (XC_watch)
used during an EXEC builtin command
MENU (XC_sb_left_arrow)
used in menus
SELECT (XC_dot)
used for various builtin commands such as
iconify
DESTROY (XC_pirate)
used for DESTROY, CLOSE, and DELETE built-
ins
TOP (XC_top_side)
used in the top side-bar of a window
RIGHT (XC_right_side)
used in the right side-bar of a window
BOTTOM (XC_bottom_side)
used in the bottom side-bar of a window
LEFT (XC_left_side)
used in the left side-bar of a window
TOP_LEFT (XC_top_left_corner)
used in the top left corner of a window
TOP_RIGHT (XC_top_right_corner)
used in the top right corner of a window
BOTTOM_LEFT (XC_bottom_left_corner)
used in the bottom left corner of a window
BOTTOM_RIGHT (XC_bottom_right_corner)
used in the bottom right corner of a window
And the cursornum is the numeric value of the cur
sor as defined in the include file X11/cursor
font.h. An example:
# make the kill cursor be XC_gumby:
CursorStyle DESTROY 56
The defaults are shown in parenthesis above.
DefaultColors [ foreground background ]
DefaultColors sets the default forground and back
ground colors used in miscellaneous windows created
by fvwm, for example in the geometry feedback win
dows during a move or resize operation. If you
don't want to change one color or the other, use -
as its color name. To revert to the builtin default
colors omit both color names. Note that the default
colors are not used in menus, window titles or icon
titles.
DefaultFont [ fontname ]
DefaultFont sets the default font to font fontname.
The default font is used by fvwm2 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 Window
Font, IconFont or MenuStyle commands.
Delete Sends a message to a window asking that it remove
itself, frequently causing the application to exit.
Desk arg1 [ arg2 ] [ min max ]
Switches the current viewport to another desktop
(workspace, room).
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 rela
tive, absolute, minimum and maximum values. (Desk
top numbers can be negative.)
If arg1 is non zero then the next desktop number
will be the current desktop number plus arg1.
If arg1 is zero then the new desktop number will be
arg2. (If arg2 is not present, then the command
has no effect.)
If min and max are given, the new desktop number
will be 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 dynami
cally. Only desktops which contain windows or are
currently being displayed are active. Desktop num
bers must be between 2147483647 and -2147483648 (is
that enough?).
DeskTopSize HorizontalxVertical
Defines the virtual desktop size in units of the
physical screen size.
Destroy
Destroys an application window, which usually
causes the application to crash and burn.
DestroyDecor decor
Deletes the decor defined with AddToDecor, so that
subsequent references to it are no longer valid.
Windows using this decor revert to the default fvwm
decor. The decor named "Default" cannot be
destroyed.
DestroyDecor "CustomDecor1"
DestroyFunc
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 an fvwm
session. The function can be rebuilt using AddTo
Func.
DestroyFunc "PrintFunction"
DestroyMenu
Deletes a menu, so that subsequent references to it
are no longer valid. You can use this to change
the contents of a menu during an fvwm session. The
menu can be rebuilt using AddToMenu.
DestroyMenu "Utilities"
DestroyMenuStyle menustyle
Deletes the menu style named "menustyle" and
changes all menus using this style to the default
style, you cannot destroy the default menu.
DestroyMenuStyle pixamp1
DestroyModuleConfig
Deletes module configuration entries, so that new
configuration lines may be entered instead. You
can use this to change the the way a module runs
during an fvwm session without restarting. Wild
cards can be used for portions of the name as well.
DestroyModuleConfig FvwmFormFore
DestroyModuleConfig FvwmButtons*
Direction direction (conditions) command
Performs command (typically Focus) on a window in
the given direction which satisfies all conditions.
Conditions are the same as for Current. The direc
tion may be one of North, Northeast, East, South
east, South, Southwest, West and Northwest. Which
window Direction selects depends on angle and dis
tance between the centerpoints of the windows.
Closer windows are considered a better match than
those farther away.
Echo string
Prints a message to stderr. Potentially useful for
debugging things in your .fvwm2rc.
Echo Beginning style defs...
EdgeResistance scrolling moving
Tells how hard it should be to change the desktop
viewport by moving the mouse over the edge of the
screen and how hard it should be to move a window
over the edge of the screen.
The first parameter tells how milliseconds the
pointer must spend on the screen edge before fvwm
will move the viewport. This is intended for peo
ple who use "EdgeScroll 100 100" but find them
selves accidentally flipping pages when they don't
want to.
The second parameter tells how many pixels over the
edge of the screen a window's edge must move before
it actually moves partially off the screen. By
default the viewport is moved a full page in the
requested direction, but if you used EdgeScroll and
set any values other than zero they will be used
instead.
Note that, with "EdgeScroll 0 0", it is still pos
sible to move or resize windows across the edge of
the current screen. By making the first parameter
to EdgeResistance 10000 this type of motion is
impossible. With EdgeResistance less than 10000
but greater than 0 moving over pages becomes diffi
cult but not impossible. See also, EdgeThickness.
EdgeScroll horizontal vertical
Specifies the percentage of a page to scroll when
the cursor hits the edge of a page. A trailing "p"
changes the interpretation to mean "pixels". If
you don't want any paging or scrolling when you hit
the edge of a page include "EdgeScroll 0 0" in your
.fvwm2rc file, or possibly better, set the EdgeTh
ickness 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 mul
tiplied by 1000 then scrolling will wrap around at
the edge of the desktop. If "EdgeScroll 100000
100000" is used fvwm will scroll by whole pages,
wrapping around at the edge of the desktop.
EdgeThickness 0|1|2
This is the width or height of the invisible window
that fvwm2 creates on the edges of the screen that
are used for the edgescrolling feature.
A value of zero 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 con
fusing, for example, if you drag a window over the
edge of the screen, so that it stradles aa pan
frame, clicks on the window, near the edge of the
screen are treated as clicks on the root window.
Emulate fvwm|mwm|win
This command affects how miscellaneous things are
done by fvwm. For example where the move/resize
feedback window appears depends on this command. To
have more MWM- or WIN-like behavior you can call
Emulate with "MWM" or "WIN" as its argument.
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 will stay until the command
exits. In effect, you'll have twice as many pro
cesses 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 F1 in the
root window, with no modifiers, to the exec func
tion. The program rxvt will be 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
won't work reliably.
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
FlipFocus
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 Moves the viewport or window as needed to make the
selected window visible. Sets the keyboard focus
to the selected window. 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 win
dowlist around so that the target window is at the
start.
To raise and warp a pointer together with Focus or
FlipFocus, use a function:
AddToFunc SelectWindow
+ I Focus
+ I Raise
+ I WarpToWindow 50 8p
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 will exe
cute to move-or-raise function whenever button 1 is
pressed in a window title-bar.
Mouse 1 T A Function Move-or-Raise
The keyword "Function" may be omitted if "Function
Name" does not coincide with an fvwm built-in func
tion name
GlobalOpts [ options ]
This is a TEMPORARY command used to set some global
options which will later be handled as Style parms
(or options to Style parms). It currently handles
the following: SmartPlacementIsReallySmart/Smart
PlacementIsNormal,
ClickToFocusDoesntPassClick/ClickToFocusPass
esClick, ClickToFocusDoesntRaise/ClickToFocus
Raises, MouseFocusClickDoesntRaise/MouseFocusClick
Raises, CaptureHonorsStartsOnPage/Cap
tureIgnoresStartsOnPage, RecaptureHonorsStartsOn
Page/RecaptureIgnoresStartsOnPage, ActivePlacemen
tHonorsStartsOnPage/ActivePlacementIgnoresStartsOn
Page, NoStipledTitles/StipledTitles
Example:
GlobalOpts ClickToFocusDoesntPassClick, \
ClickToFocusDoesntRaise
RecaptureHonorsStartsOnPage causes a window to be
placed according to, or revert to, the StartsOnPage
desk and page specification on Restart or Recap
ture. RecaptureIgnoresStartsOnPage causes fvwm to
respect the current window position on Restart or
Recapture. The default is RecaptureIgnoresStartsOn
Page.
CaptureHonorsStartsOnPage causes the initial cap
ture (of an already existing window) at startup to
place the window according to the StartsOnPage desk
and page specification. CaptureIgnoresStartsOnPage
causes fvwm to ignore these settings (including
StartsOnDesk) on initial capture. The default is
CaptureHonorsStartsOnPage.
ActivePlacementIgnoresStartsOnPage suppresses
StartsOnPage or StartsOnDesk placement in the event
that both ActivePlacement and SkipMapping are in
effect when a window is created. This prevents you
from interactively placing a window and then won
dering where it disappeared to, because it got
placed on a different desk or page. ActivePlacemen
tHonorsStartsOnPage allows this to happen anyway.
The option has no effect if SkipMapping is not in
effect, because fvwm will switch to the proper
desk/page to perform interactive placement. The
default is ActivePlacementHonorsStartsOnPage, which
matches the way StartsOnDesk handled the situation.
GotoPage x y
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 hor
izontal 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. The
GotoPage function should not be used in a pop-up
menu.
HilightColor textcolor backgroundcolor
Specifies the text and background colors for the
decorations on the window which currently has the
keyboard focus.
IconFont [ fontname ]
Makes fvwm use font fontname for icon labels. To
reset this font to the default font (see Default
Font) you may omit fontname.
Iconify [ value ]
Iconifies a window if it is not already iconified
or de-iconifies it if it is already iconified. If
the optional argument value is positive only iconi
fication will be allowed. If the optional argument
is negative only de-iconification will be allowed.
IconPath path
Specifies a colon separated list of full path names
of directories where bitmap (monochrome) icons can
be found. Each path should start with a slash.
Environment variables can be used here as well
(i.e. $HOME or ${HOME}).
Note: if the FvwmM4 is used to parse your rc files,
then m4 may want to mangle the word "include" which
will frequently show up in the IconPath or Pixmap
Path command. To fix this add undefine(`include')
prior to the IconPath command, or better use the
'-m4-prefix' option to force all m4 directives to
have a prefix of "m4_" (see the FvwmM4 man page).
ImagePath path
Specifies a colon separated list of directories in
which to search for images (both monochrome and
pixmap).
NOTE: ImagePath makes obsolete IconPath and Pixmap
Path commands in the next fvwm versions. In this
version all of the three commands are allowed.
The ImagePath 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:
ImagePath $HOME/icons:+:/usr/include/X11/bitmaps
Key keyname Context Modifiers Function
Binds a keyboard key to a specified fvwm built-in
function, or removes the binding if Function is
'-'. Definition is the same as for a mouse binding
except that the mouse button number is replaced
with a key name. The keyname is one of the entries
from /usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h, with the leading
XK_ omitted. 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).
The following example binds the built in window
list to pop up when Alt-Ctrl-Shift-F11 is hit, no
matter where the mouse pointer is:
Key F11 A SCM WindowList
Binding a key to a title-bar button will not cause
that button to appear unless a mouse binding also
exists.
KillModule name
Causes the module which was invoked with name name
to be killed. name may include wild-cards.
Lower Allows the user to lower a window.
Maximize [ horizontal vertical ]
Without its optional arguments Maximize causes the
window to alternately switch from a full-screen
size to its normal size.
With the optional arguments horizontal and verti
cal, which are expressed as percentage of a full
screen, the user can control the new size of the
window. If horizontal is greater than 0 then the
horizontal dimension of the window will be set to
horizontal*screen_width/100. The vertical resizing
is similar. For example, the following will add 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
Values larger than 100 can be used with caution.
If the letter "p" is appended to each coordinate
(horizontal and/or vertical), then the scroll
amount will be measured in pixels.
Menu menu-name [ position ] [ double-click-action ]
Causes a previously defined menu to be popped up in
a "sticky" manner. That is, if the user invokes
the menu with a click action instead of a drag
action, the menu will stay up. The command double-
click-action will be invoked if the user double-
clicks (or hits the key rapidly twice if the menu
is bound to a key) when bringing the menu up.
Several other commands affect menu operation. See
MenuStyle and SetAnimation. When in a menu, key
board shortcuts work as expected. Cursor
keystrokes are also allowed. Specifically, Cursor-
Down, Ctrl-N, and Ctrl-J all move to the next item;
Cursor-Up, Ctrl-P, and Ctrl-K all move to the prior
item; Cursor-Left and Ctrl-B return to the prior
menu; Cursor-Right and Ctrl-F popup the next menu;
Ctrl-Cursor-Up and Ctrl-Cursor-Down move up and
down five items, respectively; Shift-Cursor-Up and
Shift-Cursor-Down move to the first and last items,
respectively; Enter executes the current item;
Escape exits the current sequence of menus.
The pointer will be warped to where it was when the
menu was invoked if it was both invoked and termi
nated with a keystroke.
The position arguments allow to place the menu
somewhere on the screen, for example centered on
the visible screen or above a title bar. Basically
it works like this: you specify a context-rectangle
and an offset to this rectangle by which the upper
left corner of the menu is moved from the upper
left corner of the rectangle. The position argu
ments consist of several parts:
[ [context-rectangle] x y ] [ special-options ]
The context-rectangle can be one of:
Root
the root window.
Mouse
a 1x1 rectangle at the mouse position.
Window
the window with the focus.
Interior
the inside of the focused window.
Title
the title of the focused window or icon.
Button<n>
button #n of the focused window.
Icon
the focused icon.
Menu
the current menu.
Item
the current menu item.
Context
the current window, menu or icon.
This
whatever widget the pointer is on (e.g. a
corner of a window or the root window).
Rectangle <geometry>
the rectangle defined by <geometry> in X
geometry format. Width and height default
to 1 if omitted.
If the context-rectangle is omitted "Mouse" is the
default. Note that not all of these make sense
under all circumstances (e.g. "Icon" if the pointer
is on a menu).
The offset values x and y specify how far the menu
is moved from it's default position. By default,
the numeric value given is interpreted as a per
centage of the context rectangle's width (height),
but with a trailing "m" the menu's width (height)
is used instead. Furthermore a trailing "p"
changes the interpretation to mean "pixels".
Instead of a single value you can use a list of
values. All additional numbers after the first one
are separated from threir predecessor but their
sign. Do not use any other separators.
If x or y are prefixed with 'o<number>' where <num
ber> is an integer, the menu and the rectangle will
be moved to overlap at the specified position
before any other offsets are applied. The menu and
the rectangle will be placed so that the pixel at
<number> percent of the rectangle's width/height is
right over the pixel at <number> percent of the
menu's width/height. So 'o0' means that the
top/left borders of the menu and the rectangle
overlap, with 'o100' it's the bottom/right borders
and if you use 'o50' they are centered upon each
other (try it and you will see it is much simpler
than this description). The default is 'o0'. The
prefix
A prefix of 'c' is equivalent of 'o50'. Examples:
# window list in the middle of the screen
WindowList Root c c
# menu to the left of a window
Menu name window -100m c+0
# popup menu 8 pixels above the mouse pointer
Popup name mouse c -100m-8p
# somewhere on the screen
Menu name rectangle 512x384+1+1 +0 +0
# centered vertially around a menu item
AddToMenu foobar-menu
+ "first item" Nop
+ "special item" Popup "another menu" item \
+100 c
+ "last item" Nop
# above the first menu item
AddToMenu foobar-menu
+ "first item" Popup "another menu" item +0 -100m
Note that you can put a submenu far off the current
menu so you could not reach it with the mouse with
out leaving the menu. If the pointer leaves the
current menu in the general direction of the sub
menu the menu will stay up.
The special-options:
The "animated" and "mwm" or "win" meny styles
may move a menu somewhere else on the screen.
If you do not want this you can add Fixed as
an option. This might happen for example if
you want the menu always in the top right cor
ner of the screen.
Where do you want a submenu to appear when you
click on it's menu item? The default is to
place the title under the cursor, but if you
want it where the position arguments say, use
the SelectInPlace option. If you want the
pointer on the title of the menu, use Select
Warp too.
The pointer is warped to the title of a sub
menu whenever the pointer would be on an item
when the submenu is popped up ("fvwm" menu
style) or never warped to thetitle at all
("mwm" or "win" menu styles). You can force
(forbid) warping whenever the submenu is
opened with the WarpTitle (NoWarp) option.
Note that the special-options do work with a
normal menu that has no other position argu
ments.
MenuStyle stylename options
Sets a new menu style or changes a previously
defined style. The stylename is the style name; if
it contains spaces or tabs it has to be quoted. The
name "*" is reserved for the default menu style.
The default menu style is used for every menu-like
object (e.g. the window created by the WindowList
command) that had not be assigned a style using the
ChangeMenuStyle. See also DestroyMenuStyle. When
using monochrome color options are ignored.
options is a comma separated list containing some
of the keywords FVWM/MWM/WIN, Foreground, Back
ground, Greyed, HilightBack/HilightBackOff, Active
Fore/ActiveForeOff,
Hilight3DThick/Hilight3DThin/Hilight3DOff, Anima
tion/AnimationOff, Font, MenuFace, PopupDelay, Pop
upOffset, TitleWarp/TitleWarpOff, TitleUnder
lines0/TitleUnderlines1/TitleUnderlines2, Separa
torsLong/SeparatorsShort, TrianglesSolid/Trian
glesRelief, PopupImmediately/PopupDelayed, Dou
bleClickTime, SidePic, SideColor.
In the above list some options are listed as option
pairs or triples with a / in between. These options
exclude each other.
FVWM, MWM, WIN reset all options to the style with
the same name in former versions of fvwm2. The
default for new menu styles is FVWM style. These
options override all others except Foreground,
Background, Greyed, HilightBack, HilightFore and
PopupDelay, so they should be used only as the
first option specified for a menu style or to reset
the style to defined bahavior. The same effect can
be created by setting all the other options one by
one.
MWM and WIN style menus popup sub-menus automati
cally. WIN menus indicate the current menu item by
changing the background to dark. FVWM sub-menus
overlap the parent menu, MWM and WIN style menus
never overlap the parent menu.
FVWM style is equivalent to HilightBackOff,
Hilight3DThin, ActiveForeOff, AnimationOff, Font,
MenuFace, PopupOffset 0 67, TitleWarp, TitleUnder
lines1, SeparatorsShort, TriangleRelief, PopupDe
layed.
MWM style is equivalent to HilightBackOff,
Hilight3DThick, ActiveForeOff, AnimationOff, Font,
MenuFace, PopupOffset -3 100, TitleWarpOff, Title
Underlines2, SeparatorsLong, TriangleRelief, Pop
upImmediately.
WIN style is equivalent to HilightBack,
Hilight3DOff, ActiveForeOff, AnimationOff, Font,
MenuFace, PopupOffset -5 100, TitleWarpOff, Title
Underlines1, SeparatorsShort, TriangleSolid, Pop
upImmediately.
Foreground and Background may have a color name as
an argument. This color is used for menu text or
the menu's background. You can omit the color name
to reset these colors to the built in default.
Greyed may have a color name as an argument. This
color is the one used to draw a menu-selection
which is prohibited (or not recommended) by the
mwm-hints which an application has specified. If
the color is omitted the color of "greyed" menu
entries is based on the background color of the
menu.
HilightBack and HilightBackOff switch hilighting
the background of the selected menu item on and
off. A specific background color may be used by
providing the color name as an argument to Hilight
Back. If you use this option without an argument
the color is based on the menu's background color.
ActiveFore and ActiveForeOff switch hilighting the
foreground of the selected menu item on and off. A
specific foreground color may be used by providing
the color name as an argument to ActiveFore. Omit
ting the color name has the same effet as using
ActiveForeOff.
Hilight3DThick, Hilight3DThin and Hilight3DOff
determine if the selected menu item is hilighted
with a 3D relief. Thick reliefs are two pixels
wide, thin reliefs are one pixel wide.
Animation and AnimationOff turn menu animation on
or off. When animation is on, sub-menus that don't
fit on the screen cause the parent menu to be
shifted to the left so the sub-menu can be seen.
Font takes a font name as an argument. If a font by
this name exists it is used for the text of all
menu items. If it does not exist or if the name is
left blank the built in default is used.
MenuFace enforces a fancy background upon the
menus. You can use the same options for MenuFace as
for ButtonStyle plus DGradient, (top-left to down-
right) and BGradient (down-left to top-right). See
ButtonStyle for more info. If you use MenuFace
without arguments the style is reverted back to
normal.
Some examples of MenuFaces are:
MenuFace DGradient 128 2 lightgrey 50 blue 50 white
MenuFace TiledPixmap texture10.xpm
MenuFace HGradient 128 2 Red 40 Maroon 60 White
MenuFace Solid Maroon
If you encounter performance problems with gradient
backgrounds you can try one or all of the follow
ing:
Turn Hilighting of the active menu item other than
forground color off:
MenuStyle <stylename> Hilight3DOff, HilightBackOff
MenuStyle ActiveFore <preferred color>
Make sure submenus do not overlap the parent menu.
This can prevent menus being redrawn every time a
submenu pops up or down.
MenuStyle <stylename> PopupOffset 1 100
Run you X server with backing storage. If your
Xserver is started with the -bs option, turn it
off. If not try the -wm option.
startx -- -wm
You may have to adapt this example to your system
(e.g. if you use xinit to start X).
PopupDelay requires one numeric argument. This
value is the delay in milliseconds before a sub-
menu is popped up when the pointer moves over a
menu item that has a sub-menu. If the value is zero
no automatical pop up is done. If the argument is
omitted the built in default is used. Note that the
popup delay has no effect if the PopupImmediately
option is used since sub-menus pop up immediately
then. The PopupDelay option should only be applied
to the default style ('*') since it is a global
setting and affects all menus.
PopupImmediately makes menu items with sub menus
pop up it up as soon as the pointer enters the
item. The PopupDelay is ignored then. If PopupDe
layed is used fvwm2 looks at the PopupDelay option
if or when this automatic popup happens.
PopupOffset requires two integer arguments. Both
values affect where sub-menus are placed relative
to the parent menu. If both values are zero, the
left edge of the sub-menu overlaps the left edge of
the parent menu. If the first value is non-zero the
sub-menu is shifted that many pixels to the right
(or left if negative). If the second value is non-
zero the menu is moved by that many percent of the
parent menu's width to the right or left.
TitleWarp and TitleWarpOff affect if the pointer
warps to the menu title when a sub-menu is opened
or not. Not that regardless of this setting the
pointer will not be warped if the menu does not pop
up under the pointer.
TitleUnderlines0, TitleUnderlines1 and TitleUnder
lines2 specify how many lines are drawn below a
menu title.
SeparatorsLong and SeparatorsShort set the length
of menu separators. Long separators run from the
left edge all the way to the right edge. Short sep
arators leave a few pixels to the edges of the
menu.
TrianglesSolid and TrianglesRelief affect how the
small triangles for sub-menus is drawn. Solid tri
angles are filled with a color while relief trian
gles are hollow.
DoubleClickTime requires one numeric argument. This
value is the time in milliseconds between two mouse
clicks in a menu to be considered as a double
click. The default is 450 milliseconds. If the
argument is omitted the doucle click time is reset
to this default. The DoubleClickTime option should
only be applied to the default style ('*') since it
is a global setting and affects all menus.
SidePic takes the name of an xpm or bitmap file as
an argument. The picture is drawn along the left
side of the menu. The SidePic option can be over
ridden by a menu specific side pixmap (see
AddToMenu). If the file name is omitted an existing
side pixmap is remove from the menu style.
SideColor takes the name of an X11 color as an
argument. This color is used to colorize the column
containing the side picture (see above). The Side
Color option can be overridden by a menu specific
side color (see AddToMenu). If the color name is
omitted the side color option is switched off.
Examples:
MenuStyle * mwm
MenuStyle * Foreground Black, Background gray40
MenuStyle * Greyed gray70, ActiveFore White
MenuStyle * HilightBackOff, Hilight3DOff
MenuStyle * Font lucidasanstypewriter-14
MenuStyle * MenuFace DGradient 64 darkgray MidnightBlue
MenuStyle gred mwm
MenuStyle gred Foreground Yellow, Background Maroon
MenuStyle gred Greyed Red, ActiveFore Red
MenuStyle gred HilightBackOff, Hilight3DOff
MenuStyle gred Font lucidasanstypewriter-12
MenuStyle gred MenuFace DGradient 64 Red Black
Note that all style options could be placed on a
single line for each style name.
MenuStyle forecolor backcolor shadecolor font style [ anim
]
This is the old syntax of the MenuStyle command. It
is obsolete and may be removed in the future.
Please use the new syntax as described above.
Sets the menu style. When using monochrome the
colors are ignored. The shade-color is the one
used to draw a menu-selection which is prohibited
(or not recommended) by the mwm-hints which an
application has specified. The style option is
either "fvwm" "mwm" or "win", which changes the
appearance and operation of the menus and where the
feedback window appears during resizes and moves.
"mwm" and "win" style menus popup sub-menus auto
matically. "win" menus indicate the current menu
item by changing the background to black. "fvwm"
sub-menus overlap the parent menu, "mwm" and "win"
style menus never overlap the parent menu. "mwm"
resize and move feedback windows are in the center
of the screen, instead of the upper left corner.
The "anim" option is either "anim" or blank. When
this option is "anim", sub-menus that don't fit on
the screen cause the parent menu to be shifted to
the left so the sub-menu can be seen.
See also SetAnimation command.
Module ModuleName
Specifies a module which should be spawned during
initialization. At the current time the available
modules (included with fvwm) are FvwmAnimate (fancy
animation of (de)iconification) FvwmAudio (makes
sounds to go with window manager actions), FvwmAuto
(an auto raise module), FvwmBacker (to change the
background when you change desktops), FvwmBanner
(to display a spiffy XPM), FvwmButtons (brings up a
customizable tool bar), FvwmCpp (to preprocess your
.fvwm2rc with cpp), FvwmEvent (trigger various
actions by events), FvwmForm (to bring up dialogs),
FvwmIconBox (like the mwm IconBox), FvwmIconMan
(like the twm icon manager), FvwmIdent (to get win
dow info), FvwmM4 (to preprocess your .fvwm2rc with
m4), FvwmPager (a mini version of the desktop),
FvwmSave (saves the desktop state in .xinitrc
style), FvwmSaveDesk (saves the desktop state in
fvwm commands), FvwmScroll (puts scrollbars on any
window), FvwmTalk (to interactively run fvwm com
mands), and FvwmWinList (a window list), FvwmAni
mate (produces animation effects when a window is
iconified or deiconifed). These modules have their
own man pages. There are 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 will be terminated by the
window manager prior to restarts and quits, if pos
sible. See the introductory section on modules.
The keyword "module" may be omitted if ModuleName
is distinct from all built-in and function names.
ModulePath
Specifies a colon separated list of paths for fvwm
to search when looking for a module to load. Indi
vidual directories do not need trailing slashes.
Environment variables can be used here as well
(i.e. $HOME or ${HOME}). The builtin module path
is available via the environment variable
$FVWM_MODULEDIR.
Mouse Button Context Modifiers Function
Defines a mouse binding, or removes the binding if
Function is zero then any button will perform the
specified function. Context describes where the
binding applies. Valid contexts are R for the root
window, W for an application window, T for a window
title bar, S for a window side, top, or bottom bar,
F for a window frame (the corners), I for an Icon
window, or 0 through 9 for title-bar buttons, or
any combination of these letters. A is for any
context except for title-bar buttons. For
instance, a context of FST will apply when the
mouse is anywhere in a window's border except the
title-bar buttons.
Modifiers is any combination of N for no modifiers,
C for control, S for shift, M for Meta, or A for
any modifier. For example, a modifier of SM will
apply when both the Meta and Shift keys are down.
X11 modifiers mod1 through mod5 are represented as
the digits 1 through 5.
Function is one of fvwm's built-in functions.
The title bar buttons are numbered with odd num
bered buttons on the left side of the title bar and
even numbers on the right. Smaller-numbered but
tons 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 sum
mary, 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 or right side
buttons which are drawn. Actions can be bound to
either mouse buttons or keyboard keys.
Move [ x y [ Warp ] ]
Allows the user to move a window. If called from
somewhere in a window or its border, then that
window will be moved. If called from the root win
dow then the user will be allowed to select the
target window. If the optional argument Warp is
specified the pointer is warped with the window.
The operation can be aborted with Escape or by
pressing any mouse button (except button 1 which
confirms the move).
If the optional arguments x and y are provided,
then the window will be moved immediately without
user interaction. Each argument can specify an
absolute or relative position from either the left
(top) or right (bottom) of the screen. By default,
the numeric value given is interpreted as a per
centage of the screen width (height), but a trail
ing "p" changes the interpretation to mean "pix
els".
Simple Examples:
# Interactive move
Mouse 1 T A Move
# Move window so 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 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
See also the "AnimatedMove" command, above.
MoveToDesk arg1 [ arg2 ] [ min max ]
Moves the selected window to another desktop
(workspace, room).
The arguments are the same as for the Desk command.
MoveToDesk is a replacement for the old WindowsDesk
command, which can no longer be used.
MoveToPage [ x y ]
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. 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 com
mand. 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).
Next (conditions) command
Performs command (typically Focus) on the next win
dow which satisfies all conditions. Conditions are
the same as for Current with the addition of Circu
lateHit which overrides the CirculateSkip style
attribute and CirculateHitIcon which overrides the
CirculateSkipIcon style attribute for iconified
windows.
None (conditions) command
Performs command if no window which satisfies all
conditions exists. Conditions are the same as for
Next.
Nop Does nothing. This is used to insert a blank line
or separator in a menu. If the menu item specifi
cation is 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.
OpaqueMoveSize percentage
Tells fvwm the maximum size window with which
opaque window movement should be used. The per
centage is percent of the total screen area. With
"OpaqueMoveSize 0" all windows will be moved using
the traditional rubber-band outline. With "Opaque
MoveSize 100" all windows will be move as solid
windows. The default is "OpaqueMoveSize 5", which
allows small windows to be moved in an opaque man
ner but large windows are moved as rubber-bands.
PipeRead cmd option
Causes fvwm to read commands output from the pro
gram named cmd. Useful for building up dynamic
menu entries based on a directories contents, for
example.
PixmapPath path
Specifies a colon separated list of full path names
of directories where pixmap (color) icons can be
found. Each path should start with a slash. Envi
ronment variables can be used here as well (i.e.
$HOME or ${HOME}).
Popup PopupName [ position ] [ default-action ]
This built-in has two purposes: to bind a menu to a
key or mouse button, and to bind a sub-menu into a
menu. The formats for the two purposes differ
slightly. The position arguments are the same as
for Menu. The command default-action will be
invoked if the user clicks a button to invoke the
menu and releases it immediately again (or hits the
key rapidly twice if the menu is bound to a key).
To bind a previously defined pop-up menu to a key
or mouse button:
The following example binds mouse buttons 2 and 3
to a pop-up called "Window Ops". The menu will
pop up if the buttons 2 or 3 are pressed in the
window frame, side-bar, or title-bar, with no
modifiers (none of shift, control, or meta).
Mouse 2 FST N Popup "Window Ops"
Mouse 3 FST N Popup "Window Ops"
Pop-ups can be bound to keys through the use of
the Key built in. Pop-ups can be operated with
out using the mouse by binding to keys and oper
ating via the up arrow, down arrow, and enter
keys.
To bind a previously defined pop-up menu to another
menu, for use as a sub-menu:
The following example defines a sub menu, "Quit-
Verify" and binds it into a main menu, called
"RootMenu":
AddToMenu Quit-Verify
+ "Really Quit Fvwm?" Title
+ "Yes, Really Quit" Quit
+ "Restart Fvwm2" Restart fvwm2
+ "Restart Fvwm 1.xx" Restart fvwm
+ "" Nop
+ "No, Don't Quit" Nop
AddToMenu RootMenu "Root Menu" Title
+ "Open XTerm Window" Popup NewWindowMenu
+ "Login as Root" Exec exec xterm \
-fg green -T Root \
-n Root -e su -
+ "Login as Anyone" Popup AnyoneMenu
+ "Remote Hosts" Popup HostMenu
+ "" Nop
+ "X utilities" Popup Xutils
+ "" Nop
+ "Fvwm Modules" Popup Module-Popup
+ "Fvwm Window Ops" Popup Window-Ops
+ "" Nop
+ "Previous Focus" Prev (*) Focus
+ "Next Focus" Next (*) Focus
+ "" Nop
+ "Refresh screen" Refresh
+ "Recapture screen" Recapture
+ "" Nop
+ "Reset X defaults" Exec xrdb -load \
$HOME/.Xdefaults
+ "" Nop
+ "" Nop
+ "Quit" Popup Quit-Verify
Popup differs from Menu in that pop-ups do not stay
up if the user simply clicks. These are Twm style
popup-menus, which are a little hard on the wrist.
Menu provides Motif or Microsoft-Windows style
menus which will stay up on a click action. See
menu for an explanation of the interactive
behaviour of menus.
Prev (conditions) command
Performs command (typically Focus) on the previous
window which satisfies all conditions. Conditions
are the same as for Next.
Quit Exits fvwm, generally causing X to exit too.
QuitScreen
Causes fvwm to stop managing the screen on which
the command was issued.
Raise Allows the user to raise a window.
RaiseLower
Alternately raises and lowers a window.
Read filename [ option ]
Causes fvwm to read commands from the file named
filename. If the option following the filename is
"Quiet", no message is produced if the file is not
found.
Recapture
Causes fvwm to recapture all of its windows. This
ensures that the latest style parameters will be
used. The recapture operation is visually disturb
ing.
Refresh
Causes all windows on the screen to redraw them
selves.
RefreshWindow
Causes current (or chosen) window to redraw itself.
Resize [ x y ]
Allows the user to resize a window. If called from
somewhere in a window or its border, then that win
dow will be resized. If called from the root win
dow then the user will be allowed to select the
target window.
The operation can be aborted with Escape or by
pressing any mouse button (except button 1 which
confirms the resize).
If the optional arguments x and y are provided,
then the window will be resized so that its dimen
sions are x by y). The units of x and y are per
cent-of-screen, unless a letter "p" is appended to
each coordinate, in which case the location is
specified in pixels.
Restart WindowManagerName
Causes fvwm to restart itself if WindowManagerName
is "fvwm2", or to switch to an alternate window
manager if WindowManagerName is other than "fvwm2".
If the window manager is not in your default search
path, then you should use the full path name for
WindowManagerName.
This command should not have a trailing ampersand
or any command line arguments and should not make
use of any environmental variables. Of the follow
ing examples, the first two are sure losers, but
the third is OK:
Key F1 R N Restart fvwm &
Key F1 R N Restart $(HOME)/bin/fvwm
Key F1 R N Restart /home/nation/bin/fvwm
Scroll horizonal vertical
Scrolls the virtual desktop's viewport by horizon
tal pages in the x-direction and vertical pages in
the y-direction. 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 left by one full page.
"Scroll 50 25" means to scroll left 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 mul
tiplied by 1000 then scrolling will wrap around at
the edge of the desktop. If "Scroll 100000 0" is
executed over and over fvwm will move to the next
desktop page on each execution and will wrap 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 will be measured in pixels.
SendToModule modulename string
Sends an arbitrary string (no quotes required) to
all modules 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 commu
nication, or implementation of more complex com
mands in modules.
SetAnimation milliseconds-delay [ fractions-to-move-list ]
Sets the time between frames and the list of frac
tional offsets to customize the animated moves of
the AnimatedMove command and the animation of menus
(if the menu style is set to animated). 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 dif
ference between the starting location and the end
ing 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 10ms, and sets the
positions of the 16 frames of the animation motion.
Notice that 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.
SetEnv varname stringvalue
Set an environment variable to a new value, similar
to shell's export or setenv command. The variable
and its value are inherited by processes started
directly by fvwm2. This can be especially useful
in conjunction with the FvwmM4 module; e.g.
"SetEnv height HEIGHT" will make the FvwmM4-set
variable "HEIGHT" usable by processes started by
fvwm2 as the environment variable "$height". If
stringvalue includes whitespace, you should enclose
it in quotes.
SnapAttraction proximity [ behavior ]
If during an interactive move the window (or icon)
comes within proximity pixels of another the window
(or icon) will be moved to make the borders adjoin.
The default of -1 means that no snapping will hap
pen. A setting of 0 does indeed snap when the dis
tance is zero pixels. This is relevant when the
SnapGrid command is used.
The behavior argument is optional and may be set to
one of the four following values:
With All both icons and windows snap to other win
dows and other icons.
SameType lets snap windows only to other windows
and icons only to other icons.
With Windows windows snap only to other windows.
Icons do not snap.
Similarly with Icons icons snap to only other icons
and windows do not snap.
The default SnapAttraction setting for behavior is
"All".
SnapGrid x-grid-size y-grid-size
During an interactive move a window (or icon) will
be positioned such that its location (top left cor
ner) will be coincindent with the nearest grid
point. The default x-grid-size and y-grid-size
setting are both 1, which is effectively no grid
all. An interactive move with both SnapGrid and
SnapAttraction in effect will result in the window
being moved to be adjacent to the nearest window
border (if within snap proximity) or grid position.
In other words, the window will move the shortest
distance possible to satisfy both SnapGrid and Sna
pAttraction. Note that the X and Y coordinates are
not coupled. For example, a window may snap to
another window on the X axis while snapping to a
grid point on the Y axis.
Stick Makes a window sticky if it is not already sticky,
or non-sticky if it is already sticky.
Style windowname options
This command is intended to replace the old fvwm
1.xx global commands NoBorder, NoTitle, StartsOn
Desk, Sticky, StaysOnTop, Icon, WindowListSkip,
CirculateSkip, SuppressIcons, BoundaryWidth,
NoBoundaryWidth, StdForeColor, and StdBackColor
with a single flexible and comprehensive window(s)
specific command. This command is used to set
attributes of a window to values other than the
default or to set the window manager default
styles.
windowname can be a window's name, class, or
resource string. It can contain the wildcards *
and/or ?, which are matched in the usual Unix file
name manner. They are searched in the reverse
order stated, so that Style commands based on the
name override or augment those based on the class,
which override or augment those based on the
resource string.
Note - windows that have no name (WM_NAME) are
given a name of "Untitled", and windows that don't
have a class (WM_CLASS, res_class) are given Class
= "NoClass" and those that don't have a resource
(WM_CLASS, res_name) are given Resource = "NoRe
source".
options is a comma separated list containing some
or all of the keywords BorderWidth, HandleWidth,
NoIcon/Icon, MiniIcon, IconBox, IconGrid, IconFill,
NoTitle/Title, NoHandles/Handles, WindowList
Skip/WindowListHit, CirculateSkip/CirculateHit,
StaysOnTop/StaysPut, Sticky/Slippery, StartI
conic/StartNormal, Color, ForeColor, BackColor,
StartsOnDesk/StartsOnPage/StartsAnyWhere, IconTi
tle/NoIconTitle, MWMButtons/FvwmButtons, MWMBor
der/FvwmBorder, MWMDecor/NoDecorHint, MWMFunc
tions/NoFuncHint, HintOverride/NoOverride, NoBut
ton/Button, OLDecor/NoOLDecor, StickyIcon/Slippery
Icon, SmartPlacement/DumbPlacement, RandomPlace
ment/ActivePlacement, DecorateTransient/NakedTran
sient, SkipMapping/ShowMapping, UseDecor, UseStyle,
NoPPosition/UsePPosition, Lenience/NoLenience,
ClickToFocus/SloppyFocus/MouseFocus|FocusFollows
Mouse.
In the above list some options are listed as style-
option/opposite-style-option. The opposite-style-
option for entries that have them describes the
fvwm default behavior and can be used if you want
to change the fvwm default behavior.
DecorateTransient causes transient windows, which
are normally left undecorated, to be given the
usual fvwm decorations (title bar, buttons, etc.).
Note that some pop-up windows, such as the xterm
menus, are not managed by the window manager and
still do not receive decorations. NakedTransient
(the default) causes transient windows not to be
given the standard decorations.
Icon takes an (optional) unquoted string argument
which is the icon bitmap or pixmap to use.
IconBox takes four numeric arguments or an X11
geometry string:
IconBox l t r b
or
IconBox geometry
Where l is the left coordinate, t is the top, r is
right and b is bottom. Negative coordinates indi
cate distance from the right or bottom of the
screen. Perhaps easier to use is an X11 Geometry
string:
IconBox -80x200-1-1
Which would place an 80 by 240 pixel iconbox in the
lower right hand corner of the screen. The iconbox
is a region of the screen where fvwm attempts to
put icons for any matching window, as long as they
do not overlap other icons. Multiple icon boxes
can be defined as overflow areas. When the first
icon box is filled, the second one is filled. All
the icon boxes for one style must be defined in one
command. For example:
Style "*" IconBox -80x200-1-1, \
IconBox 1000x70-1-1
IconGrid takes 2 numeric arguments greater than
zero.
IconGrid x y
Icons are placed in an icon box by stepping thru
the icon box using the x and y values for the icon
grid, looking for a free space. The default grid
is 3 by 3 pixels which gives a tightly packed
appearance. To get a more regular appearance use a
grid larger than your largest icon. Currently
there is no way to clip an icon to a maximum size.
An IconGrid definition must follow the IconBox def
inition that it applies to:
Style "*" IconBox -80x240-1-1, IconGrid 90 90
IconFill takes 2 arguments.
IconFill Bottom Right
Icons are placed in an icon box by stepping thru
the icon box using these arguments to control the
direction the box is filled in. By default the
direction is left to right, then top to bottom.
This would be expressed as:
IconFill left bottom
To fill an icon box in columns instead of rows,
specify the vertical direction (top or bottom)
first. The directions can be abbreviated or
spelled out as follows: "t", "top", "b", "bot",
"bottom", "l", "lft", "left", "r", "rgt", "right".
An IconFill definition must follow the IconBox def
inition that it applies to:
Style "*" IconBox -80x240-1-1, IconFill b r
MiniIcon specifies a pixmap to use as the miniature
icon for the window. This miniature icon can be
drawn in a title-bar button (see ButtonStyle), and
can be used by various fvwm modules (FvwmWinList,
FvwmIconMan, and FvwmTaskBar). It takes the name of
a pixmap as an argument.
StartsOnDesk takes a numeric argument which is the
desktop number on which the window should be ini
tially placed. Note that standard Xt programs can
also specify this via a resource (e.g. "-xrm
'*Desk: 1'").
StartsOnPage takes 1, 2, or 3 numeric arguments. If
one or three arguments are givem, the first (or
only) argument is the desktop number. If three
arguments are given, the 2nd and 3rd arguments
identify the x,y page position on the virtual win
dow. If two arguments are given, they specify the
page position, and indicate no desk preference. If
only one argument is given, StartsOnPage functions
exactly like StartsOnDesk. For those standard Xt
programs which understand this usage, the starting
desk/page can also be specified via a resource
(e.g., "-xrm 'Fvwm.Page: 1 0 2'").
StartsOnPage in conjunction with SkipMapping is a
useful technique when you want to start an app on
some other page and continue with what you were
doing, rather than waiting for it to appear.
StaysOnTop makes the window always try to stay on
top of the other windows. This might be handy for
clocks or mailboxes that you would always like to
be visible. If the window is explicitly lowered it
will not try to force its way back to the top until
it is explicitly raised. StaysPut (the default)
allows the window to be obscured and stay that way.
BorderWidth takes a numeric argument which is the
width of the border to place the window if it does
not have resize-handles.
HandleWidth takes a numeric argument which is the
width of the border to place the window if it does
have resize-handles.
Button and NoButton take a numeric argument which
is the number of the title-bar button which is to
be included/omitted.
StickyIcon makes the window sticky when its iconi
fied. It will deiconify on top the active desktop.
MWMButtons makes the Maximize button look pressed-
in when the window is maximized. See the MWMButton
flag in ButtonStyle for more information.
MWMBorder makes the 3-D bevel more closely match
mwm's.
MWMDecor makes fvwm attempt to recognize and
respect the mwm decoration hints that applications
occasionally use.
MWMFunctions makes fvwm attempt to recognize and
respect the mwm prohibited operations hints that
applications occasionally use. HintOverride makes
fvwm shade out operations that mwm would prohibit,
but it lets you perform the operation anyway.
OLDecor makes fvwm attempt to recognize and respect
the olwm and olvwm hints that many older XView and
OLIT applications use.
Color takes two arguments. The first is the win
dow-label text color and the second is the window
decoration's normal background color. The two col
ors are separated with a slash. If the use of a
slash causes problems then the separate ForeColor
and BackColor options can be used.
UseDecor accepts one argument: the name of a decor
created with AddToDecor. If UseDecor is not speci
fied, the "Default" decor is used. Windows do not
actually contain decors, but are always assigned to
one. If the decor is later modified with
AddToDecor, the changes will be visible for all
windows which are assigned to it. The decor for a
window can be reassigned with ChangeDecor.
UseStyle takes one arg, which is the name of
another style. That way you can have unrelated
window names easily inherit similar traits without
retyping. For example: 'Style "rxvt" UseStyle
"XTerm"'.
SkipMapping tells fvwm not to switch to the desk
the window is on when it gets mapped initially
(useful with StartsOnDesk or StartsOnPage).
Lenience instructs fvwm to ignore the convention in
the ICCCM which states that if an application sets
the input field of the wm_hints structure to False,
then it never wants the window manager to give it
the input focus. The only application that I know
of which needs this is sxpm, and that is a silly
bug with a trivial fix and has no overall effect on
the program anyway. Rumor is that some older
applications have problems too.
ClickToFocus instructs fvwm to give the focus to
the window when it is clicked in. The default
MouseFocus (or its alias FocusFollowsMouse) tells
fvwm to give the window the focus as soon as the
pointer enters the window, and take it away when
the pointer leaves the window. SloppyFocus is simi
lar, but doesn't give up the focus if the pointer
leaves the window to pass over the root window or a
ClickToFocus window (unless you click on it, that
is), which makes it possible to move the mouse out
of the way without losing focus.
NoPPosition instructs fvwm to ignore the PPosition
field when adding new windows. Adherence to the
PPosition field is required for some applications,
but if you don't have one of those its a real
headache.
RandomPlacement causes windows which would normally
require user placement to be automatically placed
in ever-so-slightly random locations. For the best
of all possible worlds use both RandomPlacement and
SmartPlacement.
SmartPlacement causes windows which would normally
require user placement to be automatically placed
in a smart location - a location in which they do
not overlap any other windows on the screen. If no
such position can be found user placement or random
placement (if specified) will be used as a fall-
back method. For the best of all possible worlds
use both RandomPlacement and SmartPlacement.
An example:
# Change default fvwm behavior to no title-
# bars on windows! Also define a default icon.
Style "*" NoTitle, \
Icon unknown1.xpm, \
BorderWidth 4, \
HandleWidth 5
# now, window specific changes:
Style "Fvwm*" NoHandles, Sticky, \
WindowListSkip, \
BorderWidth 0
Style "Fvwm Pager" StaysOnTop, BorderWidth 0
Style "*lock" NoHandles, Sticky, \
StaysOnTop, WindowListSkip
Style "xbiff" Sticky, WindowListSkip
Style "FvwmButtons" NoHandles, Sticky, \
WindowListSkip
Style "sxpm" NoHandles
Style "makerkit"
# Put title-bars back on xterms only!
Style "xterm" Title, Color black/grey
Style "rxvt" Icon term.xpm
Style "xterm" Icon rterm.xpm
Style "xcalc" Icon xcalc.xpm
Style "xbiff" Icon mail1.xpm
Style "xmh" Icon mail1.xpm, \
StartsOnDesk 2
Style "xman" Icon xman.xpm
Style "matlab" Icon math4.xpm, \
StartsOnDesk 3
Style "xmag" Icon magnifying_glass2.xpm
Style "xgraph" Icon graphs.xpm
Style "FvwmButtons" Icon toolbox.xpm
Style "Maker" StartsOnDesk 1
Style "signal" StartsOnDesk 3
# Fire up Netscape on the second desk, in the
# middle of my 3x3 virtual desktop, and don't
# bother me with it...
Style "Netscape*" SkipMapping, \
StartsOnPage 1 1 1
Note that all properties for a window will be OR'ed
together. In the above example "FvwmPager" gets
the property StaysOnTop via an exact window name
match but also gets NoHandles, Sticky, and Win
dowListSkip by a match to "Fvwm*". It will get
NoTitle by virtue of a match to "*". If conflict
ing styles are specified for a window, then the
last style specified will be used.
If the NoIcon attribute is set then the specified
window will simply disappear when it is iconified.
The window can be recovered through the window-
list. If Icon is set without an argument then the
NoIcon attribute is cleared but no icon is speci
fied. An example which allows only the FvwmPager
module icon to exist:
Style "*" NoIcon
Style "Fvwm Pager" Icon
Title Does nothing. This is used to insert a title line
in a popup or menu.
TitleStyle [ justification ] [ height num ]
Sets attributes for the title bar. Justifications
can be "Centered", "RightJustified," or "LeftJusti
fied." height sets the title bar's height to an
amount in pixels. Defaults are Centered and Win
dowFont height. The height parameter must be set
after a WindowFont command since WindowFont resets
the height to the default for the specified font.
Example:
TitleStyle LeftJustified Height 24
TitleStyle [ state ] [ style ] [ -- [!]flag ... ]
Sets the style for the title bar. state can be one
of "ActiveUp," "ActiveDown," or "Inactive." If
state is omitted, then the style is added to every
state. If parentheses are placed around the style
and flags, then multiple state definitions can be
given per line. style can be omitted so that flags
can be set while not destroying the current style.
If an "!" is prefixed to any flag, its behavior is
negated. Valid flags for each state include
"Raised," "Flat," and "Sunk" (these are mutually
exclusive). The default is Raised. See the note
in ButtonStyle regarding the ActiveDown state.
Examples:
TitleStyle ActiveUp HGradient 16 navy black
TitleStyle ActiveDown (Solid red -- flat) \
Inactive (TiledPixmap wood.xpm)
TitleStyle ActiveUp (-- Flat) ActiveDown \
(-- Raised) Inactive (-- Flat)
This sets the ActiveUp state to a horizontal gradi
ent, the ActiveDown state to solid red, and the
Inactive state to a tiled wood pixmap. Finally,
ActiveUp is set to look flat, while ActiveDown set
to be sunk (the Raised flag for the ActiveDown
state causes it to appear Sunk due to relief inver
sion), and Inactive is set to flat as well. An
example which sets flags for all states:
TitleStyle -- flat
For a flattened look:
TitleStyle -- flat
ButtonStyle All ActiveUp (-- flat) Inactive \
(-- flat)
UpdateDecor [ decor ]
Updates window decorations. decor is an optional
argument which specifies the decor to update. If
given, only windows which are assigned to that par
ticular decor will be updated. This command is
useful, for instance, after a ButtonStyle,
TitleStyle or BorderStyle (possibly used in con
junction with AddToDecor). Specifying an invalid
decor results in all windows being updated. This
command is less disturbing than Recapture, but does
not affect window style options as Recapture does.
Wait name
This built-in is intended to be used in fvwm func
tions only. It causes execution of a function to
pause until a new window name name appears. Fvwm
remains fully functional during a wait. This is
particularly useful in the InitFunction if you are
trying to start windows on specific desktops:
AddToFunc InitFunction
+ "I" exec xterm -geometry 80x64+0+0
+ "I" Wait xterm
+ "I" Desk 0 2
+ "I" Exec exec xmh -font fixed -geometry \
507x750+0+0
+ "I" Wait xmh
+ "I" Desk 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.
WarpToWindow x y
Warps the cursor to the associated window. 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).
WindowFont [ fontname ]
Makes fvwm use font fontname instead of "fixed" for
window title-bars. To reset this font to the
default font (see DefaultFont) you may omit font
name.
WindowId id func
The WindowId function is similar to the Next and
Prev funcs, except that it looks for a specific
window id and runs the specified func on it.
WindowId 0x34567890 Raise
WindowId 0x34567890 WarpToWindow 50 50
Mostly this is useful for functions used with the
WindowList builtin.
WindowList [ 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 cur
rently on the desk top are shown. The geometry of
iconified windows is shown in parenthesis. Select
ing an item from the window list pop-up menu will
by default cause the interpreted function Win
dowListFunc to be run with the window id of that
window passed in as $0. By default the WindowList
Func looks like this:
AddToFunc WindowListFunc
+ "I" WindowId $0 Iconify -1
+ "I" WindowId $0 FlipFocus
+ "I" WindowId $0 Raise
+ "I" WindowId $0 WarpToWindow 5p 5p
You can Destroy the builtin WindowListFunc and cre
ate your own if these defaults do not suit you.
The position arguments are the same as for Menu.
The command double-click-action will be 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:
Key Tab A M WindowList "Prev FlipFocus"
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.
The options passed to WindowList can be "NoGeome
try", "Function <funcname>", "Desk <desknum>",
"CurrentDesk", "NoIcons", "Icons", "OnlyIcons",
"NoNormal", "Normal", "OnlyNormal", "NoSticky",
"Sticky", "OnlySticky", "NoOnTop", "OnTop", "Only
OnTop", "NoDeskSort", "UseIconName", "Alphabetic",
"NotAlphabetic".
(Note - normal means not iconic, sticky, or ontop)
If you pass in a function via "Function <func
name>", $0 is the window id:
AddToFunc IFunc "I" WindowId $0 Iconify
WindowList Function IFunc, NoSticky, \
CurrentDesk, NoIcons
If you wanted to use the WindowList as an icon man
ager, you could invoke the following:
WindowList OnlyIcons, Sticky, OnTop, Geometry
(Note - the "Only" options essentially wipe out all
other ones...)
WindowsDesk arg1 [ arg2 ]
Moves the selected window to another desktop
(workspace, room).
This command has been removed and must be replaced
by MoveToDesk, the arguments for which are the same
as for the Desk command. Note: You cannot simply
change the name of the command: the syntax has
changed. If you used "WindowsDesk n" to move a win
dow to desk n, you will have to change it to
"MoveToDesk 0 n".
WindowShade [ opt ]
Toggles the window shade feature for titled win
dows. Windows in the shaded state only display a
title bar. If opt is not given, the window shade
state is toggled. If opt is 1, the window is
forced to the shaded state. If opt is 2, then the
window is forced to the non-shaded state. Maxi
mized windows and windows without titles cannot be
shaded.
XORvalue number
Changes the value with which bits are XOR'ed when
doing rubber-band window moving or resizing. Set
ting this value is a trial-and-error process.
+ Used to continue adding to the last specified
decor, function or menu. See the discussion for
AddToDecor, AddToFunc, and AddToMenu.
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
All (I think) window manager operations can be performed
from the keyboard so mouseless operation should be possi
ble. In addition to scrolling around the virtual desktop
by binding the Scroll built-in to appropriate keys, pop-
ups, move, resize, and most other built-ins can be bound
to keys. Once a built-in function is started the pointer
is moved by using the up, down, left, and right arrows,
and the action is terminated by pressing return. Holding
down the shift key will cause the pointer movement to go
in larger steps and holding down the control key will
cause the cursor movement to go in smaller steps. Stan
dard emacs and vi cursor movement controls (^n, ^p, ^f,
^b, and ^j, ^k, ^h, ^l) can be used instead of the arrow
keys.
SUPPLIED CONFIGURATION
A sample configuration file, .fvwm2rc, is supplied with
the fvwm distribution. It is well commented and can be
used as a source of examples for fvwm configuration.
USE ON MULTI-SCREEN DISPLAYS
If the -s command line argument is not given, fvwm will
automatically start up on every screen on the specified
display. After fvwm starts each screen is treated inde
pendently. Restarts of fvwm need to be performed sepa
rately on each screen. The use of EdgeScroll 0 0 is
strongly recommended for multi-screen displays.
You may need to quit on each screen to quit from the X
session completely.
ENVIRONMENT
DISPLAY
Fvwm starts on this display unless the -display
option is given.
FVWM_MODULEDIR
Set by fvwm to the directory containing the stan
dard fvwm modules.
BUGS
As of fvwm 2.2 there were exactly 46.144 unidentified
bugs. Identified bugs have mostly been fixed, though.
Since then 12.25 bugs have been fixed. Assuming that
there are at least 10 unidentified bugs for every identi
fied one, that leaves us with 46.144 - 12.25 + 10 * 12.25
= 156.395 unidentified bugs. If we follow this to its
logical conclusion we will have an infinite number of
unidentified bugs before the number of bugs can start to
diminish, at which point the program will be bug-free.
Since this is a computer program infinity = 3.4028e+38 if
you don't insist on double-precision. At the current rate
of bug discovery we should expect to achieve this point in
4.27e+27 years. I guess I better plan on passing this
thing on to my children....
Known bugs can be found in the BUGS file in the distribu
tion, in the fvwm bug tracking system (accessible from the
fvwm home page) and in the TO-DO list.
Bug reports can be sent to the FVWM workers' mailing list
(see the FAQ).
AUTHOR
Robert Nation with help from many people, based on twm
code, which was written by Tom LaStrange. After Robert
Nation came Charles Hines, followed by Brady Montz. Cur
rently fvwm is maintained by a number of people on the
fvwm-workers mailing list (Dan Espen, Steve Robbins, Paul
Smith, Jason Tibbitts, Dominik Vogt, Bob Woodside and oth
ers).
The official FVWM homepage is http://www.fvwm.org/.
late 20th century FVWM(2.xx)
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