This is the WeeWM documentation, a window manager for XFree. It was generated from a .texi file (texinfo format) available with the WeeWM sources and in all the package available. We are using this format to make this documentation easily adaptable to the various output formats.
For the moment, Nicolas "Bounga" C. is the maintainer of this documentation. You can contact him at this address: bounga@altern.org. So feel free to contact him for all the question in touch with the WeeWM documentation. You can, as well, try to get in touch with him on irc.freenode.net, #weewm channel (Nick: Bounga). Nicolas maintains the english and french version of this documentation.
Contributions / suggestions: Obviously, we accept the suggestions about the documentations if this one is well write. Particularly about the subjects that are not handled here. As well, translations are welcome. For example, we need the most common languages (Italian, Spanish, German, etc). If you have any question on the way to help or if you have documentation that you want to give to us, you just have to send an email to the address given before.
WeeWM is a window manager for XFree that is designed to be very fast
and light.
All can be done on the keyboard. Fully customisable, it handles the
dock, the smart windows placement, the virtual desktops,
and a lot more...
Done:
Under development:
WeeWM takes the following options from the command line:
weewm [ -cdfhklmov ] [long-options]
-c, --config
-d, --display
-f, --font
-h, --help
-k, --keys
-l, --licence
-m, --list-commands
-o, --list-options
-v, --version
Even if WeeWM is easy to use and to configure, it is possible that some questions or problems subsist. First of all, before coming on the mailing lists or on the WeeWM IRC channel to ask your question, don't forget to read the FAQ available with the sources.
A lot of WeeWM binary package are or will be available for the most common distributions. Those package should help you to install WeeWM. However, you might need for a reason or another to compile the source code. For example, the most recent version of WeeWM could not be available in binary package. You could also want to compile WeeWM with certain options that are not set in the binary packages.
This part of the documentation should allow to the beginners to be able to compile and to install the WeeWM window manager.
You must have these programs correctly installed in order to run WeeWM:
You can download a source code package (recommended) or retrieve CVS base.
Download the source package, following on of these two links:
WARNING! CVS sources may be unstable and may not compile!
Create an empty directory "weewm" where you want, go into this directory and issue these commands:
cvs -d:pserver:anoncvs@subversions.gnu.org:/cvsroot/weewm login
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anoncvs@subversions.gnu.org:/cvsroot/weewm co weewm
To extract the archive, depending on the file you get, issue one of the two following commands:
tar xvzf weewm-x.y.z.tar.gz
tar xvjf weewm-x.y.z.tar.bz2
where x.y.z is the version (for example 0.1.2)
Then, go into the directory with the source code and issue this command:
make
So your source code is now compiled.
Then, as root user:
make install
will install the files in the good directories.
Issue this command as root user:
dpkg -i weewm_x.y.z_i386.deb
You can create a .deb package yourself as well using the source
code. To do this, you just have to go in the directory where is the
source code and do:
debuild -rfakeroot -sd
A file named weewm_x.y.z_i386.deb should be available in the parent directory.
An apt repository is also available to you. To take advantage of this
feature, you have to add the following line to your
/etc/apt/sources.list file:
deb http://apt.bounga.ath.cx/ unstable main
After what, as root, you can type the following commands:
apt-get update
apt-get install weewm
With this method, the upgrade is really easier. Indeed, when a new
version of WeeWM will be out, you will just have to do:
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
to upgrade to the new version.
Issue this command as root user:
rpm -i weewm_x.y.z-i386.rpm
*** Not developed! ***
*** Not developed! ***
*** Not developed! ***
*** Not developed! ***
Now that the installation has been successful, you have to start WeeWM.
There is generally two ways to start X (so WeeWM). The traditional way is to use the startx command. The other way is to use a graphical login display (as gdm, xdm or kdm).
If X is started with the traditional way (with startx), the important file is named .xinitrc and is located in your home directory. If you start X with a graphical login display, the file is .Xsession and is located in your home directory too.
The following step is to find the WeeWM binary. For most of the users,
it's located in /usr/bin/weewm. Now, you have to edit (or create) the
file mentioned before. You just have to add this line:
exec /usr/bin/weewm
Edit the path /usr/bin/weewm to put the good path of WeeWM on your system. If you don't find it, trying type weewm should give you the answer. When this step is done, you can save the file and close your editor.
If you start XFree doing startx, you have to make you ~/.xinitrc
executable, so you have to type:
chmod 700 ~/.xinitrc
If you're using a graphical login display, you don't have to do it.
You can now start WeeWM by doing:
startx
General options are stored in the config.rc file
(default: $HOME/.weewm/config.rc).
You can modify the available option values in this file to make WeeWM
correspond to your wishes.
Detail of options:
border
space
desktops
minwidth
minheight
move_offset
color.border.active
color.border.inactive
color.sticky
info.width
info.height
dock.use
dock.size
dock.position
dock.align
Here is an extract from the config.rc file example given with the WeeWM package. You can find the full version in the /usr/share/doc/weewm/examples/ directory.
border 1
space 1
desktops 5
minwidth 15
minheight 15
move_offset 16
color.border.active green
color.border.inactive black
color.sticky blue
info.width 100
info.height 50
dock.use 1
dock.size 64
dock.position 2
dock.align 0
Key bindings are stored in the keys.rc file (default: $HOME/.weewm/keys.rc). This file will allow you to choose which keys combination will launch a defined command.
Detail of key bindings:
All key names can be found in file
/usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h (key names without "XK_" prefix)
Modifiers are:
- "Mod1": alt key
- "Mod4": windows key
- "Control": control key
- "Shift": shift key
Detail of WeeWM internal commands for key bindings:
next_win
prev_win
pos_top_left
pos_top
pos_top_right
pos_left
pos_center
pos_right
pos_bottom_left
pos_bottom
pos_bottom_right
move_win_left
move_win_right
move_win_up
move_win_down
prev_desktop
next_desktop
desktop[1-256]
send_prev_desktop
send_next_desktop
win_max_horizontal
win_max_vertical
win_max
win_fix
win_memo_pos
win_memo_desktop
win_forget_pos
win_forget_desktop
win_kill
reconfigure
quit
Here is an extract from the example file given with the WeeWM package. You can find the full version in the /usr/share/doc/weewm/examples/ directory.
Mod1|Control Left prev_desktop
Mod1|Control Right next_desktop
Mod4 Left send_prev_desktop
Mod4 Right send_next_desktop
Mod4 F1 desktop_1
Mod4 F2 desktop_2
Mod4|Shift Up pos_top
Mod4|Shift Down pos_bottom
Mod4|Shift Left pos_left
Mod4|Shift Right pos_right
Mod1|Control Escape quit
Mod4 Return run aterm 0 7913 xterm
Mod4 c run1 xclock 1 0 xclock
In this example, we have:
Mod1|Control Left prev_desktop
so using the keys Mod1 + Control (Mod1|Control) + left arrow key
(Left) will show us the previous desktop (prev_desktop).
Mod4 Return run aterm 0 7913 xterm
will launch ("run" parameter) an aterm terminal to a given position.
If you're searching for a key name, you could use xev to find it. For example, you want to know the name of the "right arrow" key. So launch xev, go to the new window and press the "right arrow" key. You should see something like this in you terminal:
KeyPress event, serial 24, synthetic NO, window 0xa00001,
root 0x3e, subw 0x0, time 11617881, (122,71), root:(126,88),
state 0x0, keycode 102 (keysym 0xff53, Right), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 characters: ""
The interesting part is: keycode 102 (keysym 0xff53, Right) where we can see the keyword "Right". So the name of the key we were searching for is "Right".
First of all, you have to know that the backgrounds and the wallpapers are not handle by WeeWM itself but by an external software. We will introduce here the most well-known and we will explain how to use it the basic way.
xsetroot:
xsetroot is a background software include in the XFree package. It can
handle basic backgrounds like a plain color background. It can handle
a bitmap image too. For more information about this software, see its
manual (man xsetroot).
Esetroot:
Esetroot as for him is more dedicated to handle wallpapers and
transparency. Indeed, if you load your wallpaper using Esetroot and
that you're using the Eterm terminal emulator, you will be able to
activate the transparency for this one. To display a wallpaper on the
whole screen, you just have to do Esetroot -f your_file.png.
To automate the loading of your favourite wallpaper when you start WeeWM, you can for example add this line (if you don't use a graphical login display):
Esetroot -f /path/to/my/image.png
at the end of your ~/.xinitrc file
You need to know that a window manager is a software for X like mozilla, gimp or aterm. We can think that X starts a window manager and that's the softwares are launch by the window manager. However, in fact, the things aren't like this. It is XFree that launch the softwares and the window manager, as its name indicates it, does nothing more than managing the windows. You can, for example start a windows manager, launch your softwares, then kill the window manager and start another one, then continue to work.
When X is started, it reads your .xinitrc or .xsession script. Once that the whole of the orders of this file have finishes their execution, X shutdowns. And it's not the fact of quitting the window manager that makes X shutdowns as we can think.
To understand the following, you need to have some basic knowledges about the shell. For example, when you enter a command in a shell, you can't do another thing in this shell before that the first command has end-up. The scripts (and so .xinitrc or .xsession) has the same behaviour.
Obviously, there is a way to launch a command in a shell and to immediately regain the hand. This method will allow you to launch automatically some softwares that you want on the X startup. Those softwares must be put on the background. We can do that, adding a "&" at the end of the command line. Thus, if you want that xclock runs at every XFree starting, add this line to your .xinitrc :
xclock &
When all the commands that you want to automatically launch are added, you can go to the window manager starting step. To do this, we will use the exec command.
A .xinitrc example file could be :
# we start some softwares
xmms &
gkrellm -w &
idesk &
# then we start our window manager
exec weewm
The debugging process can appear as a reserved task for developer but you can easily acquire the basis. Two good addresses to learn to do a good bug report are : http://www.mozilla.org/quality/bug-writing-guidelines.html and http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html.
Informations that you must absolutely transmit to us when you write us a bug report bug are mainly :
- Your OS / distribution and its version.
- WeeWM version, and if it's a CVS (or development tarball), its date
- When does it happen ? Have you done something particular ? Can you reproduce it ?
- Your settings. It can be found in ~/.weewm/
If a crash has happen while you were using WeeWM and that you've got a core-dump, you should come on #weewm channel on irc.freenode.net server and say to an op that you've got a problem and a core-dump. He should asks you some informations.
To get interesting informations using core-dumps, you must have a WeeWM version compiled with the appropriate options and that is not the case of the release versions that are offered on the website. So, you will have to compile WeeWM by yourself.
To compile WeeWM with the debugging capabilities, you will have to download the WeeWM code sources. When you will want to launch the "make" command, be sure to had the following options :
$ OPTIONS=-Wall -W -pedantic -pipe -O2 -g3 make
When the compilation is over, do this in your shell :
$ ulimit -c unlimited
it will enable the creation of core-dumps with unlimited size.
You can now start X and start the debugging. Try to reproduce the action that had crashed WeeWM the last time to get the core-dump. Then start the debugging :
$ gdb weewm core
Then type this command in gdb :
(gdb) where
A lot of messages should be printed. WeeWM developers will be involved by all the messages beginning with a #.
When you've got all of this, you can send an e-mail describing the way to crash WeeWM, the messages that you've just get and your WeeWM configuration files available in ~/.weewm/.
Please don't delete your core file and the sources directory of WeeWM immediately. The developers should ask you some other details and you will probably have to use this files. Don't send any file to the developers without having exposed your problem to them. You can do this on the IRC channel, or by IM (AIM, ICQ, Jabber) with one of them. Your problem could be specific to your system, so it will probably be useless for the developers to have your core file that is, in most case, really huge.
Before reporting a bug, be sure to check if the problem has not been already report. To know if it has been report you can look at the BUGS file in the last source package or on the CVS.
If you've find a new bug, please submit it to this webpage :
http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?func=addbug&group=weewm
WeeWM is written by:
Support with IRC:
- server: irc.freenode.net
- channel: #weewm
WeeWM forum: http://forums.flashtux.org
Support with mailing list:
You can subscribe and use the users mailing list for weewm support:
- to subscribe: please visit http://mail.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/weewm-support
- to send a mail to all subscribers: send mail to weewm-support@nongnu.org
Or you can contact developers, See Authors.