CTWM(1)CTWM(1)NAMEctwm - Claude's Tab Window Manager for the X Window System
SYNTAXctwm [-display dpy] [-s] [-cfgchk] [-f initfile] [-v] [-n] [-k] [-K
m4file] [-w [win-id]]
DESCRIPTIONctwm is a window manager for the X Window System. It provides title‐
bars, shaped windows, virtual screens (workspaces), several forms of
icon management, user-defined macro functions, click-to-type and
pointer-driven keyboard focus, and user-specified key and pointer but‐
ton bindings. It is actually twm(1) (Tab Window Manager) from the MIT
X11 distribution slightly modified to accommodate the use of several
virtual screens (workspaces). It is heavily inspired from the
Hewlett-Packard vuewm window manager. In addition, ctwm can use
coloured, shaped icons and background root pixmaps in XPM format [from
Arnaud Le Hors], any format understood by the imconv package [from the
San Diego Supercomputer Center], and xwd files. ctwm can be compiled to
use both, either or none of the above icon/pixmap formats.
This program is usually started by the user's session manager or
startup script. When used from xdm(1) or xinit(1) without a session
manager, ctwm is frequently executed in the foreground as the last
client. When run this way, exiting ctwm causes the session to be ter‐
minated (i.e. logged out).
By default, application windows are surrounded by a ‘frame’ with a
titlebar at the top and a special border around the window. The title‐
bar contains the window's name, a rectangle that is lit when the window
is receiving keyboard input, and function boxes known as ‘titlebuttons’
at the left and right edges of the titlebar.
Pressing pointer Button1 (usually the left-most button unless it has
been changed with xmodmap) on a titlebutton will invoke the function
associated with the button. In the default interface, windows are
iconified by clicking (pressing and then immediately releasing) the
left titlebutton (which looks like a Dot). Conversely, windows are
deiconified by clicking in the associated icon or entry in the icon
manager (see description of the variable ShowIconManager and of the
function f.showiconmgr).
Windows are resized by pressing the right titlebutton (which resembles
a group of nested squares), dragging the pointer over edge that is to
be moved, and releasing the pointer when the outline of the window is
the desired size. Similarly, windows are moved by pressing in the
title or highlight region, dragging a window outline to the new loca‐
tion, and then releasing when the outline is in the desired position.
Just clicking in the title or highlight region raises the window with‐
out moving it.
When new windows are created, ctwm will honor any size and location
information requested by the user (usually through -geometry command
line argument or resources for the individual applications). Other‐
wise, an outline of the window's default size, its titlebar, and lines
dividing the window into a 3x3 grid that track the pointer are dis‐
played. Clicking pointer Button1 will position the window at the cur‐
rent position and give it the default size. Pressing pointer Button2
(usually the middle pointer button) and dragging the outline will give
the window its current position but allow the sides to be resized as
described above. Clicking pointer Button3 (usually the right pointer
button) will give the window its current position but attempt to make
it long enough to touch the bottom the screen.
OPTIONSctwm accepts the following command line options:
-display dpy
This option specifies the X server to use.
-s This option indicates that only the default screen (as speci‐
fied by -display or by the DISPLAY environment variable) should
be managed. By default, ctwm will attempt to manage all
screens on the display.
-cfgchk This option causes ctwm to only try to parse the config file,
and indicate whether errors are found.
-f filename
This option specifies the name of the startup file to use.
ctwm will first try to load filename.num, where num is the
screen number. If it fails, it will try to load filename. By
default, ctwm will look in the user's home directory for files
named .ctwmrc.num, .ctwmrc, .twmrc.num, or .twmrc (where num is
a screen number).
-v This option indicates that ctwm should print error messages
whenever an unexpected X Error event is received. This can be
useful when debugging applications but can be distracting in
regular use.
-n This option indicates that ctwm should not filter the startup
file through m4. Available only if ctwm is compiled with the
USEM4 flag.
-k This option indicates that ctwm should keep the definitions it
prepends to your startup file when filtering through m4 in
/tmp. Available only if ctwm is compiled with the USEM4 flag.
-K m4file
This option indicates that ctwm should keep the result of fil‐
tering your startup file through m4 in the named file. Avail‐
able only if ctwm is compiled with the USEM4 flag.
-version
ctwm just prints its version number.
-infoctwm prints its detailed version and compile time options.
-w [win-id]
If -w is specified without a win-id value, ctwm does not take
over the whole screen(s), instead it creates a new window that
becomes its root window. if the win-id value is given, it is
considered to be the id of an existing window, in which case,
ctwm will try to use this window as root window. You can run
any number of instantiation of ctwm at the same time. You can
even have embedded ctwm instantiations. This is totally use‐
less, but I like it. The f.adoptwindow function can be used to
capture an existing window belonging to another ctwm. A possi‐
ble use of such mode can be to test new configuration file
without restarting ctwm.
-W This option tells ctwm not to display any welcome when start‐
ing.
CUSTOMIZATION
Much of ctwm's appearance and behavior can be controlled by providing a
startup file in one of the following locations (searched in order for
each screen being managed when ctwm begins):
$HOME/.ctwmrc.screennumber
The screennumber is a small positive number (e.g. 0, 1, etc.)
representing the screen number (e.g. the last number in the
DISPLAY environment variable host:displaynum.screennum) that
would be used to contact that screen of the display. This is
intended for displays with multiple screens of differing visual
types.
$HOME/.ctwmrc
This is the usual name for an individual user's startup file.
$HOME/.twmrc.screennumber
$HOME/.twmrc
The users twm startup file.
/usr/lib/X11/twm/system.ctwmrc
If none of the preceding files are found, ctwm will look in
this file for a default configuration. This is often tailored
by the site administrator to provide convenient menus or famil‐
iar bindings for novice users.
If no startup files are found, ctwm will use the built-in defaults
described above. The only resource used by ctwm is bitmapFilePath for
a colon-separated list of directories to search when looking for bitmap
files (for more information, see the Athena Widgets manual and
xrdb(1)).
ctwm startup files are logically broken up into three types of specifi‐
cations: Variables, Bindings, Menus. The Variables section must come
first and is used to describe the fonts, colors, cursors, border
widths, icon and window placement, highlighting, autoraising, layout of
titles, warping, use of the icon manager. The Bindings section usually
comes second and is used to specify the functions that should be to be
invoked when keyboard and pointer buttons are pressed in windows,
icons, titles, and frames. The Menus section gives any user-defined
menus (containing functions to be invoked or commands to be executed).
Variable names and keywords are case-insensitive. Strings must be sur‐
rounded by double quote characters (e.g. ‘blue’) and are case-sensi‐
tive. A pound sign (#) outside of a string causes the remainder of the
line in which the character appears to be treated as a comment.
M4 PREPROCESSINGctwm uses m4(1) to pre-process its setup files. When ctwm starts up,
it opens a file for input as described above. But, it processes that
file through m4 before parsing it. So, you can use m4 macros to perform
operations at runtime. This makes it very easy to work when you use
many different displays, with different characteristics. For example,
If you want to set the lower right section of the screen to be your
IconRegion, (see below for details on the IconRegion variable) you can
use m4 directives and pre-defined symbols to calculate the region you
want. For example:
define(IRegion, translit(eval(WIDTH/3)*eval(HEIGHT/2)+eval(WIDTH-WIDTH/3)-0, *, x))
IconRegion "IRegion" SOUTH EAST 75 25
will define the lower half, and right-hand third of the screen. The
above makes use of symbols that are predefined in m4 by ctwm. The sym‐
bols WIDTH and HEIGHT are calculated by ctwm and written into a tempo‐
rary file for m4 to use. The following symbols are predefined by ctwm:
SERVERHOST This variable is set to the name of the machine that is
running the X server.
CLIENTHOST The machine that is running the clients. (ie, ctwm)
HOSTNAME The canonical hostname running the clients. (ie. a
fully-qualified version of CLIENTHOST)
USER The name of the user running the program. Gotten from
the environment.
HOME The user's home directory. Gotten from the environ‐
ment.
PIXMAP_DIRECTORY
The directory where the ctwm pictures are installed.
VERSION The X major protocol version. As seen by ProtocolVer‐
sion(3).
REVISION The X minor protocol revision. As seen by ProtocolRe‐
vision(3).
VENDOR The vendor of your X server. For example: MIT X Con‐
sortium.
RELEASE The release number of your X server. For MIT X11R5,
this is 5.
WIDTH The width of your display in pixels.
HEIGHT The height of your display in pixels.
X_RESOLUTION The X resolution of your display in pixels per meter.
Y_RESOLUTION The Y resolution of your display in pixels per meter.
PLANES The number of bit planes your display supports in the
default root window.
BITS_PER_RGB The number of significant bits in an RGB color. (log
base 2 of the number of distinct colors that can be
created. This is often different from the number of
colors that can be displayed at once.)
TWM_TYPE Tells which twm offshoot is running. It will always be
set to the string ‘ctwm’ in this program. This is use‐
ful for protecting parts of your .twmrc file that ctwm
proper won't understand (like WorkSpaces) so that it is
still usable with other twm programs.
TWM_VERSION Tells which ctwm version is running in the form of a
floating point number.
CLASS Your visual class. Will return one of StaticGray,
GrayScale, StaticColor, PseudoColor, TrueColor, Direct‐
Color, or, if it cannot determine what you have, Non‐
Standard.
COLOR This will be either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. This is just a
wrapper around the above definition. Returns ‘Yes’ on
*Color, and ‘No’ on StaticGray and GrayScale.
XPM Is defined only if ctwm was compiled with XPM.
JPEG Is defined only if ctwm was compiled with JPEG.
IMCONV Is defined only if ctwm was compiled with IMCONV.
GNOME Is defined only if ctwm was compiled with GNOME.
SOUNDS Is defined only if ctwm was compiled with USE_SOUND.
TWM_CAPTIVE This will be either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. ‘Yes’ if the current
ctwm is captive (flag -w), ‘No’ in the other case.
TWM_CAPTIVE_NAME
Defined only if TWM_CAPTIVE is also defined. Contains
the name of the captive ctwm (-name flag);
You may well find that if you research the m4(1) manual well, and
understand the power of m4, this will be a very useful and powerful
tool. But, if you use any of the symbols which are predefined by m4,
you are in severe danger! For example, the Sun m4 predefines shift, so
if you use that name in your .ctwmrc, you are out of luck.
The availability of the m4 preprocessing is subject to the compilation
define USEM4.
VARIABLES
Many of the aspects of ctwm's user interface are controlled by vari‐
ables that may be set in the user's startup file. Some of the options
are enabled or disabled simply by the presence of a particular keyword.
Other options require keywords, numbers, strings, or lists of all of
these.
Lists are surrounded by braces and are usually separated by whitespace
or a newline. For example:
AutoRaise { "emacs" "XTerm" "Xmh" }
or
AutoRaise
{
"emacs"
"XTerm"
"Xmh"
}
When a variable containing a list of strings representing windows is
searched (e.g. to determine whether or not to enable autoraise as shown
above), a string must be an exact, case-sensitive match to the window's
name (given by the WM_NAME window property), resource name or class
name (both given by the WM_CLASS window property). The preceding exam‐
ple would enable autoraise on windows named ‘emacs’ as well as any
xterm (since they are of class ‘XTerm’) or xmh windows (which are of
class ‘Xmh’).
String arguments that are interpreted as filenames (see the Pixmaps,
Cursors, and IconDirectory below) will prepend the user's directory
(specified by the HOME environment variable) if the first character is
a tilde (~). If, instead, the first character is a colon (:), the name
is assumed to refer to one of the internal bitmaps that are used to
create the default titlebars symbols: :xlogo or :iconify (both refer
to the X used for the iconify button), :resize (the nested squares used
by the resize button), and :question (the question mark used for
non-existent bitmap files).
The following variables may be specified at the top of a ctwm startup
file. Lists of window name prefix strings are indicated by win-list.
Optional arguments are shown in square brackets:
AlwaysOnTop { win-list }
This variable specifies a list of windows (all windows if the
list is defaulted) that ctwm will try its best to maintain on
top of others. This doesn't work in all case.
AlwaysShowWindowWhenMovingFromWorkspaceManager
When ReallyMoveInWorkspaceManager is present and the user is
moving a window from the WorkSpaceMap, ctwm display the actual
window only if it crosses the current active workspace. If
AlwaysShowWindowWhenMovingFromWorkspaceManager is present, the
actual window is always visible during the move, regardless of
whether it crosses the current workspace or not. The Shift key
toggles this behaviour.
AlwaysSqueezeToGravity [{ win-list }]
This variable indicates that ctwm should obey window gravity
when squeezing a window even when the window has a titlebar.
Normally, ctwm will always squeeze a window that has a titlebar
toward the north. The optional win-list may be used to control
which windows this applies on.
AnimationSpeed speed
The speed argument is a non-negative integer. It determines the
number of times a second animations (if any) are updated. If
speed is 0, animations are freezed. The default value is 0.
AutoFocusToTransients
Transient windows get focus automatically when created. Useful
with programs that have keyboard shortcuts that pop up windows.
AutoLower { win-list }
This variable specifies a list of windows (all windows if the
list is defaulted) to be automatically lowered whenever the
point leaves a window. This action can be interactively
enabled or disabled on individual windows using the function
f.autolower.
AutoOccupy
This variable specifies that clients will automatically change
their occupation when their name or icon name changes. The new
occupation will be recalculated from the Occupy and OccupyAll
fields in the .ctwmrc file.
AutoRaise { win-list }
This variable specifies a list of windows (all windows if the
list is defaulted) to be automatically raised whenever the
pointer has come to rest in a window for the amount of time
specified by the RaiseDelay variable. This action can be inter‐
actively enabled or disabled on individual windows using the
function f.autoraise.
AutoRaiseIcons
Icons are raised when the cursor enters it. Useful with Shrin‐
kIconTitles.
AutoRelativeResize
This variable indicates that dragging out a window size (either
when initially sizing the window with pointer Button2 or when
resizing it) should not wait until the pointer has crossed the
window edges. Instead, moving the pointer automatically causes
the nearest edge or edges to move by the same amount. This
allows the resizing of windows that extend off the edge of the
screen. If the pointer is in the center of the window, or if
the resize is begun by pressing a titlebutton, ctwm will still
wait for the pointer to cross a window edge (to prevent acci‐
dents). This option is particularly useful for people who like
the press-drag-release method of sweeping out window sizes.
AutoSqueeze { win-list }
These windows will be auto-squeezed (see f.squeeze). i.e. auto‐
matically unsqueezed when they get focus, and squeezed when
they loose it. Useful for the workspace manager. Not authorized
for icon managers.
BeNiceToColormap
By defaults new colors are allocated for shadows when a 3D look
is used, but when you specify BeNiceToColormap ctwm uses sti‐
pling instead of new colors, the effect is less beautiful, but
acceptable. In this case ClearShadowContrast and DarkShadowCon‐
trast have no effects.
BorderBottom pixels
This variable specifies the width in pixels of a forbidden zone
at the bottom of the screen. All constrained window functions
(f.movepack, f.move with DontMoveOff, etc...) will consider
this zone as offscreen. Default is 0.
BorderColor string [{ wincolorlist }]
This variable specifies the default color of the border to be
placed around all non-iconified windows, and may only be given
within a Color or Monochrome list. The optional wincolorlist
specifies a list of window and color name pairs for specifying
particular border colors for different types of windows. For
example:
BorderColor "gray50"
{
"XTerm" "red"
"xmh" "green"
}
The default is ‘black’.
BorderLeft pixels
This variable specifies the width in pixels of a forbidden zone
at the left of the screen. All constrained window functions
(f.movepack, f.move with DontMoveOff, etc...) will consider
this zone as offscreen. Default is 0.
BorderResizeCursors
This variable specifies that ctwm should use resizing cursors
when the pointer is on the window border. To be used preferably
when you have bound a button to f.resize in the frame context.
BorderRight pixels
This variable specifies the width in pixels of a forbidden zone
at the right of the screen. All constrained window functions
(f.movepack, f.move with DontMoveOff, etc...) will consider
this zone as offscreen. Default is 0.
BorderShadowDepth pixels
This variable specifies the depth of the shadow ctwm uses for
3D window borders, when UseThreeDBorders is selected.
BorderTileBackground string [{ wincolorlist }]
This variable specifies the default background color in the
gray pattern used in unhighlighted borders (only if NoHighlight
hasn't been set), and may only be given within a Color or Mono‐
chrome list. The optional wincolorlist allows per-window col‐
ors to be specified. The default is ‘white’.
BorderTileForeground string [{ wincolorlist }]
This variable specifies the default foreground color in the
gray pattern used in unhighlighted borders (only if NoHighlight
hasn't been set), and may only be given within a Color or Mono‐
chrome list. The optional wincolorlist allows per-window col‐
ors to be specified. The default is ‘black’.
BorderTop pixels
This variable specifies the width in pixels of a forbidden zone
at the top of the screen. All constrained window functions
(f.movepack, f.move with DontMoveOff, etc...) will consider
this zone as offscreen. Default is 0.
BorderWidth pixels
This variable specifies the width in pixels of the border sur‐
rounding all client window frames if ClientBorderWidth has not
been specified. This value is also used to set the border size
of windows created by ctwm (such as the icon manager). The
default is 2.
ButtonIndent pixels
This variable specifies the amount by which titlebuttons should
be indented on all sides. Positive values cause the buttons to
be smaller than the window text and highlight area so that they
stand out. Setting this and the TitleButtonBorderWidth vari‐
ables to 0 makes titlebuttons be as tall and wide as possible.
The default is 1 if UseThreeDTitles is not set, 0 if it is set.
CenterFeedbackWindow
The moving and resizing information window is centered in the
middle of the screen instead of the top left corner.
ClearShadowContrast contrast
Indicates to ctwm how to calculate the clear shadow color for
3D items. The value is a comprised between 0 and 100. The for‐
mula used is :
clear.{RGB} = (65535 - color.{RGB}) * (contrast / 100).
Has no effect if BeNiceToColormap is active.
ClientBorderWidth
This variable indicates that border width of a window's frame
should be set to the initial border width of the window, rather
than to the value of BorderWidth.
Color { colors-list }
This variable specifies a list of color assignments to be made
if the default display is capable of displaying more than sim‐
ple black and white. The colors-list is made up of the follow‐
ing color variables and their values: DefaultBackground,
DefaultForeground, MenuBackground, MenuForeground, MenuTitle‐
Background, MenuTitleForeground, and MenuShadowColor. The fol‐
lowing color variables may also be given a list of window and
color name pairs to allow per-window colors to be specified
(see BorderColor for details): BorderColor, IconManagerHigh‐
light, BorderTileBackground, BorderTileForeground, TitleBack‐
ground, TitleForeground, IconBackground, IconForeground, Icon‐
BorderColor, IconManagerBackground, and IconManagerForeground.
For example:
Color
{
MenuBackground "gray50"
MenuForeground "blue"
BorderColor "red" { "XTerm" "yellow" }
TitleForeground "yellow"
TitleBackground "blue"
}
All of these color variables may also be specified for the
Monochrome variable, allowing the same initialization file to
be used on both color and monochrome displays.
ConstrainedMoveTime milliseconds
This variable specifies the length of time between button
clicks needed to begin a constrained move operation. Double
clicking within this amount of time when invoking f.move will
cause the window only be moved in a horizontal or vertical
direction. Setting this value to 0 will disable constrained
moves. The default is 400 milliseconds.
Cursors { cursor-list }
This variable specifies the glyphs that ctwm should use for
various pointer cursors. Each cursor may be defined either
from the cursor font or from two bitmap files. Shapes from the
cursor font may be specified directly as:
cursorname "string"
where cursorname is one of the cursor names listed below, and
string is the name of a glyph as found in the file
/usr/include/X11/cursorfont.h (without the ‘XC_’ prefix). If
the cursor is to be defined from bitmap files, the following
syntax is used instead:
cursorname "image" "mask"
The image and mask strings specify the names of files contain‐
ing the glyph image and mask in bitmap(1) form. The bitmap
files are located in the same manner as icon bitmap files. The
following example shows the default cursor definitions:
Cursors
{
Frame "top_left_arrow"
Title "top_left_arrow"
Icon "top_left_arrow"
IconMgr "top_left_arrow"
Move "fleur"
Resize "fleur"
Menu "sb_left_arrow"
Button "hand2"
Wait "watch"
Select "dot"
Destroy "pirate"
}
DarkShadowContrast contrast
Indicates to ctwm how to calculate the dark shadow color for 3D
items. The value is a comprised between 0 and 100. The formula
used is :
dark.{RGB} = color.{RGB} * ((100 - contrast) / 100),
Has no effect if BeNiceToColormap is active.
DecorateTransients
This variable indicates that transient windows (those contain‐
ing a WM_TRANSIENT_FOR property) should have titlebars. By
default, transients are not reparented.
DefaultBackground string
This variable specifies the background color to be used for
sizing and information windows. The default is ‘white’.
DefaultForeground string
This variable specifies the foreground color to be used for
sizing and information windows. The default is ‘black’.
DontIconifyByUnmapping { win-list }
This variable specifies a list of windows that should not be
iconified by simply unmapping the window (as would be the case
if IconifyByUnmapping had been set). This is frequently used
to force some windows to be treated as icons while other win‐
dows are handled by the icon manager.
DontMoveOff
This variable indicates that windows should not be allowed to
be moved off the screen. It can be overridden by the f.force‐
move function.
DontPaintRootWindow
This variable tells ctwm not to paint the root window, whatever
you told in the Workspaces specification. This is useful to
have pixmaps in the Workspace Map but not on the root window.
DontSave { win-list }
These windows won't have their characteristics saved for the
session manager.
DontSetInactive { win-list }
These windows won't be set to InactiveState when they become
invisible due to a change workspace. This has been added
because some ill-behaved clients (Frame5) don't like this.
DontSqueezeTitle [{ win-list }]
This variable indicates that titlebars should not be squeezed
to their minimum size as described under SqueezeTitle below.
If the optional window list is supplied, only those windows
will be prevented from being squeezed.
DontToggleWorkSpaceManagerState
Turns off the feature toggling the workspace manager state
to/from map/button state when you press ctrl and the workspace
manager window is in focus.
DontWarpCursorInWMap
Tells ctwm not to warp the cursor to the corresponding actual
window when you click in a small window in the workspace map.
ForceIcons
This variable indicates that icon pixmaps specified in the
Icons variable should override any client-supplied pixmaps.
FramePadding pixels
This variable specifies the distance between the titlebar deco‐
rations (the button and text) and the window frame. The
default is 2 pixels if UseThreeDTitles is not set, 0 if it is
set.
IconBackground string [{ win-list }]
This variable specifies the background color of icons, and may
only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The
optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so that
per-window colors may be specified. See the BorderColor vari‐
able for a complete description of the win-list. The default
is ‘white’.
IconBorderColor string [{ win-list }]
This variable specifies the color of the border used for icon
windows, and may only be specified inside of a Color or Mono‐
chrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window names
and colors so that per-window colors may be specified. See the
BorderColor variable for a complete description of the
win-list. The default is ‘black’.
IconBorderWidth pixels
This variable specifies the width in pixels of the border sur‐
rounding icon windows. The default is 2.
IconDirectory string
This variable specifies the directory that should be searched
if a bitmap file cannot be found in any of the directories in
the bitmapFilePath resource.
IconFont string
This variable specifies the font to be used to display icon
names within icons. The default is ‘variable’.
IconForeground string [{ win-list }]
This variable specifies the foreground color to be used when
displaying icons, and may only be specified inside of a Color
or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window
names and colors so that per-window colors may be specified.
See the BorderColor variable for a complete description of the
win-list. The default is ‘black’.
IconifyByUnmapping [{ win-list }]
This variable indicates that windows should be iconified by
being unmapped without trying to map any icons. This assumes
that the user is will remap the window through the icon man‐
ager, the f.warpto function, or the TwmWindows menu. If the
optional win-list is provided, only those windows will be
iconified by simply unmapping. Windows that have both this and
the IconManagerDontShow options set may not be accessible if no
binding to the TwmWindows menu is set in the user's startup
file.
IconifyStyle string
Where string is either "normal", "mosaic", "zoomin", "zoomout"
or "sweep". Tells ctwm to use some fancy graphical effects when
iconifying windows.
IconJustification string
Where string is either "left", "center" or "right". Tells ctwm
how to justify the icon image against the icon title (if any).
IconManagerBackground string [{ win-list }]
This variable specifies the background color to use for icon
manager entries, and may only be specified inside of a Color or
Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window
names and colors so that per-window colors may be specified.
See the BorderColor variable for a complete description of the
win-list. The default is ‘white’.
IconManagerDontShow [{ win-list }]
This variable indicates that the icon manager should not dis‐
play any windows. If the optional win-list is given, only
those windows will not be displayed. This variable is used to
prevent windows that are rarely iconified (such as xclock or
xload) from taking up space in the icon manager.
IconManagerFont string
This variable specifies the font to be used when displaying
icon manager entries. The default is ‘variable’.
IconManagerForeground string [{ win-list }]
This variable specifies the foreground color to be used when
displaying icon manager entries, and may only be specified
inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is
a list of window names and colors so that per-window colors may
be specified. See the BorderColor variable for a complete
description of the win-list. The default is ‘black’.
IconManagerGeometry string [ columns ]
This variable specifies the geometry of the icon manager win‐
dow. The string argument is standard geometry specification
that indicates the initial full size of the icon manager. The
icon manager window is then broken into columns pieces and
scaled according to the number of entries in the icon manager.
Extra entries are wrapped to form additional rows. The default
number of columns is 1.
IconManagerHighlight string [{ win-list }]
This variable specifies the border color to be used when high‐
lighting the icon manager entry that currently has the focus,
and can only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list.
The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so
that per-window colors may be specified. See the BorderColor
variable for a complete description of the win-list. The
default is ‘black’.
IconManagers { iconmgr-list }
This variable specifies a list of icon managers to create.
Each item in the iconmgr-list has the following format:
"winname" ["iconname"] "geometry" columns
where winname is the name of the windows that should be put
into this icon manager, iconname is the name of that icon man‐
ager window's icon, geometry is a standard geometry specifica‐
tion, and columns is the number of columns in this icon manager
as described in IconManagerGeometry. For example:
IconManagers
{
"XTerm" "=300x5+800+5" 5
"myhost" "=400x5+100+5" 2
}
Clients whose name or class is ‘XTerm’ will have an entry cre‐
ated in the ‘XTerm’ icon manager. Clients whose name was
‘myhost’ would be put into the ‘myhost’ icon manager.
IconManagerShadowDepth pixels
This variable specifies the depth of the shadow ctwm uses for
3D IconManager entries, when UseThreeDIconManagers is selected.
IconManagerShow { win-list }
This variable specifies a list of windows that should appear in
the icon manager. When used in conjunction with the IconMan‐
agerDontShow variable, only the windows in this list will be
shown in the icon manager.
IconMenuDontShow { win-list }
Don't show the name of these windows in the TwmIcons menu.
IconRegion geomstring vgrav hgrav gridwidth gridheight [iconjust]
[iconregjust] [iconregalign] [{ win-list }]
This variable specifies an area on the root window in which
icons are placed if no specific icon location is provided by
the client. The geomstring is a quoted string containing a
standard geometry specification. If more than one IconRegion
lines are given, icons will be put into the succeeding icon
regions when the first is full. The vgrav argument should be
either North or South and is used to control whether icons are
first filled in from the top or bottom of the icon region.
Similarly, the hgrav argument should be either East or West and
is used to control whether icons should be filled in from left
or from the right. Icons are laid out within the region in a
grid with cells gridwidth pixels wide and gridheight pixels
high. The optional win-list argument tells ctwm that if such a
window is iconified, and there is enough room in this icon
region for its icon, then place it here. The optional iconjust,
iconregjust and iconregalign can be used to give specific val‐
ues of IconJustification, IconRegionJustification and IconRe‐
gionAlignement for this IconRegion.
IconRegionAlignement string
Where string is either "top", "center" "bottom" or "border".
Tells ctwm how to align icons inside their place in the IconRe‐
gion. If ‘border’ is given, the justification will be ‘top’ if
the icon region gravity is ‘north’ and ‘bottom’ if the icon
region gravity is ‘south’.
IconRegionJustification string
Where string is either "left", "center" "right" or "border".
Tells ctwm how to justify icons inside their place in the Icon‐
Region. If ‘border’ is given, the justification will be ‘left’
if the icon region gravity is ‘west’ and ‘right’ if the icon
region gravity is ‘east’.
Icons { win-list }
This variable specifies a list of window names and the bitmap
filenames that should be used as their icons. For example:
Icons
{
"XTerm" "xterm.icon"
"xfd" "xfd_icon"
}
Windows that match ‘XTerm’ and would not be iconified by unmap‐
ping, would try to use the icon bitmap in the file
‘xterm.icon’.If ForceIcons is specified, this bitmap will be
used even if the client has requested its own icon pixmap.
IgnoreCaseInMenuSelection
Used when moving the pointer inside a menu with the keyboard.
When you type a letter, the pointer goes to the next entry
beginning with this letter. If IgnoreCaseInMenuSelection is
present, this selection ignores the case of this first letter.
IgnoreLockModifier
If present, all bindings (buttons and keys) will ignore the
LockMask. Useful if you often use caps lock, and don't want to
define twice all your bindings.
IgnoreModifier
All bindings (buttons and keys) will ignore the modifiers you
specified. It is useful when you use caps locks or num locks.
You don't need IgnoreLockModifier any more with this option.
IgnoreModifier { lock m2 }
IgnoreTransient
List of windows for which to ignore transients.
IgnoreTransient { "Wine" }
InterpolateMenuColors
This variable indicates that menu entry colors should be inter‐
polated between entry specified colors. In the example below:
Menu "mymenu"
{
"Title" ("black":"red") f.title
"entry1" f.nop
"entry2" f.nop
"entry3" ("white":"green") f.nop
"entry4" f.nop
"entry5" ("red":"white") f.nop
}
the foreground colors for ‘entry1’ and ‘entry2’ will be inter‐
polated between black and white, and the background colors
between red and green. Similarly, the foreground for ‘entry4’
will be half-way between white and red, and the background will
be half-way between green and white.
MakeTitle { win-list }
This variable specifies a list of windows on which a titlebar
should be placed and is used to request titles on specific win‐
dows when NoTitle has been set.
MapWindowBackground color [{ win-list }]
This variable specifies the background colors to use for small
windows in the workspace map window and may only be specified
inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is
a list of window names and colors so that per-window colors may
be specified. If there is neither MapWindowBackground, nor Map‐
WindowForeground the window title colors are used.
MapWindowCurrentWorkSpace { border_color [background] [foreground]
[bitmap] }
Specify the appearence of the map window corresponding to the
current workspace.
MapWindowDefaultWorkSpace { border_color [background] [foreground]
[bitmap] }
Specify the appearence of the map window corresponding to the
workspaces other than the current workspace when no root back‐
ground information has been provided to ctwm in the WorkSpace
command. Not used in others cases.
MapWindowForeground color [{ win-list }]
This variable specifies the foreground colors to use for small
windows in the workspace map window and may only be specified
inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is
a list of window names and colors so that per-window colors may
be specified. If there is neither MapWindowBackground, nor Map‐
WindowForeground the window title colors are used.
MaxIconTitleWidth width
The integer argument tells ctwm the maximun width to use for an
icon title. If an icon title is larger than width, it is trun‐
cated.
MaxWindowSize string
This variable specifies a geometry in which the width and
height give the maximum size for a given window. This is typi‐
cally used to restrict windows to the size of the screen. The
default is ‘30000x30000’.
MenuBackground string
This variable specifies the background color used for menus,
and can only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list.
The default is ‘white’.
MenuFont string
This variable specifies the font to use when displaying menus.
The default is ‘variable’.
MenuForeground string
This variable specifies the foreground color used for menus,
and can only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list.
The default is ‘black’.
MenuShadowColor string
This variable specifies the color of the shadow behind
pull-down menus and can only be specified inside of a Color or
Monochrome list. The default is ‘black’.
MenuShadowDepth pixels
This variable specifies the depth of the shadow ctwm uses for
3D menus, when UseThreeDMenus is selected.
MenuTitleBackground string
This variable specifies the background color for f.title
entries in menus, and can only be specified inside of a Color
or Monochrome list. The default is ‘white’.
MenuTitleForeground string
This variable specifies the foreground color for f.title
entries in menus and can only be specified inside of a Color or
Monochrome list. The default is ‘black’.
Monochrome { colors }
This variable specifies a list of color assignments that should
be made if the screen has a depth of 1. See the description of
Color.
MoveDelta pixels
This variable specifies the number of pixels the pointer must
move before the f.move function starts working. Also see the
f.deltastop function. The default is zero pixels.
MovePackResistance pixels
This variable specifies the number of pixels of the movepack
and movepush resistance. See f.movepack and f.movepush.
MoveOffResistance pixels
This variable specifies the number of pixels of the moveoff
resistance. If pixels is positive, DontMoveOff will only pre‐
vent you from going off the edge if you're within n pixels off
the edge. If you go further, DontMoveOff gives up and lets you
go as far as you wish. f.forcemove still allows you to totally
ignore DontMoveOff. A negative value puts you back into ‘never
moveoff’ mode (it's the default).
NoBackingStore
This variable indicates that ctwm's menus should not request
backing store to minimize repainting of menus. This is typi‐
cally used with servers that can repaint faster than they can
handle backing store.
NoBorder { win-list }
These windows won't have borders. If you want no borders on all
windows, use the BorderWidth keyword.
NoCaseSensitive
This variable indicates that case should be ignored when sort‐
ing icon names in an icon manager. This option is typically
used with applications that capitalize the first letter of
their icon name.
NoDefaults
This variable indicates that ctwm should not supply the default
titlebuttons and bindings. This option should only be used if
the startup file contains a completely new set of bindings and
definitions.
NoGrabServer
This variable indicates that ctwm should not grab the server
when popping up menus and moving opaque windows.
NoHighlight [{ win-list }]
This variable indicates that borders should not be highlighted
to track the location of the pointer. If the optional win-list
is given, highlighting will only be disabled for those windows.
When the border is highlighted, it will be drawn in the current
BorderColor. When the border is not highlighted, it will be
stippled with an gray pattern using the current BorderTileFore‐
ground and BorderTileBackground colors.
NoIconTitle [{ win-list }]
This variable indicates that icons should not display the icon
name of the client. If the optional win-list is given, only
those clients will not have icon titles.
NoIconManagerFocus
This variable indicates that ctwm will not set the focus on the
corresponding window when the pointer is in an IconManager.
NoIconManagers
This variable indicates that no icon manager should be created.
NoImagesInWorkSpaceManager
This variable turns off displaying of background images in the
WorkSpaceMap. Instead only the colors defined in WorkSpaces
will be used as background in the WorkSpaceMap.
NoMenuShadows
This variable indicates that menus should not have drop shadows
drawn behind them. This is typically used with slower servers
since it speeds up menu drawing at the expense of making the
menu slightly harder to read.
NoOpaqueMove [{ window-list }]
The counterpart of OpaqueMove. See OpaqueMove.
NoOpaqueResize [{ window-list }]
The counterpart of OpaqueResize. See OpaqueResize.
NoRaiseOnDeiconify
This variable indicates that windows that are deiconified
should not be raised.
NoRaiseOnMove
This variable indicates that windows should not be raised when
moved. This is typically used to allow windows to slide under‐
neath each other.
NoRaiseOnResize
This variable indicates that windows should not be raised when
resized. This is typically used to allow windows to be resized
underneath each other.
NoRaiseOnWarp
This variable indicates that windows should not be raised when
the pointer is warped into them with the f.warpto function. If
this option is set, warping to an occluded window may result in
the pointer ending up in the occluding window instead the
desired window (which causes unexpected behavior with
f.warpring).
NoSaveUnders
This variable indicates that menus should not request
save-unders to minimize window repainting following menu selec‐
tion. It is typically used with displays that can repaint
faster than they can handle save-unders.
NoShowOccupyAll
This variable specifies that OccupyAll windows won't be dis‐
played in the WorkSpaceMap window.
NoStackMode [{ win-list }]
This variable indicates that client window requests to change
stacking order should be ignored. If the optional win-list is
given, only requests on those windows will be ignored. This is
typically used to prevent applications from relentlessly pop‐
ping themselves to the front of the window stack.
NoTitle [{ win-list }]
This variable indicates that windows should not have titlebars.
If the optional win-list is given, only those windows will not
have titlebars. MakeTitle may be used with this option to
force titlebars to be put on specific windows.
NoTitleFocus
This variable indicates that ctwm should not set keyboard input
focus to each window as it is entered. Normally, ctwm sets the
focus so that focus and key events from the titlebar and icon
managers are delivered to the application. If the pointer is
moved quickly and ctwm is slow to respond, input can be
directed to the old window instead of the new. This option is
typically used to prevent this ‘input lag’ and to work around
bugs in older applications that have problems with focus
events.
NoTitleHighlight [{ win-list }]
This variable indicates that the highlight area of the title‐
bar, which is used to indicate the window that currently has
the input focus, should not be displayed. If the optional
win-list is given, only those windows will not have highlight
areas. This and the SqueezeTitle options can be set to sub‐
stantially reduce the amount of screen space required by title‐
bars.
NoWarpToMenuTitle
This variable indicates that the cursor should not be warped to
the title of a menu which does not have room to drop down below
the current cursor position.
Occupy { occupy-list }
This variable specifies which windows occupy which workspaces
at startup.
occupy-list consists of entries of the form :
[Window] win-name { wpsc1 wspc2 ... }
or Workspace wspc-name {win1 win2 ... }
Example :
Occupy {
"xload" {"all"}
Window "xterm" {"here" "there" "elsewhere"}
"xv" {"images"}
WorkSpace "images" {"xloadimage"}
}
Note : The Occupy declaration should come after the WorkSpaces
declaration.
OccupyAll { window-list }
This variable specifies a list of windows that will occupy all
workspaces at startup.
window-list is a list of window names.
Example :
OccupyAll
{
"xload"
"xbiff"
"xconsole"
}
Note : The OccupyAll declaration should come after the
WorkSpaces declaration.
OpaqueMove [{ window-list }]
This variable indicates that the f.move function should actu‐
ally move the window instead of just an outline so that the
user can immediately see what the window will look like in the
new position. This option is typically used on fast displays
(particularly if NoGrabServer is set). The optional window list
parameter indicates that only windows in this list should actu‐
ally be moved in opaque mode. The NoOpaqueMove counterpart is
also available.
OpaqueMoveThreshold threshold
The integer parameter is a percentage and indicates that only
windows (elligible for opaque moving) with a surface smaller
than this percentage of the surface of the screen should actu‐
ally be moved in opaque mode.
OpaqueResize [{ window-list }]
The opaque version of resize. Extremely resource intensive, but
beautiful with fast server/client/network. See OpaqueMove. The
NoOpaqueResize counterpart is also available.
OpaqueResizeThreshold threshold
The resize version of OpaqueMoveThreshold.
OpenWindowTimeout seconds
seconds is an integer representing a number of second. When a
window tries to open on an unattended display, it will be auto‐
matically mapped after this number of seconds.
PackNewWindows
Use f.movepack algorithm instead of f.move when opening a new
window.
Pixmaps { pixmaps }
This variable specifies a list of pixmaps that define the
appearance of various images. Each entry is a keyword indicat‐
ing the pixmap to set, followed by a string giving the name of
the bitmap file. The following pixmaps may be specified:
Pixmaps
{
TitleHighlight "gray1"
XCOMM TitleHighlight "supman%.xbm"
}
The default for TitleHighlight is to use an even stipple pat‐
tern.
PixmapDirectory path
This variable specifies the path where ctwm looks to find
non-X11 bitmap files. Whenever you want to use a image file
that is not an X11 bitmap, specify : xpm:filename, for xpm
files, xwd:filename for xwd files, im:filename, for other files
supported by the imconv package, jpeg:file for jpeg file, or
‘|command’ for an on the fly generated xwd file. Use the %
character to specify an animation. path can be a colon sepa‐
rated list of directories. Example :
PixmapDirectory "/usr/lib/X11/twm"
Icons
{
"Axe" "xpm:edit.xpm"
"xterm" "xpm:ball%.xpm"
}
N.B This is only valid if your version of ctwm has been com‐
piled with the right extension (XPM, JPEG or IMCONV options).
RaiseDelay milliseconds
For windows that are to be automatically raised when the
pointer enters (see the AutoRaise variable and the f.autoraise
function) this variable specifies the length of time the
pointer should rest in the window before it is raised. The
default is 0 milliseconds.
RaiseOnClick
If present a window will be raised on top of others when
clicked on, and the ButtonPress event will be correctly for‐
warded to the client that owns this window (if it asked to).
See RaiseOnClickButton.
RaiseOnClickButton button_number
Where button_number is a valid button number (generally 1 to
3). Specify the button to use for RaiseOnClick.
RaiseWhenAutoUnSqueeze
Windows are raised when auto-unsqueezed (See AutoSqueeze).
RandomPlacement [ string1 [ string2 ]]
Where string1 is either ‘on’, ‘off’, ‘all’ or ‘unmapped’, and
string2 is a displacement for the pseudo-randomly placed window
compared to the previous one. This variable indicates that
windows with no specified geometry should be placed in a
pseudo-random location instead of having the user drag out an
outline. The argument ‘on’ or ‘all’ tells ctwm do do this for
all such windows, ‘off’, not to do this, and ‘unmapped’, only
for unmapped windows, e.g. iconified or not visible in the cur‐
rent workspace. If the second argument isn't given, the dis‐
placement +30+30 (30 pixels left and down) is used.
ReallyMoveInWorkspaceManager
This keyword tells ctwm to move the actual window when the user
is moving the small windows in the WorkSpaceMap window. If not
present the WorkSpaceMap can be used only to modify the occupa‐
tion of a window. Pressing the shift key while dragging a win‐
dow in the workspace manager temporarily toggles this option.
ResizeFont string
This variable specifies the font to be used for in the dimen‐
sions window when resizing windows. The default is ‘fixed’.
RestartPreviousState
This variable indicates that ctwm should attempt to use the
WM_STATE property on client windows to tell which windows
should be iconified and which should be left visible. This is
typically used to try to regenerate the state that the screen
was in before the previous window manager was shutdown.
ReverseCurrentWorkspace string
This variable tells ctwm to reverse the background and fore‐
ground colors in the small windows in the workspace map for the
current workspace.
SaveColor { colors-list }
This variable indicates a list of color assignments to be
stored as pixel values in the root window property _MIT_PRIOR‐
ITY_COLORS. Clients may elect to preserve these values when
installing their own colormap. Note that use of this mechanism
is a way for an application to avoid the ‘technicolor’ problem,
whereby useful screen objects such as window borders and title‐
bars disappear when a program's custom colors are installed by
the window manager. For example:
SaveColor
{
BorderColor
TitleBackground
TitleForeground
"red"
"green"
"blue"
}
This would place on the root window 3 pixel values for borders
and titlebars, as well as the three color strings, all taken
from the default colormap.
ShrinkIconTitles
A la Motif shrinking of icon titles, and expansion when mouse
is inside icon. The old incorrect spelling SchrinkIconTitles
is also still accepted.
ShortAllWindowsMenus
Don't show WorkSpaceManager and IconManagers in the TwmWindows
and TwmAllWindows menus.
ShowIconManager
This variable indicates that the icon manager window should be
displayed when ctwm is started. It can always be brought up
using the f.showiconmgr function.
ShowWorkSpaceManager
This variable specifies that the WorkSpaceManager should be
visible.
SloppyFocus
Use sloppy focus.
SaveWorkspaceFocus
When changing to a workspace, restore the focus to the last
window that had the focus when you left the workspace by warp‐
ing the mouse into it. This essentially saves the focus window
with the workspace and restores it automatically when you
switch. In many cases, it avoids having to reach for the mouse
after moving to a new workspace.
SortIconManager
This variable indicates that entries in the icon manager should
be sorted alphabetically rather than by simply appending new
windows to the end.
SoundHost
The host on which sounds should be played. See the SOUNDS sec‐
tion.
SqueezeTitle [{ squeeze-list }]
This variable indicates that ctwm should attempt to use the
SHAPE extension to make titlebars occupy only as much screen
space as they need, rather than extending all the way across
the top of the window. The optional squeeze-list may be used
to control the location of the squeezed titlebar along the top
of the window. It contains entries of the form:
"name" justification num denom
where name is a window name, justification is either left, cen‐
ter, or right, and num and denom are numbers specifying a ratio
giving the relative position about which the titlebar is justi‐
fied. The ratio is measured from left to right if the numera‐
tor is positive, and right to left if negative. A denominator
of 0 indicates that the numerator should be interpreted as pix‐
els. For compatibility, the pixel-position 0/0 is the relative
middle of the window (1/2) for center and the relative right
side of the window (2/2) for right, but this use is not recom‐
mended. Use "right 2 2" for relative positioning, or "right -1
0" for absolute; this makes a difference when dragging the
titlebar (see f.movetitlebar). For example:
SqueezeTitle
{
"XTerm" left 0 0
"xterm1" left 1 3
"xterm2" left 2 3
"oclock" center 1 2
"emacs" right 2 2
}
The default positioning is left-justified, absolute at 0 pix‐
els.
The DontSqueezeTitle list can be used to turn off squeezing on
certain titles.
StartIconified [{ win-list }]
This variable indicates that client windows should initially be
left as icons until explicitly deiconified by the user. If the
optional win-list is given, only those windows will be started
iconic. This is useful for programs that do not support an
-iconic command line option or resource.
StartInMapState
This variable specifies that the WorkSpaceManager should be
started in its map form when created.
StartSqueezed { win-list }
These windows will first show up squeezed (see f.squeeze).
StayUpMenus
Tells ctwm to use stayup menus. These menus will stay on the
screen when ButtonUp, if either the menu has not yet been
entered by the pointer, or the current item is a f.title.
SunkFocusWindowTitle
This variable specifies that the title of the focus window (if
exists) should be sunken instead of raised. Only valid if
UseThreeDTitles is set.
ThreeDBorderWidth pixels
The width of the 3D border in pixels, if any.
TitleBackground string [{ win-list }]
This variable specifies the background color used in titlebars,
and may only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list.
The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so
that per-window colors may be specified. The default is
‘white’.
TitleButtonBorderWidth pixels
This variable specifies the width in pixels of the border sur‐
rounding titlebuttons. This is typically set to 0 to allow
titlebuttons to take up as much space as possible and to not
have a border. The default is 1 if UseThreeDTitles is not set,
0 if it is set.
TitleButtonShadowDepth pixels
This variable specifies the depth of the shadow ctwm uses for
3D title buttons, when UseThreeDTitles is selected.
TitleFont string
This variable specifies the font used for displaying window
names in titlebars. The default is ‘variable’.
TitleForeground string [{ win-list }]
This variable specifies the foreground color used in titlebars,
and may only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list.
The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so
that per-window colors may be specified. The default is
‘black’.
TitleJustification string
This keyword needs a string value. The acceptable values are :
‘left’, ‘center’ and ‘right’. The window titles will be justi‐
fied according to this in the title window.
TitlePadding pixels
This variable specifies the distance between the various but‐
tons, text, and highlight areas in the titlebar. The default
is 8 pixels if UseThreeDTitles is not set, 0 if it is set.
TitleShadowDepth pixels
This variable specifies the depth of the shadow ctwm uses for
3D titles, when UseThreeDTitles is selected.
TransientHasOccupation
This variable specifies that transient-for and non-group leader
windows can have their own occupation potentially different
from their leader window. The default case is that these win‐
dows follow their leader, use this keyword if the default
action doesn't please you.
TransientOnTop percentage
The parameter (required) is a percentage and tells ctwm to put
transient (and non-group leader) windows always on top of their
leader if and only if their surface is smaller than this frac‐
tion of the surface of their leader. The surface of a window is
its width times its weight.
UnknownIcon string
This variable specifies the filename of a bitmap file to be
used as the default icon. This bitmap will be used as the icon
of all clients which do not provide an icon bitmap and are not
listed in the Icons list.
UnmapByMovingFarAway [{ win-list }]
These windows will be moved out of the screen instead of being
unmapped when they become invisible due to a change workspace.
This has been added because some ill-behaved clients (Frame5)
don't like to be unmapped.
UsePPosition string
This variable specifies whether or not ctwm should honor pro‐
gram-requested locations (given by the PPosition flag in the
WM_NORMAL_HINTS property) in the absence of a user-specified
position. The argument string may have one of three values:
"off" (the default) indicating that ctwm should ignore the pro‐
gram-supplied position, "on" indicating that the position
should be used, and "non-zero" indicating that the position
should used if it is other than (0,0). The latter option is
for working around a bug in older toolkits.
UseSunkTitlePixmap
This makes it so the shadows are inversed for title pixmaps
when focus is lost. This is similar to having the SunkFo‐
cusWindowTitle, but it makes your xbm or 3d XPM (if any) sink
instead of just the whole bar.
UseThreeDBorders
Tells ctwm to use 3D-looking window borders. The width ot the
3D borders is ThreeDBorderWidth. The color of the 3D border is
BorderTileBackground, and if NoHighlight is not selected, the
border of the Focus window is BorderColor.
UseThreeDIconManagers
Tells ctwm to use 3D-looking IconManagers if any.
UseThreeDMenus
Tells ctwm to use 3D-looking menus.
UseThreeDTitles
Tells ctwm to use 3D-looking windows titles. In which case the
default values of TitleButtonBorderWidth, FramePadding,
TitlePadding and ButtonIndent are set to 0. There are plenty
of built-in scalable pixmaps for buttons, :xpm:menu, :xpm:dot,
:xpm:cross, :xpm:bar, :xpm:vbar, :xpm:iconify, :xpm:resize,
:xmp:sunkresize and :xpm:box. There are several built-in scal‐
able animations for buttons : %xpm:resize, %xpm:menu-up,
%xpm:menu-down, %xpm:resize-out-top, %xpm:resize-in-top,
%xpm:resize-out-bot, %xpm:resize-in-bot, %xpm:maze-out,
%xpm:maze-in, %xpm:zoom-out, %xpm:zoom-in and %xpm:zoom-inout.
Try them to see what they look like.
UseThreeDWMap
Tells ctwm to use 3D for the small windows in the workspace
map.
VirtualScreens { geometries-list }
This variable specifies a list of geometries for virtual
screens. Virtual screens are designed to be used when you have
several physical screens bound together with the Xinerama X
extension.
geometries-list is a list of valid geometry strings, that cor‐
respond to your actual physical screens.
Example :
VirtualScreens
{
"1280x1024+0+0"
"1600x1200+1280+0"
}
WarpCursor [{ win-list }]
This variable indicates that the pointer should be warped into
windows when they are deiconified. If the optional win-list is
given, the pointer will only be warped when those windows are
deiconified.
WindowBox [{ win-list }]
creates a new window called a box, where all the client windows
that match the windows list are opened in, instead of the root
window. This is useful to group small windows in the same box
(xload for instance)
WindowBox "xloadbox" "320x100+0-0" {
"xload"
}
WindowGeometries [{ win-list }]
Used to give a default geometry to some clients :
WindowGeometries {
"Mozilla*" "1000x800+10+10"
"jpilot*" "800x600-0-0"
}
WindowRegion geomstring vgrav fIhgrav [{ win-list }]
Similar to IconRegion, but for windows.
WindowRing [{ win-list }]
This variable specifies a list of windows along which the
f.warpring function cycles. If no argument is given, all the
windows are in the ring.
WarpRingOnScreen
Tells ctwm that f.warpring warps pointer only to windows visi‐
ble in the current workspace.
WarpToDefaultMenuEntry
(Useful only with StayUpMenus) When using StayUpMenus, and a
menu does stays up, the pointer is warped to the default entry
of the menu.
WarpUnmapped
This variable indicates that that the f.warpto function should
deiconify any iconified windows it encounters. This is typi‐
cally used to make a key binding that will pop a particular
window (such as xmh), no matter where it is. The default is
for f.warpto to ignore iconified windows.
WindowRingExclude [{ win-list }]
All listed windows will be excluded from the WarpRing.
WMgrButtonShadowDepth depth
Control the depth of the shadow of the workspace manager but‐
tons.
WMgrHorizButtonIndent nb_pixels
Specifies the horizontal space, in pixel, between the buttons
of the workspace manager (in button mode).
WMgrVertButtonIndent nb_pixels
Specifies the vertical space, in pixel, between the buttons of
the workspace manager (in button mode).
WorkSpaceFont string
This allows you to specify the font to use for the small win‐
dows in the workspace manager map. (Try
‘-adobe-times-*-r-*--10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*’).
WorkSpaceManagerGeometry string [ columns ]
This variable specifies the geometry of the workspace manager
window. The string argument is standard geometry specification
that indicates the initial full size of the workspace manager.
The columns argument indicates the number of columns to use for
the workspace manager window.
WorkSpaceManagerGeometry "360x60+60-0" 8
WorkSpaces { workspace-list }
This variable specifies a list of workspaces that are created
at startup, Where workspace-list is :
name [{bg-button [fg-button] [bg-root] [fg-root] [pixmap-root]}]
With :
bg-button:
background color of the corresponding button in the
workspace manager.
fg-button:
foreground color of the corresponding button in the
workspace manager.
bg-root:
background color of the corresponding root screen.
fg-root:
foreground color of the corresponding root screen.
pixmap-root:
pixmap to display on the corresponding root screen,
either the name of a bitmap, xpm:xpmfile, xwd:xwdfile,
jpeg:jpgfile, im:imfile or |command_that generate_xwd.
Example :
WorkSpaces
{
"One" {"#686B9F" "white" "DeepSkyBlue3" "white" "jpeg:shark.jpg"}
"Two" {"#619AAE" "white" "firebrick"}
"Three" {"#727786" "white" "MidnightBlue" "white" "xpm:ball%.xpm"}
"Four" {"#727786" "white" "white" "white" "|(giftoppm | pnmtoxwd) < 2010.gif"}
"Five" {"#727786" "white" "DeepSkyBlue3" "white" "plaid"}
"Six" {"#619AAE" "white" "DeepSkyBlue3" "white" "xpm:background1"}
"Seven" {"#8C5b7A" "white" "chartreuse4"}
"Eight" {"#686B9F" "white" "MidnightBlue"}
}
The WorkSpaces declaration should come before the Occupy or
OccupyAll declarations. The maximum number of workspaces is 32.
Each workspace also has a label, which is displayed in the
WorkSpaceManager window when it is in button state. By moving
the mouse cursor over a button and typing letters and/or
backspace, you may edit the label. The name is unaffected.
Functions that look up workspaces by name also look at the
label.
XMoveGrid number
This variable specifies the value to use to constrain window
movement. When moving windows around, the x coordinate will
always be a multiple of this variable. Default is 1. f.force‐
move ignores this variable.
XorValue number
This variable specifies the value to use when drawing window
outlines for moving and resizing. This should be set to a
value that will result in a variety of distinguishable colors
when exclusive-or'ed with the contents of the user's typical
screen. Setting this variable to 1 often gives nice results if
adjacent colors in the default colormap are distinct. By
default, ctwm will attempt to cause temporary lines to appear
at the opposite end of the colormap from the graphics.
YMoveGrid number
This variable specifies the value to use to constrain window
movement. When moving windows around, the y coordinate will
always be a multiple of this variable. Default is 1. f.force‐
move ignores this variable.
Zoom [ count ]
This variable indicates that outlines suggesting movement of a
window to and from its iconified state should be displayed
whenever a window is iconified or deiconified. The optional
count argument specifies the number of outlines to be drawn.
The default count is 8.
The following variables must be set after the fonts have been assigned,
so it is usually best to put them at the end of the variables or begin‐
ning of the bindings sections:
ChangeWorkspaceFunction function
This variable specifies the function to be executed when the
user change the current workspace (zap).
DefaultFunction function
This variable specifies the function to be executed when a key
or button event is received for which no binding is provided.
This is typically bound to f.nop, f.beep, or a menu containing
window operations.
DeIconifyFunction function
This variable specifies the function to be executed when a win‐
dow is deiconified.
IconifyFunction function
This variable specifies the function to be executed when a win‐
dow is iconified.
WindowFunction function
This variable specifies the function to execute when a window
is selected from the TwmWindows menu. If this variable is not
set, the window will be deiconified and raised.
BINDINGS
After the desired variables have been set, functions may be attached to
titlebuttons and key and pointer buttons. Titlebuttons may be added
from the left or right side and appear in the titlebar from
left-to-right according to the order in which they are specified. Key
and pointer button bindings may be given in any order.
Title buttons
Titlebuttons specifications must include the name of the pixmap to
use in the button box and the function to be invoked when a pointer
button is pressed within them:
LeftTitleButton "bitmapname" = function
or
LeftTitleButton "bitmapname" {
Buttoni = modlist : function
...
Buttonj = function
}
or
RightTitleButton "bitmapname" = function
or
RightTitleButton "bitmapname" {
Buttoni = modlist : function
...
Buttonj = function
}
The bitmapname may refer to one of the built-in bitmaps (which are
scaled to match TitleFont) by using the appropriate colon-prefixed
name described above.
The pointer button specifications come in two forms, with a modi‐
fier list or without. When the specification comes without a modi‐
fier list, it's used for the case when no modifiers are used. In
other words, the following two lines are equivalent:
Buttoni = function
Buttoni = : function
Key and pointer buttons
Key and pointer button specifications must give the modifiers that
must be pressed, over which parts of the screen the pointer must
be, and what function is to be invoked. Keys are given as strings
containing the appropriate keysym name; buttons are given as the
keywords Button1-Button5:
"FP1" = modlist : context : function
Button1 = modlist : context : function
The modlist is any combination of the modifier names shift, con‐
trol, lock, meta, mod1, mod2, mod3, mod4, or mod5 (which may be
abbreviated as s, c, l, m, m1, m2, m3, m4, m5, respectively) sepa‐
rated by a vertical bar (|). Similarly, the context is any combi‐
nation of window, title, icon, root, frame, workspace, iconmgr,
their first letters (iconmgr abbreviation is m), or all, separated
by a vertical bar. The function is any of the f. keywords
described below. For example, the default startup file contains
the following bindings:
Button1 = : root : f.menu "TwmWindows"
Button1 = m : window | icon : f.function "move-or-lower"
Button2 = m : window | icon : f.iconify
Button3 = m : window | icon : f.function "move-or-raise"
Button1 = : title : f.function "move-or-raise"
Button2 = : title : f.raiselower
Button1 = : icon : f.function "move-or-iconify"
Button2 = : icon : f.iconify
Button1 = : iconmgr : f.iconify
Button2 = : iconmgr : f.iconify
A user who wanted to be able to manipulate windows from the key‐
board could use the following bindings:
"F1" = : all : f.iconify
"F2" = : all : f.raiselower
"F3" = : all : f.warpring "next"
"F4" = : all : f.warpto "xmh"
"F5" = : all : f.warpto "emacs"
"F6" = : all : f.colormap "next"
"F7" = : all : f.colormap "default"
"F20" = : all : f.warptoscreen "next"
"Left" = m : all : f.backiconmgr
"Right" = m | s : all : f.forwiconmgr
"Up" = m : all : f.upiconmgr
"Down" = m | s : all : f.downiconmgr
ctwm provides many more window manipulation primitives than can be
conveniently stored in a titlebar, menu, or set of key bindings.
Although a small set of defaults are supplied (unless the NoDe‐
faults is specified), most users will want to have their most com‐
mon operations bound to key and button strokes. To do this, ctwm
associates names with each of the primitives and provides
user-defined functions for building higher level primitives and
menus for interactively selecting among groups of functions.
Functions
User-defined functions contain the name by which they are refer‐
enced in calls to f.function and a list of other functions to exe‐
cute. For example:
Function "move-or-lower" { f.move f.deltastop f.lower }
Function "move-or-raise" { f.move f.deltastop f.raise }
Function "move-or-iconify" { f.move f.deltastop f.iconify }
Function "restore-colormap" { f.colormap "default" f.lower }
The function name must be used in f.function exactly as it appears
in the function specification.
In the descriptions below, if the function is said to operate on
the selected window, but is invoked from a root menu, the cursor
will be changed to the Select cursor and the next window to receive
a button press will be chosen:
! string
This is an abbreviation for f.exec string.
f.addtoworkspace string
This function adds the selected window to the workspace
whose name is string.
f.adoptwindow
This function asks for the user to select a window with the
mouse, and then adopt this window if it doesn't belong to
the current ctwm. Useful only with the -w flag.
f.altcontext
Set the alternate context. The next key or button event
ctwm reveives will be interpreted using the alternate con‐
text. To define bindings in the alternate context, use the
keyword alter in the context field of the binding command.
For example:
"Return"= m : all : f.altcontext
"n" = : alter : f.nextworkspace
"p" = : alter : f.prevworkspace
f.altkeymap number
Set the alternate keymap number, where number is an integer
between 1 and 5 included. The next key or button event ctwm
reveives will be interpreted using this alternate keymap.
To define bindings in an alternate keymap, use the keyword
a followed by number in the modifier field of the binding
command. For example:
"Return"= c : all : f.altkeymap "1"
"i" = a1 : window|icon|iconmgr : f.iconify
"z" = a1 : window : f.zoom
"d" = a1 : window|icon : f.delete
"o" = a1 : window|icon : f.occupy
"r" = a1 : window|icon : f.refresh
When using an alternate keymaps, only the root, window,
icon and iconmgr contexts are allowed.
f.autolower
This function toggles whether or not the selected window is
lowered whenever the pointer leaves it. See the descrip‐
tion of the variable AutoLower.
f.autoraise
This function toggles whether or not the selected window is
raised whenever entered by the pointer. See the descrip‐
tion of the variable AutoRaise.
f.backmapiconmgr
This function warps the pointer in the same manner as
f.backiconmgr but only stops at windows that are mapped.
f.backiconmgr
This function warps the pointer to the previous column in
the current icon manager, wrapping back to the previous row
if necessary.
f.beep This function sounds the keyboard bell.
f.bottomzoom
This function is similar to the f.fullzoom function, but
resizes the window to fill only the bottom half of the
screen.
f.changesize string
This function allows you to change the size of the focused
window. The format of the string must be either "<border>
<+|-><sizechange>" (where border must be one of Top, Bot‐
tom, Left or Right) or "<x size>x<y size>" (where the size
is the requested new window size). The height of the window
can never be set/changed to less than the title height + 1
(or 1 if the window has no title) and the width can never
be set/changed to less than 1.
"Right" = c|s: all : f.changesize "right +10"
"Left" = c|s: all : f.changesize "right -10"
"Down" = c|s: all : f.changesize "bottom +10"
"Up" = c|s: all : f.changesize "bottom -10"
"F1" = c|s: all : f.changesize "640x480"
"F2" = c|s: all : f.changesize "800x600"
"F3" = c|s: all : f.changesize "1024x768"
f.circledown
This function lowers the top-most window that occludes
another window.
f.circleup
This function raises the bottom-most window that is
occluded by another window.
f.colormap string
This function rotates the colormaps (obtained from the
WM_COLORMAP_WINDOWS property on the window) that ctwm will
display when the pointer is in this window. The argument
string may have one of the following values: "next",
"prev", and "default". It should be noted here that in
general, the installed colormap is determined by keyboard
focus. A pointer driven keyboard focus will install a pri‐
vate colormap upon entry of the window owning the colormap.
Using the click to type model, private colormaps will not
be installed until the user presses a mouse button on the
target window.
f.deiconify
This function deiconifies the selected window. If the win‐
dow is not an icon, this function does nothing.
f.delete
This function sends the WM_DELETE_WINDOW message to the
selected window if the client application has requested it
through the WM_PROTOCOLS window property. The application
is supposed to respond to the message by removing the indi‐
cated window. If the window has not requested
WM_DELETE_WINDOW messages, the keyboard bell will be rung
indicating that the user should choose an alternative
method. Note this is very different from f.destroy. The
intent here is to delete a single window, not necessarily
the entire application.
f.deleteordestroy
First tries to delete the window (send it WM_DELETE_WINDOW
message), or kills it, if the client doesn't accept such
message.
f.deltastop
This function allows a user-defined function to be aborted
if the pointer has been moved more than MoveDelta pixels.
See the example definition given for Function
"move-or-raise" at the beginning of the section.
f.destroy
This function instructs the X server to close the display
connection of the client that created the selected window.
This should only be used as a last resort for shutting down
runaway clients. See also f.delete.
f.downiconmgr
This function warps the pointer to the next row in the cur‐
rent icon manger, wrapping to the beginning of the next
column if necessary.
f.downworkspace
Goto the workspace immediately underneath the current
workspace in the workspace manager. If the current
workspace is the bottom one, goto the top one in the same
column. The result depends on the layout of the workspace
manager.
f.exec string
This function passes the argument string to /bin/sh for
execution. In multiscreen mode, if string starts a new X
client without giving a display argument, the client will
appear on the screen from which this function was invoked.
If the string ‘$currentworkspace’ is present inside the
string argument, it will be substituted with the current
workspace name.
f.fill string
Where string is either : ‘right’, ‘left’, ‘top’, ‘bottom’
or ‘vertical’. The current window is resized in the speci‐
fied direction until it reaches an obstacle (either another
window, or the screen border). f.fill ‘vertical’ sets the
window status to ‘zoomed’ and toggles, ie calling it again
will reset the previous window size.
f.fittocontent
Can be used only with window boxes. The result is to have
the box have the minimal size that contains all its chil‐
dren windows.
f.focus This function toggles the keyboard focus of the server to
the selected window, changing the focus rule from
pointer-driven if necessary. If the selected window
already was focused, this function executes an f.unfocus.
f.forcemove
This function is like f.move except that it ignores the
DontMoveOff variable.
f.forwiconmgr
This function warps the pointer to the next column in the
current icon manager, wrapping to the beginning of the next
row if necessary.
f.forwmapiconmgr
This function warps the pointer in the same manner as
f.forwiconmgr but only stops at windows that are mapped.
f.fullzoom
This function resizes the selected window to the full size
of the display or else restores the original size if the
window was already zoomed.
f.function string
This function executes the user-defined function whose name
is specified by the argument string.
f.gotoworkspace workspace_name
This function warps you to the workspace whose name is
workspace_name.
f.hbzoom
This function is a synonym for f.bottomzoom.
f.hideiconmgr
This function unmaps the current icon manager.
f.hideworkspacemgr
Unmap the WorkSpace manager.
f.horizoom
This variable is similar to the f.zoom function except that
the selected window is resized to the full width of the
display.
f.htzoom
This function is a synonym for f.topzoom.
f.hypermove
Use this function to ‘move’ a window between 2 captives
ctwm (or between a captive and the root ctwm). Of course 2
ctwms are completely different universes. You have to go in
hyperspace to achieve this, hence the name.
f.hzoom This function is a synonym for f.horizoom.
f.iconify
This function iconifies or deiconifies the selected window
or icon, respectively.
f.identify
This function displays a summary of the name and geometry
of the selected window. Clicking the pointer or pressing a
key in the window will dismiss it.
f.initsize
This function resets a window to its initial size given by
the WM_NORMAL_HINTS hints.
f.jumpdown step
This function is designed to be bound to a key, it moves
the current window (step * {X,Y}MoveGrid) pixels downward.
stopping if the window encounters another window or the
screen border (ala f.pack).
f.jumpleft step
Leftward equivalent of f.jumpdown.
f.jumpright step
Rightward equivalent of f.jumpdown.
f.jumpup step
Upward equivalent of f.jumpdown.
f.lefticonmgr
This function similar to f.backiconmgr except that wrapping
does not change rows.
f.leftworkspace
Goto the workspace immediately on the left of the current
workspace in the workspace manager. If the current
workspace is the leftest one, goto the rightest one in the
same row. The result depends on the layout of the workspace
manager.
f.leftzoom
This variable is similar to the f.bottomzoom function but
causes the selected window is only resized to the left half
of the display.
f.lower This function lowers the selected window.
f.menu string
This function invokes the menu specified by the argument
string. Cascaded menus may be built by nesting calls to
f.menu. When a menu is popped up, you can use the arrow
keys to move the cursor around it. ‘Down’ or space goes
down, ‘Up’ goes up, ‘Left’ pops down the menu, and ‘Right’
activates the current entry. The first letter of an entry
name activates this entry (the first one if several entries
match). If the first letter is ~ then Meta-the-second-let‐
ter activates it, if this first letter is ^ then Con‐
trol-the-second-letter activates it, and if this first let‐
ter is space, then the second letter activates it.
f.move This function drags an outline of the selected window (or
the window itself if the OpaqueMove variable is set) until
the invoking pointer button is released. Double clicking
within the number of milliseconds given by ConstrainedMove‐
Time warps the pointer to the center of the window and con‐
strains the move to be either horizontal or vertical
depending on which grid line is crossed. To abort a move,
press another button before releasing the first button.
f.movepack
This function is like f.move except that it tries to avoid
overlapping of windows. When the moving window begin to
overlap with another window, the move is stopped. If you go
too far over the other window (more that MovePackResistance
pixels), the move is resumed and the moving window can
overlap with the other window. Useful to pack windows
closely.
f.movepush
This function is like f.move except that it tries to avoid
overlapping of windows. When the moving window begins to
overlap with another window, the other window is pushed. If
you go too far over the other window (more that MovePackRe‐
sistance pixels), there is no push and the moving window
can overlap with the other window. Only available if
OpaqueMove is active.
f.moveresize geometry
Takes one string argument which is a geometry with the
standard X geometry syntax (e.g. 200x300+150-0). Sets the
current window to the specified geometry. The width and
height are to be given in pixel, no base size or resize
increment are used.
f.movetitlebar
If applied to a squeezed titlebar (see SqueezeTitle) you
can drag it along the top of the window (a feature which
was first found in BeOS). The existing justification type
is preserved, as is the positioning (relative or absolute).
This means that a relatively positioned titlebar will move
when the width of a window changes, whereas an absolutely
positioned title will not.
The default positioning is left-justified, absolute at 0
pixels.
Button1 = m1 : title : f.movetitlebar
f.movetitlebar does nothing if the window has no title, the
window is squeezed (see f.squeeze), or the title is not
squeezed (see SqueezeTitle).
f.movetonextworkspace
Move the window to the next workspace.
f.movetoprevworkspace
Move the window to the previous workspace.
f.movetonextworkspaceandfollow
Move the window to the next workspace and go to that
workspace.
f.movetoprevworkspaceandfollow
Move the window to the previous workspace and go to that
workspace.
f.nexticonmgr
This function warps the pointer to the next icon manager
containing any windows on the current or any succeeding
screen.
f.nextworkspace
Goto the next workspace in the list, using the order given
in the .ctwmrc file.
f.nop This function does nothing and is typically used with the
DefaultFunction or WindowFunction variables or to introduce
blank lines in menus.
f.occupy
This function pops up a window for the user to choose which
workspaces a window belongs to.
f.occupyall
This function makes the specified window occupy all the
workspaces.
f.pack string
Where string is either : ‘right’, ‘left’, ‘top’ or ‘bottom’
The current window is moved in the specified direction
until it reaches an obstacle (either another window, or the
screen border). The pointer follows the window.
f.previconmgr
This function warps the pointer to the previous icon man‐
ager containing any windows on the current or preceding
screens.
f.prevworkspace
Goto the previous workspace in the list, using the order
given in the .ctwmrc file.
f.pin Valid only in a root menu. Make a menu permanent on the
screen. This is a toggle function, if you select it while
the menu is already permanent, it becomes non-permanent.
f.quit This function causes ctwm to restore the window's borders
and exit. If ctwm is the first client invoked from xdm,
this will result in a server reset.
f.raiseicons
This function raises all the icons in the current
workspace.
f.raise This function raises the selected window.
f.raiselower
This function raises the selected window to the top of the
stacking order if it is occluded by any windows, otherwise
the window will be lowered.
f.removefromworkspace string
This function removes the selected window from the
workspace whose name is string.
f.refresh
This function causes all windows to be refreshed.
f.rereadsounds
This function causes the .ctwm-sounds file to be re-read.
See the SOUNDS section.
f.resize
This function displays an outline of the selected window.
Crossing a border (or setting AutoRelativeResize) will
cause the outline to begin to rubber band until the invok‐
ing button is released. To abort a resize, press another
button before releasing the first button.
f.restart
f.twmrc This function kills and restarts ctwm.
f.restoregeometry
Restore the current window geometry to what was saved in
the last call to f.savegeometry.
f.righticonmgr
This function is similar to f.nexticonmgr except that wrap‐
ping does not change rows.
f.rightworkspace
Goto the workspace immediately on the right of the current
workspace in the workspace manager. If the current
workspace is the rightest one, goto the leftest one in the
same row. The result depends on the layout of the workspace
manager.
f.rightzoom
This variable is similar to the f.bottomzoom function
except that the selected window is only resized to the
right half of the display.
f.ring Selects a window and adds it to the WarpRing, or removes it
if it was already in the ring. This command makes
f.warpring much more useful, by making its configuration
dynamic.
f.savegeometry
The geometry of the current window is saved. The next call
to f.restoregeometry will restore this window to this geom‐
etry.
f.saveyourself
This function sends a WM_SAVEYOURSELF message to the
selected window if it has requested the message in its
WM_PROTOCOLS window property. Clients that accept this
message are supposed to checkpoint all state associated
with the window and update the WM_COMMAND property as spec‐
ified in the ICCCM. If the selected window has not
selected for this message, the keyboard bell will be rung.
f.separator
Valid only in menus. The effect is to add a line separator
between the previous and the following entry. The name
selector part in the menu is not used (but must be
present).
f.setbuttonsstate
Set the WorkSpace manager in button state.
f.setmapstate
Set the WorkSpace manager in map state.
f.showiconmgr
This function maps the current icon manager.
f.sorticonmgr
This function sorts the entries in the current icon manager
alphabetically. See the variable SortIconManager.
f.showbackground
This function unmaps all windows in the current workspace.
This is a toggle function, if all windows are unmapped,
they are all remapped. Better bind this function in the
root context.
f.showworkspacemgr
Map the WorkSpace manager.
f.slowdownanimation
Decrease AnimationSpeed by 1.
f.speedupanimation
Increase AnimationSpeed by 1.
f.squeeze
f.squeeze squeezes a window to a null vertical size. Works
only for windows with either a title, or a 3D border (in
order to have something left on the screen). If the window
is already squeezed, it is unsqueezed.
f.startanimation
Restart freezed animations (if any).
f.stopanimation
Freeze animations (if any).
f.title This function provides a centered, unselectable item in a
menu definition. It should not be used in any other con‐
text.
f.toggleoccupation string
This function adds the selected window to the workspace
whose name is string if it doesn't already belongs to it,
and removes it from this workspace if not.
f.togglesound
Toggle sound on/off. See the SOUNDS section.
f.togglestate
Toggle the state of the WorkSpace manager.
f.toggleworkspacemgr
Toggle the presence of the WorkSpaceManager. If it is
mapped, it will be unmapped and vice versa.
f.topzoom
This variable is similar to the f.bottomzoom function
except that the selected window is only resized to the top
half of the display.
f.unfocus
This function resets the focus back to pointer-driven.
This should be used when a focused window is no longer
desired.
f.upiconmgr
This function warps the pointer to the previous row in the
current icon manager, wrapping to the last row in the same
column if necessary.
f.upworkspace
Goto the workspace immediately above the current workspace
in the workspace manager. If the current workspace is the
top one, goto the bottom one in the same column. The result
depends on the layout of the workspace manager.
f.vanish
The specified window vanishes from the current workspace if
it occupies at least one other WorkSpace. Do nothing in the
others cases.
f.vlzoom
This function is a synonym for f.leftzoom.
f.vrzoom
This function is a synonym for f.rightzoom.
f.warphere win_name
This function adds the window which has a name or class
that matches string to the current workspace and warps the
pointer to it. If the window is iconified, it will be
deiconified if the variable WarpUnmapped is set or else
ignored.
f.warpring string
This function warps the pointer to the next or previous
window (as indicated by the argument string, which may be
"next" or "prev") specified in the WindowRing variable.
f.warpto string
This function warps the pointer to the window which has a
name or class that matches string. If the window is iconi‐
fied, it will be deiconified if the variable WarpUnmapped
is set or else ignored.
f.warptoiconmgr string
This function warps the pointer to the icon manager entry
associated with the window containing the pointer in the
icon manager specified by the argument string. If string
is empty (i.e. ""), the current icon manager is chosen.
f.warptoscreen string
This function warps the pointer to the screen specified by
the argument string. String may be a number (e.g. "0" or
"1"), the word "next" (indicating the current screen plus
1, skipping over any unmanaged screens), the word "back"
(indicating the current screen minus 1, skipping over any
unmanaged screens), or the word "prev" (indicating the last
screen visited.
f.winrefresh
This function is similar to the f.refresh function except
that only the selected window is refreshed.
f.zoom This function is similar to the f.fullzoom function, except
that the only the height of the selected window is changed.
MENUS
Functions may be grouped and interactively selected using pop-up (when
bound to a pointer button) or pull-down (when associated with a title‐
button) menus. Each menu specification contains the name of the menu
as it will be referred to by f.menu, optional default foreground and
background colors, the list of item names and the functions they should
invoke, and optional foreground and background colors for individual
items:
Menu "menuname" [ ("deffore":"defback") ]
{
string1 [ ("fore1":"backn")] function1
string2 [ ("fore2":"backn")] function2
.
.
.
stringN [ ("foreN":"backN")] functionN
}
The menuname is case-sensitive. The optional deffore and defback argu‐
ments specify the foreground and background colors used on a color dis‐
play to highlight menu entries. The string portion of each menu entry
will be the text which will appear in the menu. The optional fore and
back arguments specify the foreground and background colors of the menu
entry when the pointer is not in the entry. These colors will only be
used on a color display. The default is to use the colors specified by
the MenuForeground and MenuBackground variables. The function portion
of the menu entry is one of the functions, including any user-defined
functions, or additional menus.
There are 3 special menus. TwmWindows contains the names of all of the
client and ctwm-supplied windows in the current workspace. Selecting
an entry will cause the WindowFunction to be executed on that window.
If WindowFunction hasn't been set, the window will be deiconified and
raised. TwmWorkspaces contains the names of your workspaces, selecting
an entry goto this workspace. In addition, these entries have submenus
containing the names of all windows occupying this workspace, selecting
such an entry executes f.warpto on this window. And finally, TwmAllWin‐
dows contains the names of all the windows ctwm manages. Selecting an
entry executes f.warpto on this window.
If an entry name begins with a ‘*’ (star), this star won't be displayed
and the corresponding entry will be the default entry for this menu.
When a menu has a default entry and is used as a submenu of another
menu, this default entry action will be executed automatically when
this submenu is selected without being displayed. It's hard to explain,
but easy to understand.
ICONSctwm supports several different ways of manipulating iconified windows.
The common pixmap-and-text style may be laid out by hand or automati‐
cally arranged as described by the IconRegion variable. In addition, a
terse grid of icon names, called an icon manager, provides a more effi‐
cient use of screen space as well as the ability to navigate among win‐
dows from the keyboard.
An icon manager is a window that contains names of selected or all win‐
dows currently on the display. In addition to the window name, a small
button using the default iconify symbol will be displayed to the left
of the name when the window is iconified. By default, clicking on an
entry in the icon manager performs f.iconify. To change the actions
taken in the icon manager, use the the iconmgr context when specifying
button and keyboard bindings.
Moving the pointer into the icon manager also directs keyboard focus to
the indicated window (setting the focus explicitly or else sending syn‐
thetic events NoTitleFocus is set). Using the f.upiconmgr, f.downicon‐
mgr f.lefticonmgr, and f.righticonmgr functions, the input focus can be
changed between windows directly from the keyboard.
SOUNDS
If compiled with the USE_SOUND flag, ctwm is able to play sounds for
any X event. ctwm will look for the file .ctwm-sounds in the user's
home directory to map every X event to a sound file to be played.
Each line in .ctwm-sounds has the following syntax:
{X event}: {sound file}
The currently known X events that can be given are:
KeyPress
KeyRelease
ButtonPress
ButtonRelease
MotionNotify
EnterNotify
LeaveNotify
FocusIn
FocusOut
KeymapNotify
Expose
GraphicsExpose
NoExpose
VisibilityNotify
CreateNotify
DestroyNotify
UnmapNotify
MapNotify
MapRequest
ReparentNotify
ConfigureNotify
ConfigureRequest
GravityNotify
ResizeRequest
CirculateNotify
CirculateRequest
PropertyNotify
SelectionClear
SelectionRequest
SelectionNotify
ColormapNotify
ClientMessage
MappingNotify
Additionally, the following two are recognised, and represent the time
when ctwm is started or shut down:
Startup
Shutdown
BUGS
The resource manager should have been used instead of all of the window
lists.
Double clicking very fast to get the constrained move function will
sometimes cause the window to move, even though the pointer is not
moved.
If IconifyByUnmapping is on and windows are listed in IconManager‐
DontShow but not in DontIconifyByUnmapping, they may be lost if they
are iconified and no bindings to f.menu "TwmWindows" or f.warpto are
setup.
FILES
$HOME/.ctwmrc.<screen number>
$HOME/.ctwmrc
/usr/lib/X11/twm/system.ctwmrc
$HOME/.twmrc
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
DISPLAY This variable is used to determine which X server to use. It
is also set during f.exec so that programs come up on the
proper screen.
HOME This variable is used as the prefix for files that begin with a
tilde and for locating the ctwm startup file.
SEE ALSOX(1), Xserver(1), xdm(1), xrdb(1)COPYRIGHT
Portions copyright 1988 Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation; por‐
tions copyright 1989 Hewlett-Packard Company and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, See X(1) for a full statement of rights and
permissions.
AUTHORS
Tom LaStrange, Solbourne Computer; Jim Fulton, MIT X Consortium; Steve
Pitschke, Stardent Computer; Keith Packard, MIT X Consortium; Dave
Sternlicht, MIT X Consortium; Dave Payne, Apple Computer; Claude Lecom‐
mandeur, Swiss Polytechnical Institute of Lausanne (lecom@sic.epfl.ch);
Richard Levitte (richard@levitte.org).
Version 3.7 CTWM(1)
