twm(1X)twm(1X)NAMEtwm - Tab Window Manager for the X Window System
SYNOPSIStwm [-display dpy] [-s] [-f initfile] [-v]
OPTIONStwm accepts the following command line options: This option specifies
the X server to use. This option indicates that only the default
screen (as specified by -display or by the DISPLAY environment vari‐
able) should be managed. By default, twm will attempt to manage all
screens on the display. This option specifies the name of the startup
file to use. By default, twm will look in the user's home directory
for files named (where num is a screen number) or This option indicates
that twm 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.
DESCRIPTIONtwm is a window manager for the X Window System. It provides title‐
bars, shaped windows, several forms of icon management, user-defined
macro functions, click-to-type and pointer-driven keyboard focus, and
user-specified key and pointer button bindings.
This program is usually started by the user's session manager or
startup script. When used from xdm(1X) without a session manager, twm
is frequently executed in the foreground as the last client. When run
this way, exiting twm causes the session to be terminated (that is,
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, twm 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.
CUSTOMIZATION
Much of twm'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 twm begins): The screennumber is a small
positive number (for example, 0, 1, and so forth.) representing the
screen number (for example, 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. This is the usual name for an indi‐
vidual user's startup file. If neither of the preceding files are
found, twm will look in this file for a default configuration. This is
often tailored by the site administrator to provide convenient menus or
familiar bindings for novice users. <XRoot> refers to the root of the
X11 install tree.
If no startup files are found, twm will use the built-in defaults
described above. The only resource used by twm 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(1X)).
twm 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 (for example, "blue") and are case-
sensitive. A pound sign (#) outside of a string causes the remainder of
the line in which the character appears to be treated as a comment.
VARIABLES
Many of the aspects of twm's user interface are controlled by variables
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 (for example, 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
example 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 :delete (both refer to
the X logo), :dot or :iconify (both refer to the dot), :resize (the
nested squares used by the resize button), :menu (a page with lines),
and :question (the question mark used for non-existent bitmap files).
The following variables may be specified at the top of a twm startup
file. Lists of Window name prefix strings are indicated by win-list.
Optional arguments are shown in square brackets: This variable speci‐
fies a list of windows that should automatically be raised whenever the
pointer enters the window. This action can be interactively enabled or
disabled on individual windows using the function f.autoraise. This
variable indicates that dragging out a window size (either when ini‐
tially 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, twm
will still wait for the pointer to cross a window edge (to prevent
accidents). This option is particularly useful for people who like the
press-drag-release method of sweeping out window sizes. 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, Grayscale or
Monochrome list. The optional wincolorlist specifies a list of window
and color name pairs for specifying particular border colors for dif‐
ferent types of windows. For example:
BorderColor "gray50" {
"XTerm""red"
"xmh" "green" }
The default is "black". This variable specifies the default
background color in the gray pattern used in unhighlighted bor‐
ders (only if NoHighlight has not been set), and may only be
given within a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list. The
optional wincolorlist allows per-window colors to be specified.
The default is "white". This variable specifies the default
foreground color in the gray pattern used in unhighlighted bor‐
ders (only if NoHighlight has not been set), and may only be
given within a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list. The
optional wincolorlist allows per-window colors to be specified.
The default is "black". This variable specifies the width in
pixels of the border surrounding all client window frames if
ClientBorderWidth has not been specified. This value is also
used to set the border size of windows created by twm (such as
the icon manager). The default is 2. 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 variables to 0 makes title‐
buttons be as tall and wide as possible. The default is 1.
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. This variable specifies a
list of color assignments to be made if the default display is
capable of displaying more than simple black and white. The
colors-list is made up of the following color variables and
their values: DefaultBackground, DefaultForeground, MenuBack‐
ground, MenuForeground, MenuTitleBackground, MenuTitleFore‐
ground, MenuShadowColor, PointerForeground, and PointerBack‐
ground. The following 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, IconMan‐
agerHighlight, BorderTitleBackground, BorderTitleForeground,
TitleBackground, TitleForeground, IconBackground, IconFore‐
ground, IconBorderColor, IconManagerBackground, and IconManager‐
Foreground. 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 Mono‐
chrome variable, allowing the same initialization file to be
used on both color and monochrome displays. This variable spec‐
ifies 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 to be moved
only in a horizontal or vertical direction. Setting this value
to 0 will disable constrained moves. The default is 400 mil‐
liseconds. This variable specifies the glyphs that twm 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
<XRoot>/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 containing
the glyph image and mask in bitmap(1X) form. The bitmap files
are located in the same manner as icon bitmap files. The fol‐
lowing 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" } This variable indicates that tran‐
sient windows (those containing a WM_TRANSIENT_FOR property)
should have titlebars. By default, transients are not repar‐
ented. This variable specifies the background color to be used
for sizing and information windows. The default is "white".
This variable specifies the foreground color to be used for siz‐
ing and information windows. The default is "black". This
variable specifies a list of windows that should not be iconi‐
fied 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 windows
are handled by the icon manager. This variable indicates that
windows should not be allowed to be moved off the screen. It
can be overridden by the f.forcemove function. 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. This variable indicates that icon pixmaps
specified in the Icons variable should override any client-sup‐
plied pixmaps. This variable specifies the distance between the
titlebar decorations (the button and text) and the window frame.
The default is 2 pixels. This variable specifies a list of
color assignments that should be made if the screen has a
GrayScale default visual. See the description of Colors. This
variable specifies the background color of icons, and may only
be specified inside of a Color, Grayscale 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". This variable specifies the color of the border
used for icon windows, and may only be specified inside of a
Color, Grayscale 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 descrip‐
tion of the win-list. The default is "black". This variable
specifies the width in pixels of the border surrounding icon
windows. The default is 2. This variable specifies the direc‐
tory that should be searched if if a bitmap file cannot be found
in any of the directories in the bitmapFilePath resource. This
variable specifies the font to be used to display icon names
within icons. The default is "variable". This variable speci‐
fies the foreground color to be used when displaying icons, and
may only be specified inside of a Color, Grayscale 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". This variable indicates that windows should be
iconified by being unmapped without trying to map any icons.
This assumes that the user will remap the window through the
icon manager, 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. This variable specifies the background color to use for
icon manager entries, and may only be specified inside of a
Color, Grayscale 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 descrip‐
tion of the win-list. The default is "white". This variable
indicates that the icon manager should not display 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. This variable specifies the font to be
used when displaying icon manager entries. The default is
"variable". This variable specifies the foreground color to be
used when displaying icon manager entries, and may only be spec‐
ified inside of a Color, Grayscale 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
"black". This variable specifies the geometry of the icon man‐
ager window. The string argument is standard geometry specifi‐
cation 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. This variable specifies the border
color to be used when highlighting the icon manager entry that
currently has the focus, and can only be specified inside of a
Color, Grayscale 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 descrip‐
tion of the win-list. The default is "black". 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 manager
window's icon, geometry is a standard geometry specification,
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. This
variable specifies a list of windows that should appear in the
icon manager. When used in conjunction with the IconManager‐
DontShow variable, only the windows in this list will be shown
in the icon manager. This variable specifies an area on the
root window in which icons are placed if no specific icon loca‐
tion 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 argu‐
ment should be either North or South and control 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 from the right. Icons are laid out
within the region in a grid with cells gridwidth pixels wide and
gridheight pixels high. This variable specifies a list of win‐
dow 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, and 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. This
variable indicates that menu entry colors should be interpolated
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 interpo‐
lated 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. This variable specifies a list of
windows on which a titlebar should be placed and is used to
request titles on specific windows when NoTitle has been set.
This variable specifies a geometry in which the width and height
give the maximum size for a given window. This is typically
used to restrict windows to the size of the screen. The default
width is 32767 - screen width. The default height is 32767 -
screen height. 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". This variable speci‐
fies the font to use when displaying menus. The default is
"variable". This variable specifies the foreground color used
for menus, and can only be specified inside of a Color,
Grayscale or Monochrome list. The default is "black". This
variable specifies the color of the shadow behind pull-down
menus and can only be specified inside of a Color, Grayscale or
Monochrome list. The default is "black". This variable speci‐
fies the background color for f.title entries in menus, and can
only be specified inside of a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome
list. The default is "white". 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". This variable specifies a list of color assignments
that should be made if the screen has a depth of 1. See the
description of Colors. 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. This variable indicates that twm's menus should
not request backing store to minimize repainting of menus. This
is typically used with servers that can repaint faster than they
can handle backing store. This variable indicates that case
should be ignored when sorting icon names in an icon manager.
This option is typically used with applications that capitalize
the first letter of their icon name. This variable indicates
that twm should not supply the default titlebuttons and bind‐
ings. This option should only be used if the startup file con‐
tains a completely new set of bindings and definitions. This
variable indicates that twm should not grab the server when pop‐
ping up menus and moving opaque windows. This variable indi‐
cates that borders should not be highlighted to track the loca‐
tion of the pointer. If the optional win-list is given, high‐
lighting will only be disabled for those windows. When the bor‐
der is highlighted, it will be drawn in the current BorderColor.
When the border is not highlighted, it will be stippled with a
gray pattern using the current BorderTileForeground and Border‐
TileBackground colors. This variable indicates that no icon
manager should be created. This variable indicates that menus
should not have drop shadows drawn behind them. This is typi‐
cally used with slower servers since it speeds up menu drawing
at the expense of making the menu slightly harder to read. This
variable indicates that windows that are deiconified should not
be raised. This variable indicates that windows should not be
raised when moved. This is typically used to allow windows to
slide underneath each other. This variable indicates that win‐
dows should not be raised when resized. This is typically used
to allow windows to be resized underneath each other. 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). This
variable indicates that menus should not request save-unders to
minimize window repainting following menu selection. It is typ‐
ically used with displays that can repaint faster than they can
handle save-unders. 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 popping themselves to the front of the window
stack. This variable indicates that windows should not have
titlebars. If the optional win-list is given, only those win‐
dows will not have titlebars. MakeTitle may be used with this
option to force titlebars to be put on specific windows. This
variable indicates that twm should not set keyboard input focus
to each window as it is entered. Normally, twm 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 twm 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 appli‐
cations that have problems with focus events. This variable
indicates that the highlight area of the titlebar, 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 substantially reduce the
amount of screen space required by titlebars. This variable
indicates that the f.move function should actually move the win‐
dow 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). This variable specifies a list of pixmaps
that define the appearance of various images. Each entry is a
keyword indicating the pixmap to set, followed by a string giv‐
ing the name of the bitmap file. The following pixmaps may be
specified:
Pixmaps {
TitleHighlight "gray1" }
The default for TitleHighlight is to use an even stipple pat‐
tern. This variable sets twm's priority. priority should be an
unquoted, signed number (for example, 999). This variable has
an effect only if the server supports the SYNC extension. 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. This variable specifies the font
to be used for in the dimensions window when resizing windows.
The default is "fixed". This variable indicates that twm should
attempt to use the WM_STATE property on client windows to tell
which windows should be iconified and which should be left visi‐
ble. This is typically used to try to regenerate the state that
the screen was in before the previous window manager was shut‐
down. 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 an for application to avoid the "technicolor" problem,
whereby useful screen objects such as window borders and title‐
bars disappear when a programs 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. This variable indicates that the
icon manager window should be displayed when twm is started. It
can always be brought up using the f.showiconmgr function. This
variable indicates that entries in the icon manager should be
sorted alphabetically rather than by simply appending new win‐
dows to the end. This variable indicates that twm 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 numerator
is positive, and right to left if negative. A denominator of 0
indicates that the numerator should be measured in pixels. For
convenience, the ratio 0/0 is the same as 1/2 for center and
-1/1 for right. For example:
SqueezeTitle {
"XTerm" left 0 0
"xterm1" left 1 3
"xterm2" left 2 3
"oclock" center 0 0
"emacs" right 0 0 }
The DontSqueezeTitle list can be used to turn off squeezing on
certain titles. 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 win‐
dows will be started iconic. This is useful for programs that
do not support an -iconic command line option or resource. This
variable specifies the background color used in titlebars, and
may only be specified inside of a Color, Grayscale 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". This variable specifies the width in pixels of the
border surrounding 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. This variable specifies
the font to be used for displaying window names in titlebars.
The default is "variable". This variable specifies the fore‐
ground color used in titlebars, and may only be specified inside
of a Color, Grayscale 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". This variable speci‐
fies the distance between the various buttons, text, and high‐
light areas in the titlebar. The default is 8 pixels. 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. This variable specifies whether or not twm
should honor program-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 twm should ignore
the program-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. 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. This
variable specifies a list of windows along which the f.warpring
function cycles. This variable indicates that the f.warpto
function should deiconify any iconified windows it encounters.
This is typically 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. This vari‐
able 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 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, twm will
attempt to cause temporary lines to appear at the opposite end
of the colormap from the graphics. This variable indicates that
outlines suggesting movement of a window to and from its iconi‐
fied 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: 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 con‐
taining window operations. 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
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.
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
RightTitleButton "bitmapname" = 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.
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 But‐
ton1-Button5:
"FP1" = modlist : context : function Button1 = modlist : context
: function
The modlist is any combination of the modifier names shift, control,
lock, meta, mod1, mod2, mod3, mod4, or mod5 (which may be abbreviated
as s, c, l, m, m1, m2, m3, m4, m5, respectively) separated by a verti‐
cal bar (|). Similarly, the context is any combination of window,
title, icon, root, frame, iconmgr, their first letters (iconmgr abbre‐
viation 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 : win‐
dow | 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 keyboard
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
twm provides many more window manipulation primitives than can be con‐
veniently stored in a titlebar, menu, or set of key bindings. Although
a small set of defaults are supplied (unless the NoDefaults is speci‐
fied), most users will want to have their most common operations bound
to key and button strokes. To do this, twm 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.
User-defined functions contain the name by which they are referenced in
calls to f.function and a list of other functions to execute. 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: This is an abbreviation for f.exec string. This
function toggles whether or not the selected window is raised whenever
entered by the pointer. See the description of the variable AutoRaise.
This function warps the pointer to the previous column in the current
icon manager, wrapping back to the previous row if necessary. This
function sounds the keyboard bell. This function is similar to the
f.fullzoom function, but resizes the window to fill only the bottom
half of the screen. This function lowers the top-most window that
occludes another window. This function raises the bottom-most window
that is occluded by another window. This function rotates the col‐
ormaps (obtained from the WM_COLORMAP_WINDOWS property on the window)
that twm 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 private colormap upon entry of the window owning the col‐
ormap. Using the click to type model, private colormaps will not be
installed until the user presses a mouse button on the target window.
This function deiconifies the selected window. If the window is not an
icon, this function does nothing. This function sends the
WM_DELETE_WINDOW message to the selected window if the client applica‐
tion 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 mes‐
sages, 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 neces‐
sarily the entire application. 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. 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 shut‐
ting down runaway clients. See also f.delete. This function warps the
pointer to the next row in the current icon manger, wrapping to the
beginning of the next column if necessary. 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.
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. This function is like f.move except that it ignores the
DontMoveOff variable. This function warps the pointer to the next col‐
umn in the current icon manager, wrapping to the beginning of the next
row if necessary. This function resizes the selected window to the
full size of the display or else restores the original size if the win‐
dow was already zoomed. This function executes the user-defined func‐
tion whose name is specified by the argument string. This function is
a synonym for f.bottomzoom. This function unmaps the current icon man‐
ager. This variable is similar to the f.zoom function except that the
selected window is resized to the full width of the display. This
function is a synonym for f.topzoom. This function is a synonym for
f.horizoom. This function iconifies or deiconifies the selected window
or icon, respectively. This function displays a summary of the name
and geometry of the selected window. If the server supports the SYNC
extension, the priority of the client owning the window is also dis‐
played. Clicking the pointer or pressing a key in the window will dis‐
miss it. This function similar to f.backiconmgr except that wrapping
does not change rows. This variable is similar to the f.bottomzoom
function but causes the selected window is only resized to the left
half of the display. This function lowers the selected window. This
function invokes the menu specified by the argument string. Cascaded
menus may be built by nesting calls to f.menu. 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 ConstrainedMoveTime
warps the pointer to the center of the window and constrains 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. This function warps the pointer to the next icon manager
containing any windows on the current or any succeeding screen. This
function does nothing and is typically used with the DefaultFunction or
WindowFunction variables or to introduce blank lines in menus. This
function warps the pointer to the previous icon manager containing any
windows on the current or preceding screens. This function sets the
priority of the client owning the selected window to the numeric value
of the argument string, which should be a signed integer in double
quotes (for example, "999"). This function has an effect only if the
server supports the SYNC extension. This function causes twm to
restore the window's borders and exit. If twm is the first client
invoked from xdm, this will result in a server reset. This function
raises the selected window. This function raises the selected window
to the top of the stacking order if it is occluded by any windows, oth‐
erwise the window will be lowered. This function causes all windows to
be refreshed. This function displays an outline of the selected win‐
dow. Crossing a border (or setting AutoRelativeResize) will cause the
outline to begin to rubber band until the invoking button is released.
To abort a resize, press another button before releasing the first but‐
ton. This function kills and restarts twm. This function is similar
to f.nexticonmgr except that wrapping does not change rows. This vari‐
able is similar to the f.bottomzoom function except that the selected
window is only resized to the right half of the display. 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 associ‐
ated with the window and update the WM_COMMAND property as specified in
the ICCCM. If the selected window has not selected for this message,
the keyboard bell will be rung. This function maps the current icon
manager. This function sorts the entries in the current icon manager
alphabetically. See the variable SortIconManager. This function pro‐
vides a centered, unselectable item in a menu definition. It should
not be used in any other context. This variable is similar to the
f.bottomzoom function except that the selected window is only resized
to the top half of the display. This function resets the focus back to
pointer-driven. This should be used when a focused window is no longer
desired. 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. This function is a synonym for f.leftzoom. This function
is a synonym for f.rightzoom. 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. This func‐
tion warps the pointer to the window which has a name or class that
matches string. If the window is iconified, it will be deiconified if
the variable WarpUnmapped is set or else ignored. This function warps
the pointer to the icon manager entry associated with the window con‐
taining the pointer in the icon manager specified by the argument
string. If string is empty (that is, ), the current icon manager is
chosen. This function warps the pointer to the screen specified by the
argument string. String may be a number (for example, "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. This function is similar to the
f.refresh function except that only the selected window is refreshed.
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 is a special menu named TwmWindows which contains the names of
all of the client and twm-supplied windows. Selecting an entry will
cause the WindowFunction to be executed on that window. If WindowFunc‐
tion has not been set, the window will be deiconified and raised.
ICONStwm 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.
BUGS
The resource manager should have been used instead of all of the window
lists.
The IconRegion variable should take a list.
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.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
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. This
variable is used as the prefix for files that begin with a tilde and
for locating the twm startup file.
FILES
$HOME/.twmrc.<screen number>
$HOME/.twmrc
<XRoot>/lib/X11/twm/system.twmrc
SEE ALSOX(1X), Xdec(1X), xdm(1X), xrdb(1X)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.
twm(1X)
