What is SmallWM?
SmallWM is an extended version of TinyWM, made for actual desktop use.
Improvements over TinyWM
- Window Iconification
- Window Layering
- Click-To-Focus and Focus Cycling
- Moving/Resizing Placeholders
- Multiple Virtual Desktops
- Window Snapping
- Window Packing
- Class Actions
Controls
Note that these are the default controls. See the Configuration for
details on how to setup keybindings. The only non-configurable key bindings are the
ones that involve clicking the mouse, and the Super+1
... Super+9
bindings.
Desktops
Super+[
: Move a window to the previous desktop (client-prev-desktop
).Super+]
: Move a window to the next desktop (client-next-desktop
).Super+,
: Switch to the previous desktop (prev-desktop
).Super+.
: Switch to the next desktop (next-desktop
).Super+\
: Sticks/unsticks a window; a stuck window is shown on all desktops (toggle-stick
).
Clients
Super+h
: Iconifies the current window (iconify
).Super+m
: Maximizes the current window (maximize
).Super+c
, Requests the current window to close (request-close
).Super+x
: Force-closes the current window (force-close
).Super+Up
,Super+Down
,Super+Left
,Super+Right
: Snaps a window to either the top-half, bottom-half, left-half or right-half of the screen.- Actions:
snap-top
,snap-bottom
,snap-left
,snap-right
- Actions:
Super+Ctrl+Up
,Super+Ctrl+Down
, ...: Moves a window to the screen in the relative direction of the arrow key.- Actions:
screen-top
,screen-bottom
,screen-left
,screen-right
- Actions:
Super+PageUp
,Super+PageDown
: Increments or decrements the layer of this window.- Actions:
layer-above
,layer-below
- Actions:
Super+Home
,Super+End
: Puts a window on the topmost or bottommost layer.- Actions:
layer-top
,layer-bottom
- Actions:
Super+Tab
: Focuses the next visible window in the focus list (cycle-focus
).Super-Alt-Tab
: Focuses the previous visible window in the focus list (cycle-focus-back
)Super+LClick
: Dragging the left mouse button starts moving a window - to place it, let go.Super+RClick
: Dragging the right mouse button starts resizing a window - to scale it, let go.Super+1
...Super+5
...Super+9
: These change the layer to the specified value (1, 5, or 9 respectively, in this example)
Misc.
Super+LClick
: Left-clicking the root window launches a new terminal.Super+Escape
: Quits SmallWM.
Building
As a dependency, you'll need to have access to the headers for Xlib and XRandR. You should be able to easily obtain these via your package manager. You'll also need a C++ compiler - GNU G++ and clang++ work well. You'll also need a C compiler to build the inih library included with SmallWM - GNU C and clang work well for this purpose also.
Other than the dependencies, the Makefile contains everything you need to build and test SmallWM.
make
compiles a version with symbols useful for debugging. Note that there is no optimized build - if you want an optimized version, open the Makefile and change-g
to-O3
inCXXFLAGS
.
For modifying SmallWM, the other target that you should be aware of is make check
which compiles everything but does no linking. This is useful for incremental building
to track compiler errors in source files.
Running
Typically, the easiest place to put the smallwm
binary is in /usr/local/bin
.
If you want to run SmallWM from your login manager, you should put a file like the following in /usr/share/xsessions/smallwm.desktop
:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=SmallWM
Exec=/usr/local/bin/smallwm.sh
Type=Application
Inside the script /usr/local/bin/smallwm.sh
, you should enter something like
the following:
#!/bin/bash
if [ -x $HOME/.smallwmrc ]; then
$HOME/.smallwmrc &
fi
exec /usr/local/bin/smallwm
At this point, you may choose to write a .smallwmrc
file to start any programs
you wish to run for the duration of your session. Note that SmallWM does not include
a process manager to handle session programs (unlike say, XFCE, which will restart
components like the panel or the desktop if they crash). I use a tool I wrote myself,
called jobmon, to manage my system tray and
other programs, but you are free to choose whatever process manager you like, since
SmallWM doesn't care about it.
Configuration
The C++ version follows a similar configuration file format to the original C
version, but with some extended options. It should be placed at $HOME/.config/smallwm
.
For example:
[smallwm]
shell=your-preferred-terminal
desktops=42
icon-width=75
icon-height=20
border-width=4
icon-icons=0
log-level=NOTICE
hotkey-mode=focus
dump-file=/home/user/logs/smallwm-dump
[actions]
stalonetray=stick,layer:9,xpos:90,ypos:0
xclock=pack:NE1
[keyboard]
toggle-stick=asciitilde
snap-top=w
snap-bottom=s
snap-left=a
snap-right=!d
The options in the [smallwm]
section are (in order):
shell
The shell launched bySuper+LClick
(default: xterm). This can be any syntax supported by /bin/sh.desktops
The number of desktops (default: 5).icon-width
The width in pixels of icons (default: 75).icon-height
The height in pixels of icons (default: 20).border-width
The width of the border of windows (default: 4).icon-icons
Whether to (1) or not to (0) show application icons inside icon windows (default: 1).log-level
The severity of logging messages to send to syslog. By default, this isWARNING
. Seesyslog(3)
for the other log levels.hotkey-mode
What window to apply hotkeys like MINIMIZE to - this can be eitherfocus
(which means that the currently focused window is acted upon) ormouse
(which means that the window under the cursor is acted upon). The default ismouse
.dump-file
This is where SmallWM writes internal information dumps when you send it SIGUSR1. This is intended for development purposes only; although it will generally contain information about SmallWM's desktops, clients and screens, this information is for human consumption and its format is not guaranteed to stay the same. By default, this value is/dev/null
, so that any dumps SmallWM generates are not stored anywhere.
Actions
X has the notion of an application "class" which is supposed to be a unique
identifier for a window which belongs to a particular application. For example,
there is a popular system tray called stalonetray
which I use personally to
manage status notifiers (like for NetworkManager, Dropbox, and the like). A
quick xprop
of the window shows that its class name is stalonetray
.
The example given in the Configuration section shows how to stick any window belonging to stalonetray and layer it on top of all other application windows. Generally speaking, any number of these class actions can be chained together by separating them with commas.
The possibilities for a class action are:
stick
makes a particular window stick to all the desktops.maximize
maximizes that window.layer:x
sets the layer of the window tox
wherex
is a number in the range 1 to 9; 9 is the highest layer, 1 is the lowest.snap:left
,snap:right
,snap:top
,snap:bottom
snap the window to the relevant side of the screen.xpos:X
andypos:Y
set the relative position of the window on the screen.X
andY
are decimals in the range 0 to 100, inclusive. For example, settingxpos:50
puts the window's left edge in the middle of the screen (becausexpos:50
is equivalent to saying that the X position should be 50 percent of the screen's width).pack:CORNERPRIORITY
directs SmallWM to fix the position of a group of windows, re-adjusting when they are resized. The CORNER is one of NE, SE, NW or SW (indicating the upper-left, lower-left, upper-right and lower-right corners respectively), and the optional PRIORITY is a non-negative integer (0 by default). See the Packing section below.nofocus
prevents SmallWM from automatically focusing windows of the given class. This is useful for windows like system trays, clocks, or other utility windows that you don't want to manipulate by accident.
It is important to know that xpos
/ypos
and pack
are mutually exclusive - whatever
is listed last in a class's action list is what is applied. For example, packme
is packed but posme
is relative-positioned:
[actions]
packme=xpos:42,ypos:42,pack:NE7
posme=pack:SW4,xpos:9,ypos:9
Packing
Packing allows SmallWM to automatically position windows, according to a very simple set of rules. However, when a window is packed, you lose the ability to manually move and resize it.
The way that the packer works is that it looks at each corner of the screen individually. It then looks at the packed windows, and starts placing them in order of priority, with the lowest priority elements going closest to the corner.
For example, if you have 3 windows:
| A |
|B|
| C |
With the priorities:
- A 1
- B 2
- C 3
And you want to pack them into the northeast corner, the result will look like the following; A, the lowest priority, is first placed directly into the corner, with B horizontally placed on the side of A opposite the corner, and then C placed on the edge of B.
-------------------------+
| C |B| A |
SmallWM currently does not have a way to pack on secondary monitors (it will always choose the primary minitor), or a way to pack vertically.
Keyboard Bindings
Keyboard bindings in SmallWM are almost entirely (except for Super+1
... Super+9
)
configurable. The mechanism isn't that sophisticated, so make sure that you
have a copy of /usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h
or an equivalent file open.
In order to bind a key, you first have to know the name of the "keysym" that the
key uses. To do this, search keysymdef.h
for your key - the keysym name is the first
word after the #define
. The text that you put in the configuration file is the
keysym name but with the leading XK_
removed. For example, take
toggle-stick=asciitilde
in the example configuration file. This binds the toggle-stick
action to the XK_asciitilde
keysym.
The following options can be set under the [keyboard]
section to configure SmallWM's
keyboard bindings.
client-next-desktop
,client-prev-desktop
- These bindings move the current window to either the next or previous desktop
next-desktop
,prev-desktop
- These bindings move the view the next or previous desktop
toggle-stick
- This toggles the desktop stickiness of the current window
iconify
- This iconifies the current window
maximize
- This maximizes the current window
request-close
- This requests that the current window close, allowing the application to show save prompts and the like.
force-close
- This forces the current window to close. Only use this is an emergency - most applications will crash after you do this.
snap-top
,snap-bottom
,snap-left
,snap-right
- Snaps the current window to the top, bottom, left or right half of the screen.
screen-left
,screen-right
,screen-top
,screen-bottom
- Moves the current window to the screen to the left of, to the right of, above, or below the current screen it occupies.
layer-above
,layer-below
- Moves the current window to the layer above or below its current layer.
layer-top
,layer-bottom
- Moves the current window to the topmost or bottommost layer
cycle-focus
,cycle-focus-back
- Changes the focused window to the window next (or previous)in the focus list.
exit
- Terminates SmallWM
Note the key binding given for snap-right
in the example - the !
that prefixes
the 'a' is used to indicate that this key bindings uses a secondary modifier key
(Control, by default). In order to activate snap-left
, you need to press
Super+Ctrl+a
rather than just Super+a
. Only the key bindings used to move windows
between screens use this by default.
Bugs/Todo
- Support for the EWMH and the
_NET*
atoms
Credits
- Nick Welch [email protected], the original TinyWM author.
- Myself (Adam Marchetti [email protected]).
- The author(s) of the inih library.
- Possibly, you - assuming you make any useful changes and I accept your pull request. Refactorings are welcome, as are those who are actually knowledgeable about Xorg and could spot any obvious mistakes.
License
SmallWM was migrated to the 2-Clause BSD License on 2013-11-18. See LICENSE.txt for details.
The inih code, included as a part of SmallWM, is available under the New BSD License. See inih/LICENSE.txt
for details.