WindowMaker

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[edit] Description

Window Maker is an X11 window manager originally designed to provide integration support for the GNUstep Desktop Environment. In every way possible, it reproduces the look and feel of the NEXTSTEP[tm] user interface. It is fast, feature rich, easy to configure, and easy to use. It is the most popular window manager in xwinman's web page.

Window Maker includes compatibility options which allow it to work with other popular desktop environments, namely GNOME and KDE, and comes with a powerful GUI configuration editor, called WPrefs, which removes the need to edit text-based config files by hand.

Features of Window Maker include:

  • Application dock, like AfterStep's Wharf, but with drag and drop support
  • Pinnable menus
  • Gradient rendered window decorations
  • National language support
  • XPM dithering
  • Integrated support for GNUstep applications
  • Graphical configuration tool
  • ICCCM compliant
  • Support for GNOME, KDE and other proprietary toolkits
  • Support for GNUstep
  • Quickly accessible multiple workspaces
  • Graphically configurable, while still providing a reasonable amount of configurability
  • Support for many types of decoration textures
  • Flexible menus for launching applications;
  • Operations for treating windows that belong to a single application as a whole, like hide application, dock application for later reuse

[edit] Installation

Emerge the wmaker package: 

emerge -av windowmaker

WindowMaker has its own display manager, WDM (WINGs Display Manager). (Please, if somebody has used it write a little bit about it).

To use it with KDE display manager (kdm) you need the file wmaker.desktop in /usr/share/xsessions: 

# cp /usr/kde/<your-version>/share/apps/kdm/sessions/wmaker.desktop /usr/share/xsessions
# ls /usr/share/xsessions/
kde-3.5.desktop  wmaker.desktop

A folder called $HOME/GNUstep will be created after executing wmaker for the first time for keeping user's configuration options.

[edit] Configuration

Window Maker is fully configurable graphically by /usr/lib/GNUstep/Applications/WPrefs.app/WPrefs. You can also edit the configuration files. They are stored in $HOME/GNUstep/Defaults.

It has a file to autostart programs:

File: autostart 
$ cat ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/autostart
#!/bin/sh
#
# Place applications to be executed when WindowMaker is started here.
# This should only be used for non-X applications or applications that
# do not support session management. Other applications should be restarted
# by the WindowMaker session restoring mechanism. For that, you should
# either set SaveSessionOnExit=YES or select "Save Session" in the Workspace
# submenu of the root menu when all applications you want started are
# running.
#
# WindowMaker will wait until this script finishes, so if you run any
# commands that take long to execute (like a xterm), put a ``&'' in the
# end of the command line.
#
# This file must be executable.
#
# xset m 20/10 4
xmodmap -e "pointer = 3 2 1 4 5" # To change mouse pointer

[edit] Links

Retrieved from "http://www.gentoo-wiki.com/WindowMaker"
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