WindowMaker

Introduction

WindowMaker (also known as WMaker) is a fast window manager which at first looks a bit skinned but really is an effective window manager. It has been around since 1989, which is probably the reason why some people find it's looks a bit old.

It has a GUI for configuring. Take a look at the configuration section for further details.

First impression

Window Maker with standard skin.

When WMaker first starts up, it looks very bare. No taskbar, start menu, no icon dock and no icons on the desktop. It has a rather dark theme which is gentle on your tired eyes ;) and a window with a quick help pops up. To get started you should know that

• The menu is accessed by right clicking on the background.
• Switching between applications can be done
  • by Alt-Tabbing.
  • with the help of the Window List.

See the Selecting windows section for further details.

• Switching from desktop to desktop is done by holding down Meta and pressing Left and Right or by pressing a number, 1 to <number of desktops>.

The menu

The Window Maker menu.

The WindowMaker menu contains a sub menu, "G-Bar", which, like all the other window managers in the G-Bar, is updated system wide by the G-Bar Supporters.

It also contains a couple of entrys mainly for the sake of the shortcuts:

• Meta + F3: Terminal on the server with the minimum load.
• Meta + Shift + F3: Terminal on "This host". Note: Do not run programs on "This Host" = gray1!!!
• Alt + F2: Run command on the server with the minimum load.

Selecting windows

Alt-Tabgbing in Window Maker.

The Window list.

You can switch between the windows on your current desktop by holding down Alt and pressing the Tab-key several times. Just like Windows. A selector with an icon for each window will pop up. Minimized windows will be dimmed in the selector.

When the selector is visible (after pressing Alt-Tab once) you can also use the mouse to select the wanted application.

If you are looking for a window on another desktop, the Window List will come in handy. To access the Window List, middle click on the desktop background.

Configuring WindowMaker

WPrefs.

Most of the configuration is done via the WPrefs utillity. When configuration have been changed, a restart of WindowMaker is necessary. This is done via the menu: Exit... => Restart.

WPrefs is started from the menu: Appearance => WPrefs.

It is possible to edit the menu but this is not recommended by the G-Bar supporters. The menu contains a submenu maintained by the G-Bar supporters. If you accidently deletes this submenu entry from your menu, you can reinsert an external submenu with the path /usr/local/gbar/etc/wmaker/gbar-menu.

Workspaces

The Workspaces submenu.

Workspaces can be altered via the special submenu Specials => Workspaces. The two first entries pretty much states themself. Do note that in order to delete the last workspace, you

• may not be on the desktop.
• have to make sure that it is empty.

Just clicking on a workspace entry moves you to the workspace. ctrl-click on a workspace entry enables you to rename that workspace.

Note that the workspace menu can be torn off by clicking on the title. This is usefull when you have to make several changes.

Themes and appearances

The colors of WindowMaker can quickly be changed via the Appearance submenu. The submenu contains 3 items:

• Background: Changes the background only.
• Styles: Changes the window decorations only.
• Themes: Changes both.

Application Icons

Application icons.

It is also possible to enable little applications icons for open windows. Actually, they are enabled by default on WindowMaker, but has been disabled by default by the G-Bar supporters. In order to enable them again, edit the file ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WMWindowAttributes and find the lines

"*" = {
  NoAppIcon = Yes;
};

and delete them. Save the changes and restart WindowMaker.

Little tricks

• You can easily move a window by holding down Meta and left click/drag the window.

• You can easily resize a window by holding down Meta and right click/resize the window.

• You can drag a window from one desktop to another by simply dragging it of the edge of the screen.

• By holding down shift while clicking the window titles you can select multiple windows. You can then
  • Move them around on the desktop simultaneously.
  • Move them to another desktop simply by switching to another desktop.

Window List torn off and placed in the lower right corner.

• You can tear off the window list and place in the lower right corner.
  1. Middle click in the desktop to get access the Window List.
  2. Left click on the title and drag the Window List down in the bottom.

This enables you to get a full list of all windows on all desktops simply by moving the mouse down in the right corner.

• You can tear off menus and sub menus to make them stay by clicking their title. The title will get a little button with an 'X' on it. Click this to make the torn off menu disappear again.

• To get icons on the desktop background (like KDE or Windows), take a look at ROX.

• To make an application launch when starting WMaker, you can edit the file ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/autostart and make it executable

 chmod 644 ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/autostart

whereafter WMaker will execute it when starting.

Note: This script is run on "This Host" a.k.a. gray1 on which it is not allowed to run applications!!! Therefor you should either use the gbarstart script or the run_on script which starts your program on the server with the minimum load.

Example:
Put the following in the file to make ROX start up and place icons on the desktop

 run_on min_load rox -p default

In order for ROX to work properly with WindowMaker, it is adwisable to do the following:

1. Open up a ROX window (click on "Home") and go to the options (Right click on the window background).
2. Go to the "Iconified Windows" pane and make sure that "Show iconified windows" is not checked.
3. Go to the "Compatibility" pane and make sure that "Pass all backdrop mouse clicks... " is checked.
4. Click OK.

• You can make certain windows popup on certain desktops and strip their window decorations. An example:
  1. Right click on the window title and select attributes. If the window has no title, you can press ctrl-esc while having focus on the window.
  2. Select the configuration you want - e.g. disable titlebar and border or initial workspace.
  3. Press Apply to activate settings.
  4. Press Save to make WindowMaker remember the settings for that application next time it starts.