Index of Section 1 Manual Pages
| Interix / SUA | FvwmIconMan.1 | Interix / SUA |
FvwmIconMan(1) FvwmIconMan(1)
NAME
FvwmIconMan - an Fvwm Icon Manager
SYNOPSIS
FvwmIconMan is spawned by fvwm, so no command line invoca-
tion will work.
DESCRIPTION
FvwmIconMan is an icon manager modeled after the TWM icon
manager. The user may have multiple icon managers, each
of which armed with a list of window types which it man-
ages. For example, the user may have one manager which
lists only emacs windows, and another which lists every-
thing else. You may also specify what resolution each icon
manager uses, for example, one icon manager may manage
windows on all desks, and another may manage only those on
the current desk, page or screen. FvwmIconMan can display
the miniature icons provided by fvwm for its managed win-
dows. The managers may have a maximum number of columns
(and so grows vertically), a maximum number of rows (and
then grows horizontally), or stay at a fixed size, and
adjust the size of the window buttons to fit (think
win95's Taskbar). And when support is compiled in for the
X Shape extension, then the manager windows may be shaped.
You can specify actions to be run when mouse, or key
events are received. For example, you could bind the first
mouse button to iconify the selected window, and make
bindings for the arrow keys to navigate the manager window
without the mouse.
FvwmIconMan can be set to display which window currently
has the keyboard focus, and by binding the select event
(see below) to the fvwm Focus function, you can emulate
the TWM icon manager's behavior.
INITIALIZATION
During initialization, FvwmIconMan searches though the
fvwm configuration file for the options which are
described below. It is highly recommended that you make
FvwmIconMan be a sticky window. And if you want to make
use of the followfocus option, and/or binding an action to
Focus, then you should make FvwmIconMan clicktofocus.
Also, when using the Shape option, it's recommended that
the FvwmIconMan window not be decorated at all by fvwm.
INVOCATION
FvwmIconMan can be invoked by inserting the line 'Module
FvwmIconMan' in the .fvwm2rc file. If FvwmIconMan is to
be spawned during fvwm's initialization, then this line
should be placed in the StartFunction declarations, or it
can be bound to a menu, mouse button, or keystroke to
invoke it later.
If you wish to run FvwmIconMan in a transient mode, such
as with the built in window list, then pass Transient as
an argument. The invocation "Module FvwmIconMan Transient"
will do nicely. In this mode, FvwmIconMan will pop up one
manager window directly under the cursor. When the mouse
button is released, it will execute the appropriate
action, and then exit. Things are somewhat complicated by
the fact that you can specify that FvwmIconMan create mul-
tiple manager windows, behavior which is unsuitable when
running transiently. So, when running transiently, FvwmI-
conMan will only create one manager window. Use the man-
ager id 'transient' to specify options for this manager
window.
CONFIGURATION OPTIONS REFERENCE CHART
FvwmIconMan has acquired quite a few options. I assume
others share my dislike of paging though a long man page,
so here is a terse reference chart describing the avail-
able options. They are described in more detail in the
next section.
Name Description Default
nummanagers number of managers 1
action binds command to event Mouse 0 N sendcommand Iconify
background default background gray
buttongeometry size of button in pixels
colorset default colorset
dontshow list of windows to ignore
drawicons use mini icons false
focusandselectbutton flat grey black
focusandselectcolorset
focusbutton style for focused buttons up grey black
focuscolorset
followfocus show which win has focus false
font 8x13
foreground default text color white
format describes button label "%c: %i"
iconname manger icon name FvwmIconMan
iconbutton style for icon buttons up black grey
iconcolorset
managergeometry size of manager in buttons 0x1
noiconaction animate iconification NOP
plainbutton style for normal buttons up black grey
plaincolorset
resolution global/desk/page/screen page
reverse normal, icon or none none
selectbutton style for selected buttons flat black grey
selectcolorset
shape use shape extension false
show list of windows to show
showonlyicons only icons visible false
sort keep managers sorted name
title manager title FvwmIconMan
titlebutton style for title button raisededge black grey
titlecolorset
usewinlist honor WinListSkip? true
CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
With the exception of the nummanagers option, all of the
options may be defined on a per-manager basis. So, for
example, the user may have his emacs manager with a red
foreground, and his xterm manager with a blue one. A con-
figuration line may therefore have one of two forms:
*FvwmIconMan: optionname optionvalue
To specify that the optionname takes the value
optionvalue for all managers.
*FvwmIconMan: managerid optionname optionvalue
To specify that the option optionname takes the
value optionvalue for manager managerid. Mangerid
may either be a positive integer, or the string
"transient". An integer id refers to managers which
FvwmIconMan creates when running normally, and an
id of "transient" refers to the single manager
which FvwmIconMan creates when running transiently.
The old syntax, that uses an asterisk instead of
white spaces before managerid and optionname, is
supported too, but it is obsolete now.
The following options may be specified:
*FvwmIconMan: nummanagers num
num is a positive integer specifying the total num-
ber of icon managers. Since FvwmIconMan would like
to know how many managers there are before handling
any manager specific options, this should come
first. The default is 1.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] action type binding
Binds an FvwmIconMan command to an event. Type may
be one of the values: Key, Mouse, or Select.
Actions are described in the following section
ACTIONS.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] background background
Specifies the default background color.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] buttongeometry geometry
Specifies the initial geometry of an individual
button in pixels. If the specified height is 0,
then the button height is determined from the font
size. X and Y coordinates are ignored.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] colorset colorset
The default colorset used. Overrides background and
foreground. See FvwmTheme.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] drawicons value
If your version of fvwm is capable of using mini
icons, then this option determines if FvwmIconMan
displays the mini icons. Otherwise, it generates an
error message. "true" means that mini icons are
shown for iconified windows, "false" that mini
icons are never shown, and "always" that mini icons
are shown for all windows.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] focusandselectbutton style [forecolor
backcolor]
Same as the plainbutton option, but specifies the
look of buttons which are both selected, and have
the keyboard focus.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] focusandselectcolorset colorset
Works like focusandselectbutton but uses colorsets
instead. The style setting can still only be
applied with focusandselectbutton. See FvwmTheme.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] focusbutton style [forecolor backcolor]
Same as the plainbutton option, but specifies the
look of buttons whose windows have the keyboard
focus.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] focuscolorset colorset
Works like focusbutton but uses colorsets instead.
The style setting can still only be applied with
focusbutton. See FvwmTheme.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] followfocus boolean
If true, then the button appearance reflects which
window currently has focus. Default is false.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] font font
Specifies the font to be used for labeling the but-
tons. The default is 8x13.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] foreground foreground
Specifies the default foreground color.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] format formatstring
A printf like format string which describes the
string to be printed in the manager window for each
managed window. Possible flags are: %t, %i, %c, and
%r for the window's title, icon, class, or resource
name, respectively. The default is "%c: %i". Warn-
ing: m4 reserves the word format, so if you use m4,
take appropriate action.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] iconname iconstring
Specifies the window icon name for that manager
window. Iconstring may either be a single word, or
a string enclosed in quotes. The default is "FvwmI-
conMan".
*FvwmIconMan: [id] iconbutton style [forecolor backcolor]
Same as the plainbutton option, but specifies the
look of buttons whose windows are iconified.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] iconcolorset colorset
Works like iconbutton but uses colorsets instead.
The style setting can still only be applied with
iconbutton. See FvwmTheme.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] managergeometry geometry
Specifies the initial geometry of the manager, in
units of buttons. If height is 0, then the manager
will use width columns, and will grow vertically
once it has more than width windows. Likewise, if
width is 0, it will use height rows, and grow hori-
zontally. If both are nonzero, then the manager
window will be exactly that size, and stay that
way. As columns are created, the buttons will nar-
row to accommodate. If the geometry is specified
with a negative y coordinate, then the window man-
ager will grow upwards. Otherwise, it will grow
downwards.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] noiconaction action
Tells FvwmIconMan to do action when a NoIcon style
window is iconified or de-iconified. Relevant coor-
dinates are appended to action so that the icon can
be traced to an FvwmIconMan button. An example
action is "*FvwwmIconMan: NoIconAction SendToModule
FvwmAnimate animate". A blank or null action turns
this feature off.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] plainbutton style [forecolor backcolor]
Specifies how normal buttons look. style may be one
of flat, up, down, raisededge, or sunkedge, and
describes how the button is drawn. The color
options are both optional, and if not set, then the
default colors are used. If on a monochrome screen,
then the style option is ignored, but must still be
set.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] plaincolorset colorset
Works like plainbutton but uses colorsets instead.
The style setting can still only be applied with
plainbutton. See FvwmTheme.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] resolution resolution
Specifies when the manager will display an entry
for a certain window. resolution may take one of
the following values: global, desk, page, screen,
!desk, !page, or !screen. If global, then all win-
dows of the appropriate type (see the show and
dontshow options below) will be shown. If desk,
then only those windows on the current desk are
down. If page, then only those windows on the cur-
rent page are shown. If screen, then only those
windows on the current Xinerama screen are shown.
!desk reverses the sense of desk, displaying only
those windows not on the current desk. Likewise,
!page shows only those windows not on the current
page and !screen shows only those windows not on
the current Xinerama screen. The default is page.
If Xinerama is not active or only a single screen
is used, page and screen are equivalent.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] reverse class
Causes certain classes of buttons to have their
relief lines reversed so that up and down styles
are reversed. This has no affect on flat buttons.
The class can be icon, normal or none. The default
is none.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] selectbutton style [forecolor back-
color]
Same as the plainbutton option, but specifies the
look of buttons when the mouse is over them.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] selectcolorset colorset
Works like selectbutton but uses colorsets instead.
The style setting can still only be applied with
selectbutton. See FvwmTheme.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] shape boolean
If True, then use make the window shaped. Probably
only useful if you have multiple columns or rows.
If FvwmIconMan wasn't compiled to support the Shape
extension, this generates an error message. When
using shaped windows, it's recommended that a fvwm
style is made for FvwmIconMan that has no borders.
Otherwise, fvwm will get confused.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] sort value
If name, then the manager list is sorted by name.
If namewithcase, then it is sorted by name sensi-
tive to case. If id, then the manager list is
sorted by the window id, which never changes after
the window is created. Or it can be set to none,
which results in no sorting. Default is name.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] title titlestring
Specifies the window title string for that manager
window. Titlestring may either be a single word, or
a string enclosed in quotes. The default is "FvwmI-
conMan". This will be drawn in the title bar of the
manager window, if any, and in the title button,
which is the button drawn when the manager is
empty.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] titlebutton style [forecolor backcolor]
Same as the plainbutton option, but specifies the
look of the title button (the button drawn when the
manager is empty). The manager's title is drawn in
the title button.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] usewinlist boolean
If true, then honor the WinListSkip style flag.
Otherwise, all windows are subject to possible man-
agement according to the show and dontshow lists.
The two following options control which windows get han-
dled by which managers. A manager can get two lists, one
of windows to show, and one of windows to ignore. If only
the show list is given, then that manager will show only
the windows in the list. If only the dontshow list is
given, then the manager will show all windows except those
in the list. If both lists are given, then a window will
be shown if it is not in the dontshow list, and in the
show list. And finally, if neither list is given, then the
manager will handle all windows. Each list is made up of
patterns of the form type=pattern, where type is one of
class, resource, title, or icon, and pattern is an expres-
sion of the same format used in the fvwm style command
(minimalistic shell pattern matching). Quotes around the
pattern will be taken as part of the expression. If a win-
dow could be handled by more than one manager, then the
manager with the lowest id gets it.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] show pattern list
If a window matches one of the patterns in the
list, then it may be handled by this manager.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] show pattern list
If a window matches one of the patterns in the
list, then it may be handled by this manager.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] dontshow pattern list
If a window matches one of the patterns in the
list, then it may not be handled by this manager.
*FvwmIconMan: [id] showonlyicons boolean
Only iconified windows are shown if boolean is
true.
ACTIONS
Actions are commands which may be bound to an event of the
type: a key press, a mouse click, or the mouse entering a
window manager button - denoted by the action types Key,
Mouse, and Select.
Normally, actions bound to a mouse click are executed when
the button is pressed. In transient mode, the action is
executed when the button is released, since it is assumed
that FvwmIconMan was bound to some mouse event. A
tip/warning: FvwmIconMan still keeps track of the mouse
button and any modifier keys in this case, so if you bind
FvwmIconMan to say, meta-button3, then it would be wise to
ensure that the action you want to execute will be exe-
cuted when the meta-button3 event occurs (which would be
the button release, assuming you kept your finger on the
meta key).
The syntax for actions are:
Key actions: Key Keysym Modifiers FunctionList
Keysym and Modifiers are exactly the same as for
the fvwm Key command.
Mouse actions: Mouse Button Modifiers FunctionList
Button and Modifiers are exactly the same as for
the fvwm Mouse command.
Select actions: Select FunctionList
A FunctionList is a sequence of commands separated by com-
mas. They are executed in left to right order, in one
shared context - which currently only contains a pointer
to the "current" button. If a button is selected (typi-
cally by the mouse pointer sitting on it) when the action
is executed, then the current button is initialized to
that button. Otherwise, it points to nothing.
Most of the available commands then modify this "current"
button, either by moving it around, making it become the
selected button, or sending commands to fvwm acting on the
window represented by that button. Note that while this
current button is initialized to be the selected button,
the selected button does not implicitly follow it around.
This way, the user can send commands to various windows,
without changing which button is selected.
Commands take five types of arguments: Integer, Manager,
Window, Button, and String. A String is a string specified
exactly as for fvwm - either in quotes or as a single word
not in quotes. Again, you may bind a sequence of commands
to an event, by listing them separated by commas.
Window and Button types look exactly the same in the
.fvwm2rc file, but are interpreted as either specifying a
managed window, or a FvwmIconMan button representing a
window. They can either be an integer (which is inter-
preted module N where N is the number of buttons - so 0 is
the first and -1 is the last), or one of the strings:
Select, Focus, Up, Down, Right, Left, Next, Prev. Select
and Focus refer to the currently selected or focused but-
ton or window. Up, Down, Right, and Left refer to the but-
ton or window above, below, to the right of, or to the
left of the current button in the manager window, allowing
navigation around the manager window. Next and Prev desig-
nates the window, button, or manager after or before the
current button, allowing navigation of the one dimensional
list of windows which is drawn in the manager window. If
the manager is sorted, Next and Prev move through the win-
dows in the sorted order.
The Manager type can either be an integer, Next, or Prev.
The meaning is analogous to that of the Button type, but
in terms of the integral index of the managers, restricted
to managers which are nonempty.
The following functions are currently defined:
bif Button Integer/String
A relative branch instruction. If Button is Select
or Focus, then take the branch if there is a
selected button or a focused button. If Button is
an integer, then branch if nonzero. If it is one of
Up, Down, Right, Left, Next, Prev, then the branch
is taken when the current button can move in that
direction. If the branch is taken, then Integer
commands are skipped. No backwards branches are
allowed.
bifn Button Integer/String
The complement of bif. The branch is taken if But-
ton evaluates to false, by the criteria listed for
bif.
gotobutton Button
Sets current button to Button. If Button is an
integer, then the current button is set to Button
modulo the number of buttons, in the whichever man-
ager contains the selected button, if any.
gotomanager Manager
Sets button to button 0 of Manager. This will only
go to a visible, nonempty manager. So an integral
argument is taken modulo the number of such man-
agers.
jmp Integer/String
Executes a relative jump of Integer instructions.
Backwards jumps are not allowed. The jump is com-
puted relative to the instruction following the
jmp.
label String
Provides a label that previous instructions can
jump to. It will not be visible to subsequent jump
instructions, and the same label can be used multi-
ple times in the same instruction list (though it
would be perverse to do so.)
print String
Prints String to the console. Useful for debugging
actions.
quit Quits FvwmIconMan.
ret Stop executing the entire action.
select Selects the current button, if any. If a select
action has been specified, it will then be run.
Therefore, it is considered unwise to set the
select button in the select action.
sendcommand Command
Sends the fvwm command Command to the window repre-
sented by the current button, if any.
warp Warps cursor to current button, if any.
Examples:
gotobutton select, gotobutton Down, select
Selects the button below the currently selected button.
Since the current button is already initialized to the
selected button, this may be shortened to "gotobutton Down
, select".
gotobutton Up, select
Selects the button above the currently selected button.
gotobutton 0, select
Selects the first button of the current manager. If there
is no current manager, which is the case when no button is
selected, then this does nothing.
gotobutton -1, select
Selects the last button of the current manager.
gotobutton focus, select
Selects the button corresponding to the focused window.
gotobutton focus, Iconify
Sends the fvwm command Iconify to the focused window. Note
that this does not change the selected button.
bif Next 3, gotobutton 0, select, ret, gotobutton Next, select
If a button is selected, and it's the last button, go to
button 0. If it's not the last button, go to the next but-
ton. Otherwise, do nothing. Basically, this action cycles
through all buttons in the current manager.
bif select 7, bif focus 3, gotomanager 0, select, ret, gotobutton focus, \
select, ret, gotobutton down, select
This is good for sending to FvwmIconMan with a SendToMod-
ule command. If there is a selected button, it moves down.
Otherwise, if there is a focused button, it is selected.
Otherwise, button 0 of manager 0 gets selected.
bif select Select, bif focus Focus, gotomanager 0, select, ret, label Focus, \
gotobutton focus, select, ret, label Select, gotobutton down, select
Same as previous, but using the label instruction.
In addition to being bound to keys and mice, actions can
be sent from fvwm to FvwmIconMan via the SendToModule com-
mand. Don't quote the command when using SendToModule.
Also, due to a bug in the current version of fvwm, don't
quote FvwmIconMan either.
SAMPLE CONFIGURATIONS
This first example is of a the simplest invocation of
FvwmIconMan, which only has one manager, and handles all
windows:
##############################################################
# Load any modules which should be started during
# fvwm initialization
ModulePath /usr/lib/X11/fvwm:/usr/bin/X11
Module FvwmIconMan
# Make FvwmIconMan title-bar-less, sticky, and give it an icon
Style "Fvwm*" Icon toolbox.xpm,NoTitle,NoHandles,Sticky
Style "FvwmIconMan" HandleWidth 5, Handles, BorderWidth 5
##############################################################
##############################################################
#Definitions used by the modules
*FvwmIconMan: nummanagers 1
*FvwmIconMan: resolution global
*FvwmIconMan: background slategrey
*FvwmIconMan: foreground white
*FvwmIconMan: font 7x13
*FvwmIconMan: buttongeometry 100x0
*FvwmIconMan: managergeometry 1x0-0+0
This example is the Reader's Digest version of my personal
configuration. It has two managers, one for emacs and one
for everything else, minus things with no icon title. Only
windows on the current page are displayed. The use of the
drawicons and shape options requires that fvwm and FvwmI-
conMan we compiled with the correct options. Note how the
geometry and show options are specified per manager, and
the others are common to all:
Style "FvwmIconMan" NoTitle, Sticky, WindowListSkip, BorderWidth 0
Style "FvwmIconMan" HandleWidth 0
Key F8 A N SendToModule FvwmIconMan bif select Select, bif focus Focus, \
gotomanager 0, select, sendcommand WarpToWindow, ret, label Focus, \
gotobutton focus, select, sendcommand WarpToWindow, ret, label Select, \
gotobutton prev, select, sendcommand WarpToWindow
Key F9 A N SendToModule FvwmIconMan bif select Select, bif focus Focus, \
gotomanager 0, select, sendcommand WarpToWindow, ret, label Focus, \
gotobutton focus, select, sendcommand WarpToWindow, ret, label Select, \
gotobutton next, select, sendcommand WarpToWindow
*FvwmIconMan: numManagers 2
*FvwmIconMan: Resolution page
*FvwmIconMan: background steelblue
*FvwmIconMan: foreground white
*FvwmIconMan: font 7x13
*FvwmIconMan: usewinlist true
*FvwmIconMan: drawicons true
*FvwmIconMan: shape true
*FvwmIconMan: followfocus true
*FvwmIconMan: sort name
*FvwmIconMan: plainbutton up white steelblue
*FvwmIconMan: selectbutton down white steelblue
*FvwmIconMan: focusbutton up white brown
*FvwmIconMan: focusandselectButton down white brown
*FvwmIconMan: titleButton raisededge white steelblue
*FvwmIconMan: NoIconAction "SendToModule FvwmAnimate animate"
*FvwmIconMan: 1 title "Emacs windows"
*FvwmIconMan: 1 iconname "FvwmIconMan: Emacs"
*FvwmIconMan: 1 format "%i"
*FvwmIconMan: 1 show resource=emacs resource=gemacs
*FvwmIconMan: 1 managergeometry 1x0-400+0
*FvwmIconMan: 1 buttongeometry 200x0
*FvwmIconMan: 2 title "All windows"
*FvwmIconMan: 2 iconname "FvwmIconMan: all"
*FvwmIconMan: 2 format "%c: %i"
*FvwmIconMan: 2 dontshow icon=Untitled
*FvwmIconMan: 2 managergeometry 2x4-0+0
*FvwmIconMan: 2 buttongeometry 200x0
*FvwmIconMan: transient geometry 194x100
*FvwmIconMan: transient dontshow icon=Untitled
*FvwmIconMan: transient action Mouse 0 A sendcommand select select Iconify
*FvwmIconMan: action Mouse 1 N sendcommand Iconify
*FvwmIconMan: action Mouse 2 N sendcommand WarpToWindow
*FvwmIconMan: action Mouse 3 N sendcommand "Module FvwmIdent FvwmIdent"
*FvwmIconMan: action Key Left N gotobutton Left, select
*FvwmIconMan: action Key Right N gotobutton Right, select
*FvwmIconMan: action Key Up N gotobutton Up, select
*FvwmIconMan: action Key Down N gotobutton Down, select
*FvwmIconMan: action Key q N quit
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
There is one bug that I know of. A honest to goodness
solution to this would be appreciated. When an icon man-
ager is set to grow upwards or leftwards, on some machines
it may wander occasionally.
It doesn't handle windows without resource names as grace-
fully as it should.
AUTHOR
Brady Montz (bradym@cs.arizona.edu).
THANKS
Thanks to:
David Berson ,
Gren Klanderman ,
David Goldberg ,
Pete Forman ,
Neil Moore ,
Josh M. Osborne ,
Chris Siebenmann ,
Bjorn Victor .
for contributing either code or truly keen ideas.
3 July 2001 FvwmIconMan(1)