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, or page. If you have applied the Mini-
Icons patch to fvwm2, then FvwmIconMan can display the
miniature icons for its managed windows. The managers may
have a maximum number of columns (and so grows verti-
cally), a maximum number of rows (and then grows horizon-
tally), 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 .fvwmrc file. If FvwmIconMan is to be
declarations, or it can be bound to a menu, mouse button,
or keystroke to invoke it later. FvwmIconMan should be
placed in the ModulePath (defined in the .fvwmrc file) in
order for fvwm to find it.
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 manpage,
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
action binds command to event Mouse 0 N sendcommand Iconify
background default background gray
buttongeometry size of button in pixels 100x17
dontshow list of windows to ignore
drawicons use miniicons false
focusandselectbutton flat black white
focusbutton style for focused buttons up black white
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
managergeometry size of manager in buttons 0x1
nummanagers number of managers 1
plainbutton style for normal buttons up white gray
resolution global, desk, or page global
selectbutton style for selected buttons flat white gray
shape use shape extension false
show list of windows to show
sort keep managers sorted true
title manager title FvwmIconMan
titlebutton style for title button raisededge white gray
usewinlist honor WinListSkip? true
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 integral id refers to managers
which FvwmIconMan creates when running normally,
and an id of "transient" refers to the single man-
ager which FvwmIconMan creates when running tran-
siently.
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*]drawicons boolean
Man displays the MiniIcons. Otherwise, it generates
an error message.
*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*]focusandselectbutton style [forecolor
back- color]
Same as the plainbutton option, but specifies the
look of buttons which are both selected, and have
the keyboard focus.
*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*]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-
ager will grow upwards. Otherwise, it will grow
downwards.
*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*]resolution resolution
Specifies when the manager will display an entry
for a certain window. resolution may take one of
the following values: global, desk, or page. If
global, then all windows of the appropriate type
(see the show and dontshow options below) will be
shown. If desk, then only those windows on the cur-
rent desk will be down. And if page, then only
those windows on the current page will be shown.
The default is global.
*FvwmIconMan*[id*]selectbutton style [forecolor backcolor]
Same as the plainbutton option, but specifies the
look of buttons when the mouse is over them.
*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*]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 titlebar 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]
manager is empty). The manager's title is drawn in
the title button.
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*]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*]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.
*FvwmIconMan*[id*]followfocus boolean
If true, then the button appearance reflects which
window currently has focus. Default is false.
*FvwmIconMan*[id*]sort boolean
If true, then the icon manager is kept sorted.
Default is true.
ACTIONS
Actions are commands which may be bound to an event of the
type: a keypress, a mouse click, or the mouse entering a
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.
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 alphabetical 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-
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.
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 fvwm2, don't
quote FvwmIconMan either.
SAMPLE CONFIGURATIONS
This first example is of a the simplest invocation of
##############################################################
# 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*selectbutton down white steelblue
*FvwmIconMan*focusbutton up white brown
*FvwmIconMan*focusandselectButton down white brown
*FvwmIconMan*titleButton raisededge white steelblue
*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 (berson@cs.pitt.edu),
Josh M. Osborne (stripes@va.pubnix.com,
Man(1) output converted with
man2html