"SfR Fresh" - the SfR Freeware/Shareware Archive 
As a special service "SfR Fresh" has tried to format the requested source page into HTML format using source code syntax highlighting with prefixed line numbers.
Alternatively you can here view or download the uninterpreted source code file.
That can be also achieved for any archive member file by clicking within an archive contents listing on the first character of the file(path) respectively on the according byte size field.
1
2
3
4 GNU Window Maker
5 X11 Window Manager
6
7 <http://windowmaker.org>
8 <ftp://ftp.windowmaker.org>
9
10 by
11
12 Alfredo K. Kojima
13
14 Dan Pascu
15
16
17
18 Web/FTP Master
19
20 Phillip Smith
21
22
23
24 Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine
25 device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free
26 service, except that you undoubtably will destroy it via some
27 typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you
28 to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY
29 BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T
30 YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND
31 FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO
32 ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER
33 AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING
34 WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ
35 THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE
36 DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU
37 KNOW THAT?
38 -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
39
40
41 Description
42 ===========
43
44 Window Maker is the GNU window manager for the X Window System. It was
45 designed to emulate the look and feel of part of the NEXTSTEP(tm) GUI. It's
46 supposed to be relatively fast and small, feature rich, easy to configure and
47 easy to use, with a simple and elegant appearance borrowed from NEXTSTEP(tm).
48
49 Window Maker was designed keeping integration with GNUstep in mind and is the
50 "official" window manager for it. It is also part of the GNU project
51 (www.gnu.org) Read more about GNUstep further on this file.
52
53 Hints (information given by applications to integrate well with the window
54 manager) for Motif(tm) and NETWM are also supported (NETWM is used by KDE
55 and GNOME, so they are automatically supported as a result).
56 So you can replace any of the window managers for these environments
57 with Window Maker while keeping most, if not all, of the native window manager
58 functionality.
59
60 Window Maker was previously called WindowMaker.
61
62 Window Maker has no connection with Windowmaker, the software for
63 making windows and doors.
64
65
66 Documentation
67 =============
68
69 Read before asking.
70
71 * README files all over the source tree have info related to the stuff
72 in the directories.
73
74 * INSTALL has installation instructions and some troubleshooting tips.
75 You're meant to read it before installing. it was not written just to
76 fill up space in the package...
77
78 * FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions. READ IT!!! FAQ.I18N is for
79 internationalization related questions.
80
81 * NEWS: list user visible changes from the previous version. Read it if
82 you are upgrading.
83
84 * MIRRORS: some alternative places where you can get Window Maker,
85 including platform specific packages of Window Maker.
86
87 * BUGFORM: use it to send bug reports. Please do use it.
88
89 * ChangeLog: what changed from the previous version?
90
91
92 * BUGS: list of known bugs
93
94 *** Tutorial
95
96 There's a tutorial maintained by Georges Tarbouriech at:
97
98 http://www.linuxfocus.org/~georges.t/
99
100
101 *** User Guide
102
103 The Window Maker User's Guide can be downloaded from the official ftp
104 or web sites.
105 It can also be viewed in HTML format in:
106 http://people.delphi.com/crc3419/WMUserGuide/index.htm
107
108 The User Guide explains how to use Window Maker, the configuration files
109 and options.
110
111
112 *** man pages
113
114 Type "man wmaker" in the shell prompt to get general help about Window Maker
115
116
117
118 Directories & Files in the Source Tree
119 ======================================
120
121 * Install is a script for configuring and compiling Window Maker in a easy
122 way (not that the normal way is difficult, but...).
123
124 * AUTHORS: the credits
125
126 * TODO: plans for the future
127
128 * contrib/ has some contributed patches that are not supported by Window Maker
129 because they conflict with design filosophies of the developers or some
130 other reason.
131
132 * util/ has various utility programs.
133
134 * WPrefs.app/ is the configuration program.
135
136 * src/wconfig.h has compile time options you can change to select some
137 options/features and other stuff.
138
139 * WINGs/ NEXTSTEP lookalike widget library
140
141 * wrlib/ image processing library
142
143 * po/ has message catalogs wich are the translated versions of the messages
144 displayed by Window Maker.
145
146 * docklib-x.x.tar.gz a library for writing dockapps
147
148
149 HELP ME!!!
150 ==========
151
152 There is a mailing list for discussing Window Maker at
153 wm-user@windowmaker.org To subscribe to it, send a message containing:
154 subscribe
155 in the subject of the message to wm-user-request@windowmaker.org
156
157 If you got a problem, ask there (after reading the docs, of course). The
158 people there is more likely to be able to answer your questions than we are.
159 For bug reports use the BUGFORM.
160
161 If you have a problem with a precompiled version of Window Maker
162 (rpm, deb etc), first ask the person who made the package.
163
164 IMPORTANT NOTE: when asking for help (in the mailing list or to the
165 developerts, directly) *always* send information about the system you are
166 using. You can use the system information section at the end of BUGFORM as a
167 guideline. Another thing: please don't send HTML mail.
168
169
170 There is also a #windowmaker IRC channel at openprojects. To join there,
171 connect your irc client to irc.openprojects.net, irc.linux.com or some other
172 server of that network.
173
174
175 GNUstep
176 =======
177
178 GNUstep is a complete object-oriented development system, based on the
179 OpenStep specification released by NeXT(tm) (now Apple(tm)) and Sun(tm). It
180 will provide everything one needs to produce cross-platform, object-oriented,
181 graphical (and non-graphical) applications; providing among other things,
182 base system libraries, a high-level GUI application framework that uses a
183 Display PostScript(tm)-like imaging model (DGS), objects for accessing
184 relational databases, distributed objects and a graphical development
185 environment, with tools like interface modeller, a project management system
186 (project center) and other tools.
187
188 The GNUstep development system will be used to create a user environment,
189 with everything needed for a complete graphical user interface, such as a
190 file viewer, text editors and other applications. Note that the user
191 environment (or "desktop environment") is only a small part of the whole
192 GNUstep project and therefore it does not "compete" with other projects like
193 KDE or GNOME, simply because they are completely different things.
194
195 For more information on the GNUstep project, visit: http://www.gnustep.org
196 and http://gnustep.current.nu
197
198
199 Running multiple instances of Window Maker
200 ==========================================
201
202 It is not a good idea to run more than one instance of Window Maker
203 from the same user (so that wmaker will use the same configuration
204 files) at the same time. You might get unexpected behaviour when Window Maker
205 updates it's configuration files.
206
207 If you really desire to do this, try running Window Maker with the
208 command line option --static so that it will not update or change
209 any of the configuration files.
210
211 Sound support
212 =============
213
214 Sound is supported for Linux and FreeBSD systems with the use of a
215 separately distributed module called WSoundServer. There is also a graphical
216 configuration tool for setting up your sounds called WSoundPrefs.
217 You can download these at:
218 http://shadowmere.student.utwente.nl/
219
220 Note that you must compile Window Maker with the --enable-sound configure
221 flag and set the DisableSound option to NO.
222
223
224 Performance Tuning
225 ==================
226
227 If you want to diminish Window Maker's memory usage and improve performance,
228 while keeping a nice appearance and good functionality, follow the items
229 bellow:
230
231 - use solid textures for everything, mainly titlebars and menus. If you
232 want a nice looking desktop, use the Traditional style.
233 - turn NewStyle and Superfluous off
234 - do not bind many shortcuts in the menu and keep only the essential items
235 in the menu
236 - turn on DisableClip
237 - edit wconfig.h and disable the NUMLOCK_HACK and the features you
238 don't use anyway (keep in mind that some of the #defines might not
239 work, as they are not fully supported). Make sure to always keep
240 NumLock and ScrollLock turned off.
241 - turn on DisableAnimations. You can also #undefine ANIMATIONS in wconfig.h
242 - strip down the default IconPath and PixmapPath entries to contain only
243 the paths that you really have in your system.
244 - do not use large images in the root background
245 - remove support for image formats you don't use
246 - to reduce memory usage, disable the icon cache, by setting the RIMAGE_CACHE
247 environment variable to 0. If you want to increase performance at the cost
248 of memory usage, set it's value to a value like the number of different
249 icons you use. Also, disable anti-aliased text support in ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WMGLOBAL.
250
251
252 Keyboard Mouse Control
253 ======================
254
255 Many people ask about adding keyboard control of mouse, like in fvwm,
256 but Window Maker will not have such feature. The XKB extension supports
257 mouse simulation from the keyboard, in a much more powerfull fashion than
258 any simulation done by a window manager.
259
260 To enable it, hit the Control+Shift+NumLock or Shift+NumLock key combination.
261 You should hear the speaker beeping. To disable it, do the same thing.
262
263 To control the mouse the numeric keypad is used as follows:
264 - 4 (left arrow), 7 (Home), 8 (up arrow), 9 (PgUp), 6 (right arrow),
265 3 (PgDn), 2 (down arrow) and 1 (End) move the mouse to the corresponding
266 direction;
267 - holding one of the above keys and then holding the 5 key will move the
268 pointer faster;
269 - / will select the first mouse button (left button);
270 - * will select the second mouse button (middle button);
271 - - will select the third mouse button (right button);
272 - 5 will do a click with the currently selected mouse button;
273 - + will do a double-click with the currently selected button;
274 - 0 (Ins) will click and hold the currently selected button;
275 - . (Del) will release the currently selected button that was previously
276 clicked with the 0 (Ins) key.
277
278
279 The above key values work in a XFree86 3.2 (X11R6.1) X server but your
280 milleage may vary.
281
282
283 How to make a gdb backtrace
284 ===========================
285
286 Backtraces can help us fix bugs that make Window Maker crash. If you
287 find a bug that crashes Window Maker, please send a backtrace with your
288 bug report.
289
290 To make a usefull backtrace, you need a core file with debugging
291 information produced by Window Maker when it crashes. It should
292 have been installed without stripping too.
293
294 To compile wmaker with debugging information:
295
296 ./configure
297 make CFLAGS=-g
298
299 If you get the dialog window telling you that wmaker crashed and
300 asks you what to do, tell it to "Abort and leave a core file".
301
302 script
303 cd src
304 gdb .libs/wmaker path_to_the_core_file
305
306 Then, in the gdb prompt type "bt". Quit from gdb by typing "quit"
307 and then, in the shell prompt, type "exit".
308
309 The file named typescript will contain the backtrace.
310
311
312
313 Copyrights & Disclaimers
314 ========================
315
316 Window Maker is copyrighted by Alfredo K. Kojima and is licensed through the
317 GNU General Public License. Read the COPYING file for the complete license.
318
319 The icons that are distributed with this program and were made by Marco van
320 Hylckama Vlieg, are licensed through the GNU General Public License. Read the
321 COPYING file for the complete license.
322
323 The icons listed in COPYING.WTFPL and are distributed in this
324 program and were made by Banlu Kemiyatorn (]d), are licensed through the
325 "do What The Fuck you want to Public License". Read the COPYING.WTFPL
326 file for the complete license.
327
328 NeXT, OpenStep and NEXTSTEP are a trademarks of NeXT Computer, Inc.
329 All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.
330
331 The authors reserve the right to make changes in the software without prior
332 notice.
333
334
335 Authors
336 =======
337
338 Alfredo K. Kojima <kojima@windowmaker.org>
339 Dan Pascu <dan@windowmaker.org>
340 ]d <id@windowmaker.org>
341
342 Please don't ask us questions before reading the documentation (esp. the
343 FAQ, this file and INSTALL files) and about "cool" things you see in
344 people's desktop screenshots.
345
346
347 The AUTHORS file contains a list of the people who have contributed to the
348 project. The name of people who have helped with localization (translation)
349 can be found in po/README and Window Maker/README
350
351 If you have any comments, fixes and bug reports (filled BUGFORMs) send them
352 to developers@windowmaker.org
353