1 2 3 4 GNU Window Maker 5 X11 Window Manager 6 7 <http://windowmaker.org> 8 9 by 10 11 Alfredo K. Kojima 12 13 Dan Pascu 14 15 16 17 Web/FTP Master 18 19 Phillip Smith 20 21 22 23 Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine 24 device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free 25 service, except that you undoubtedly will destroy it via some 26 typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you 27 to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY 28 BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T 29 YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND 30 FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO 31 ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER 32 AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING 33 WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ 34 THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE 35 DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU 36 KNOW THAT? 37 -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!" 38 39 40Description 41=========== 42 43Window Maker is the GNU window manager for the X Window System. It was designed 44to emulate the look and feel of part of the NEXTSTEP(tm) GUI. It's supposed to 45be relatively fast and small, feature rich, easy to configure and easy to use, 46with a simple and elegant appearance borrowed from NEXTSTEP(tm). 47 48Window Maker was designed keeping integration with GNUstep in mind and is the 49"official" window manager for it. It is also part of the GNU project 50(www.gnu.org) Read more about GNUstep further on this file. 51 52Hints (information given by applications to integrate well with the window 53manager) for Motif(tm) and NETWM are also supported (NETWM is used by KDE and 54GNOME, so they are automatically supported as a result). So you can replace any 55of the window managers for these environments with Window Maker while keeping 56most, if not all, of the native window manager functionality. 57 58Window Maker was previously called WindowMaker. 59 60Window Maker has no connection with Windowmaker, the software for making windows 61and doors. 62 63 64Documentation 65============= 66 67Read before asking. 68 69* README files all over the source tree have info related to the stuff 70in the directories. 71 72* INSTALL has installation instructions and some troubleshooting tips. 73You're meant to read it if you are compiling the sources. 74 75* FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions. READ IT!!! FAQ.I18N is for 76internationalization related questions. 77 78* NEWS: list user visible changes from the previous version. Read it if 79you are upgrading. 80 81* BUGFORM: use it to send bug reports. Please do use it. 82 83* ChangeLog: what changed from the previous version? 84 85* BUGS: list of known bugs 86 87 88*** User Guide 89 90The Window Maker User's Guide can be downloaded from the official ftp 91or web sites. 92 93The User Guide explains how to use Window Maker, the configuration files 94and options. 95 96 97*** man pages 98 99Type "man wmaker" in the shell prompt to get general help about Window Maker 100 101 102 103Directories & Files in the Source Tree 104====================================== 105 106* Install is a script for configuring and compiling Window Maker in a easy 107 way (not that the normal way is difficult, but...). 108 109* AUTHORS: the credits 110 111* TODO: plans for the future 112 113* util/ has various utility programs. 114 115* WPrefs.app/ is the configuration program. 116 117* src/wconfig.h has compile time options you can change to select some 118 options/features and other stuff. 119 120* WINGs/ NEXTSTEP lookalike widget library 121 122* wrlib/ image processing library 123 124* po/ has message catalogs which are the translated versions of the messages 125 displayed by Window Maker. 126 127 128HELP ME!!! 129========== 130 131There is a mailing list for discussing Window Maker at 132wmaker-user@googlegroups.com. To subscribe to it, visit 133https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/wmaker-user 134 135If you got a problem, ask there (after reading the docs, of course). The people 136there is more likely to be able to answer your questions than we are. For bug 137reports use the BUGFORM. 138 139If you have a problem with a precompiled version of Window Maker (rpm, deb etc), 140first ask the person who made the package. 141 142IMPORTANT NOTE: when asking for help (in the mailing list or to the developers, 143directly) *always* send information about the system you are using. You can use 144the system information section at the end of BUGFORM as a guideline. Another 145thing: please don't send HTML mail. 146 147 148There is also a #windowmaker IRC channel at freenode. To join there, connect 149your irc client to irc.freenode.net. irc.windowmaker.org will direct you to the 150correct IRC network. 151 152 153GNUstep 154======= 155 156GNUstep is a complete object-oriented development system, based on the OpenStep 157specification released by NeXT(tm) (now Apple(tm)) and Sun(tm). It will provide 158everything one needs to produce cross-platform, object-oriented, graphical (and 159non-graphical) applications; providing among other things, base system 160libraries, a high-level GUI application framework that uses a Display 161PostScript(tm)-like imaging model (DGS), objects for accessing relational 162databases, distributed objects and a graphical development environment, with 163tools like interface modeler, a project management system (project center) and 164other tools. 165 166The GNUstep development system will be used to create a user environment, with 167everything needed for a complete graphical user interface, such as a file 168viewer, text editors and other applications. Note that the user environment (or 169"desktop environment") is only a small part of the whole GNUstep project and 170therefore it does not "compete" with other projects like KDE or GNOME, simply 171because they are completely different things. 172 173For more information on the GNUstep project, visit: http://www.gnustep.org 174 175 176Running multiple instances of Window Maker 177========================================== 178 179It is not a good idea to run more than one instance of Window Maker 180from the same user (so that wmaker will use the same configuration files) at the 181same time. You might get unexpected behavior when Window Maker updates it's 182configuration files. 183 184If you really desire to do this, try running Window Maker with the command line 185option --static so that it will not update or change any of the configuration 186files. 187 188 189Performance Tuning 190================== 191 192If you want to diminish Window Maker's memory usage and improve performance, 193while keeping a nice appearance and good functionality, follow the items bellow: 194 195- use solid textures for everything, mainly title bars and menus. If you want a 196 nice looking desktop, use the Traditional style. 197- turn NewStyle and Superfluous off 198- do not bind many shortcuts in the menu and keep only the essential items in 199 the menu 200- turn on DisableClip 201- edit wconfig.h and disable the NUMLOCK_HACK and the features you don't use 202 anyway (keep in mind that some of the #defines might not work, as they are not 203 fully supported). Make sure to always keep NumLock and ScrollLock turned off. 204- turn on DisableAnimations. You can also specify --disable-animation at compile 205 time to the configure script. 206- strip down the default IconPath and PixmapPath entries to contain only 207 the paths that you really have in your system. 208- do not use large images in the root background 209- remove support for image formats you don't use 210- to reduce memory usage, disable the icon cache, by setting the RIMAGE_CACHE 211 environment variable to 0. If you want to increase performance at the cost of 212 memory usage, set it's value to a value like the number of different icons you 213 use. Also, disable anti-aliased text support in ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WMGLOBAL. 214 215 216Keyboard Mouse Control 217====================== 218 219Many people ask about adding keyboard control of mouse, like in fvwm, but Window 220Maker will not have such feature. The XKB extension supports mouse simulation 221from the keyboard, in a much more powerful fashion than any simulation done by 222a window manager. 223 224To enable it, hit the Control+Shift+NumLock or Shift+NumLock key combination. 225You should hear the speaker beeping. To disable it, do the same thing. 226 227To control the mouse the numeric keypad is used as follows: 228- 4 (left arrow), 7 (Home), 8 (up arrow), 9 (PgUp), 6 (right arrow), 2293 (PgDn), 2 (down arrow) and 1 (End) move the mouse to the corresponding 230direction; 231- holding one of the above keys and then holding the 5 key will move the 232pointer faster; 233- / will select the first mouse button (left button); 234- * will select the second mouse button (middle button); 235- - will select the third mouse button (right button); 236- 5 will do a click with the currently selected mouse button; 237- + will do a double-click with the currently selected button; 238- 0 (Ins) will click and hold the currently selected button; 239- . (Del) will release the currently selected button that was previously 240clicked with the 0 (Ins) key. 241 242 243The above key values work in a XFree86 3.2 (X11R6.1) X server but your 244mileage may vary. 245 246 247How to make a gdb backtrace 248=========================== 249 250Backtraces can help us fix bugs that make Window Maker crash. If you find a bug 251that crashes Window Maker, please send a backtrace with your bug report. 252 253To make a useful backtrace, you need a core file with debugging information 254produced by Window Maker when it crashes. It should have been installed without 255stripping too. 256 257To compile wmaker with debugging information: 258 259 ./configure --enable-debug 260 make 261 262If you get the dialog window telling you that wmaker crashed and asks you what 263to do, tell it to "Abort and leave a core file". 264 265 script 266 cd src 267 gdb .libs/wmaker path_to_the_core_file 268 269Then, in the gdb prompt type "bt". Quit from gdb by typing "quit" and then, in 270the shell prompt, type "exit". 271 272The file named typescript will contain the backtrace. 273 274 275 276Copyrights & Disclaimers 277======================== 278 279Window Maker is copyrighted by Alfredo K. Kojima and is licensed through the GNU 280General Public License. Read the COPYING file for the complete license. 281 282The icons that are distributed with this program and were made by Marco van 283Hylckama Vlieg, are licensed through the GNU General Public License. Read the 284COPYING file for the complete license. 285 286The icons listed in COPYING.WTFPL and are distributed in this program and were 287made by Banlu Kemiyatorn (]d), are licensed through the "do What The Fuck you 288want to Public License". Read the COPYING.WTFPL file for the complete license. 289 290NeXT, OpenStep and NEXTSTEP are a trademarks of NeXT Computer, Inc. All other 291trademarks are property of their respective owners. 292 293The authors reserve the right to make changes in the software without prior 294notice. 295 296 297Authors 298======= 299 300Alfredo K. Kojima <kojima@windowmaker.info> 301Dan Pascu <dan@windowmaker.info> 302]d <id@windowmaker.info> 303 304Please don't ask us questions before reading the documentation (esp. the FAQ, 305this file and INSTALL files) and about "cool" things you see in people's desktop 306screenshots. 307 308 309The AUTHORS file contains a list of the people who have contributed to the 310project. The name of people who have helped with localization (translation) can 311be found in po/README and Window Maker/README 312 313If you have any comments, fixes and bug reports (filled BUGFORMs) send them 314to wmaker-dev@googlegroups.com 315 316