NekoWM

NekoWM is a lightweight, stack-like tiling window manager with split-based layouts.

---

How it works

Newly spawned window splits space with the previously added window in the current stack. With each new window recursively halving the space of the one before it.

---

Example

Spawn 2 windows:

window1: 50%
window2: 50%

Spawn another:

window1: 50%
window2: 25%
window3: 25%

Spawn one more:

window1: 50%
window2: 25%
window3: 12.5%
window4: 12.5%

Philosophy

NekoWM is designed to be a single, self-contained binary with:

• No runtime dependencies (beyond X11 libraries)
• No config files
• No external daemons

NekoWM is supposed to only manage your windows, not more or less. This means:

• Basic messages for window operations like
  • Map window
  • Fullscreen window
  • Close window
• No reconfiguring on runtime
  • No changing montior mapping
  • No adding or removing stacks
  • No changing any bar colors or bar positions

Building

Dependencies

• libxcb (keysyms and randr)
• Xlib (only for keysyms, see Xlib note)
• gcc (edit Makefile to use another compiler)
• make

Compile

make

Install

make install

Uninstall

make uninstall

Clean

make clean

Session

This creates a desktop session entry

make session

Xlib

Xlib is only used for the keysym macros (XK_*). You can avoid this dependency by replacing the macros with raw keycode values (e.g., 38, 40, etc.).

To disable Xlib entirely, edit src/neko.h and Makefile.

Config

NekoWM customization is done by editing the config file and compiling from source. Due to the Philosophy of NekoWM there will not be any config file being read from any other place on the system. Unfortunately there is no other way to configure NekoWM other than to recompile the entire program.

Options

| Name | Function | | ---- | -------- | | BORDER | Edit the border width of each mapped window | | FOCUSED | The border color of the currently focused window | | UNFOCUSED | Self explanatory | | GAP | The gap between each mapped window | | SOCKET_PATH | The path for the UNIX socket | | LOG_PATH | The path of the log file |

Mod Keys

• MOD1 = Alt
• MOD2 = Shift
• MOD3 = Control
• MOD4 = Super

Keybinds

Example: { MOD, Key, Command },

Note Each mod is a flag meaning you can stack them. Example: { MOD1 | MOD2, XK_Return, "dmenu_run" }, This will create a keybind alt + shift + return|enter which will in response execute dmenu_run

License

NekoWM is licensed under the MIT License.