GNU Window Maker
	       	       X11 Window Manager

		    <http://windowmaker.org>

			     by

	      	     Alfredo K. Kojima

		 	 Dan Pascu



		       Web/FTP Master

		       Phillip Smith



	Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine
device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free
service, except	that you undoubtedly will destroy it via some
typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you
to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY
BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T
YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND
FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE	SAME CHILD WHO
ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER
AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING
WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT?  AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ
THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT???  WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE
DEVICES	RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU
KNOW THAT?
			-- Dave	Barry, "Read This First!"

Description

Window Maker is the GNU window manager for the X Window System. It was designed to emulate the look and feel of part of the NEXTSTEP(tm) GUI. It's supposed to be relatively fast and small, feature rich, easy to configure and easy to use, with a simple and elegant appearance borrowed from NEXTSTEP(tm).

Window Maker was designed keeping integration with GNUstep in mind and is the "official" window manager for it. It is also part of the GNU project (www.gnu.org) Read more about GNUstep further on this file.

Hints (information given by applications to integrate well with the window manager) for Motif(tm) and NETWM are also supported (NETWM is used by KDE and GNOME, so they are automatically supported as a result). So you can replace any of the window managers for these environments with Window Maker while keeping most, if not all, of the native window manager functionality.

Window Maker was previously called WindowMaker.

Window Maker has no connection with Windowmaker, the software for making windows and doors.

Documentation

Read before asking.

• README files all over the source tree have info related to the stuff in the directories.

• INSTALL has installation instructions and some troubleshooting tips. You're meant to read it if you are compiling the sources.

• FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions. READ IT!!! FAQ.I18N is for internationalization related questions.

• NEWS: list user visible changes from the previous version. Read it if you are upgrading.

• BUGFORM: use it to send bug reports. Please do use it.

• ChangeLog: what changed from the previous version?

• BUGS: list of known bugs

*** User Guide

The Window Maker User's Guide can be downloaded from the official ftp or web sites.

The User Guide explains how to use Window Maker, the configuration files and options.

*** man pages

Type "man wmaker" in the shell prompt to get general help about Window Maker

Directories & Files in the Source Tree

• Install is a script for configuring and compiling Window Maker in a easy way (not that the normal way is difficult, but...).

• AUTHORS: the credits

• TODO: plans for the future

• util/ has various utility programs.

• WPrefs.app/ is the configuration program.

• src/wconfig.h has compile time options you can change to select some options/features and other stuff.

• WINGs/ NEXTSTEP lookalike widget library

• wrlib/ image processing library

• po/ has message catalogs which are the translated versions of the messages displayed by Window Maker.

HELP ME!!!

There is a mailing list for discussing Window Maker at wmaker-user@googlegroups.com. To subscribe to it, visit https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/wmaker-user

If you got a problem, ask there (after reading the docs, of course). The people there is more likely to be able to answer your questions than we are. For bug reports use the BUGFORM.

If you have a problem with a precompiled version of Window Maker (rpm, deb etc), first ask the person who made the package.

IMPORTANT NOTE: when asking for help (in the mailing list or to the developers, directly) always send information about the system you are using. You can use the system information section at the end of BUGFORM as a guideline. Another thing: please don't send HTML mail.

There is also a #windowmaker IRC channel at freenode. To join there, connect your irc client to irc.freenode.net. irc.windowmaker.org will direct you to the correct IRC network.

GNUstep

GNUstep is a complete object-oriented development system, based on the OpenStep specification released by NeXT(tm) (now Apple(tm)) and Sun(tm). It will provide everything one needs to produce cross-platform, object-oriented, graphical (and non-graphical) applications; providing among other things, base system libraries, a high-level GUI application framework that uses a Display PostScript(tm)-like imaging model (DGS), objects for accessing relational databases, distributed objects and a graphical development environment, with tools like interface modeler, a project management system (project center) and other tools.

The GNUstep development system will be used to create a user environment, with everything needed for a complete graphical user interface, such as a file viewer, text editors and other applications. Note that the user environment (or "desktop environment") is only a small part of the whole GNUstep project and therefore it does not "compete" with other projects like KDE or GNOME, simply because they are completely different things.

For more information on the GNUstep project, visit: http://www.gnustep.org

Running multiple instances of Window Maker

It is not a good idea to run more than one instance of Window Maker from the same user (so that wmaker will use the same configuration files) at the same time. You might get unexpected behavior when Window Maker updates its configuration files.

If you really desire to do this, try running Window Maker with the command line option --static so that it will not update or change any of the configuration files.

Performance Tuning

If you want to diminish Window Maker's memory usage and improve performance, while keeping a nice appearance and good functionality, follow the items bellow:

• use solid textures for everything, mainly title bars and menus. If you want a nice looking desktop, use the Traditional style.
• turn NewStyle and Superfluous off
• do not bind many shortcuts in the menu and keep only the essential items in the menu
• turn on DisableClip
• edit wconfig.h and disable the NUMLOCK_HACK and the features you don't use anyway (keep in mind that some of the #defines might not work, as they are not fully supported). Make sure to always keep NumLock and ScrollLock turned off.
• turn on DisableAnimations. You can also specify --disable-animation at compile time to the configure script.
• strip down the default IconPath and PixmapPath entries to contain only the paths that you really have in your system.
• do not use large images in the root background
• remove support for image formats you don't use
• to reduce memory usage, disable the icon cache, by setting the RIMAGE_CACHE environment variable to 0. If you want to increase performance at the cost of memory usage, set its value to a value like the number of different icons you use. Also, disable anti-aliased text support in ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WMGLOBAL.

Keyboard Mouse Control

Many people ask about adding keyboard control of mouse, like in fvwm, but Window Maker will not have such feature. The XKB extension supports mouse simulation from the keyboard, in a much more powerful fashion than any simulation done by a window manager.

To enable it, hit the Control+Shift+NumLock or Shift+NumLock key combination. You should hear the speaker beeping. To disable it, do the same thing.

To control the mouse the numeric keypad is used as follows:

• 4 (left arrow), 7 (Home), 8 (up arrow), 9 (PgUp), 6 (right arrow), 3 (PgDn), 2 (down arrow) and 1 (End) move the mouse to the corresponding direction;
• holding one of the above keys and then holding the 5 key will move the pointer faster;
• / will select the first mouse button (left button);
• • will select the second mouse button (middle button);
• • will select the third mouse button (right button);
• 5 will do a click with the currently selected mouse button;
• • will do a double-click with the currently selected button;
• 0 (Ins) will click and hold the currently selected button;
• . (Del) will release the currently selected button that was previously clicked with the 0 (Ins) key.

The above key values work in a XFree86 3.2 (X11R6.1) X server but your mileage may vary.

How to make a gdb backtrace

Backtraces can help us fix bugs that make Window Maker crash. If you find a bug that crashes Window Maker, please send a backtrace with your bug report.

To make a useful backtrace, you need a core file with debugging information produced by Window Maker when it crashes. It should have been installed without stripping too.

To compile wmaker with debugging information:

./configure --enable-debug make

If you get the dialog window telling you that wmaker crashed and asks you what to do, tell it to "Abort and leave a core file".

script cd src gdb .libs/wmaker path_to_the_core_file

Then, in the gdb prompt type "bt". Quit from gdb by typing "quit" and then, in the shell prompt, type "exit".

The file named typescript will contain the backtrace.

Copyrights & Disclaimers

Window Maker is copyrighted by Alfredo K. Kojima and is licensed through the GNU General Public License. Read the COPYING file for the complete license.

The icons that are distributed with