code.delx.au - spectrwm/blob - README.md

   1 spectrwm
   2 ========
   3
   4 spectrwm is a small dynamic tiling and reparenting window manager for X11. It
   5 tries to stay out of the way so that valuable screen real estate can be used
   6 for much more important stuff. It has sane defaults and does not require one to
   7 learn a language to do any configuration. It is written by hackers for hackers
   8 and it strives to be small, compact and fast.
   9
  10 It was largely inspired by [xmonad](http://xmonad.org xmonad) and
  11 [dwm](http://dwm.suckless.org). Both are fine products but suffer from things
  12 like: crazy-unportable-language-syndrome, silly defaults, asymmetrical window
  13 layout, "how hard can it be?" and good old NIH.  Nevertheless
  14 [dwm](http://dwm.suckless.org) was a phenomenal resource and many good ideas
  15 and code was borrowed from it. On the other hand [xmonad](http://xmonad.org)
  16 has great defaults, key bindings and xinerama support but is crippled by not
  17 being written in C.
  18
  19 spectrwm is a beautiful pearl! For it too, was created by grinding irritation.
  20 Nothing is a bigger waste of time than moving windows around until they are the
  21 right size-ish or having just about any relevant key combination being eaten
  22 for some task one never needs. The path of agony is too long to quote and in
  23 classical [OpenBSD](http://www.openbsd.org) fashion (put up, or hack up) a
  24 brand new window manager was whooped up to serve no other purpose than to obey
  25 its masters. It is released under the ISC license. Patches can be accepted
  26 provided they are ISC licensed as well.
  27
  28 ## Feedback and questions
  29 You can and come chat with us on IRC. We use [OFTC](https://www.oftc.net)
  30 channel #spectrwm.
  31
  32 ## Major features
  33 * Dynamic RandR support (multi-head)
  34 * Navigation anywhere on all screens with either the keyboard or mouse
  35 * Customizable status bar
  36 * Human readable configuration file
  37 * Restartable without losing state
  38 * Quick launch menu
  39 * Many screen layouts possible with a few simple key strokes
  40 * Windows can be added or removed from master area
  41 * Windows can be moved to any workspace or within a region
  42 * Resizable master area
  43 * Move/resize floating windows
  44 * Drag-to-float
  45 * Extended Window Manager Hints (EWMH) Support
  46 * Configureable tiling
  47 * Adjustable tile gap allows for a true one pixel border.
  48 * Customizable colors and border width.
  49 * User definable regions
  50 * User definable modkey & key bindings
  51 * User definable quirk bindings
  52 * User definable key bindings to launch applications
  53 * Multi OS support (*BSD, Linux, OSX, Windows/cygwin)
  54 * Reparenting window manager
  55
  56 ## Documentation
  57 [Click here for current man page](https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm/blob/master/spectrwm.html)
  58
  59 ## License
  60
  61 spectrwm is ISC licensed unless otherwise specified in individual files.
  62
  63 ## Screenshots
  64 ![Vertical stack]
  65 (https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm/wiki/Scrotwm1.png)
  66
  67 ![Horizontal stack]
  68 (https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm/wiki/Scrotwm2.png)
  69
  70 ![Horizontal stack]
  71 (https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm/wiki/Scrotwm3.png)
  72
  73 ![Vertical stack with floater and extra window in master area]
  74 (https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm/wiki/Scrotwm4.png)
  75
  76 ![mplayer, resized and moved]
  77 (https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm/wiki/Scrotwm5.png)