Table of Contents

NAME

fvwm - F(?) Virtual Window Manager for X11

SYNOPSIS

fvwm [ options ]

DESCRIPTION

Fvwm is a window manager for X11. It is a derivative of twm, redesigned to minimize memory consumption, provide a 3-D look to window frames, and provide a simple virtual desktop. Memory consumption is estimated at about one-half to one-third the memory consumption of twm, due primarily to a redesign of twm's inefficient method to storing mouse bindings. In addition, many of the configurable options of Twm have been removed.

The name "FVWM" used to stand for something, but I forgot what. (Feeble, famous, foobar? It doesn't really matter, this is an acronym based society anyway.)

SPECIAL NOTE FOR XFREE86 USERS

XFree86 provides a virtual screen whose operation can be confusing when used in conjunction with this virtual window manager. With XFree86, windows which appear on the virtual screen actually get drawn into video memory, so the virtual screen size is limited by available video memory.

With fvwm's virtual desktop, windows which do not appear on the screen do not actually get drawn into video RAM. The size of the virtual desktop is limited to about 32,000 by 32,000 pixels. It is probably impractical to use a virtual desktop more than about 5 times the visible screen in each direction. Note that memory usage with the virtual desktop is a function of the number of windows which exist. The size of the desktop makes no difference.

When becoming familiar with fvwm, it is recommended that you disable XFree86's virtual screen, by setting the virtual screen size to the physical screen size. When familiar with fvwm, you may want to re-enable XFree86's virtual screen.

COPYRIGHTS

Since fvwm is derived from twm code it shares twm's copyrights.

fvwm is copyright 1988 by Evans and Sutherland Computer Corporation, Salt Lake City, Utah, and 1989 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, All rights reserved. It is also copyright 1993 and 1994 by Robert Nation.

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation, and that the names of Evans & Sutherland and M.I.T. not be used in advertising in publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific, written prior permission.

ROBERT NATION, EVANS & SUTHERLAND, AND M.I.T. DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT- ABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL EVANS & SUTHERLAND OR M.I.T. BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAM- AGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTUOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

ANATOMY OF A WINDOW

Fvwm puts a decorative border around most windows. This border consists of a bar on each side, and a small "L" shaped section on each corner. There is an additional top bar is called the title bar, and is used to display the name of the window. In addition, there are up to 10 title-bar buttons. The top, side and bottom bars are collectively known as the side-bars. The corner pieces are called the frame.

Unless the standard defaults files are modified, pressing mouse button 1 in the title or side-bars will begin a move operation on the window. Pressing button 1 in the corner frame pieces will begin a resize operation. Pressing button 2 anywhere in the border brings up an extensive list of window operations.

Up to ten title-bar buttons may exist. Their use is completely user definable. The default configuration has a title-bar button on each side of the title-bar. The one on the left is used to bring up a list of window options, regardless of which mouse button is used. The one on the right is used to iconify the window. The number of title-bar buttons used depends on which ones have mouse actions bound to them. See the section on "Mouse".

THE VIRTUAL DESKTOP

Fvwm provides multiple virtual desktops for users who wish to use them. The screen is a viewport onto a desktop which is larger than (or the same size as) the screen. Several distinct desktops can be accessed. Concept: one desktop for each project, or one desktop for each application, when view applications are distinct. Since each desktop can be larger than the physical screen, windows which are larger than the screen, or large groups of related windows, can easily be viewed.

The size of the each virtual desktop must be specified at start-up (default: 2 times the physical size of the screen). All virtual desktops must be the same size. The total number of distinct desktops need not be specified, but is limited to approximately 4 billion total. All windows on the current desktop can be displayed in a Pager, or miniature view or the current desktop. Windows which are not on the current desktop can be listed, along with their geometries, in a window list, accessible as a pop-up menu.

"Sticky" windows are windows which transcend the virtual desktop by "Sticking to the screen's glass." They always stay put on the screen. This is convenient for things like clocks and xbiff's, so you only need to run one such gadget, and it always stays with you.

Window geometries are specified relative to the current viewport. That is xterm -geometry +0+0 will always show up in the upper-left hand corner of the visible portion of the screen. It is permissible to specify geometries which place windows on the virtual desktop, but off the screen. For example, if the visible screen is 1000 by 1000 pixels, and the desktop size is 3x3, and the current viewport is at the upper left hand corner of the desktop, then invoking xterm -geometry +1000+1000 will place the window just off of the lower right hand corner of the screen. It can be found by moving the mouse to the lower right hand corner of the screen, and waiting for it to scroll into view. There is currently no way to cause a window to map onto a desktop other than the currently active desk.

A geometry specified as something like xterm -geometry -5-5 will generally place the windows lower right hand corner 5 pixels from the lower right hand corner of the visible portion of the screen. Not all applications support window geometries with negative offsets.

Some applications, like xterm and xfontsel, allow the user to specify the start-up desk on the command line. xterm -xrm "*Desk:1" will start an xterm on desk number 1. Other applications do not understand this option.

INITIALIZATION

During initialization, fvwm will search for a configuration file which describes key and button bindings, and a few other things. The format of these files will be described later. First, fvwm will search for a file named .fvwmrc in the users home directory. Failing that, it will look for /usr/lib/X11/fvwm/system.fvwmrc for system-wide defaults. If that file is not found, fvwm will exit.

Fvwm will set two environment variables which will be inherited by its children. These are $DISPLAY which describes the display on which fvwm is running. $DISPLAY may be unix:0.0 or :0.0, which doesn't work too well when passed through rsh to another machine, so $HOSTDISPLAY will also be set, and will use a network-ready description of the display. Unfortunately, $HOSTDISPLAY will use the tcp/ip transoport protocol, even for a local connection, so $DISPLAY should be used for local connections, as it may use unix-domain sockets, which are faster.

SHAPED WINDOWS

If you typically use shaped windows such as xeyes or oclock you have several options. You can make them all undecorated (NoBorder oclock and NoTitle oclock, for example), or you can use the default configuration, and leave them decorated, in which case a decorative border and a solid-color backdrop are shown. Alternately, you can compile in the SHAPE extensions, by changing a flag in the Makefile, in which case you get the shaped window with no backdrop, and a title bar floats above the window. The shaped window extensions increase the window manager's memory consumption by about 60Kbytes when no shaped windows are present, but have little effect when shaped windows are present.

ICONS

The basic fvwm configuration uses monochrome bitmap icons, similar to Twm. If XPM extensions are compiled in, then color icons similar to ctwm, MS-DOS windows, or the Macintosh icons can be used. In order to use these options, you will need the XPM package, as described in the Makefile.noImake and the Imakefile.

If both the SHAPE and XPM options are compiled in, then you will get shaped color icons, which are very spiffy.

MODULES

A new feature for fvwm-1.15 is support of modules. A module is a separate program, which runs as a separate unix process, but transmits commands to fvwm to execute. Future releases are expected to provide a means for these modules to extract window information from fvwm. Users can write their own modules to do any weird or bizarre manipulations, without affecting the integrity of fvwm itself.

Modules MUST be spawned by fvwm, so that it can set up two pipes for fvwm and the module to communicate with. The pipes will already be open for the module when it starts, and the file descriptors for the pipes are provided as command line arguments.

Modules can be spawned during fvwm initialization via the Module option, or at any time during the X session by use of the Module built-in. Modules can exist for the duration of the X session, or can perform as single task and exit. If the module is still active when fvwm is told to quit, then fvwm will close down the communication pipes, and wait to receive a SIGCHLD from the module, indicating that it has detected the pipe closure, and has exited. If modules fail to detect the pipe closure, fvwm will exit after approximately 30 seconds anyway. The number of simultaneously executing modules is limited by the operating system's maximum number of simultaneously open files, usually between 60 and 256.

Modules simply transmit text commands to the fvwm built-in command engine. Text commands are formatted just as in the case of a mouse binding in the .fvwmrc set up file. Certain auxiliary information is also transmitted, as in the sample module GoodStuff. The GoodStuff module is documented in its own man page.

ICCCM COMPLIANCE

Fvwm attempts to be ICCCM 1.1 compliant. As of this (1.20l) colormap handling is not completely ICCCM compliant. In addition, ICCCM states that it should be possible for applications to receive ANY keystroke, which is not consistent with the keyboard shortcut approach used in fvwm and most other window managers.

Window positioning has been a sticking point for fvwm in releases prior to about 1.20i. There problems seem to have been corrected now.

M4 PREPROCESSING

If fvwm is compiled with the M4 option, fvwm uses m4(1) to pre-process it's setup files. When fvwm starts up, it opens a file for input as described above. But, it processes that file through m4 before parsing it. So, you can use m4 macro's to perform operations at runtime. This makes it very easy to work when you use many different display's, with different characteristics.

For example, depending on your mood, you might want different color schemes. One way of doing this is by using the -m4opt to specify your mood. For a sunny mood, use -m4opt -DSunny; for a dark mood, use -m4opt -DDark. Your .fvwmrc file might then contain

ifdef(`Sunny',`
StdForeColor        Black
StdBackColor        LightSkyBlue
HiForeColor        yellow
HiBackColor        PeachPuff1
PagerBackColor        BlanchedAlmond ')

ifdef(`Dark',`
StdForeColor        Black
StdBackColor        #60a0c0
HiForeColor        black
HiBackColor        #c06077
PagerBackColor        #5c54c0
PagerForeColor        orchid
StickyForeColor        Black
StickyBackColor        #60c0a0 ')

The following symbols are predefined by fvwm:

SERVERHOST
This variable is set to the name of the machine that is running the X server.
CLIENTHOST
The machine that is running the clients. (ie, fvwm)
HOSTNAME
The canonical hostname running the clients. (ie. a fully-qualified version of CLIENTHOST)
USER
The name of the user running the program. Gotten from the environment.
HOME
The user's home directory. Gotten from the environment.
VERSION
The X major protocol version. As seen by ProtocolVersion(3).
REVISION
The X minor protocol revision. As seen by ProtocolRevision(3).
VENDOR
The vendor of your X server. For example: MIT X Consortium.
RELEASE
The release number of your X server. For MIT X11R5, this is 5.
WIDTH
The width of your display in pixels.
HEIGHT
The height of your display in pixels.
X_RESOLUTION
The X resolution of your display in pixels per meter.
Y_RESOLUTION
The Y resolution of your display in pixels per meter.
PLANES
The number of bit planes your display supports in the default root window.
BITS_PER_RGB
The number of significant bits in an RGB color. (log base 2 of the number of distinct colors that can be created. This is often different from the number of colors that can be displayed at once.)
TWM_TYPE
Tells which twm offshoot is running. It will always be set to the string "fvwm" in this program. This is useful for protecting parts of your .twmrc file that fvwm proper won't understand (like WorkSpaces) so that it is still usable with other twm programs.
CLASS
Your visual class. Will return one of StaticGray, GrayScale, StaticColor, PseudoColor, TrueColor, DirectColor, or, if it cannot determine what you have, NonStandard.
COLOR
This will be either 'Yes' or 'No'. This is just a wrapper around the above definition. Returns 'Yes' on *Color, and 'No' on StaticGray and GrayScale.
FVWM_VERSION
This is a string containing the version of fvwm.
OPTIONS
This is a string of compile time options used. Each option is separated from the other by a space.
FVWMDIR
This is set to the path where the modules were configured to be installed.

You may well find that if you research the m4(1) manual well, and understand the power of m4, this will be a very useful and powerful tool. But, if you use any of the symbols which are predefined by m4, you are in severe danger! For example, the Sun m4 predefines include, so if you use that name in your .fvwmrc, you are out of luck. The correct solution to this problem is to put a set of quotes around the troublesome word: `include'.

If you are using GNU m4, an additional option is available. By specifying -m4-prefix when starting fvwm, m4 is instructed to prefix all builtin macros with m4_. Thus, include becomes m4_include.

The availability of the m4 preprocessing is subject to the compilation define M4.

OPTIONS

Only six command line options are supported by fvwm:
-d displayname
Manage the display called, "displayname", instead of the name obtained from the environment variable $DISPLAY.
-debug
Puts X transactions in synchronous mode, which dramatically slows things down, but guarantees that fvwm's internal error messages are correct.
-f config_file
Causes fvwm to use config_file in the user's home directory instead of .fvwmrc as the window manager configuration file.
-s
Run fvwm on only the specified screen of a multi-screen display. Normally, fvwm will attempt to start up on all screens of a multi-screen display. The "specified screen" is the one provided in the DISPLAY environment variable, or provided through the -d option.
-no-m4FP
Do not use m4 to preprocess the .fvwmrc. The default is to preprocess the startup file using m4. (Only available with the M4 compile-time option.)
-m4-prefix
If GNU m4 is available, cause m4 to prefix all builtin commands with "m4_". (Only available with the M4 compile-time option.)
-m4opt option
Pass this option to m4. The option can be any string of characters without spaces. This option can occur multiple times. If GNU m4 is available, DO NOT pass the -P option here. Use -m4-prefix instead. (Only available with the M4 compile-time option.)

CONFIGURATION FILES

The configuration file is used to describe mouse and button bindings, colors, the virtual display size, and related items. This section describes the configuration options. Lines beginning with '#' will be ignored by fvwm. Lines starting with '*' are expected to contain module configuration commands.

StdForeColor colorname
Sets the foreground color for menus and non-selected window titles to colorname. When using a monochrome screen, this option is ignored, and black is used.

StdBackColor colorname
Sets the background color for menus, and non-selected windows to colorname. When using a monochrome screen, this option is ignored, and white is used.

StickyForeColor colorname
Sets the foreground color for non-selected window sticky (Sticks-to-glass) titles to colorname. When using a monochrome screen, this option is ignored, and black is used. Only available if -DMORE_COLORS is used when compiling.

StickyBackColor colorname
Sets the background color for non-selected window sticky (Sticks-to-glass) windows to colorname. When using a monochrome screen, this option is ignored, and white is used. Only available if -DMORE_COLORS is used when compiling.

HiForeColor colorname
Sets the color for selected window's title to colorname. When using a monochrome screen, this option is ignored, and black is used.

HiBackColor colorname
Sets the background color for the selected window to colorname. When using a monochrome screen, this option is ignored, and white is used.

MenuForeColor colorname
Sets the menu foreground color. When using monochrome, this option is ignored. This option is only available if fvwm is compiled with MENUCOLOR defined.

MenuBackColor colorname
Sets the menu background color. When using monochrome, this option is ignored. This option is only available if fvwm is compiled with MENUCOLOR defined.

MenuStippleColor colorname
Sets the color for shaded out entries in menus (for functions which are not allowed on the currently selected window). When using monochrome, this option is ignored, and a stipple pattern is used. This option is only available if fvwm is compiled with MENUCOLOR defined.

PagerBackColor colorname
Causes the pager background color to be colorname, instead of white. On a monochrome screen, this option is ignored. If the NO_PAGER option is set when building fvwm, this option is unavailable.

PagerForeColor colorname
Causes the pager foreground color to be colorname, instead of black. This is the color used to highlight the current viewport in the pager window. On a monochrome screen, this option is ignored. If the NO_PAGER option is set when building fvwm, this option is unavailable.

Font fontname
Makes fvwm use font fontname instead of "fixed" for menus, the resize indicators, and icon labels (if IconFont is not specified).

WindowFont fontname
Makes fvwm use font fontname instead of "fixed" for the window title bar.

PagerFont fontname
Makes fvwm use font fontname for writing window icon names into the window's representation in the pager. If this option is omitted, no names are written into the pager windows.

IconFont fontname
Makes fvwm use font fontname for writing icon name labels. If omitted, the menu font will be used instead.

NoTitle windowname
Keeps fvwm from putting a title-bar in the decorations for windows named windowname. This is handy for clocks and similar gadgets that you don't want to take up too much space. windowname can be a window's name or its class.

Windowname can contain the wildcards "*" and "?" which match window names in the normal unix file-name matching manner. Actual "*", "?", and "\" characters in a window name can be entered by preceding the character with a "\".

NoBorder windowname
Keeps fvwm from putting decorative borders on windows named windowname. This command has no effect on the title-bar. This is handy for clocks and similar gadgets that you don't want to take up too much space. windowname can be a window's name or its class.

If you specify both NoBorder windowname and NoTitle windowname for the same window in your .fvwmrc file, the window will be completely undecorated.

Windowname can contain the wildcards "*" and "?" which match window names in the normal unix file-name matching manner. Actual "*", "?", and "\" characters in a window name can be entered by preceding the character with a "\".

Sticky windowname
Sticky windows "stick to the screen's glass." That is, they don't move the the viewport into the virtual desktop changes. windowname can be a window's name or its class.

Windowname can contain the wildcards "*" and "?" which match window names in the normal unix file-name matching manner. Actual "*", "?", and "\" characters in a window name can be entered by preceding the character with a "\".

StaysOnTop windowname
These windows always try to stay on top of the other windows. This might be handy for clocks or mailboxes that you would always like to be visible. If the window is explicitly lowered, it will not try to force its way back to the top until it is explicitly raised. windowname can be a window's name or its class.

Windowname can contain the wildcards "*" and "?" which match window names in the normal unix file-name matching manner. Actual "*", "?", and "\" characters in a window name can be entered by preceding the character with a "\".

StartsOnDesk windowname desk-number
This command causes windows whose name or class is windowname to be initially placed on desktop number desk-number. windowname should be enclosed in double quotes. If the window requires interactive placement, an outline will be displayed on the current desk, but the window will appear on the specified desk.

Windowname can contain the wildcards "*" and "?" which match window names in the normal unix file-name matching manner. Actual "*", "?", and "\" characters in a window name can be entered by preceding the character with a "\".

CirculateSkip windowname
Causes windows with the indicated name to be skipped over when the circulate-up or circulate-down functions are invoked. windowname can be a window's name or its class.

CirculateSkipIcons
Causes circulate and warp operations to skip over iconified windows.

WindowListSkip windowname
Causes windows with the indicated name to be left out of the window list.

Windowname can contain the wildcards "*" and "?" which match window names in the normal unix file-name matching manner. Actual "*", "?", and "\" characters in a window name can be entered by preceding the character with a "\".

Style windowname options
This command is intended to replace the commands NoBorder, NoTitle, StartsOnDesk, Sticky, StaysOnTop, Icon, WindowListSkip, CirculateSkip, SuppressIcons, BoundaryWidth, NoBoyndaryWidth, StdForeColor, and StdBackColor with a single flexible and comprehensive command. This command is used to set attributes of a window to values other than the default, or to set the window-manager default styles

windowname can be a window's name, class or resource string. It can contain the wildcards * and/or ?, which are matched in the usual unix file-name manner.

options is a comma separated list containing all or some of the keywords BorderWidth, HandleWidth,NoIcon/Icon, NoTitle/Title, NoHandles/Handles, WindowListSkip/WindowListHit, CirculateSkip/CirculateHit, StaysOnTop/StaysPut, Sticky/Slippery, StartIconic/StartNormal, Color, ForeColor, BackColor, StartsOnDesk/StartsAnyWhere, IconTitle/NoIconTitle, and NoButton/Button.

In the above list, some options are listed as style-option/opposite-style-option. The opposite-style-option for entries that have them describes the fvwm default behavior, and can be used if you want to change the fvwm default behavior.

Icon takes an (optional) unquoted string argument which is the icon bitmap or pixmap to use. StartsOnDesk takes a numeric argument which is the desktop number on which the window should be initially placed. BorderWidth takes a numeric argument which is the width of the border to place the window if it does not have resize-handles. HandleWidth takes a numeric argument which is the width of the border to place the window if it does have resize-handles. Button and NoButton take a numeric argument which is the number of the title-bar button which is to be included/omitted.

Color takes two arguments. The first is the window-label text color, and the second is the window decoration's normal background color. The two colors are separated with a slash. If the use of a slash causes problems, then the seperate ForeColor and BackColor options can be used.

An example:
# Change default fvwm behavior to no title-bars on windows!
# Also, define a default icon.
Style "*" NoTitle,Icon unknown1.xpm, BorderWidth 4,HandleWidth 5

# now, window specific changes:
Style "Fvwm*" NoHandles,Sticky,WindowListSkip,BorderWidth 0
Style "Fvwm Pager" StaysOnTop, BorderWidth 0
Style "*lock" NoHandles,Sticky,StaysOnTop,WindowListSkip
Style "xbiff" Sticky, WindowListSkip
Style "GoodStuff" NoHandles,Sticky,WindowListSkip
Style "sxpm" NoHandles
Style "makerkit"

# Put title-bars back on xterms only!
Style "xterm" Title, Color black/grey

Style "rxvt" Icon term.xpm
Style "xterm" Icon rterm.xpm
Style "xcalc" Icon xcalc.xpm
Style "xbiff" Icon mail1.xpm
Style "xmh" Icon mail1.xpm, StartsOnDesk 2
Style "xman" Icon xman.xpm
Style "matlab" Icon math4.xpm, StartsOnDesk 3
Style "xmag" Icon magnifying_glass2.xpm
Style "xgraph" Icon graphs.xpm
Style "GoodStuff" Icon toolbox.xpm

Style "Maker" StartsOnDesk 1
Style "signal" StartsOnDesk 3

Note that all properties for a window will be ORed together. In the above example "FvwmPager" gets the property StaysOnTop via an exact window name match, but also gets NoHandles,Sticky, and WindowListSkip by a match to "Fvwm*". It will get NoTitle by virtue of a match to "*". If conflicting styles are specified for a window, then the last style specified will be used.

If the NoIcon attribute is set, then the specified window will simply disappear when it is iconified. The window can be recovered throught the window-list. If Icon is set without an argument, then the NoIcon attribute is cleared, but no icon is specified. An example which allows only the FvwmPager module icon to exist:
Style "*" NoIcon
Style "Fvwm Pager" Icon

CenterOnCirculate
When circulating, the desktop page containing the window which the pointer is moving to is automatically selected. If CenterOnCirculate is selected, then fvwm will do its best to center the target window in the desktop viewport, rather than just lining up to the closest page.

DeskTopSize HorizontalxVertical
Defines the virtual desktop size in units of the physical screen size.
DeskTopScale Scale
Defines the virtual desktop scale with respect to the screen.

BoundaryWidth Width
Changes the boundary width on decorated windows to the specified value. The default is 6.

NoBoundaryWidth Width
Changes the width of the decorations for windows with no titles and no borders. The default is 1. Any positive or zero value is acceptable. Decorations for these undecorated windows have the same context as the side-bars on normally decorated windows.

XORvalue number
Changes the value with which bits are XOR'ed when doing rubber-band window moving or resizing. Setting this value is a trial-and-error process.

EdgeScroll horizontal vertical
Specifies the percentage of a page to scroll when the cursor hits the edge of a page. If you don't want any paging or scrolling when you hit the edge of a page, include EdgeScroll 0 0 in your .fvwmrc file. If you want whole pages, use EdgeScroll 100 100. Both horizontal and vertical should be positive numbers.

If the horizontal and vertical percentages are multiplied by 1000, then scrolling will wrap around at the edge of the desktop. If "EdgeScroll 100000 100000" is used, fvwm will scroll by whole pages, wrapping around at the edge of the desktop.

PagingDefault pagingdefaultvalue
Tells fvwm if it should start up with paging enabled or disabled. "PagingDefault 0" will start fvwm with paging disabled, "PagingDefault 1" will start fvwm with paging enabled by default.

EdgeResistance scrolling moving
Tells how hard it should be to change the desktop viewport be moving the mouse over the edge of the screen, and how hard it should be to move a window over the edge of the screen.

The first parameter tells how milliseconds the pointer must spend on the screen edge before fvwm will move the viewport. This is intended for people who use EdgeScroll 100 100, but find themselves accidentally flipping pages when they don't want to.

The second parameter tells how many pixels over the edge of the screen a window's edge must move before it actually moves partially off the screen.

Note that, with EdgeScroll 0 0, it is still possible to move or resize windows across the edge of the current screen. By making the first parameter to EdgeResistance 10000, this type of motion is impossible. With EdgeResistances less than 10000, but greater than 0, moving over pages becomes difficult but not impossible.

OpaqueMove percentage
Tells fvwm the maximum size window with which opaque window movement should be used. The percentage is percent of the total screen area. With OpaqueMove 0, all windows will be moved using the traditional rubber-band outline. With OpaqueMove 100, all windows will be move as solid windows. The default is OpaqueMove 5 which allows small windows to be moved in an opaque manner, but large windows to be moved as rubber-bands.

ClickToFocus
Normally keyboard input goes to the window the mouse pointer is in. If this option is set, the keyboard input stays with one window until a new window is clicked on.

SloppyFocus
This focusing mode is like focus-follows-mouse (the fvwm default), except that the focus will not be removed from a window until your mouse enters a new window. Exiting a window to enter the root window will leave the focus unchanged.

MWMBorders
Substitutes MWM style 1 pixel wide relief lines instead of fvwm's 2 pixel borders.

MWMButtons
Disables button press feedback for all decorations except the title bar and title-bar buttons, as in MWM.

MWMMenus
Substitutes MWM look and feel menus in place of the standard fvwm versions. This option also triggers a few other mwm-style options, such as centering the size/resize window on the screen, instead of leaving it in the upper left, and switchs the resize-on-initial-placement trigger action to shift-button-1 instead of the twm style press-button-2

MWMDecorHints
Causes fvwm to read the MOTIF_WM_HINTS atom from application windows, and to parse and attempt to replicate the motif behavior with regard to window decorations. Note that mwm allows function hints to affect window decorations, but these effects are not replicated by this option.
MWMFunctionHints
Causes fvwm to read the MOTIF_WM_HINTS atom from application windows, and to parse and attempt to replicate the motif behavior with regard to allowed window functions. Unlike mwm, which simply removes prohibited functions from the window's menus, fvwm simply shades out the prohibited functions. Also, because fvwm implements some functions in user defined macros that mwm implements internally, the mapping of prohibited functions is partially based on the menu item label.

MWMHintOverride
If MWMFunctionHints is used, then Maximization and Iconfication is prohibited for transients. Also, windows can specify that the window-manager should not destroy or delete them. Since these MWM rules are kind of stupid, especially with regard to the transient windows, I provide this MWMHintOverride option. When it is used, menu items will be grey-ed out if MWM would prohibit their use, but the user can go ahead and select that item, and it will operate as expected.

The override should be used cautiously, because some applications will break if you over-ride their mwm-hints.

Lenience
If this is set, FVWM will ignore an ICCCM convention. The ICCCM states that, if an application sets the input field of the wm_hints structure to False, then it never wants the window manager to give it the input focus. The only application that I know of which needs this is sxpm, and that is a silly bug with a trivial fix, and has no overall effect on the program anyway. Rumor is that some older applications have problems too.

OpaqueResize
Causes resize operations to be done with the window itself, instead of an outline.

DontMoveOff
Prevents windows from being moved off or initially placed off of the desktop. A few programs will not work correctly if you use this option. This only keeps windows from being completely lost off the edge of the desktop. It insists on keeping 16 pixels on the desktop, but doesn't care a bit about keeping the whole window on the desk. See EdgeResistance if you don't like having windows partially off the screen.

AutoRaise delay
Enables auto-raising of windows and specifies the time delay (in milli-seconds) between when a window acquires the input focus and when it is automatically raised. This option works in focus-follows-mouse mode, and in click-to-focus mode if the focus is changed by clicking in the application window instead of a decoration window. In click to focus mode, you can suppress the raise-on-focus behavior by specifying a negative delay for auto-raise.

Pager X_Location Y_Location
Enables a paging style of moving across the desktop. A Pager window will appear at (X_Location, Y_Location) (not a pop-up). Miniature versions of all the non-sticky windows on the virtual desktop are shown in the pager. The color of the miniature version is the same as the color of the full-size window's border.

In the Pager window, pressing mouse button 1 will move the desktop viewport to the selected page (in click-to-focus mode, it will also move the keyboard focus to the window whose miniature you click on). Pressing button 2 on a window in the pager will begin a window move, using the miniature to quickly move the window anywhere on the desktop. Pressing button 3 will move the top-left corner of the viewport to the location of the button press, even if it does not line up with a page. Dragging button 3 will cause the selected viewport to scroll as you move the pointer. The Pager is automatically sticky, but does not automatically StayOnTop.

Mouse Button Context Modifiers Function
Defines a mouse binding. Button is the mouse button number. If Button is zero, then any button will perform the specified function. Context describes in what context the binding applies. Valid contexts are R for the root window, W for an application window, T for a window title bar, S for a window side, top, or bottom bar, F for a window frame (the corners), I for an Icon window, or 0 through 9 for title-bar buttons, or any combination of these letters. A is for any context except for title-bar buttons. For instance, a context of FST will apply when the mouse is anywhere in a window's border, except the title-bar buttons.

Modifiers is any combination of N for no modifiers, C for control, S for shift, M for Meta, or A for any modifier. For example, a modifier of CM will apply when both the Meta and shift keys are down. Function is one of fvwm's built in functions.

The title bar buttons contexts are numbered with odd numbered buttons on the left side of the title bar, and even numbers on the right. Button 1 is the leftmost button on the left side. Button 9 is the innermost button on the left side. Button 2 is the outermost on the right side, and 0 (short for 10) is the innermost on the right. In summary, the buttons are numbered "1 3 5 7 9 0 8 6 4 2". The highest odd numbered button which has an action bound to it determines the number of buttons drawn on the left side of the title bar. The highest even number determines the number or right side buttons which are drawn. Actions can be bound to either mouse buttons or keyboard keys.

Key keyname Context Modifiers Function
Binds a keyboard key to a specified fvwm built in function. Definition is the same as for a mouse binding, except that the mouse button number is replaced with a key name. The keyname is one of the entries from /usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h, with the leading XK_ omitted. The Context and Modifiers fields are defined as in the mouse binding.

Binding a key to a title-bar button will not cause that button to appear unless a mouse binding also exists.

IconBox left top right bottom
Defines regions of the screen in which to place icons. Up to four icon boxes can be defined. If an IconBox line is provided, the icons will automatically be placed in them, if possible. Each time a window is iconified, a new place is found for it icon boxes are searched for space going left to right, then top to bottom. Icons will not be auto-placed on top of other icons, but they may be placed underneath application windows. If left or right is negative, then fvwm will add the screen width to it. If top or bottom is negative, then fvwm will add the screen height to it. NOTE: -0 is not parsed as the right or bottom pixel on the screen. You have to use -1 instead.

If no IconBox line is provided, or all icon boxes are full, then fvwm will place icons near the current pointer location.

StubbornIconPlacement
When used with IconBoxes, causes icons to avoid placing themselves underneath existing windows.

StubbornIcons
Changes de-iconification behavior a bit. Instead of having windows always de-Iconify themselves on the current page, the de-iconify into their original position.

SuppressIcons
Prevents icon windows from being created or drawn. When used with the window-list, this provides a sort of icon manager.

StickyIcons
Causes icons to always stick to the screen's glass. That is, icons always follow you around the desktop. When a window is de-iconified, it gets un-stuck. Some people find this a useful way of moving windows around.

IconPath path
Specifies the full path name of a directory where bitmap (monochrome) icons can be found. The path should start with a slash. Multiple directories may be specified in a colon separated list, just like the PATH environment variable. Note, if the M4 patches are included when fvwm is built, then M4 will want to mangle the work "include" which will frequently show up in the IconPath or PixmapPath command. To fix this, add undefine(`include') prior to the IconPath command.

PixmapPath path
Specifies the full path name of a directory where pixmap (color) icons can be found. The path should start with a slash. Multiple directories may be specified in a colon separated list, just like the PATH environment variable.

Icon windowname bitmap-file
Specifies the bitmap to be used for a window when it is iconified. The windowname can be an applications window name or class name, and must be enclosed in quotes. The bitmap-file is either the full path name to a standard X11 bitmap file, or a file in the IconPath or PixmapPath. The specified bitmap/pixmap is used in preference to any icon supplied by the window itself.

If fvwm is compiled with XPM support for color icons, then bitmap can be an XPM pixmap file.

windowname should be enclosed in double quotes, but bitmap-file should not. No environmental variables should be used in the bitmap-file specification.

If windowname is an empty string, then the specified file is the default icon, and will be used if no other icon bitmap or pixmap can be found:
Icon "" my-favorite-icon

DecorateTransients
Causes transient windows, which are normally left undecorated, to be given the usual fvwm decorations. Note that some pop-up windows, such as the xterm menus, are not managed by the window manager, and still do not receive decorations.

RandomPlacement
Causes windows which would normally require user-placement to be automatically placed in ever-so-slightly random locations.

SmartPlacement
Causes windows which would normally require user-placement to be automatically placed in a smart location - a location in which they do not overlap any other windows on the screen. If no such position can be found, user-placement or random placement will be used as a fall-back method. For the best of all possible worlds, use both random placement and SmartPlacement.

StubbornPlacement
When using SmartPlacement, causes new windows to avoid placing themselves over icons.

NoPPosition
Instructs fvwm to ignore the PPosition field when adding new windows. Adherence to the PPosition field is required for some applications, but if you don't have one of those, its a real headache.

ClickTime delay
Specifies the maximum delay (in milli-seconds) between a button press and a button release for the Function builtin to consider the action a mouse click. The default delay is 150 milli-seconds.

ModulePath
Specifies a path for fvwm to search when looking for a module to load. The path is a colon separated list, just like the usual unix PATH environment variable. Individual directories do not need trailing slashes.

Module ModuleName
Specifies a module which should be spawned during initialization. At the current time, the only modules are GoodStuff, FvwmPager, FvwmBanner, FvwmWinList, FvwmClean, FvwnIdent, FvwmSave, FvwmScroll, FvwmDebug, and FvwmSound. These modules have their own man pages. Module can also be used as a builtin. Modules can be short lived transient programs, or, like GoodStuff, can be intended to remain for the duration of the X session. Module will be terminated by the window-manager prior to restarts and quits, if possible. See the introductory section on modules.

Cursor cursor_num cursor_type
This provides a very awkward way of changing cursor styles. Cursor num tells which cursor you are changing, and is a number between 0 and 12, as follows
0 POSITION - used when initially placing windows
1 TITLE - used in a window title-bar
2 DEFAULT - used in windows that don't bother to set their cursor
3 SYS - used in one of the title-bar buttons
4 MOVE - used when moving or resizing windows.
5 WAIT - used during an EXEC builtin command.
6 MENU - used in a menus.
7 SELECT - used for various builtin commands such as iconify.
8 DESTROY - used for DESTROY and DELETE built-ins.
9 TOP - used in the top side-bar of a window
10 RIGHT - used in the right side-bar of a window
11 BOTTOM - used in the bottom side-bar of a window
12 LEFT - used in the left side-bar of a window.
13 TOP_LEFT - used in the top left corner
14 TOP_RIGHT - used in the top right corner
15 BOTTOM_LEFT - used in the bottom left corner
16 BOTTOM_RIGHT - used in the bottom right corner

The cursor_type argument is a number which tells the cursor shape to use. The available numbers can be found in /usr/include/X11/cursorfont.h, and are currently even numbers between 0 and 152. At the current time, the following cursor types are available.
0 X_cursor                2 arrow
4 based_arrow_down        6 based_arrow_up
8 boat                    10 bogosity
12 bottom_left_corner        14 bottom_right_corner
16 bottom_side            18 bottom_tee
20 box_spiral            22 center_ptr
24 circle                26 clock
28 coffee_mug            30 cross
32 cross_reverse            34 crosshair
36 diamond_cross            38 dot
40 dotbox                42 double_arrow
44 draft_large            46 draft_small
48 draped_box            50 exchange
52 fleur                54 gobbler
56 gumby                58 hand1
60 hand2                62 heart
64 icon                    66 iron_cross
68 left_ptr                70 left_side
72 left_tee                74 leftbutton
76 ll_angle                78 lr_angle
80 man                    82 middlebutton
84 mouse                86 pencil
88 pirate                90 plus
92 question_arrow            94 right_ptr
96 right_side            98 right_tee
100 rightbutton            102 rtl_logo
104 sailboat                106 sb_down_arrow
108 sb_h_double_arrow            110 sb_left_arrow
112 sb_right_arrow            114 sb_up_arrow
116 sb_v_double_arrow            118 shuttle
120 sizing                122 spider
124 spraycan                126 star
128 target                130 tcross
132 top_left_arrow            134 top_left_corner
136 top_right_corner            138 top_side
140 top_tee                142 trek
144 ul_angle                146 umbrella
148 ur_angle                150 watch
152 xterm

ButtonStyle button# WidthxHeight
Defines the rectangular decoration shape to be used in a title-bar button. button# is the title-bar button number, and is between 0 and 9. A description of title-bar button numbers is given Mouse section above. Width is the percentage of the full button width which is to be used. Height is the percentage of the full height to be used. Negative numbers cause the shading to be inverted.

And thats not all...

If you use a line like
ButtonStyle : 2 4 50x30@1 70x70@0 30x70@0 50x30@1

then the button 2 decoration will use a 4-point pattern consisting of a line from (x=50,y=30) to (70,70) in the shadow color (@0) and then to (30,70) in the shadow color, and finally to (50,30) in the highlight color. Is that too confusing? See the sample system.fvwmrc.

AppsBackingStore
Causes application windows to request backing store. Specifying this option causes the window manager to fail to be ICCCM compliant. While this option can speed things up in an X-terminal, where re-draws of windows is expensive, it may not help much on regular workstations.

SaveUnders
Causes the fvwm decoration frames to request save-unders. This can significantly improve the performance during opaque moves, but it causes a significant increase in memory usage.

BackingStore
Causes fvwm decorations to request backing store. See the discussion for AppsBackingStore.

Popup PopupName
Starts the definition of a pop-up menu which will later be bound to a mouse button or key. PopupName must be enclosed in quotes. Menu entries are included on lines following the Popup keyword. The menu definition ends with the key word EndPopup. Menu entries are specified as shown in the following example. The first word on each line is the built-in function which will be performed, followed by the caption (enclosed in quotes) which will be shown in the menu, followed by any additional arguments needed by the built-in function. Sub-menus can be specified by using the Popup built-in, as long as the sub-menu was defined earlier in the configuration file.
Popup "Window Ops"
Title "Window Ops"
Move "Move"
Resize "Resize"
Raise "Raise"
Lower "Lower"
Iconify "(De)Iconify"
Nop     " "
Destroy "Destroy"
Title "HARDCOPY"
Exec "Hardcopy" exec xdpr &
Exec "Hardcopy RV" exec xdpr -rv &
EndMenu

Note that if a tab character is embedded in the caption of a menu entry, then the text following the tab will be entered into a second column in the menu, and the entire menu will be left-adjusted. This is intended for shortcut labeling. The tab character must really be a tab. If it is expanded into spaces it will not work! For example
Popup "Window Ops"
Title "Window Ops    Alt-F1"

Is the start of a left adjusted menu. Alt-F1 will be placed toward the right side of the menu.

Shortcut keys may be specified in the menu definition by preceding the character with an ampersand. The ampersand will not be displayed, but the character after it will be displayed underlined, and if the user presses the corresponding key, then that item will be activated as if the user had clicked on it with the mouse. Only alphabetic and numeric characters may be used as shortcut keys. The shift state of the keyboard is ignored when testing shortcut characters. For example:-
Popup "Window Ops"
Maximize "Ma&ximise" 100 100
EndMenu

When this menu is popped up, the x will be underlined, and pressing the x key will cause the current window to be maximized. Shortcut keys are not operative unless MENU_HOTKEYS was defined when building fvwm. If WINDOWLIST_HOTKETS was also defined, then hot keys are automatically added to the WindowList when it is displayed.

Function FunctionName
Starts the definition of a complex function, composed of the fvwm built-in functions, which will later be bound to a mouse button or key. FunctionName must be enclosed in quotes. Function entries are included on lines following the Function keyword. The definition ends with the key word EndFunction. Function entries are specified as shown in the following example. The first word on each line is the built-in function which will be performed, followed the type of event which should trigger the action (enclosed in quotes), followed by any additional arguments needed by the built-in function. Menus can be specified by using the Popup built-in, as long as the menu was defined earlier in the configuration file.

The trigger actions which are recognized are Immediate, Motion, Click, and DoubleClick. Immediate actions are executed as soon as the function is activated, even if a window has not been selected. If there are actions other than immediate ones, fvwm will wait to see if the user is clicking, double-clicking or dragging the mouse. After the decision is made Fvwm will execute only the builtins from the function definition whose trigger action matches the action performed by the user. If the following example were bound to button 1 in a window title-bar, then, when button 1 is pressed, fvwm would wait 150 msec to see if the button is released. If the button is not released, fvwm will start a move operation. When the move operation is complete, a raise operation will be performed. If a button release is detected, then fvwm will wait another 150 msec for a second click. If only one click is detected, then the window will be raised. If two clicks are detected, the window will be alternately raised and lowered. The 150 msec wait duration can be altered using the ClickTime option.
Function "Move-or-Raise"
Move "Motion"
Raise "Motion"
Raise "Click"
RaiseLower "DoubleClick"
EndFunction

The clicking and double clicking concepts do not carry through to using keyboard shortcuts.

Two special functions exist: InitFunction and RestartFunction. The InitFunction will be called when fvwm is started for the first time in any X session, and can be used to start modules, set background patterns, and begin programs. The restart function will be called when fvwm is restarted. It can be used to start modules and set background patterns, but probably should not be used to start programs.

BUILT IN FUNCTIONS

Fvwm supports a small set of built in functions which can be bound to keyboard or mouse buttons.
Nop
Does nothing. This is used to insert a blank line or separator in a menu. If the menu item specification is Nop " ", then a blank line is inserted. If it looks like Nop "", then a separator line is inserted.
Title
Does nothing. This is used to insert a title line in a popup or menu.
Beep
Makes the computer beep.
Quit
Exits fvwm, generally causing X to exit too.
Restart name WindowManagerName
Causes fvwm to re-read itself if WindowManagerName = fvwm, or to switch to an alternate window manager if WindowManagerName != fvwm. If the window manager is not in your default search path, then you should use the full path name for WindowManagerName.

WindowManagerName is not quoted, but name is. name is the name that appears in a menu, if that is where the function is called from. name is required even if the function is not called from a menu, for ease of parsing.

This command should not have a trailing ampersand or any command line arguments, and should not make use of any environmental variables. Of the following examples, the first three are sure losers, but the third is OK:
Key F1 R N Restart " " fvwm &
Key F1 R N Restart " " $(HOME)/bin/fvwm
Key F1 R N Restart " " twm -f .mystartupfile
Key F1 R N Restart " " /home/nation/bin/fvwm

Refresh
Causes all windows on the screen to re-draw themselves.
Move
Allows the user to move a window. If called from somewhere in a window or its border, then that window will be moved. If called from the root window, then the user will be allowed to select the target window
Resize
Allows the user to resize a window.
Raise
Allows the user to raise a window.
Lower
Allows the user to lower a window.
RaiseLower
Alternately raises and lowers a window.
Delete
Sends a message to a window asking that it remove itself, frequently causing the application to exit.

Destroy
Destroys a window. Guaranteed to get rid of the window, but is a fairly violent way to terminate an application.

Close
If the window accepts the delete window protocol, a message is sent to the window asking it to gracefully remove itself. If the window does not understand the delete window protocol, then the window is destroyed.

Iconify [value]
Iconifies a window if it is not already iconified, or de-iconifies it if it is already iconified. If the optional argument value is positive, the only iconification will be allowed, and de-iconification will be inhibited. It the optional argument is negative, only de-iconification will be allowed.

Maximize [ horizontal vertical]
Without its optional arguments, Maximize causes the window to alternately switch from a full-screen size to its normal size.

With the optional arguments horizontal and vertical, which are expressed as percentage of a full screen, the user can control the new size of the window. If horizontal >0, then the horizontal dimension of the window will be set to horizontal*screen_width/100. The vertical resizing is similar. For example, the following will add a title-bar button to switch a window to the full vertical size of the screen:
Mouse 0 4 A Maximize 0 100

The following causes windows to be stretched to the full width
Mouse 0 4 A Maximize 100 0

This makes a window that is half the screen size in each direction
Mouse 0 4 A Maximize 50 50

Values larger than 100 can be used with caution.

Stick
Makes a window sticky if it is not already sticky, or non-sticky if it is already sticky.
Scroll horizonal vertical
Scrolls the virtual desktop's viewport by horizontal pages in the x-direction, and vertical pages in the y-direction. Either or both entries may be negative. Both horizontal and vertical values are expressed in percent of pages, so Scroll 100 100 means to scroll down and left by one full page. Scroll 50 25 means to scroll left half a page and down a quarter of a page. The scroll function should not be called from pop-up menus. Normally, scrolling stops at the edge of the desktop.

If the horizontal and vertical percentages are multiplied by 1000, then scrolling will wrap around at the edge of the desktop. If "Scroll 100000 0" is executed over and over, fvwm will move to the next desktop page on each execution, and will wrap around at the edge of the desktop, so that every page is hit in turn.

TogglePage
Temporarily disables edge scrolling. Edge scrolling can be re-enabled by calling this again.

CursorMove horizonal vertical
Moves the mouse pointer by horizontal pages in the x-direction, and vertical pages in the y-direction. Either or both entries may be negative. Both horizontal and vertical values are expressed in percent of pages, so CursorMove 100 100 means to move down and left by one full page. CursorMove 50 25 means to move left half a page and down a quarter of a page. The CursorMove function should not be called from pop-up menus.
CirculateUp [name window_name]
Causes the pointer to move to the previous window in the list of windows for which CirculateSkip has not not been specified as CirculateSkip.

If the optional arguments are supplied, then the focus will move to the first window whose name (or icon name or class) matches window_name. The optional argument name is required if window_name is supplied, and is enclosed in quotes. This argument is the name which appears in menus if the function is called from a menu, but serves no purpose if the function is not called from a menu

Here's an example that move the focus to an xterm window when Alt-F1 is pressed:
Key F1 A M CirculateUp "whatever" xterm

CirculateDown [name window_name]
Causes the pointer to move to the next window in the list of windows for which CirculateSkip has not not been specified as CirculateSkip.

If the optional arguments are supplied, then the focus will move to the first window whose name (or icon name or class) matches window_name. The optional argument name is required if window_name is supplied, and is enclosed in quotes. This argument is the name which appears in menus if the function is called from a menu, but serves no purpose if the function is not called from a menu

Warp [name window_name]
Same as CirculateDown, but De-Iconifies any iconified windows as it focuses on them.

Wait name
This built-in is intended to be used in fvwm functions only. It causes execution of a function to pause until a new window name name appears. Fvwm remains fully functional during a wait. This is particularly useful in the InitFunction, if you are trying to start windows on specific desktops:
Function "InitFunction"
   Exec    "I"    exec xterm -geometry 80x64+0+0
   Wait    "I"    xterm
   Desk    "I"    0 2
   Exec    "I"    exec xmh -font fixed -geometry 507x750+0+0 &
   Wait    "I"    xmh
   Desk    "I"    0 0
EndFunction

The above function starts an xterm on the current desk, waits for it to map itself, then switches to desk 2, and starts an xmh. After the xmh window appears, control moves to desk 0.

Focus
Moves the viewport or window as needed to make the selected window visible. Sets the keyboard focus to the selected window. Raises the window if needed to make it visible. Warps the pointer into the selected window in focus-follows-mouse mode. Does not de-iconify. This function is primarily handing when used with a module such as the FvwmWinList.

Desk arg1 arg2
Changes to another desktop (workspace, room).

If arg1 is non zero, then the next desktop number will be the current desktop number plus arg1. Desktop numbers, like arg1 can be negative.

If arg1 is zero, then the new desktop number will be arg2.

The number of active desktops is determined dynamically. Only desktops which contain windows or are currently being displayed are active. Desktop numbers must be between 2147483647 and -2147483648 (is that enough?).

WindowsDesk new_desk
Moves the selected window the the desktop specified as new_desk.

GotoPage x y
Moves the desktop viewport to page (x,y). The upper left page is (0,0), the upper right is (N,0), where N is one less than the current number of horizontal pages specified in the DeskTopSize command. The lower left page is (0,M), and the lower right page is (N,M), where M is the desktop's vertical size as specified in the DeskTopSize command. The GotoPage function should not be used in a pop-up menu.
WindowList arg1 arg2
Generates a pop-up menu (and pops it up) in which the title and geometry of each of the windows currently on the desk top are shown. The geometry of iconified windows is shown in brackets. Selecting an item from the window list pop-up menu will cause that window to be moved onto the desktop if it is currently not on it, will move the desktop viewport to the page containing the upper left hand corner of the window, will de-iconify the window if it is iconified, and will raise the window.

If arg1 is an even number, then the windows will be listed using the window name (the name that shows up in the title-bar). If it is odd, then the window's icon name is used.

If arg1 is less than 2, then all windows on all desktops (except those listed in WindowListSkip directives), will be show.

If arg1 is 2 or 3, then only windows on the current desktop will be shown.

If arg1 is 4 or 5, then only windows on desktop number arg2 will be shown.

Exec name command
Executes command. command is not quoted, but name is. name is the name that appears in a menu, if that is where the function is called from. name is required even if the function is not called from a menu, for ease of parsing.

The following example binds function key F1 in the root window, with no modifiers, to the exec function. The program rxvt will be started, with an assortment of options.
Key F1 R N Exec "rxvt" exec rxvt -fg yellow -bg blue -e /bin/tcsh &

Popup
NOTE: This built-in takes a slightly different form when used to bind a sub-menu into a menu than it does when binding the main menu to a key or mouse button. The form described here is for binding a main menu to a key or mouse button.

Used to bind a previously defined pop-up menu to a key or mouse button.

The following example binds mouse buttons 2 and 3 to a pop-up called "Window Ops", whose definition was provided as an example earlier in this man page. The menu will pop-up if the buttons 2 or 3 are pressed in the window frame, side-bar, or title-bar, with no modifiers (none of shift, control, or meta).
Mouse 2        FST    N    Popup "Window Ops"
Mouse 3        FST    N    Popup "Window Ops"

Pop-ups can be bound to keys through the use of the key modifier. Pop-ups can be operated without using the mouse by binding to keys, and operating via the up arrow, down arrow, and enter keys.

Popup
NOTE: This built-in takes a slightly different form when used to bind a sub-menu into a menu than it does when binding the main menu to a key or mouse button. The form described here is for binding a sub-menu to a main menu.

Used to bind a previously defined pop-up menu to another menu, for use as a sub-menu.

The following example defines a sub menu, "Quit-Verify" and binds it into a main menu, called "Utilities".
Popup "Quit-Verify"
Title "Really Quit Fvwm?"
Quit "Yes, Really Quit"
Restart "Restart Fvwm" fvwm
Nop ""
Nop "No, Don't Quit"
EndPopup

Popup "Utilities"
Title "Utilities"
Exec "Xterm" exec xterm &
Exec "Rxvt" exec rxvt &
Exec "Top" exec rxvt -T Top -n Top -e top &
Exec "Calculator" exec xcalc &
Exec "Xman" exec xman &
Exec "Xmag" exec xmag &
Nop ""
Popup "Exit Fvwm" Quit-Verify
EndPopup

Sub-menus must be defined prior to the main menu in which they are bound. Sub-menu nesting can be arbitrarily deep.

Function
Used to bind a previously defined function to a key or mouse button.

The following example binds mouse button 1 to a function called "Move-or-Raise", whose definition was provided as an example earlier in this man page. After performing this binding, fvwm will execute to move-or-raise function whenever button 1 is pressed in a window title-bar.
Mouse 1 T A Function "Move-or-Raise"

Module ModuleName
Specifies a module which should be spawned. At the current time, the only module is GoodStuff, which lets you place a button panel on the display's root window, and feeds window manager commands back to fvwm. GoodStufff will normally be spawned during initialization instead of in response to a mouse binding or menu action. Modules can be short lived transient programs, or, like GoodStuff, can be intended to remain for the duration of the X session. Module will be terminated by the window-manager prior to restarts and quits, if possible.

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

All (I think) window-manager operations can be performed from the keyboard, so mouse-less operation should not be difficult. In addition to scrolling around the virtual desktop by binding the Scroll built-in to appropriate keys, Pop-ups, move, resize and most other built-ins can be bound to keys. Once a built-in function is started, the pointer is moved by using the up, down, left, and right arrows, and the action is terminated by pressing return. Holding down the shift key will cause the pointer movement to go in larger steps, and holding down the control key will cause the cursor movement to go in smaller steps. As of release 0.975, standard emacs and vi cursor movement controls (^n, ^p, ^f, ^b, and ^j, ^k, ^h, ^l) can be used instead of the arrow keys.

SUPPLIED CONFIGURATION

A sample configuration file, system.fvwmrc was supplied with the fvwm distribution. It is well commented and can be used as a source of examples for fvwm configuration

USE ON MULTI-SCREEN DISPLAYS

As of fvwm-0.99, fvwm does work on multi-screen displays. If the -s command line argument is not given to fvwm, it will automatically start up on every screen on the specified display. After fvwm starts, each screen is treated independently. Re-starts of fvwm need to be performed separately on each screen. The use of EdgeScroll 0 0 is strongly recommended for multi-screen displays.

You may need to quit on each screen to quit from the X session completely, I'm not sure.

Multi-screen support is only available if you use -DMULTIPLE_SCREENS

BUGS

As of fvwm 0.99, there are exactly 39.342 unidentified bugs. Identified bugs have mostly been fixed, though. Since then 9.34 bugs have been fixed. Assuming that there are at least 10 unidentified bugs for every identified one, that leaves us with 39.342 - 9.32 + 10 * 9.34 = 123.402 unidentified bugs. If we follow this to its logical conclusion, we will have an infinite number of unidentified bugs before the number of bugs can start to diminish, at which point the program will be bug-free. Since this is a computer program, infinity = 3.4028e+38, if you don't insist on double-precision. At the current rate of bug-discovery, we should expect to achieve this point in 3.37e+27 years. I guess I better plan on passing this thing on to my children....

Binding a key to a window decoration, but not to the window itself is discouraged, because when the key-press event finally gets to the window, it will be marked as SYNTHETIC, and will be ignored by many applications.

Multi-screen mode is a little clumsy since re-starts and quitting need to be done on each screen separately.

The RaiseLower function gets confused by StaysOnTop windows. Not surprising really.

AUTHOR

Robert Nation (nation@rocket.sanders.lockheed.com), with help from many people, based on twm code, which was written by Thomas LaStrange.


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