X Windows - Configuring Window Managers
FVWM/FVWM2
- fvwm:
- > exec fvwm
fvwm - F? Virtual Window Manager (Nobody really knows what the "F"
stands for. Even the guy that wrote it forgot. Seriously.)
The default window manager on Turing, fvwm is practical, doesn't eat up a lot
of the color map on our 256 color NCDs, and is still pretty customizable.
You might actually be surprised how customizable it is, and how many hot keys
are already set up. For example, try hitting C - Arrow. That
should have moved your display into another region of your virtual desktop.
Hopefully you knew how to click on the pager and bring yourself back, or were
smart enough to hit C - Arrow the other way and bring yourself back
to this page so you can keep reading. You can also define your own hot keys
and such, and even customize all your menus and window colors and styles.
In brief, most of the customization for FVWM can be seen in your
~/.fvwmrc file. Try bringing it up in your text editor of choice, and
just browse through it and try changing things. When you want to see your
changes take effect, right click on an empty area of your desktop, go to Quit,
and hit Restart FVWM. It will think for a second, and then come up showing all
your wonderful changes.
If you like changing the colors around, but don't know exactly what
colors are defined, here's a handy link to Deanna's List of Colors, a great page that has a pretty
extensive list of the colors that will be (hopefully) recognized. Watch out
though, the NCDs are only 256 colors, and you don't want to take up too much of
that color map with your background stuff, or else important things like
web surfing will be severely uglified.
Another nice parameter to set is the AutoRaise param, which governs how long
your mouse has to hover before a particular window gains focus. Personally
I find that 250-500 milliseconds is a good range, but feel free to leave it
at 750 if you like, or even disable it. Also, EdgeScroll x% y% is a good one,
it governs what percentage of a screen FVWM will scroll your display when you
move your mouse to the edge of the screen and hold it there. 50 50 or 100 100
are normal. If you have never been aquainted with scrolling the display by
moving the mouse like that, try changing the EdgeResistance parameter, another
goodie.
- fvwm2:
- > exec fvwm2
The newest release of FVWM, and the version currently supported by
the developers, is fvwm2. The file to configure this version has
been renamed .fvwm2rc and is still kept in your home
directory. A default configuration file can be copied from
/etc/skel/local.fvwm2rc. Most common customizations are
well commented, so if you find that it isn't quite to your liking
it shouldn't be much trouble to make any changes you want.
Back to the window managers qref page
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