CTWM(1)

📦

version 4.1.0 · 2 versions

4.1.0 · arch rolling, debian trixie, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking (latest)
4.0.3 · debian bookworm

, in arch rolling, debian trixie, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

✨ NAME ✨

ctwm — Claude's Tab Window Manager for the X Window System 💖

🦋 SYNTAX 🦋

okay so here's the whole launch vibe, bestie:

ctwm [(--display | -d) dpy]  [--replace]  [--single]
     [(--file | -f) initfile]  [--cfgchk]  [--dumpcfg]
     [--nom4 | -n]  [(--keep-defs | -k)]  [(--keep | -K) m4file]
     [--verbose | -v]  [--quiet | -q]  [--mono]  [--xrm resource]
     [--version]  [--info]  [--nowelcome | -W]
     [--clientId clid]  [--restore resfname]
     [--help | -h]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

ctwm is a window manager for the X Window System. It's giving titlebars, shaped windows, virtual screens (workspaces), several forms of icon management, user-defined macro functions, click-to-type and pointer-driven keyboard focus, and user-specified key and pointer button bindings. Underneath, it's literally twm(1) (Tab Window Manager) from the MIT X11 distribution, just slightly modified to accommodate the use of several virtual screens (workspaces). It's heavily inspired by the Hewlett-Packard vuewm window manager. Also? ctwm can use coloured, shaped icons and background root pixmaps in XPM format [from Arnaud Le Hors], in JPEG using libjpeg, and xwd files. And bestie, ctwm can be compiled to use any combination of the above icon/pixmap formats. 💅

This program is usually started by the user's session manager or startup script. When used from xdm(1) or xinit(1) without a session manager, ctwm is frequently executed in the foreground as the last client. When run this way, exiting ctwm causes the X session to be terminated, shutting down the X server and killing off any other running clients. 😭

By default, application windows are surrounded by a "frame" with a titlebar at the top and a special border around the window. The titlebar contains the window's name, a rectangle that is lit when the window is receiving keyboard input, and function boxes known as "titlebuttons" at the left and right edges of the titlebar to which actions can be bound.

Pressing pointer Button1 (usually the left-most button unless it has been changed with xmodmap) on a titlebutton will invoke the function associated with the button. In the default interface, windows are iconified by clicking (pressing and then immediately releasing) the left titlebutton (which looks like a Dot). Conversely, windows are deiconified by clicking in the associated icon or entry in the icon manager (see description of the variable ShowIconManager and of the function f.showiconmgr).

Windows are resized by pressing the right titlebutton (which resembles a group of nested squares), dragging the pointer over edge that is to be moved, and releasing the pointer when the outline of the window is the desired size. Similarly, windows are moved by pressing in the title or highlight region, dragging a window outline to the new location, and then releasing when the outline is in the desired position. Just clicking in the title or highlight region raises the window without moving it.

When new windows are created, ctwm will honor any size and location information requested by the user (usually through -geometry command line argument or resources for the individual applications). Otherwise, an outline of the window's default size, its titlebar, and lines dividing the window into a 3x3 grid that track the pointer are displayed. Clicking pointer Button1 will position the window at the current position and give it the default size. Pressing pointer Button2 (usually the middle pointer button) and dragging the outline will give the window its current position but allow the sides to be resized as described above. Clicking pointer Button3 (usually the right pointer button) will give the window its current position but attempt to make it long enough to touch the bottom the screen. periodt 💖

✨ OPTIONS ✨

ctwm accepts the following command line options:

--help, -h — Print usage text.
--display=dpy, -d dpy — This option specifies the X server to use.
--replace — This option indicates that it is not an error if a window manager is already running. In that case, the existing window manager is asked to quit, and ctwm takes its place. Available only if ctwm is built with the USE_EWMH flag. First appeared in 4.0.0.
--single — This option indicates that only the default screen (as specified by --display or by the DISPLAY environment variable) should be managed. By default, ctwm will attempt to manage all screens on the display.
--cfgchk — This option causes ctwm to only try to parse the config file, and indicate whether errors are found.
--dumpcfg — This option causes ctwm to print out the compiled-in fallback config. First appeared in 4.0.0.
--file=filename, -f filename — This option specifies the name of the startup file to use. ctwm will first try to load filename.num, where num is the screen number. If it fails, it will try to load filename. By default, ctwm will look in the user's home directory for files named .ctwmrc.num, .ctwmrc, .twmrc.num, or .twmrc (where num is a screen number).
--verbose, -v — This option indicates that ctwm should print error messages whenever an unexpected X Error event is received. This can be useful when debugging applications but can be distracting in regular use.
--quiet, -q — Disables --verbose (useful for overriding aliases, etc).
--nom4, -n — This option indicates that ctwm should not filter the startup file through m4. Available only if ctwm is built with the USE_M4 flag.
--keep-defs, -k — This option indicates that ctwm should keep the definitions it prepends to your startup file when filtering through m4 in /tmp. Available only if ctwm is built with the USE_M4 flag.
--keep=m4file, -K m4file — This option indicates that ctwm should keep the result of filtering your startup file through m4 in the named file. Available only if ctwm is built with the USE_M4 flag.
--mono — Run in monochrome mode.
--version — ctwm just prints its version number.
--info — ctwm prints its detailed version and compile time options.
--nowelcome, -W — This option tells ctwm not to display any welcome when starting.
--clientId=clid, --restore=resfname — Something to do with session management 💀
--xrm=resource — Ignored.

ctwm uses getopt_long() for parsing the command-line options. This means that args can be passed via --long=arg and --long arg, as well as -l arg and -larg, and short args can be bundled like -vnk as well as -v -n -k. iykyk ✨

🎀 CUSTOMIZATION 🎀

Much of ctwm's appearance and behavior can be controlled by providing a startup file in one of the following locations (searched in order for each screen being managed when ctwm begins):

$HOME/.ctwmrc.screennumber — The screennumber is a small positive number (e.g. 0, 1, etc.) representing the screen number (e.g. the last number in the DISPLAY environment variable host:displaynum.screennum) that would be used to contact that screen of the display. This is intended for displays with multiple screens of differing visual types.
$HOME/.ctwmrc — This is the usual name for an individual user's startup file.
$HOME/.twmrc.screennumber, $HOME/.twmrc — The user's twm startup file.
/usr/etc/system.ctwmrc — If none of the preceding files are found, ctwm will look in this file for a default configuration. This is often tailored by the site administrator to provide convenient menus or familiar bindings for novice users.

If no startup files are found, ctwm will use the built-in defaults described above. The only resource used by ctwm is bitmapFilePath for a colon-separated list of directories to search when looking for bitmap files (for more information, see the Athena Widgets manual and xrdb(1)).

ctwm startup files are logically broken up into three types of specifications: Variables, Bindings, Menus. The Variables section must come first and is used to describe the fonts, colors, cursors, border widths, icon and window placement, highlighting, autoraising, layout of titles, warping, use of the icon manager. The Bindings section usually comes second and is used to specify the functions that should be invoked when keyboard and pointer buttons are pressed in windows, icons, titles, and frames. The Menus section gives any user-defined menus (containing functions to be invoked or commands to be executed).

Variable names and keywords are case-insensitive. Strings must be surrounded by double quote characters (e.g. "blue") and are case-sensitive. A pound sign (#) outside of a string causes the remainder of the line in which the character appears to be treated as a comment.

✨ M4 PREPROCESSING ✨

okay so bestie, ctwm can use m4(1) to pre-process its setup files 💅 Whether that's even a thing depends on the build option USE_M4 (it's on by default, no cap), and you can selectively kill it with the --nom4 command-line argument.

When ctwm starts up, it opens a file for input as described above. But — plot twist — it runs that file through m4 before parsing it. So you can use m4 macros to do stuff at runtime, and honestly? This makes life so easy when you're working across many different displays with different characteristics. Obsessed.

Say you want to set the lower right section of the screen to be your IconRegion (see below for the deets on the IconRegion variable), you can use m4 directives and pre-defined symbols to calculate the region you want. Like:

define(IRegion, translit(eval(WIDTH/3)*eval(HEIGHT/2)+eval(WIDTH-WIDTH/3)-0, *, x))
IconRegion  "IRegion" SOUTH EAST 75 25

That right there defines the lower half and right-hand third of the screen 🦋 The above makes use of symbols that are predefined for m4 by ctwm. The symbols WIDTH and HEIGHT are among those calculated by ctwm and written into a temporary file for m4 to use.

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 — and this is the important part, bestie, listen up — if you use any of the symbols which are predefined by m4, you are in severe danger! 😭 For example, the Sun m4 predefines shift, so if you use that name in your .ctwmrc, you are out of luck. Periodt.

The following symbols are predefined by ctwm:

Hostnames

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, ctwm)
HOSTNAME — as of 4.0.2, this is a duplicate of CLIENTHOST. In prior versions, gethostbyname() was used to attempt to derive a canonical or fully-qualified version of the hostname.

User Info

USER — the name of the user running the program. Value taken from environmental variables $USER and $LOGNAME, or from the passwd lookup for your uid if they don't exist. Falls back to "unknown" if all methods fail.
HOME — the user's home directory. Gotten from the environment var $HOME.

ctwm info

TWM_TYPE — tells which twm offshoot is running. It will always be set to the string "ctwm" in this program. This is useful for protecting parts of your .twmrc file that twm proper won't understand (like WorkSpaces) so that it is still usable with other twm programs. iconic tbh.
TWM_VERSION — tells which ctwm version is running in the form of a floating point number.
CTWM_VERSION_MAJOR, CTWM_VERSION_MINOR, CTWM_VERSION_PATCH, CTWM_VERSION_ADDL — gives the ctwm version split out. e.g., for a version like "3.8.2-beta1", the _MAJOR will be "3", _MINOR "8", _PATCH "2", and _ADDL "-beta1". Final releases will generally have an empty CTWM_VERSION_ADDL; it's mostly meaningful in dev and betas. For comparison, in this situation, TWM_VERSION will be "3.8.2".

The CTWM_VERSION_* variables first appeared in 4.0.0.

X server info

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.

Display info

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.)
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.

ctwm compile-time options

XPM — is defined only if ctwm was compiled with XPM support.
PIXMAP_DIRECTORY — the directory where the ctwm pictures are installed.
JPEG — is defined only if ctwm was compiled with JPEG support.
SOUNDS — is defined only if ctwm was compiled with SOUND support.
EWMH — is defined only if ctwm was compiled with EWMH support. First appeared in 4.0.0.
I18N — is defined if ctwm was compiled with I18N support. This is no longer optional since 3.8 and is always compiled in. The definition will be removed in a future version.

Obsolete options

GNOME — defined when ctwm was compiled with GNOME1 support. Removed after 3.8.2.
TWM_CAPTIVE — this was either "Yes" or "No". "Yes" if the current ctwm is captive (flag -w), "No" in the other case. Removed in 4.1.0.
TWM_CAPTIVE_NAME — defined only if TWM_CAPTIVE is also defined. Contains the name of the captive ctwm (flag --name). Removed in 4.1.0.

💖 VARIABLES 💖

Many of the aspects of ctwm's user interface are controlled by variables that may be set in the user's startup file. Some of the options are enabled or disabled simply by the presence of a particular keyword. Other options require keywords, numbers, strings, or lists of all of these.

Lists are surrounded by braces and are usually separated by whitespace or a newline. For example:

AutoRaise { "emacs" "XTerm" "Xmh" }

AutoRaise
{
    "emacs"
    "XTerm"
    "Xmh"
}

When a variable containing a list of strings representing windows is searched (e.g. to determine whether or not to enable autoraise as shown above), a string must be an exact, case-sensitive match to the window's name (given by various window properties, such as WM_NAME), resource name or class name (both given by the WM_CLASS window property). The preceding example would enable autoraise on windows named "emacs" as well as any xterm (since they are of class "XTerm") or xmh windows (which are of class "Xmh"). 🎀

String arguments that are interpreted as filenames (see the Pixmaps, Cursors, and IconDirectory below) will prepend the user's directory (specified by the HOME environment variable) if the first character is a tilde (~). If, instead, the first character is a colon (:), the name is assumed to refer to one of the internal bitmaps that are used to create the default titlebars symbols: :xlogo or :iconify (both refer to the X used for the iconify button), :resize (the nested squares used by the resize button), and :question (the question mark used for non-existent bitmap files).

The following variables may be specified at the top of a ctwm startup file. Lists of window name prefix strings are indicated by win-list. Optional arguments are shown in square brackets:

AlwaysOnTop { win-list } — this variable specifies a list of windows (all windows if the list is defaulted) that ctwm will try its best to maintain on top of others. This doesn't work in all case.
AlwaysShowWindowWhenMovingFromWorkspaceManager — when ReallyMoveInWorkspaceManager is present and the user is moving a window from the WorkSpaceMap, ctwm display the actual window only if it crosses the current active workspace. If AlwaysShowWindowWhenMovingFromWorkspaceManager is present, the actual window is always visible during the move, regardless of whether it crosses the current workspace or not. The Shift key toggles this behaviour.
AlwaysSqueezeToGravity [{ win-list }] — this variable indicates that ctwm should obey window gravity when squeezing a window even when the window has a titlebar. Normally, ctwm will always squeeze a window that has a titlebar toward the north. The optional win-list may be used to control which windows this applies on.
AnimationSpeed speed — the speed argument is a non-negative integer. It determines the number of times a second animations (if any) are updated. If speed is 0, animations are freezed. The default value is 0.
AutoFocusToTransients — transient windows get focus automatically when created. Useful with programs that have keyboard shortcuts that pop up windows. 🔥
AutoLower [{ win-list }] — this variable specifies a list of windows (all windows if the list is defaulted) to be automatically lowered whenever the pointer leaves a window. This action can be interactively enabled or disabled on individual windows using the function f.autolower.
AutoOccupy — this variable specifies that clients will automatically change their occupation when their name or icon name changes. The new occupation will be recalculated from the Occupy and OccupyAll fields in the .ctwmrc file.
AutoPopup [{ win-list }] — this variables specifies a list of windows which will be deiconified whenever their name changes. Can be used for xconsole, for instance, which adds a "*" to its name whenever something gets displayed on the console, or for various mail readers who change their icons depending on the presence of unread mail.

First appeared in 4.0.0.

AutoPriority — this variable specifies that ctwm should automatically recompute the priority of a window (and its associated icon) when its name changes. See also OnTopPriority.

First appeared in 4.0.0.

AutoRaise [{ win-list }] — this variable specifies a list of windows (all windows if the list is defaulted) to be automatically raised whenever the pointer has come to rest in a window for the amount of time specified by the RaiseDelay variable. This action can be interactively enabled or disabled on individual windows using the function f.autoraise.
AutoRaiseIcons — icons are raised when the cursor enters it. Useful with ShrinkIconTitles. ✨

`AutoRelativeResize`

okay so this one is a whole vibe for the drag-girlies 💅 it says that when you're dragging out a window size (either that first sizing moment with pointer Button2, or any time you're resizing it), ctwm should not sit there waiting for your pointer to cross the window edges. nope. instead, just moving the pointer automatically drags the nearest edge (or edges!) along by the same amount. this is so handy for resizing windows that hang off the edge of the screen, fr. but — plot twist — if the pointer is chillin' in the center of the window, or if the resize got started by pressing a titlebutton, ctwm will still wait for the pointer to cross a window edge (to prevent accidents 🙈). this option is especially chef's-kiss for people who love the press-drag-release method of sweeping out window sizes. periodt

`AutoSqueeze` `{ win-list }`

these windows get auto-squeezed (peep f.squeeze), like they automatically unsqueeze when they get focus and get squeezed when they lose it. so useful for the workspace manager bestie ✨ heads up tho: not authorized for icon managers.

`BackingStore`

turns on backing store usage on menus and workspace map windows 🎀 see also NoBackingStore. added in 4.0.0; in previous versions this was literally the default.

`BeNiceToColormap`

by default, new colors get allocated for shadows when a 3D look is used, but when you specify BeNiceToColormap, ctwm uses stipling instead of new colors. the effect is less beautiful 😭 but acceptable. in this case ClearShadowContrast and DarkShadowContrast have no effects — none. zero. nada.

`BorderBottom` pixels

this one sets the width in pixels of a forbidden zone at the bottom of the screen. all the constrained window functions (f.movepack, f.move with DontMoveOff, etc...) will treat this zone as offscreen. default is 0.

`BorderColor` string `[{ wincolorlist }]`

sets the default color of the border placed around all non-iconified windows 💖 and it may only be given within a Color or Monochrome list. the optional wincolorlist lets you hand out a list of window and color name pairs so different types of windows get their own border colors. like:

BorderColor "gray50"
{
    "XTerm" "red"
    "xmh"   "green"
}

the default is “black”.

`BorderLeft` pixels

width in pixels of a forbidden zone at the left of the screen. all constrained window functions (f.movepack, f.move with DontMoveOff, etc...) consider this zone offscreen. default is 0.

`BorderResizeCursors`

tells ctwm to use resizing cursors when the pointer is on the window border 🦋 bestie you'll wanna use this when you've bound a button to f.resize in the frame context, trust.

`BorderRight` pixels

width in pixels of a forbidden zone at the right of the screen. all constrained window functions (f.movepack, f.move with DontMoveOff, etc...) consider this zone offscreen. default is 0.

`BorderShadowDepth` pixels

sets the depth of the shadow ctwm uses for 3D window borders, when UseThreeDBorders is selected ✨

`BorderTileBackground` string `[{ wincolorlist }]`

the default background color in the gray pattern used in unhighlighted borders (only if NoHighlight hasn't been set!), and may only be given within a Color or Monochrome list. the optional wincolorlist lets you do per-window colors. the default is “white”.

`BorderTileForeground` string `[{ wincolorlist }]`

the default foreground color in the gray pattern used in unhighlighted borders (again, only if NoHighlight hasn't been set), and again, may only be given within a Color or Monochrome list. the optional wincolorlist allows per-window colors. the default is “black”.

`BorderTop` pixels

width in pixels of a forbidden zone at the top of the screen. all constrained window functions (f.movepack, f.move with DontMoveOff, etc...) will consider this zone as offscreen. default is 0.

`BorderWidth` pixels

the width in pixels of the border surrounding all client window frames, if ClientBorderWidth has not been specified. this value is also used to set the border size of windows created by ctwm (like the icon manager, iykyk). the default is 2.

`ButtonIndent` pixels

the amount by which titlebuttons should be indented on all sides. positive values make the buttons smaller than the window text and highlight area, so they stand out ✨ setting this and the TitleButtonBorderWidth variables to 0 makes titlebuttons be as tall and wide as possible. the default is 1 if UseThreeDTitles is not set, and 0 if it is set.

`CenterFeedbackWindow`

the moving and resizing information window gets centered in the middle of the screen instead of the top left corner. main character placement, honestly 👑

`ClearShadowContrast` contrast

tells ctwm how to calculate the clear shadow color for 3D items. the value is comprised between 0 and 100. the formula used is:

clear.{RGB} = (65535 - color.{RGB}) * (contrast / 100).

has no effect if BeNiceToColormap is active 🫶

`ClickToFocus`

focus windows by clicking on them, rather than merely mousing over them. no more accidental focus jumps, we love boundaries 💅

`ClientBorderWidth`

this one says the border width of a window's frame should be set to the initial border width of the window, rather than to the value of BorderWidth. if Use3DBorders is set, this variable is automatically unset. the universe decided that for you ✨

`Color` `{ colors-list }`

sets a list of color assignments to be made if the default display can do more than simple black and white 🌈 the colors-list is made up of these color variables and their values: DefaultBackground, DefaultForeground, MenuBackground, MenuForeground, MenuTitleBackground, MenuTitleForeground, and MenuShadowColor. these next color variables may also be given a list of window and color name pairs so you can do per-window colors (peep BorderColor for the deets): BorderColor, IconManagerHighlight, BorderTileBackground, BorderTileForeground, TitleBackground, TitleForeground, IconBackground, IconForeground, IconBorderColor, IconManagerBackground, and IconManagerForeground. for example:

Color
{
    MenuBackground      "gray50"
    MenuForeground      "blue"
    BorderColor         "red"    { "XTerm" "yellow" }
    TitleForeground     "yellow"
    TitleBackground     "blue"
}

all of these color variables may also be specified for the Monochrome variable, so the same initialization file works on both color and monochrome displays. iconic, honestly 💖

`ConstrainedMoveTime` milliseconds

the length of time between button clicks needed to begin a constrained move operation. double clicking within this amount of time when invoking f.move or other similar moving functions will cause the window to only be moved in a horizontal or vertical direction. setting this value to 0 will disable constrained moves. the default is 400 milliseconds.

ngl, this also affects double clicking in f.raiseorsqueeze, and potentially other places that need to track double clicks. it should probably be renamed 🙈

`Cursors` `{ cursor-list }`

the glyphs ctwm should use for various pointer cursors 🎀 each cursor may be defined either from the cursor font or from two bitmap files. shapes from the cursor font may be specified directly as:

cursorname "string"

where cursorname is one of the cursor names listed below, and string is the name of a glyph as found in the file <X11/cursorfont.h> (without the “XC_” prefix). if the cursor is to be defined from bitmap files, you use this syntax instead:

cursorname "image" "mask"

the image and mask strings specify the names of files containing the glyph image and mask in bitmap(1) form. the bitmap files are located in the same manner as icon bitmap files. the following example shows the default cursor definitions:

Cursors
{
    Frame       "top_left_arrow"
    Title       "top_left_arrow"
    Icon        "top_left_arrow"
    IconMgr     "top_left_arrow"
    Move        "fleur"
    Resize      "fleur"
    Menu        "sb_left_arrow"
    Button      "hand2"
    Wait        "watch"
    Select      "dot"
    Destroy     "pirate"
}

`DarkShadowContrast` contrast

tells ctwm how to calculate the dark shadow color for 3D items. the value is comprised between 0 and 100. the formula used is:

dark.{RGB}  = color.{RGB} * ((100 - contrast) / 100),

has no effect if BeNiceToColormap is active 🦋

`DecorateTransients`

transient windows (the ones containing a WM_TRANSIENT_FOR property) should have titlebars. as of 4.0.0 this is the default ✨

`DefaultBackground` string

the background color used for sizing and information windows. the default is “white”.

`DefaultForeground` string

the foreground color used for sizing and information windows. the default is “black”.

`DontIconifyByUnmapping` `{ win-list }`

a list of windows that should not be iconified by simply unmapping the window (which is what would happen if IconifyByUnmapping had been set). this is frequently used to force some windows to be treated as icons while other windows are handled by the icon manager 💅

`DontMoveOff`

windows should not be allowed to be moved off the screen. it can be overridden by the f.forcemove function. rules are rules... until they're not 😌

`DontNameDecorations`

disables setting WM_NAME properties on the various decoration windows ctwm puts around the windows it manages. these are handy for keeping track of what's what when you're poking through the list of windows on the screen, but they can confuse some tools that don't expect to find them there (xwit is known to be one of them 🙈). first appeared in 4.0.2.

🎀 `DontPaintRootWindow`

Tells ctwm to not paint the root window, no matter what you said in the Workspaces spec. Super handy when you want pixmaps chilling in the Workspace Map but not splashed across the root window. iykyk 💅

🌸 `DontSave { win-list }`

These windows will not have their characteristics saved for the session manager. Bye bestie, no memories kept. 💀

🦋 `DontSetInactive { win-list }`

These windows will not be set to InactiveState when they become invisible because of a workspace change. This exists bc some ill-behaved clients (Frame5) literally cannot handle it. Not their fault, we're just being nice. 🫶

✨ `DontShowWelcomeWindow`

Does exactly what the -W option does: the welcome window does not get shown. No hello for you. 🙈

💖 `DontSqueezeTitle [{ win-list }]`

Says titlebars should not be squeezed down to their minimum size (that whole thing is described under SqueezeTitle below 👇). If you hand over the optional window list, only those windows get spared from the squeezing. Everyone else, get squished. 😭

👑 `DontToggleWorkSpaceManagerState`

Turns off the feature that toggles the workspace manager state to/from map/button state when you press ctrl and the workspace manager window is in focus. So if you've been accidentally flipping it — this is your girl. 💅

🧚 `DontWarpCursorInWMap`

Tells ctwm not to warp the cursor to the corresponding actual window when you click a little window inside the workspace map. Stay put, cursor. 🦋

⭐ `EWMHIgnore { message-types }`

Sets the EWMH message types that ctwm will ignore. Only valid if it was built with USE_EWMH (currently on by default). Here's every single valid option, all lined up:

EWMHIgnore
{
    # Window states
    "STATE_MAXIMIZED_VERT"
    "STATE_MAXIMIZED_HORZ"
    "STATE_FULLSCREEN"
    "STATE_SHADED"
    "STATE_ABOVE"
    "STATE_BELOW"
}

First appeared in 4.0.0. 🌈

🔥 `ForceFocus [{ win-list }]`

Gives focus to windows whether they asked for it or not. Occasionally useful with windows that tell us not to give them focus, but still need it and break without it — messy behavior, but okay. The optional window list lets you pick exactly which windows get this treatment.

First appeared in 4.0.0. In prior versions, a variant of this functionality was unconditionally enabled. 👑

💜 `ForceIcons`

Says that icon pixmaps specified in the Icons variable should override any client-supplied pixmaps. Ours wins, periodt. ✨

🌸 `FramePadding pixels`

Specifies the distance between the titlebar decorations (the button and the text) and the window frame. Default is 2 pixels when UseThreeDTitles is not set, and 0 when it is set. Cute little breathing room. 🎀

💅 `GrabServer`

Says ctwm should grab the X server (which blocks all events except ours) when popping up menus and moving opaque windows. See also NoGrabServer. Added in 4.0.0; in previous versions, this was the default.

🦋 `IconBackground string [{ win-list }]`

Sets the background color of icons, and can only be specified inside a Color or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so you can do per-window colors. See the BorderColor variable for the full description of the win-list. Default is "white". 🤍

🎀 `IconBorderColor string [{ win-list }]`

Sets the color of the border used for icon windows, and can only be specified inside a Color or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors for per-window colors. See the BorderColor variable for the full win-list description. Default is "black". 🖤

✨ `IconBorderWidth pixels`

The width in pixels of the border surrounding icon windows. Default is 2.

🌈 `IconDirectory string`

Specifies the directory that should be searched if a bitmap file can't be found in any of the directories listed in the bitmapFilePath resource. Last-resort bestie. 🫶

👑 `IconFont string`

The font used to display icon names inside icons. Default is "variable".

💜 `IconForeground string [{ win-list }]`

The foreground color used when displaying icons, and can only be specified inside a Color or Monochrome list. Optional win-list = window names and colors for per-window flair. See BorderColor for the full win-list description. Default is "black". 🖤

🧚 `IconifyByUnmapping [{ win-list }]`

Says windows should be iconified by being unmapped, without trying to map any icons at all. This assumes you're gonna remap the window through the icon manager, the f.warpto function, or the TwmWindows menu. If the optional win-list is given, only those windows get iconified by simply unmapping.

⚠️ Windows that have both this and the IconManagerDontShow options set may not be accessible at all if no binding to the TwmWindows menu is set in your startup file. Be careful bestie. 😭

🌸 `IconifyStyle string`

Where string is one of "normal", "mosaic", "zoomin", "zoomout" or "sweep". Tells ctwm to use some fancy graphical effects when iconifying windows. It's giving main character energy. 💅

🦋 `IconJustification string`

Where string is one of "left", "center" or "right". Tells ctwm how to justify the icon image against the icon title (if there even is one).

🎀 `IconManagerBackground string [{ win-list }]`

The background color for icon manager entries, and can only be specified inside a Color or Monochrome list. Optional win-list = window names and colors for per-window colors. See BorderColor for the complete win-list description. Default is "white". 🤍

✨ `IconManagerDontShow [{ win-list }]`

Says the icon manager should not display any windows. If the optional win-list is given, only those windows are hidden. This one exists to keep windows that are rarely iconified (like xclock or xload) from taking up space in the icon manager. Not everything deserves the spotlight. 🙈

💖 `IconManagerFont string`

The font used when displaying icon manager entries. Default is "variable".

👑 `IconManagerForeground string [{ win-list }]`

The foreground color for displaying icon manager entries, and can only be specified inside a Color or Monochrome list. Optional win-list = window names and colors for per-window colors. See BorderColor for the full win-list description. Default is "black". 🖤

🌈 `IconManagerGeometry string [ columns ]`

Sets the geometry of the icon manager window. The string argument is a standard geometry specification that gives the initial full size of the icon manager. The icon manager window then gets broken into columns pieces and scaled according to how many entries are in the icon manager. Extra entries get wrapped to form additional rows. The default number of columns is 1.

When XrandR is compiled, the geometry can be relative to a monitor — just prefix its name (visible with the xrandr(1) command line) followed by :. That name gets ignored when XrandR isn't available. 🦋

💜 `IconManagerHighlight string [{ win-list }]`

The border color used when highlighting the icon manager entry that currently has the focus, and can only be specified inside a Color or Monochrome list. Optional win-list = window names and colors for per-window colors. See BorderColor for the complete win-list description. Default is "black". 🖤

🧚 `IconManagers { iconmgr-list }`

Specifies a list of icon managers to create. Every item in the iconmgr-list has this format:

"winname" ["iconname"] "geometry" columns

Where winname is the name of the windows that should go into this icon manager, iconname is the name of that icon manager window's icon, geometry is a standard geometry specification, and columns is the number of columns in this icon manager (as described in IconManagerGeometry).

When XrandR is compiled, the geometry can be relative to a monitor — prefix its name (visible with the xrandr(1) command line) followed by :. That name gets ignored when XrandR isn't available. For example:

IconManagers
{
    "XTerm"  "=300x5+800+5"       5
    "myhost" "HDMI2:400x5+100+5"  2
}

Clients whose name or class is "XTerm" get an entry created in the "XTerm" icon manager. Clients whose name was "myhost" would be put into the "myhost" icon manager. Organized. Slay. 💅

🌸 `IconManagerShadowDepth pixels`

The depth of the shadow ctwm uses for 3D IconManager entries, when UseThreeDIconManagers is selected. ✨

🎀 `IconManagerShow { win-list }`

Specifies a list of windows that should appear in the icon manager. Used together with the IconManagerDontShow variable, only the windows in this list will be shown in the icon manager. The chosen few. 👑

🦋 `IconMenuDontShow { win-list }`

Don't show the name of these windows in the TwmIcons menu. Not invited to that party. 🙈

IconRegion geomstring vgrav hgrav gridwidth gridheight [iconjust] [iconregjust] [iconregalign] [{ win-list }] — okay bestie, this one sets up a whole zone on the root window where icons get parked when the client didn't bother telling ctwm where it wanted its icon to live 🗺️. The geomstring is a quoted string with a standard geometry spec in it. When XrandR is compiled in, you can make that geometry relative to a monitor by prefixing the monitor's name (you can peek at those with the xrandr(1) command line) followed by :. That name just gets ignored when XrandR isn't available, no cap. If you hand it more than one IconRegion line, icons spill into the next icon region once the first one's full — iconic overflowing behavior fr fr. The vgrav argument should be either North or South, and it decides whether icons start filling in from the top or the bottom of the region. Same energy for hgrav, which should be either East or West, and controls whether icons fill in from the left or from the right. Icons get laid out in a grid inside the region, with cells gridwidth pixels wide and gridheight pixels high. The optional win-list argument tells ctwm that if one of those windows gets iconified and there's room in this icon region for its icon, then put it right here 💅. And the optional iconjust, iconregjust and iconregalign let you set specific values of IconJustification, IconRegionJustification and IconRegionAlignement just for this one IconRegion. Very bespoke, we love.
IconRegionAlignement string — here string is either "top", "center" "bottom" or "border". It tells ctwm how to align icons inside their lil spot in the IconRegion ✨. If you say “border”, the justification becomes “top” when the icon region gravity is “north”, and “bottom” when the icon region gravity is “south”. It's giving adaptive.
IconRegionJustification string — same deal, but string here is either "left", "center" "right" or "border". It tells ctwm how to justify icons inside their place in the IconRegion 🎀. If “border” is given, the justification is “left” when the icon region gravity is “west” and “right” when the icon region gravity is “east”. Mirror logic, obsessed.
Icons { win-list } — this variable hands over a list of window names plus the bitmap filenames that should be used as their icons. Like, for example:

Icons
{
    "XTerm"  "xterm.icon"
    "xfd"    "xfd_icon"
}

Windows that match “XTerm” and would not be iconified by unmapping would try to use the icon bitmap in the file “xterm.icon”. And if ForceIcons is specified, that bitmap gets used even if the client already requested its own icon pixmap 😤. No negotiation.

IconSize string — (only if built with USE_EWMH) here string is of the form "<width>x<height>" or "size" for a square size. This sets the preferred size of icons picked from the EWMH window property _NET_WM_ICON 🖼️. If an icon with the exact size isn't available, one with the nearest (area) size gets chosen instead. First appeared in 4.0.0. She's new-ish but she knows what she wants.
IgnoreCaseInMenuSelection — this one kicks in when you're moving the pointer around inside a menu with the keyboard ⌨️. When you type a letter, the pointer hops to the next entry starting with that letter. If IgnoreCaseInMenuSelection is present, that selection ignores the case of that first letter. So a and A are the same girl, periodt.
IgnoreLockModifier — if present, all bindings (buttons and keys) will ignore the LockMask 🔓. Super useful if you're a caps lock gremlin and you don't wanna define all your bindings twice. We've all been there.
IgnoreModifier — all bindings (buttons and keys) will ignore the modifiers you specified. Useful when you use caps locks or num locks. And bestie, you don't need IgnoreLockModifier any more once you have this option — she does it all 💅.

IgnoreModifier { lock m2 }

IgnoreTransient — a list of windows for which to ignore transients 🚫👻.

IgnoreTransient { "Wine" }

InterpolateMenuColors — this variable says menu entry colors should be interpolated between the entry-specified colors 🌈. So in the example below:

Menu "mymenu"
{
    "Title"     ("black":"red")     f.title
    "entry1"                        f.nop
    "entry2"                        f.nop
    "entry3"    ("white":"green")   f.nop
    "entry4"                        f.nop
    "entry5"    ("red":"white")     f.nop
}

the foreground colors for “entry1” and “entry2” get interpolated between black and white, and the background colors between red and green. Similarly, the foreground for “entry4” lands half-way between white and red, and the background lands half-way between green and white 🎨. It's giving gradient era.

MakeTitle { win-list } — this variable gives you a list of windows that should get a titlebar placed on them 👑. It's how you request titles on specific windows when NoTitle has been set. Exceptions to the rule, we stan.
MapWindowBackground color [{ win-list }] — this one sets the background colors to use for the small windows in the workspace map window 🗺️, and it may only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors, so you can do per-window colors if you want. If there's neither MapWindowBackground nor MapWindowForeground, the window title colors get used instead. Default behavior, no stress.
MapWindowCurrentWorkSpace { border_color [background] [foreground] [bitmap] } — this specifies the appearance of the map window that corresponds to the current workspace ✨. Main character map square energy.
MapWindowDefaultWorkSpace { border_color [background] [foreground] [bitmap] } — and this one specifies the appearance of the map window for the workspaces other than the current workspace, when no root background info has been handed to ctwm in the WorkSpace command 🌙. Not used in other cases, just so you know.
MapWindowForeground color [{ win-list }] — the foreground color twin of MapWindowBackground 💖. This variable sets the foreground colors for the small windows in the workspace map window, and again it may only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so you can set per-window colors. And if there's neither MapWindowBackground nor MapWindowForeground, the window title colors get used.
MaxIconTitleWidth width — the integer argument tells ctwm the maximum width to use for an icon title 📏. If an icon title is bigger than width, it gets truncated. Sorry girl, cut off.
MaxWindowSize string — this variable specifies a geometry where the width and height give the maximum size for a given window 📐. Typically used to restrict windows to the size of the screen. The default is “30000x30000”. Big enough for basically everything, lowkey.
MenuBackground string — this sets the background color used for menus, and it can only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list 🎨. The default is “white”.
MenuFont string — this sets the font to use when displaying menus 🔤. The default is “variable”.
MenuForeground string — this sets the foreground color used for menus, and can only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The default is “black”.
MenuShadowColor string — this sets the color of the shadow behind pull-down menus and can only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list 🌑. The default is “black”.
MenuShadowDepth pixels — this sets the depth of the shadow ctwm uses for 3D menus, back when UseThreeDMenus is selected 😎. Depth, she has it.
MenuTitleBackground string — this sets the background color for f.title entries in menus, and can only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list 🎀. The default is “white”.
MenuTitleForeground string — and this sets the foreground color for f.title entries in menus, and can only be specified inside of a Color or Monochrome list. The default is “black”.
MonitorLayout { monitor-list } — okay so this one lets you manually configure what ctwm considers to be the list of monitors 🖥️🖥️. If XRANDR support is compiled in (which is the default as of 4.1.0), and the RANDR extension is available on your server, then ctwm will just use that to figure out the size and layout of your monitors. But if either of those isn't the case, or you just wanna override what it returns, you can specify the names and layouts of your desired “monitors” right here. For instance, if you've got one super wide monitor and you'd rather treat it as several narrower side-by-side monitors, you could use this to tell ctwm to see it that way 👀:

MonitorLayout
{
    # Imagine a 5000x1000 monitor, that we want to split into two 2k wide
    # sections at the far left and right, with a 1k wide section in the
    # middle.
    "Left:2000x1000+0+0"
    "1000x1000+2000+0"       # Middle section unnamed
    "Right:2000x1000+3000+0"
}

And with m4 support, you could even make it automatically split your full display into 2 “monitors” 🪄:

define(LeftWidth, eval(WIDTH / 2))dnl
define(RightWidth, eval(WIDTH - LeftWidth))dnl
MonitorLayout
{
    "`AutoL:'LeftWidth`x'HEIGHT`+0+0'"
    "`AutoR:'RightWidth`x'HEIGHT`+'LeftWidth`+0'"
}

Monochrome { colors } — this variable specifies a list of color assignments that should be made if the screen has a depth of 1 ⚫⚪. See the description of Color for the deets.
MoveDelta pixels — this variable sets the number of pixels the pointer has to move before the f.move function starts working 🖱️. Also see the f.deltastop function. The default is zero pixels.
MovePackResistance pixels — this sets the number of pixels of the movepack and movepush resistance 🛑. See f.movepack and f.movepush.
MoveOffResistance pixels — this sets the number of pixels of the moveoff resistance. If pixels is positive, DontMoveOff will only stop you from going off the edge if you're within n pixels off the edge 😬. If you go further than that, DontMoveOff gives up and lets you go as far as you want. And f.forcemove still lets you totally ignore DontMoveOff whenever. A negative value puts you back into “never moveoff” mode (and that's the default). Choose your fighter.
MWMIgnore — sets the Motif window manager hints that ctwm will ignore 🙈. The example below shows all the valid options:

MWMIgnore
{
    # en/disable window borders
    "DECOR_BORDER"

    # en/disable titlebars
    "DECOR_TITLE"
}

First appeared in 4.0.0.

NoBackingStore — bestie, this one tells ctwm that its menus should not request backing store, and the whole point is to keep menu repainting to a minimum. 🙈 This is the move for servers that can repaint faster than they can actually handle backing store. See also BackingStore. As of 4.0.0 this is the default. ✨
NoBorder { win-list } — these windows get no borders, periodt. 🚫 If you want no borders on all windows, use the BorderWidth keyword instead. 💅
NoCaseSensitive — this one says: ignore case when sorting icon names in an icon manager. 🎀 Typically used with apps that capitalize the first letter of their icon name (rude of them honestly). So XTerm and xterm stop fighting.
NoDecorateTransients — transient windows (that's windows with a WM_TRANSIENT_FOR property set, iykyk) should be ignored by ctwm — as in, not given decorations at all. See also DecorateTransients. Added in 4.0.0; in previous versions this was the default. 👑
NoDefaults — ctwm should not supply the default titlebuttons and bindings. ⚠️ Only use this if your startup file contains a completely new set of bindings and definitions, otherwise you're just gonna have a bad time, fr fr.
NoGrabServer — ctwm should not grab the server when popping up menus and moving opaque windows. As of 4.0.0 this is the default. 🦋
NoHighlight [{ win-list }] — borders should not be highlighted to track where the pointer is. If the optional win-list is given, highlighting gets disabled only for those windows. Lowkey important detail: when the border is highlighted, it's drawn in the current BorderColor. When it's not highlighted, it's stippled with a gray pattern using the current BorderTileForeground and BorderTileBackground colors. 🎨
NoIconTitle [{ win-list }] — icons should not display the icon name of the client. If the optional win-list is given, only those clients go title-less. 🙈
NoIconManagerFocus — ctwm will not set the focus on the corresponding window when the pointer is in an IconManager. 👀
NoIconManagers — no icon manager should be created. At all. None. Zero. 💀
NoImagesInWorkSpaceManager — turns off displaying background images in the WorkSpaceMap. Instead, only the colors defined in WorkSpaces get used as the background in the WorkSpaceMap. 🌈
NoMenuShadows — menus should not have drop shadows drawn behind them. Typically used with slower servers, since it speeds up menu drawing — at the expense of making the menu slightly harder to read. 🫶
NoOpaqueMove [{ window-list }] — the counterpart of OpaqueMove. See OpaqueMove. 🔁
NoOpaqueResize [{ window-list }] — the counterpart of OpaqueResize. See OpaqueResize. 🔁
NoRaiseOnDeiconify — windows that get deiconified should not be raised. Keep them humble. 🙏
NoRaiseOnMove — windows should not be raised when moved. Typically used so windows can slide underneath each other. 🛝
NoRaiseOnResize — windows should not be raised when resized. Typically used so windows can be resized underneath each other. ✨
NoRaiseOnWarp — windows should not be raised when the pointer is warped into them with the f.warpto function. ⚠️ Heads up bestie: if this option is set, warping to an occluded window may result in the pointer ending up in the occluding window instead of the desired window — which causes unexpected behavior with f.warpring. 😭
NoRestartPreviousState — don't even try to regenerate the state the screen was in before the previous window manager shut down. See RestartPreviousState for the details. Added in 4.0.0; in previous versions this was the default. 💅
NoSaveUnders — menus should not request save-unders to minimize window repainting following menu selection. Typically used with displays that can repaint faster than they can handle save-unders. 🦋
NoShowOccupyAll — this one specifies that OccupyAll windows won't be displayed in the WorkSpaceMap window. 🫥
NoSortIconManager — entries in the icon manager should be appended in the order they show up. See also SortIconManager. Added in 4.0.0; in previous versions this was the default. 🎀
NoStackMode [{ win-list }] — client window requests to change the stacking order should be ignored. If the optional win-list is given, only requests on those windows get ignored. Typically used to stop applications from relentlessly popping themselves to the front of the window stack. (Sir, this is a Wendy's. 🍓) If you want that behavior, this is your girl.
NoTitle [{ win-list }] — windows should not have titlebars. If the optional win-list is given, only those windows go titlebar-less. MakeTitle may be used together with this option to force titlebars onto specific windows. 👑
NoTitleFocus — ctwm should not set keyboard input focus to each window as it is entered. Normally, ctwm sets the focus so that focus and key events from the titlebar and icon managers get delivered to the application. But if the pointer is moved quickly and ctwm is slow to respond, input can be directed to the old window instead of the new one. 😭 This option is typically used to prevent this "input lag" and to work around bugs in older applications that have problems with focus events.
NoTitleHighlight [{ win-list }] — the highlight area of the titlebar (the thing that shows which window currently has the input focus) should not be displayed. If the optional win-list is given, only those windows lose their highlight areas. This option and the SqueezeTitle options can be set together to substantially reduce the amount of screen space titlebars eat up. 🔥
NoWarpToMenuTitle — the cursor should not be warped to the title of a menu which doesn't have room to drop down below the current cursor position. 🖱️
Occupy { occupy-list } — this variable specifies which windows occupy which workspaces at startup. ✨

occupy-list consists of entries of the form:

   [Window]   win-name  { wspc1 wspc2 ... }
or Workspace  wspc-name { win1  win2 ... }

Example:

Occupy
{
               "xload"   {"all"}
    Window     "xterm"   {"here" "there" "elsewhere"}
               "xv"      {"images"}
    WorkSpace  "images"  {"xloadimage"}
}

If all is given for the workspace name (in either form), the named window[s] will be put in all workspaces, exactly as if they were listed in OccupyAll. 🌀 And if the workspace name begins with ws:, the workspace name will be looked up without the prefix first. That is, if the given name is ws:abc, it will first look for a workspace called abc, and assign to that if found. Else it falls back to looking for the name ws:abc. 🧚

Note : The Occupy declaration should come after the WorkSpaces declaration. 👑

OccupyAll { window-list } — this variable specifies a list of windows that will occupy all workspaces at startup. 🌈

window-list is a list of window names.

Example:

OccupyAll
{
    "xload"
    "xbiff"
    "xconsole"
}

Note : The OccupyAll declaration should come after the WorkSpaces declaration. 👑

OnTopPriority [Icons] priority [ { win-list } ] — ctwm lets you put windows into several overlapping priority planes, going from -8 to +8, which makes it possible to have windows that stay on top, or windows that are kept in the background. 🫶 If win-list is present, it specifies which windows should be put in the priority plane. Else, the priority sets the default value to use (the default default is 0). The Icons parameter, if present, indicates that the preference described applies to icons rather than to windows. 🎀

Example:

OnTopPriority Icons -1  # place icons a little in the background
OnTopPriority Icons 1   # place mail icons on top of normal windows
{
    "Exmh"
    "xbiff"
}

OnTopPriority 8         # keep these always on top of other windows
{
    "Emacs Icon Manager" "WorkSpaceManager"
    "TWM Icon Manager" "XDaliClock"
}

First appeared in 4.0.0. 💅

OpaqueMove [{ window-list }] — this variable says the f.move function should actually move the window instead of just drawing an outline, so you can immediately see what the window is gonna look like in the new position. 👀 Typically used on fast displays (especially if NoGrabServer is set). The optional window list parameter means only windows in this list get actually moved in opaque mode. The NoOpaqueMove counterpart is also available. 🔁

As of 4.0.0 this is enabled by default. slay

OpaqueMoveThreshold threshold — the integer parameter here is a percentage, and it means only windows (eligible for opaque moving) with a surface smaller than this percentage of the surface of the screen should actually be moved in opaque mode. The default is 200. Since 4.0.0, values >= 200 are treated as infinity, which causes windows to always OpaqueMove if eligible. 🔥
OpaqueResize [{ window-list }] — the opaque version of resize. Extremely resource intensive, but beautiful with a fast server/client/network. See OpaqueMove. The NoOpaqueResize counterpart is also available. As of 4.0.0 this is enabled by default. ✨
OpaqueResizeThreshold threshold — the resize version of OpaqueMoveThreshold. The default is 1000. Since 3.8.1, values >= 1000 are treated as infinity, causing windows to always OpaqueResize if eligible. 💅
OpenWindowTimeout seconds — seconds is an integer representing a number of seconds. When a window tries to open on an unattended display, it will be automatically mapped after this number of seconds. ⏰ (your unattended display is finally getting some main character energy)
PackNewWindows — use the f.movepack algorithm instead of f.move when opening a new window. 🎁

Pixmaps { pixmaps }

okay so this one is a whole vibe-curation station bestie 💅 — it's a list of pixmaps that define how all your various images look. Every entry is a keyword (which pixmap you're setting) followed by a string with the name of the bitmap file. Here's what you can set:

Pixmaps
{
        TitleHighlight  "gray1"
#       TitleHighlight  "supman%.xbm"
}

and the default for TitleHighlight? it just uses an even stipple pattern, no biggie ✨

PixmapDirectory path

this tells ctwm where to go looking for bitmap files that aren't X11 ones 🧚 whenever you wanna use an image file that's not an X11 bitmap, you specify : xpm:filename for xpm files, xwd:filename for xwd files, jpeg:file for jpeg files, or |command for an on-the-fly generated xwd file. use the % character to specify an animation 🎬 and path can be a colon-separated list of directories. example:

PixmapDirectory  "/usr/lib/X11/twm"
Icons
{
    "Axe"    "xpm:edit.xpm"
    "xterm"  "xpm:ball%.xpm"
}

N.B. this is only valid if your version of ctwm was compiled with the right extension (XPM or JPEG). no extension, no sparkle 💀

PrioritySwitching [Icons] { win-list }

this says the windows in win-list can switch priority — meaning they can be in plane priority or -priority depending on the situation. like, a window whose priority is 2 gets put into plane 2 when raised and plane -2 when lowered, so it'll usually stay on top if you raise another window, but can still be lowered if its priority is temporarily too high for your liking. if Icons is specified, it means the preference applies to icons rather than windows. see also the f.priorityswitching function for dynamically adding/removing windows at runtime 👑

first appeared in 4.0.0.

PriorityNotSwitching [Icons] { win-list }

same as above except it declares that the default should be for windows to be able to switch priority, except for the windows in win-list, which can't. icon energy, just inverted 🦋

first appeared in 4.0.0.

RaiseDelay milliseconds

for windows that get automatically raised when the pointer enters (peep the AutoRaise variable and the f.autoraise function), this sets how long the pointer should rest in the window before it's raised. default is 0 milliseconds. zero patience, zero problems ✨

RaiseOnClick

if this is present, a window gets raised on top of the others when you click on it, and the ButtonPress event gets correctly forwarded to the client that owns the window (if it asked to). see RaiseOnClickButton.

RaiseOnClickButton button_number

where button_number is a valid button number (currently 1 to 11). pick which button does the RaiseOnClick thing 🖱️

RaiseWhenAutoUnSqueeze

windows are raised when auto-unsqueezed (see AutoSqueeze). it's giving ✨pop back up✨

RandomPlacement [ string1 [ string2 ]]

this says that windows with no specified geometry should get placed in a pseudo-random location instead of making the user drag out an outline. no argument given? it's interpreted as RandomPlacement "on" 😌

string1 can be "on", "off", "all" or "unmapped", and string2 is a displacement for the pseudo-randomly placed window compared to the previous one. "on" and "all" are equivalent and tell ctwm to do this for all such windows; "off" says don't; and "unmapped" means only for unmapped windows, e.g. iconified or not visible in the current workspace. if the second argument isn't given, the displacement +30+30 (30 pixels right and down) is used.

as of 4.0.0, "on" is the default if no RandomPlacement is specified in the config. previously "off" was the default. glow-up fr fr 🌈

ReallyMoveInWorkspaceManager

this keyword tells ctwm to move the actual window when the user is moving the small windows in the WorkSpaceMap window. if it's not present, the WorkSpaceMap can only be used to modify the occupation of a window. pro tip: pressing the shift key while dragging a window in the workspace manager temporarily toggles this option 👀

ResizeFont</## ResizeFont string

this sets the font used in the dimensions window when you're resizing windows. default is "fixed" 🎀

RestartPreviousState

this indicates that properties on client windows should be used to attempt to regenerate the state the screen was in before the previous window manager was shut down. that includes using the WM_STATE property to tell which windows should be iconified and which should be left visible, and the WM_OCCUPATION property to determine in which workspaces a window should be visible. as of 4.0.0 this is the default 💖

ReverseCurrentWorkspace

tells ctwm to reverse the background and foreground colors in the small windows in the workspace map for the current workspace. aesthetic inversion, slay 🌸

RplaySoundHost string

the host where sounds should be played. only meaningful when ctwm is built with USE_SOUND; otherwise it'll give a warning ⚠️ see the SOUNDS section. added in 4.0.0; prior versions used the SoundHost parameter instead.

RplaySounds { sounds-list }

defines what sounds to play on various events through rplayd. it contains entries of the form

"EventName"   "/file/to/play.wav"

only meaningful when ctwm is built with USE_SOUND; it'll give a warning otherwise. see the SOUNDS section. also heads up: if this section is given in the ctwmrc, the ~/.ctwm-sounds file will not be parsed. first appeared in 4.0.0 🎵

SaveColor { colors-list }

this is a list of color assignments to be stored as pixel values in the root window property _MIT_PRIORITY_COLORS. clients may elect to preserve these values when installing their own colormap. ngl, using this mechanism is a way for an application to avoid the "technicolor" problem, where useful screen objects like window borders and titlebars disappear when a program's custom colors are installed by the window manager 💀 example:

SaveColor
{
    BorderColor
    TitleBackground
    TitleForeground
    "red"
    "green"
    "blue"
}

this would place on the root window 3 pixel values for borders and titlebars, plus the three color strings, all taken from the default colormap 👑

ShrinkIconTitles

a la Motif shrinking of icon titles, and expansion when the mouse is inside the icon. also, the old incorrect spelling SchrinkIconTitles is still accepted — we love a forgiving queen 🫶

ShortAllWindowsMenus

don't show WorkSpaceManager and IconManagers in the TwmWindows and TwmAllWindows menus. keep it snappy ✂️

ShowIconManager

this indicates that the icon manager window should be displayed when ctwm is started. it can always be brought up using the f.showiconmgr function.

ShowWorkSpaceManager

this specifies that the WorkSpaceManager should be visible. main character energy, always on display 👑

SloppyFocus

use sloppy focus. that's it, that's the whole thing 💅

SaveWorkspaceFocus

when you change to a workspace, this restores the focus to the last window that had focus when you left the workspace, by warping the mouse into it. basically it saves the focus window with the workspace and restores it automatically when you switch. in many cases it avoids having to reach for the mouse after moving to a new workspace. convenience queen 🦋

SortIconManager

this says entries in the icon manager should be sorted alphabetically instead of just appending new windows to the end. as of 4.0.0 this is the default ✨

SoundHost</## SoundHost string

alias for RplaySoundHost, used in versions prior to 4.0.0. unless you need backward compatibility with those, use RplaySoundHost instead. this alias will be removed in a future version, so, like, don't get attached 😭

SqueezeTitle [{ squeeze-list }]

this indicates that ctwm should attempt to use the SHAPE extension to make titlebars occupy only as much screen space as they need, rather than extending all the way across the top of the window. the optional squeeze-list controls the location of the squeezed titlebar along the top of the window. it contains entries of the form:

"name"  justification num denom

where name is a window name, justification is either left, center, or right, and num and denom are numbers specifying a ratio giving the relative position about which the titlebar is justified. the ratio is measured from left to right if the numerator is positive, and right to left if negative. a denominator of 0 indicates that the numerator should be interpreted as pixels. for compatibility, the pixel-position 0/0 is the relative middle of the window (1/2) for center and the relative right side of the window (2/2) for right, but this use is not recommended. use "right 2 2" for relative positioning, or "right -1 0" for absolute; this makes a difference when dragging the titlebar (see f.movetitlebar). example:

SqueezeTitle
{
    "XTerm"   left    0  0
    "xterm1"  left    1  3
    "xterm2"  left    2  3
    "oclock"  center  1  2
    "emacs"   right   2  2
}

the default positioning is left-justified, absolute at 0 pixels. the DontSqueezeTitle list can be used to turn off squeezing on certain titles 🎀

StartIconified</## StartIconified { win-list }

this indicates that client windows should initially be left as icons until explicitly deiconified by the user. if the optional win-list is given, only those windows get started iconic. this is useful for programs that don't support an -iconic command line option or resource 🙈

StartInButtonState

start the WorkSpaceManage in button form. see also StartInMapState. added in 4.0.0.

StartInMapState

this specifies that the WorkSpaceManager should be started in its map form when created. see also StartInButtonState. as of 4.0.0 this is the default ✨

StartSqueezed</## StartSqueezed { win-list }

these windows will first show up squeezed (see f.squeeze). tiny entrance, big energy 💅

StayUpMenus

tells ctwm to use stayup menus. these menus stay on the screen when ButtonUp happens, if either the menu hasn't yet been entered by the pointer, or the current item is a f.title. stubborn in the best way 🫶

StrictWinNameEncoding — do we wanna be picky about what encodings we accept for window naming properties? This decides that. Added in 4.0.2.

It comes into play when ctwm is translating properties that name windows, like WM_NAME. Like, per the ICCCM, WM_NAME can only be a STRING or COMPOUND_TEXT type. But messy programs (looking at you, Chrome 🙄) will set it to a UTF8_STRING instead. If this var is set, ctwm rejects that, which is exactly how it behaved before 4.0.2. 💅

SunkFocusWindowTitle — says the title of the focus window (if there even is one) should be sunken instead of raised. Only valid if UseThreeDTitles is set, bestie.
ThreeDBorderWidth pixels — the width of the 3D border, in pixels, if there is one. ✨
TitleBackground string [{ win-list }] — the background color used in titlebars. Heads up: this can only be specified inside a Color or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors, so you can do per-window colors if you want. Default is "white". 🎀
TitleButtonBorderWidth pixels — the width, in pixels, of the border around titlebuttons. Usually you set this to 0 so the titlebuttons can take up as much space as possible and have no border at all. Default is 1 if UseThreeDTitles is not set, 0 if it is set.
TitleButtonShadowDepth pixels — how deep the shadow is that ctwm uses for 3D title buttons, when UseThreeDTitles is selected.
TitleFont string — the font used to show window names in titlebars. Default is "variable".
TitleForeground string [{ win-list }] — the foreground color used in titlebars, and again, it may only be specified inside a Color or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so you can do per-window colors. Default is "black".
TitleJustification string — this keyword needs a string value, no cap. The acceptable values are: "left", "center" and "right". Window titles get justified according to this in the title window. 🦋
TitlePadding pixels — the distance between the various buttons, text, and highlight areas in the titlebar. Default is 8 pixels if UseThreeDTitles is not set, 0 if it is set.
TitleShadowDepth pixels — how deep the shadow is that ctwm uses for 3D titles, when UseThreeDTitles is selected.
TransientHasOccupation — says that transient-for and non-group leader windows can have their own occupation, potentially different from their leader window. The default case is that these windows follow their leader — so use this keyword if the default behavior doesn't please you. 🙈
TransientOnTop percentage — the parameter (required!) is a percentage, and it tells ctwm to put transient (and non-group leader) windows always on top of their leader if and only if their surface is smaller than this fraction of the surface of their leader. The surface of a window is its width times its weight. Default is 30%. Added in 3.0.
UnknownIcon string — the filename of a bitmap file to use as the default icon. This bitmap becomes the icon of every client that doesn't provide an icon bitmap and isn't listed in the Icons list.
UnmapByMovingFarAway { win-list } — these windows get moved off the screen instead of being unmapped when they become invisible because of a workspace change. This exists because some ill-behaved clients (Frame5) don't like being unmapped. 💀
UsePPosition string — should ctwm honor program-requested locations (the ones given by the PPosition flag in the WM_NORMAL_HINTS property) when there's no user-specified position? The argument string can be one of three values: "off" (the default) meaning ctwm ignores the program-supplied position, "on" meaning the position should be used, and "non-zero" meaning the position should be used if it's anything other than (0,0). That last one is for working around a bug in older toolkits.
UseSunkTitlePixmap — makes it so the shadows are inverted for title pixmaps when focus is lost. It's similar to having SunkFocusWindowTitle, but it makes your xbm or 3d XPM (if any) sink instead of just the whole bar.
UseThreeDBorders — tells ctwm to use 3D-looking window borders. The width of the 3D borders is ThreeDBorderWidth. The color of the 3D border is BorderTileBackground, and if NoHighlight isn't selected, the border of the Focus window is BorderColor. Setting this automatically unsets ClientBorderWidth.
UseThreeDIconManagers — tells ctwm to use 3D-looking IconManagers, if any.
UseThreeDMenus — tells ctwm to use 3D-looking menus. ✨
UseThreeDTitles — tells ctwm to use 3D-looking window titles. When this is on, the default values of TitleButtonBorderWidth, FramePadding, TitlePadding and ButtonIndent are all set to 0. There are plenty of built-in scalable pixmaps for buttons: :xpm:menu, :xpm:dot, :xpm:cross, :xpm:bar, :xpm:vbar, :xpm:iconify, :xpm:resize, :xmp:sunkresize, and :xpm:box. There are also several built-in scalable animations for buttons: %xpm:resize, %xpm:menu-up, %xpm:menu-down, %xpm:resize-out-top, %xpm:resize-in-top, %xpm:resize-out-bot, %xpm:resize-in-bot, %xpm:maze-out, %xpm:maze-in, %xpm:zoom-out, %xpm:zoom-in, and %xpm:zoom-inout. Try them and see what they look like, fr fr. 👑
UseThreeDWMap — tells ctwm to use 3D for the small windows in the workspace map.
WarpCursor [{ win-list }] — says the pointer should be warped into windows when they're deiconified. If the optional win-list is given, the pointer only gets warped when those windows are deiconified.
WarpOnDeIconify { win-list } — when ctwm receives a request to map a window, it normally just deiconifies it, but if the window is in win-list, it will additionally bring it into the current workspace, if necessary. For example:

WarpOnDeIconify { "Emacs" }

will make sure emacs windows always pop up in the current workspace when necessary (typically when the minibuffer or the Help frame is in another workspace).

First appeared in 4.0.0.

WarpRingOnScreen — tells ctwm that f.warpring warps the pointer only to windows that are visible in the current workspace.
WarpToDefaultMenuEntry — (useful only with StayUpMenus) when using StayUpMenus and a menu stays up, the pointer gets warped to the default entry of the menu.
WarpUnmapped — says that the f.warpto function should deiconify any iconified windows it encounters. Typically used to make a key binding that pops a particular window (like xmh), no matter where it is. The default is for f.warpto to ignore iconified windows.
WindowGeometries { win-list } — used to give a default geometry to some clients. When XrandR is compiled, the geometry can be relative to a monitor by prefixing its name (visible with the xrandr(1) command line) followed by :. That name is ignored when XrandR isn't available:

WindowGeometries {
    "Mozilla*"       "1000x800+10+10"
    "jpilot*"        "HDMI1:800x600-0-0"
}

WindowRegion geomstring vgrav hgrav { win-list } — similar to IconRegion, but for windows. Note that the win-list is not optional here.
WindowRing [{ win-list }] — a list of windows that the f.warpring function cycles along. If no argument is given, all the windows are in the ring.
WindowRingExclude [{ win-list }] — all the listed windows get excluded from the WarpRing.
WMgrButtonShadowDepth depth — controls the depth of the shadow of the workspace manager buttons.
WMgrButtonStyle string — sets the style of the workspace manager buttons (when in button rather than map state), plus the buttons in the Occupy window. Available options are normal (the default 3d look), style1, style2, and style3 (which are slightly different 2d looks).
WMgrHorizButtonIndent nb_pixels — the horizontal space, in pixels, between the buttons of the workspace manager (in button mode).
WMgrVertButtonIndent nb_pixels — the vertical space, in pixels, between the buttons of the workspace manager (in button mode).
WorkSpaceFont string — lets you specify the font to use for the small windows in the workspace manager map. (Try -adobe-times-*-r-*--10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*.)
WorkSpaceManagerGeometry string [ columns ] — the geometry of the workspace manager window. The string argument is a standard geometry specification that indicates the initial full size of the workspace manager. When XrandR is compiled, the geometry can be relative to a monitor by prefixing its name (visible with the xrandr(1) command line) followed by :. That name is ignored when XrandR isn't available. The columns argument indicates the number of columns to use for the workspace manager window.

WorkSpaceManagerGeometry        "360x60+60-0" 8
WorkSpaceManagerGeometry        "HDMI1:600x30+1235+0" 12

WorkSpaces { workspace-list } — a list of workspaces that get created at startup, where workspace-list is:

name [{bg-button [fg-button] [bg-root] [fg-root] [pixmap-root]}]

With:

bg-button — background color of the corresponding button in the workspace manager.
fg-button — foreground color of the corresponding button in the workspace manager.
bg-root — background color of the corresponding root screen.
fg-root — foreground color of the corresponding root screen.
pixmap-root — pixmap to display on the corresponding root screen, either the name of a bitmap, xpm:xpmfile, xwd:xwdfile, jpeg:jpgfile, or |command_that generates_xwd.

Example:

               WorkSpaces
               {
                 "One"   {"#686B9F" "white" "DeepSkyBlue3" "white" "jpeg:shark.jpg"}
                 "Two"   {"#619AAE" "white" "firebrick"}
                 "Three" {"#727786" "white" "MidnightBlue" "white" "xpm:ball%.xpm"}
                 "Four"  {"#727786" "white" "white"        "white"
                                                     "|(giftoppm | pnmtoxwd) < 2010.gif"}

                 "Five"  {"#727786" "white" "DeepSkyBlue3" "white" "plaid"}
                 "Six"   {"#619AAE" "white" "DeepSkyBlue3" "white" "xpm:background1"}
                 "Seven" {"#8C5b7A" "white" "chartreuse4"}
                 "Eight" {"#686B9F" "white" "MidnightBlue"}
               }

okay bestie, look at that masterpiece of a config 🌈 so pretty. now the tea ☕ — your WorkSpaces declaration has to come before the Occupy or OccupyAll declarations, no exceptions. and the maximum number of workspaces is 32 — that's the ceiling, periodt. 💅

every workspace also has a label, which shows up in the WorkSpaceManager window when it's in button state. and the way you edit it is literally so cute: move your mouse cursor over a button and just start typing letters and/or backspace ✨. the label updates. the name is unaffected though, okay? and heads up — functions that look up workspaces by name also look at the label. iykyk. 🫶

XMoveGrid number — this one sets the value used to constrain window movement 🦋. when you're moving windows around, the x coordinate will always be a multiple of this variable. default is 1. oh and — f.forcemove ignores this variable entirely, so don't come crying to me 💀.
XorValue number — this sets the value used when drawing window outlines for moving and resizing ✨. the whole point is you wanna pick a value that gives you a variety of distinguishable colors when exclusive-or'ed with the contents of the user's typical screen 🌈. setting this variable to 1 often gives nice results if adjacent colors in the default colormap are distinct. and by default? ctwm will attempt to cause temporary lines to appear at the opposite end of the colormap from the graphics. cute, right? 💅
YMoveGrid number — same energy as XMoveGrid but for the y axis 🌸. when moving windows around, the y coordinate will always be a multiple of this variable. default is 1. and yep — f.forcemove ignores this variable too. 🙈
Zoom [ count ] — this makes outlines show up suggesting movement of a window to and from its iconified state, whenever a window gets iconified or deiconified 🎀. the optional count argument says how many outlines to draw. default count is 8. eight little ghost trails of your window, iconic. 👑

⚠️ important order alert: the following variables must be set after the fonts have been assigned, so it's usually best to put them at the end of the variables or beginning of the bindings sections. don't fight me on this, just do it. 😭

ChangeWorkspaceFunction function — sets the function to execute when the user changes the current workspace (zap) ⚡.
DefaultFunction function — sets the function to execute when a key or button event comes in that has no binding provided 🙈. typically bound to f.nop, f.beep, or a menu containing window operations.
DeIconifyFunction function — sets the function to execute when a window is deiconified 🦋.
IconifyFunction function — sets the function to execute when a window is iconified 🎀.
WindowFunction function — sets the function to execute when a window is selected from the TwmWindows menu. if this variable is not set, the window will be deiconified and raised. that's the fallback, bestie. 💅

✨ BINDINGS ✨

okay so once you've set all your variables, now we attach functions to titlebuttons and key and pointer buttons 🫶. titlebuttons can be added from the left or right side and they appear in the titlebar from left-to-right according to the order in which they are specified. key and pointer button bindings? any order you want, bestie, we don't gatekeep. 💅

🎀 Title buttons 🎀

Titlebutton specifications must include the name of the pixmap to use in the button box and the function to invoke when a pointer button is pressed within them:

LeftTitleButton "bitmapname" = function

LeftTitleButton "bitmapname" {
    Buttoni = modlist : function
    ...
    Buttonj = function
}

RightTitleButton "bitmapname" = function

RightTitleButton "bitmapname" {
    Buttoni = modlist : function
    ...
    Buttonj = function
}

the bitmapname may refer to one of the built-in bitmaps (which are scaled to match TitleFont) by using the appropriate colon-prefixed name described above ✨.

the pointer button specifications come in two forms: with a modifier list, or without 🌸. when the specification comes without a modifier list, it's used for the case when no modifiers are used. in other words, these two lines are equivalent:

Buttoni = function

Buttoni = : function

🦋 Key and pointer buttons 🦋

Key and pointer button specifications must give the modifiers that must be pressed, over which parts of the screen the pointer must be, and what function is to be invoked 🎀. Keys are given as strings containing the appropriate keysym name; buttons are given as the keywords Button1-Button11:

"FP1"   = modlist : context : function
Button1 = modlist : context : function

a user who wanted to be able to manipulate windows from the keyboard could use the following bindings 👑

"F1"    =       : all : f.iconify
"F2"    =       : all : f.raiselower
"F3"    =       : all : f.warpring "next"
"F4"    =       : all : f.warpto "xmh"
"F5"    =       : all : f.warpto "emacs"
"F6"    =       : all : f.colormap "next"
"F7"    =       : all : f.colormap "default"
"F20"   =       : all : f.warptoscreen "next"
"Left"  = m     : all : f.backiconmgr
"Right" = m | s : all : f.forwiconmgr
"Up"    = m     : all : f.upiconmgr
"Down"  = m | s : all : f.downiconmgr

ctwm provides many more window manipulation primitives than can be conveniently stored in a titlebar, menu, or set of key bindings 🌈. although a small set of defaults are supplied (unless the NoDefaults is specified), most users will want to have their most common operations bound to key and button strokes 💅. to do this, ctwm associates names with each of the primitives and provides user-defined functions for building higher level primitives and menus for interactively selecting among groups of functions ✨.

💜 Modifiers and Contexts 💜

the modlist lets you specify different bindings for a button or key when modifiers are applied 🎀. the list of recognized modifier names (abbreviated) are shift (s), control (c), lock (l), alter1 (a1), alter2 (a2), alter3 (a3), alter4 (a4), alter5 (a5), meta (m), mod1 (m1), mod2 (m2), mod3 (m3), mod4 (m4), and mod5 (m5) 🦋. multiple modifiers may be applied to a single line by combining them with a vertical bar (|) 💅. for example:

# Open the "top" menu with a Button1 (usually left mouse button) click in
# the root window
Button1 =        : root : f.menu "top"

# Open the "top2" menu with shift-click
Button1 =     s  : root : f.menu "top2"

# And "top3" when control-shift-click
Button1 = c | s  : root : f.menu "top3"

the lock modifier refers to CapsLock. meta is generally your Alt key. mod1 is the same as meta. mod2..5 can have various special meanings; try running xmodmap -pm to see how your X server is mapping things (the xkeycaps program may also be useful) 👀. the alter1..5 modifiers refer to ctwm alternate keymaps; see the description of f.altkeymap below for details 📖.

⚠️ note: if you're using the m4 preprocessor, most implementations define a shift macro internally, so using that as a modifier will silently fail to work right 💀. to get around it, you'll need to quote it so that m4 passes it through as a literal string: shift. no cap, this one gets everybody. 🙈

the context lets you specify which mappings apply based on where the pointer currently is on the screen 🌸. the available options are window (w), title (t), icon (i), root (r), frame (f), workspace (no abbreviation), iconmgr (m), and alter (a) ✨. like the modifiers above, they may be combined with a vertical bar, which allows you to bind an action in multiple contexts at once 🫶. alternately, all can be given for the context to specify that the binding should happen everywhere 🌈. it's equivalent to combining all the choices (except alter, which is special) 👑.

the alter context allows binding the function when in the alternate context; see the f.altcontext function below for details 💅.

there is an additional possible magical value for context ✨ — if you provide a quoted string (e.g., "MyXterm") for the context of a key (but not button) binding, then that binding will trigger the given function in window context to all windows matching that name 🦋. e.g.,

# Pressing "F1" anywhere on the screen will cause all windows with name
# "xterm" to raise themselves.
"F1" = : "xterm" : f.raise

⚠️ beware that this can have odd side effects if multiple windows are matched, especially if the function can conflict one with the other 😭 (e.g., in the example above, if two "xterm" windows overlap each other).

🌟 Functions 🌟

the function in a binding is any of the f. keywords described below 💅. for example, the default startup file contains the following bindings:

Button1 =   : root          : f.menu "TwmWindows"
Button1 = m : window | icon : f.function "move-or-lower"
Button2 = m : window | icon : f.iconify
Button3 = m : window | icon : f.function "move-or-raise"
Button1 =   : title         : f.function "move-or-raise"
Button2 =   : title         : f.raiselower
Button1 =   : icon          : f.function "move-or-iconify"
Button2 =   : icon          : f.iconify
Button1 =   : iconmgr       : f.iconify
Button2 =   : iconmgr       : f.iconify

user-defined functions contain the name by which they are referenced in calls to f.function and a list of other functions to execute 🎀. for example:

Function "move-or-lower"    { f.move f.deltastop f.lower }
Function "move-or-raise"    { f.move f.deltastop f.raise }
Function "move-or-iconify"  { f.move f.deltastop f.iconify }
Function "restore-colormap" { f.colormap "default" f.lower }

the function name must be used in f.function exactly as it appears in the function specification. no typos bestie, it will not forgive you 💀.

in the descriptions below, if the function is said to operate on the selected window, but is invoked from a root menu, the cursor will be changed to the Select cursor and the next window to receive a button press will be chosen 👀:

! string — this is an abbreviation for f.exec string. short and sweet, iconic. ✨
f.addtoworkspace string — this function adds the selected window to the workspace whose name is string 🫶.

`f.altcontext` 💅

Okay so bestie, this one sets the alternate context. The next key or button event ctwm receives? It gets interpreted using the alternate context. To define bindings in the alternate context, use the keyword alter in the context field of the binding command. For example:

"Return" = m : all   : f.altcontext
"n" =        : alter : f.nextworkspace
"p" =        : alter : f.prevworkspace

`f.altkeymap number` ✨

Set the alternate keymap number, where number is an integer between 1 and 5 inclusive. The next key or button event ctwm receives will be interpreted using this alternate keymap. To define bindings in an alternate keymap, use the keyword a followed by number in the modifier field of the binding command. For example:

"Return" = c : all                  : f.altkeymap "1"
"i" =     a1 : window|icon|iconmgr  : f.iconify
"z" =     a1 : window               : f.zoom
"d" =     a1 : window|icon          : f.delete
"o" =     a1 : window|icon          : f.occupy
"r" =     a1 : window|icon          : f.refresh

When using an alternate keymaps, only the root, window, icon and iconmgr contexts are allowed.

`f.autolower` 🫶

This function toggles whether or not the selected window is lowered whenever the pointer leaves it. See the description of the variable AutoLower.

`f.autoraise` 🌸

This function toggles whether or not the selected window is raised whenever entered by the pointer. See the description of the variable AutoRaise.

`f.backiconmgr` 🎀

This function warps the pointer to the previous column in the current icon manager, wrapping back to the previous row if necessary.

`f.backmapiconmgr` 🦋

This function warps the pointer in the same manner as f.backiconmgr but only stops at windows that are mapped.

`f.beep` 🔔

This function sounds the keyboard bell.

`f.bottomzoom` ⬇️

This function stretches the bottom side of the window out to the bottom edge of the current monitor, or restores the original size if the window was already bottomzoom’d.

`f.changepriority rel-value` 👑

Change the priority of a window by rel-value (enclosed within double quotes). For instance, to bury a window one level down, you would use f.changepriority "-1". See OnTopPriority variable.

First appeared in 4.0.0.

`f.changesize string` 📏

This function allows you to change the size of the focused window. The format of the string must be either "<border> <+|-><sizechange>" (where <border> must be one of top, bottom, left or right) or "<x size>x<y size>" (where the size is the requested new window size). The height of the window can never be set/changed to less than the title height + 1 (or 1 if the window has no title) and the width can never be set/changed to less than 1.

"Right"  = c|s : all : f.changesize "right +10"
"Left"   = c|s : all : f.changesize "right -10"
"Down"   = c|s : all : f.changesize "bottom +10"
"Up"     = c|s : all : f.changesize "bottom -10"

"F1"     = c|s : all : f.changesize "640x480"
"F2"     = c|s : all : f.changesize "800x600"
"F3"     = c|s : all : f.changesize "1024x768"

`f.circledown` 🔄

This function lowers the top-most window that occludes another window.

`f.circleup` 🔁

This function raises the bottom-most window that is occluded by another window.

`f.colormap string` 🌈

This function rotates the colormaps (obtained from the WM_COLORMAP_WINDOWS property on the window) that ctwm will display when the pointer is in this window. The argument string may have one of the following values: "next", "prev", and "default". It should be noted here that in general, the installed colormap is determined by keyboard focus. A pointer driven keyboard focus will install a private colormap upon entry of the window owning the colormap. Using the click to type model, private colormaps will not be installed until the user presses a mouse button on the target window.

`f.deiconify` 🪟

This function deiconifies the selected window. If the window is not an icon, this function does nothing.

`f.delete` 🗑️

This function sends the WM_DELETE_WINDOW message to the selected window if the client application has requested it through the WM_PROTOCOLS window property. The application is supposed to respond to the message by removing the indicated window. If the window has not requested WM_DELETE_WINDOW messages, the keyboard bell will be rung indicating that the user should choose an alternative method. Note this is very different from f.destroy. The intent here is to delete a single window, not necessarily the entire application.

`f.deleteordestroy` 💥

First tries to delete the window (send it WM_DELETE_WINDOW message), or kills it, if the client doesn’t accept such message.

`f.deltastop` 🛑

This function allows a user-defined function to be aborted if the pointer has been moved more than MoveDelta pixels. See the example definition given for Function "move-or-raise" at the beginning of the section.

`f.destroy` ☠️

This function instructs the X server to close the display connection of the client that created the selected window. This should only be used as a last resort for shutting down runaway clients. See also f.delete.

`f.downiconmgr` ⬇️

This function warps the pointer to the next row in the current icon manager, wrapping to the beginning of the next column if necessary.

`f.downworkspace` 📉

Goto the workspace immediately underneath the current workspace in the workspace manager. If the current workspace is the bottom one, goto the top one in the same column. The result depends on the layout of the workspace manager.

`f.exec string` 🚀

This function passes the argument string to /bin/sh for execution. In multiscreen mode, if string starts a new X client without giving a display argument, the client will appear on the screen from which this function was invoked. If the string "$currentworkspace" is present inside the string argument, it will be substituted with the current workspace name.

`f.fill string` 🧩

Where string is either: "right", "left", "top", "bottom" or "vertical". The current window is resized in the specified direction until it reaches an obstacle (either another window, or the screen border). f.fill "vertical" sets the window status to "zoomed" and toggles, ie calling it again will reset the previous window size.

`f.focus` 🎯

This function toggles the keyboard focus of the server to the selected window, changing the focus rule from pointer-driven if necessary. If the selected window already was focused, this function executes an f.unfocus.

`f.forcemove` 🏃‍♀️

This function is like f.move except that it ignores the DontMoveOff variable.

`f.forwiconmgr` ➡️

This function warps the pointer to the next column in the current icon manager, wrapping to the beginning of the next row if necessary.

`f.forwmapiconmgr` 🗺️

This function warps the pointer in the same manner as f.forwiconmgr but only stops at windows that are mapped.

`f.fullscreenzoom` 🖥️

This function is similar to the f.fullzoom function, except that it makes the client window (the part inside the frame) the size of the current monitor, so the window decorations are off-screen. This gives the same visual effect as the window covering the whole screen with no decorations. If the window is already fullscreenzoom’d, it restores the original size.

`f.fullzoom` 🔍

This function resizes the selected window to the full size of the current monitor, or restores the original size if the window was already fullzoom’d.

`f.function string` 🧚

This function executes the user-defined function whose name is specified by the argument string.

`f.gotoworkspace workspace_name` 🧭

This function warps you to the workspace whose name is workspace_name.

`f.hbzoom` ⬇️

This function is a synonym for f.bottomzoom.

`f.hideiconmgr` 🙈

This function unmaps the current icon manager.

`f.hideworkspacemgr` 🫥

Unmap the WorkSpace manager.

`f.horizoom` ↔️

This function stretches the window so that it covers the whole width of the current monitor, or restores the original size if the window was already horizoom’d.

`f.htzoom` ⬆️

This function is a synonym for f.topzoom.

`f.hzoom` ↔️

This function is a synonym for f.horizoom.

`f.iconify` 🗂️

This function iconifies or deiconifies the selected window or icon, respectively.

`f.identify` 🪪

This function displays a summary of the name and geometry of the selected window. Clicking the pointer or pressing a key in the window will dismiss it.

`f.initsize` 📐

This function resets a window to its initial size given by the WM_NORMAL_HINTS hints.

`f.jumpdown step` ⬇️

This function is designed to be bound to a key, it moves the current window (step * {X,Y}MoveGrid) pixels downward. stopping if the window encounters another window or the screen border (ala f.pack).

`f.jumpleft step` ⬅️

Leftward equivalent of f.jumpdown.

`f.jumpright step` ➡️

Rightward equivalent of f.jumpdown.

`f.jumpup step` ⬆️

Upward equivalent of f.jumpdown.

`f.lefticonmgr` ⬅️

This function similar to f.backiconmgr except that wrapping does not change rows.

`f.leftworkspace` ⬅️

Goto the workspace immediately on the left of the current workspace in the workspace manager. If the current workspace is the leftest one, goto the rightest one in the same row. The result depends on the layout of the workspace manager.

`f.leftzoom` ⬅️

This function stretches the left side of the window out to the left edge of the current monitor, or restores the original size if the window was already leftzoom’d.

`f.lower` ⬇️

This function lowers the selected window.

f.menu string — this one invokes the menu that the string argument names, bestie. And the cute part? You can build cascaded menus by nesting calls to f.menu inside each other. When a menu pops up, you can absolutely use the arrow keys to move the cursor around it:
- “Down” or space goes down
- “Up” goes up
- “Left” pops down the menu
- “Right” activates the current entry

Also, the first letter of an entry name activates that entry (the first one, if several entries match). And the secret-sauce keyboard modifiers: if the first letter is ~ then Meta-the-second-letter activates it, if the first letter is ^ then Control-the-second-letter activates it, and if the first letter is a space, then the second letter activates it. iykyk 💅

f.move — this drags an outline of the selected window (or the window itself if the OpaqueMove variable is set) until the invoking pointer button is released. Double clicking within the number of milliseconds given by ConstrainedMoveTime warps the pointer to the center of the window and constrains the move to be either horizontal or vertical, depending on which grid line is crossed. Wanna abort a move? Press another button before releasing the first button. 🫶
f.movepack — like f.move, except it tries to avoid overlapping of windows. When the moving window begins to overlap with another window, the move is stopped. But if you go too far over the other window (more than MovePackResistance pixels), the move is resumed and the moving window can overlap with the other window. Super useful to pack windows closely. ✨
f.movepush — also like f.move, except it tries to avoid overlapping of windows. When the moving window begins to overlap with another window, the other window is pushed. If you go too far over the other window (more than MovePackResistance pixels), there is no push and the moving window can overlap with the other window. Only available if OpaqueMove is active. 👑
f.moveresize geometry — takes one string argument which is a geometry with the standard X geometry syntax (e.g. 200x300+150-0). Sets the current window to the specified geometry. Heads up: the width and height are to be given in pixel, no base size or resize increment are used. When XrandR is compiled, the geometry can be relative to a monitor, by prefixing its name (visible with the xrandr(1) command line) followed by : (e.g. HDMI1:200x300+150-0). That name is ignored when XrandR is not available.
f.movetitlebar — if applied to a squeezed titlebar (see SqueezeTitle) you can drag it along the top of the window (a feature which was first found in BeOS, iconic honestly). The existing justification type is preserved, as is the positioning (relative or absolute). This means that a relatively positioned titlebar will move when the width of a window changes, whereas an absolutely positioned title will not. The default positioning is left-justified, absolute at 0 pixels.

Button1 = m1 : title : f.movetitlebar

Fr fr though — f.movetitlebar does nothing if the window has no title, the window is squeezed (see f.squeeze), or the title is not squeezed (see SqueezeTitle). 🙈

f.movetonextworkspace, f.movetonextworkspaceandfollow — move the window to the next workspace, and optionally switch view over to that workspace. 🌈
f.movetoprevworkspace, f.movetoprevworkspaceandfollow — move the window to the previous workspace, and optionally switch view over to that workspace. 🦋
f.nexticonmgr — warps the pointer to the next icon manager containing any windows on the current or any succeeding screen.
f.nextworkspace — goto the next workspace in the list, using the order given in the .ctwmrc file.
f.nop — this function does nothing and is typically used with the DefaultFunction or WindowFunction variables, or to introduce blank lines in menus. The loml of doing nothing 💖
f.occupy — pops up a window for the user to choose which workspaces a window belongs to.
f.occupyall — makes the specified window occupy all the workspaces. main character energy, honestly.
f.pack string — where string is either right, left, top or bottom. The current window is moved in the specified direction until it reaches an obstacle (either another window, or the screen border). The pointer follows the window. 🎀
f.pin — valid only in a root menu. Make a menu permanent on the screen. This is a toggle function: if you select it while the menu is already permanent, it becomes non-permanent. ✨
f.previconmgr — warps the pointer to the previous icon manager containing any windows on the current or preceding screens.
f.prevworkspace — goto the previous workspace in the list, using the order given in the .ctwmrc file.
f.priorityswitching — toggle the window’s switching ability. X-ref PrioritySwitching and OnTopPriority variables.

First appeared in 4.0.0.

f.quit — this function causes ctwm to restore the window’s borders and exit. And lowkey: if ctwm is the first client invoked from xdm, this will result in a server reset. 😭
f.raise — raises the selected window. periodt.
f.raiseicons — raises all the icons in the current workspace. 💅
f.raiselower — this function raises the selected window to the top of the stacking order if it is occluded by any windows, otherwise the window will be lowered. Chaos but make it useful.
f.raiseorsqueeze — raise the window or squeeze it if it’s a double click. The time that defines a double click is given by the ConstrainedMoveTime variable.

First appeared in 4.0.0.

f.refresh — causes all windows to be refreshed. ✨
f.removefromworkspace string — removes the selected window from the workspace whose name is string.
f.rereadsounds — causes the .ctwm-sounds file to be re-read. Note that this will not re-read sounds set in RplaySounds in the config file. As a result, this function will probably go away in the future when .ctwm-sounds support is removed. See the SOUNDS section. 💀
f.rescuewindows — if you somehow managed to move a window out of sight (we've all been there bestie), calling this function will check all windows and icons on currently visible virtual screens, and those that are (nearly) out of the bounds of their virtual screen will be brought completely inside (if that fits). 🫶

First appeared in 4.0.0.

f.resize — displays an outline of the selected window. Crossing a border (or setting AutoRelativeResize) will cause the outline to begin to rubber band until the invoking button is released. To abort a resize, press another button before releasing the first button.
f.restart — kills and restarts ctwm. Slay, rebirth, etc. 🔥
f.restoregeometry — restore the current window geometry to what was saved in the last call to f.savegeometry.
f.righticonmgr — similar to f.nexticonmgr, except that wrapping does not change rows.
f.rightworkspace — goto the workspace immediately on the right of the current workspace in the workspace manager. If the current workspace is the rightest one, goto the leftest one in the same row. The result depends on the layout of the workspace manager.
f.rightzoom — stretches the right side of the window out to the right edge of the current monitor, or restores the original size if the window was already rightzoom’d. 🌸
f.ring — selects a window and adds it to the WarpRing, or removes it if it was already in the ring. This command makes f.warpring much more useful, by making its configuration dynamic. Obsessed with the flexibility tbh.
f.savegeometry — the geometry of the current window is saved. The next call to f.restoregeometry will restore this window to this geometry.
f.saveyourself — this function sends a WM_SAVEYOURSELF message to the selected window if it has requested the message in its WM_PROTOCOLS window property. Clients that accept this message are supposed to checkpoint all state associated with the window and update the WM_COMMAND property as specified in the ICCCM. If the selected window has not selected for this message, the keyboard bell will be rung. 🔔
f.separator — valid only in menus. The effect is to add a line separator between the previous and the following entry. The name selector part in the menu is not used (but must be present). Don't ask, just vibe. 🙈
f.setbuttonsstate — set the WorkSpace manager in button state.
f.setmapstate — set the WorkSpace manager in map state.
f.setpriority "value" — set the window’s priority to value (enclosed between double quotes). If value is directly followed by < or b, the window is placed below other windows of the given priority. Otherwise it is placed above. See the OnTopPriority variable for details.

First appeared in 4.0.0.

f.showbackground — this function unmaps all windows in the current workspace. This is a toggle function: if all windows are unmapped, they are all remapped. Better bind this function in the root context. 🦋
f.showiconmgr — maps the current icon manager.
f.showworkspacemgr — map the WorkSpace manager.
f.slowdownanimation — decrease AnimationSpeed by 1. 🐌
f.sorticonmgr — sorts the entries in the current icon manager alphabetically. See the variable SortIconManager.
f.speedupanimation — increase AnimationSpeed by 1. ⚡
f.squeeze — f.squeeze squeezes a window to a null vertical size. Works only for windows with either a title, or a 3D border (in order to have something left on the screen). If the window is already squeezed, it is unsqueezed. 🎀
f.startanimation — restart freezed animations (if any).
f.stopanimation — freeze animations (if any). 🧊
f.switchpriority — switch the window’s priority, independently of its ability to switch automatically. X-ref OnTopPriority and PrioritySwitching variables.

First appeared in 4.0.0.

f.tinylower, f.tinyraise — these two functions allow you to raise/lower a window "one step" at a time. For instance, f.tinyraise will bring the current window just above the lowest one that’s hiding it. These two functions are not subject to priority-switching. 💅

First appeared in 4.0.0.

f.title — this function provides a centered, unselectable item in a menu definition. It should not be used in any other context. Menu decoration only, bestie. ✨
f.toggleoccupation string — bestie, this one takes the selected window and plops it into the workspace named string if it's not already living there, and if it IS already there, it yeets it out of that workspace. Toggle city. 🎀
f.togglesound — toggles sound on and off. Go check the SOUNDS section, iykyk. 🔊
f.togglestate — flips the state of the WorkSpace manager back and forth.
f.toggleworkspacemgr — shows/hides the WorkSpaceManager. If it's mapped, it gets unmapped, and vice versa. It's giving light switch energy. 💡
f.topzoom — stretches the top side of the window all the way out to the top edge of the current monitor. And if the window was already topzoom'd? It restores the original size, periodt.
f.trace string — this is the debug-output dumping handler, fr fr. If you hand it a filename in string, it starts writing output to that file; if string is "stderr", it writes to stderr instead. And if the debug file is already open, calling f.trace again closes it. 🔍

Honestly? This is probably only useful if you're doing development on ctwm. Devs only, no cap.

f.twmrc — literally just an alias for f.restart. Same thing, different name. 💅
f.unfocus — resets the focus back to pointer-driven mode. Use this when a focused window is no longer the moment. 👑
f.unsqueeze — is to f.squeeze what f.deiconify is to f.iconify. The un-squeeze. The reverse card. 🃏

First appeared in 4.0.0. ⭐

f.upiconmgr — warps the pointer up to the previous row in the current icon manager. If you're already at the top, it wraps around to the last row in the same column. Wrapping, but make it fashion. 🌀
f.upworkspace — goes to the workspace immediately above the current one in the workspace manager. If you're already at the very top, it jumps down to the bottom one in the same column instead. Fair warning: the result depends on the layout of your workspace manager, so it's a vibe check every time. ✨
f.vanish — the specified window vanishes from the current workspace if it occupies at least one other WorkSpace. In all the other cases? Do nothing. Poof, but conditionally. 💀
f.version — makes the ctwm version window pop up. It stays on screen until you press a pointer button or move the pointer from one window to another. Blink and it's gone, bestie. 🦋
f.vlzoom — a synonym for f.leftzoom. That's it, that's the whole function.
f.vrzoom — a synonym for f.rightzoom. Twin behavior. 🫶
f.warphere win_name — adds the window whose name or class matches string to the current workspace, then warps the pointer over to it. If that window is iconified, it gets deiconified if the variable WarpUnmapped is set — otherwise it's just ignored. 🙈
f.warpring string — warps the pointer to the next or previous window, whichever the argument string says. string can be "next" or "prev", and the windows it cycles through are the ones you listed in the WindowRing variable. 🔄
f.warpto string — warps the pointer to the window whose name or class matches string. If that window is iconified, it will be deiconified if the variable WarpUnmapped is set, or else ignored. Same deal as f.warphere but with a target. 🎯
f.warptoiconmgr string — warps the pointer to the icon manager entry that's associated with the window containing the pointer, inside the icon manager named by the argument string. If string is empty (like ""), it just uses the current icon manager. Easy. 🍓
f.warptoscreen string — warps the pointer to the screen that string says. And string can be so many things:
- a number, like "0" or "1" 🔢
- the word "next" — meaning current screen plus 1, skipping over any unmanaged screens
- the word "back" — meaning current screen minus 1, also skipping unmanaged screens
- the word "prev" — meaning the last screen you visited (nostalgia core 🌈)
f.winrefresh — just like the f.refresh function, except it only refreshes the selected window. Single-target refresh, main character energy. ✨
f.xbottomzoom — like f.bottomzoom, but it will cross monitors. 🌉
f.xfullscreenzoom — like f.fullscreenzoom, but it will cross monitors.
f.xfullzoom — like f.fullzoom, but it will cross monitors.
f.xhorizoom — like f.horizoom, but it will cross monitors.
f.xleftzoom — like f.leftzoom, but it will cross monitors.
f.xrightzoom — like f.rightzoom, but it will cross monitors.
f.xtopzoom — like f.topzoom, but it will cross monitors.
f.xzoom — like f.zoom, but it will cross monitors.
f.zoom — stretches the window so it covers the whole height of the current monitor, or restores the original size if the window was already zoom'd. It's the vertical counterpart to f.horizoom; maybe f.vertzoom would've been a better name... but here we are. 😭

✨ MENUS ✨

Okay so functions can be grouped together and picked interactively using pop-up menus (when you bind them to a pointer button) or pull-down menus (when you associate them with a titlebutton). Each menu specification has: the name of the menu as f.menu will refer to it, optional default foreground and background colors, the list of item names plus the functions they invoke, and optional foreground and background colors for individual items. 💖

Menu "menuname" [ ("deffg":"defbg") ]
{
    string1  [ ("fg1":"bg1") ]  function1
    string2  [ ("fg2":"bg2") ]  function2
        .
        .
        .
    stringN  [ ("fgN":"bgN") ]  functionN
}

The menuname is case-sensitive, so don't get cute with the capitalization. The optional deffg and defbg arguments set the foreground and background colors used on a color display to highlight menu entries. The string part of each menu entry is the text that'll actually show up in the menu. The optional fgN and bgN arguments set the foreground and background colors of that menu entry when the pointer isn't in it. Heads up: these colors only get used on a color display. The default is to use the colors from the MenuForeground and MenuBackground variables. And the function part of the menu entry is one of the functions — including any user-defined functions, or even additional menus. 🌈

Fun detail: if an entry name starts with a * (star), that star won't be displayed, and that entry becomes the default entry for this menu. When a menu has a default entry and it's used as a submenu of another menu, that default entry's action gets executed automatically when the submenu is selected, without the submenu even being displayed. It's hard to explain, but easy to understand. Trust. 🧚

💜 Special Menus 💜

There are several special menus, and they're iconic:

TwmWindows — contains the names of all the client and ctwm-supplied windows in the current workspace. Selecting an entry runs the WindowFunction on that window. And if WindowFunction hasn't been set? The window gets deiconified and raised. Slay. 👑
TwmVisible — lists the windows that are currently deiconified (first appeared in 3.7). TwmIcons lists only the ones that are currently iconified. 👀
TwmAllWindows and TwmAllIcons — act just like the non-All variants above, except they show windows in all workspaces, not just the current one. ✨
TwmWorkspaces — contains the names of your workspaces, and selecting an entry goes to that workspace. Bonus: these entries have submenus containing the names of all windows occupying that workspace, and selecting one of those executes f.warpto on that window. Nested menu realness. 🪆
TwmKeys — lists all the keybindings in the root context that invoke f.exec. First appeared in 3.7. 🔑

🌸 ICONS 🌸

ctwm supports several different ways of manipulating iconified windows, bestie. The common pixmap-and-text style can be laid out by hand, or automatically arranged as described by the IconRegion variable. And on top of that, a terse grid of icon names — called an icon manager — gives you a way more efficient use of screen space, plus the ability to navigate among windows from the keyboard. 💅

An icon manager is a window containing the names of selected or all windows currently on the display. Besides the window name, a small button using the default iconify symbol shows up to the left of the name when the window is iconified. By default, clicking an entry in the icon manager performs f.iconify. Wanna change what happens in the icon manager? Use the iconmgr context when you're specifying button and keyboard bindings. 🎀

Moving the pointer into the icon manager also directs keyboard focus to the indicated window (either setting the focus explicitly, or else sending synthetic events if NoTitleFocus is set — note the original text's grammar there, we keep it real). And using the f.upiconmgr, f.downiconmgr, f.lefticonmgr, and f.righticonmgr functions, the input focus can be changed between windows directly from the keyboard. Keyboard navigation, no mouse required, periodt. ⌨️✨

🪟 X WINDOW PROPERTIES

Okay so as a window manager, ctwm is constantly reading and setting a whole bunch of properties on the windows it manages and the windows it creates. Most of that is so far beyond user docs it's not even funny, but a few lil points are genuinely worth mentioning, so here we are bestie 💖

🏷️ Window Naming

Windows get their names via X properties, and there are two types of names, okay:

the window name — this is what shows up in the titlebar, the f.identify window, etc.
the icon name — this is what shows up on the icon and on the icon manager.

Before 4.0.2, ctwm only supported the standard ICCCM properties for setting the window and icon names. Those are WM_NAME for the window name, and WM_ICON_NAME for the icon name. But as of 4.0.2, ctwm also supports the EWMH versions of these, which are _NET_WM_NAME and _NET_WM_ICON_NAME. And if the EWMH variants exist, they get used in preference to the older ICCCM style. periodt ✨

As of 4.0.2, ctwm also supports an additional pair of properties: CTWM_WM_NAME and CTWM_WM_ICON_NAME, which override all the others. These are specifically intended for you, the user, to manually set — not for programs to set themselves. This is the whole point: it lets you override programs that name themselves unhelpfully, or just otherwise label things to your liking. main character energy honestly 👑

You can set these via any method you'd use to set window properties. From the command line, the xprop(1) tool is widely available, if a little clunky. So, for instance, to set the icon name of a window (changing how it looks in the icon manager), but leave the window name alone as the program itself normally sets it (leaving the titlebar normal), you could run a command like:

xprop -f CTWM_WM_ICON_NAME 8u -set CTWM_WM_ICON_NAME "I hate this window"

and then click the window you want to set it on. 😭

Unfortunately, xprop(1) does require you to specify the property name when defining the format, as well as when setting it, so it's a little ugly. The 8u means you're giving a UTF-8 string. Other possible formats are 8s for a plain 7-bit STRING (i.e, plain ASCII), and 8t for "internationalized" ICCCM-style COMPOUND_TEXT. Usually you'd just use UTF-8 though. xprop -remove CTWM_WM_ICON_NAME and click would let you undo it and go back to the normal naming. See the xprop(1) manual for more. 🫶

🔊 SOUNDS

If built with the USE_SOUND option, ctwm is able to play sounds for any X event. And this may be configured in two ways, bestie. 🎀

As of 4.0.0, the sounds may be configured in the ctwmrc with the RplaySounds config parameter. See above for details.

If that is not found, or in older versions, ctwm will look for the file .ctwm-sounds in the user's home directory to map every X event to a sound file to be played. Each line in .ctwm-sounds has the following syntax:

{X event}: {sound file}

⚠️ If RplaySounds is given in the config file, and .ctwm-sounds exists, a warning will be given, and the contents of .ctwm-sounds will be ignored. All support for .ctwm-sounds will be removed in a future version, leaving only the ctwmrc configuration method available. So like... migrate, fr fr 💀

However configured, the currently known X events that can be given are:

KeyPress
KeyRelease
ButtonPress
ButtonRelease
MotionNotify
EnterNotify
LeaveNotify
FocusIn
FocusOut
KeymapNotify
Expose
GraphicsExpose
NoExpose
VisibilityNotify
CreateNotify
DestroyNotify
UnmapNotify
MapNotify
MapRequest
ReparentNotify
ConfigureNotify
ConfigureRequest
GravityNotify
ResizeRequest
CirculateNotify
CirculateRequest
PropertyNotify
SelectionClear
SelectionRequest
SelectionNotify
ColormapNotify
ClientMessage
MappingNotify

Additionally, the following two are recognised, and represent the time when ctwm is started or shut down:

Startup
Shutdown

💀 BUGS

Okay so, the receipts 🧾 — here's what's known to be janky:

The resource manager should have been used instead of all of the window lists.
Double clicking very fast to get the constrained move function will sometimes cause the window to move, even though the pointer is not moved. 😭
If IconifyByUnmapping is on and windows are listed in IconManagerDontShow but not in DontIconifyByUnmapping, they may be lost if they are iconified and no bindings to f.menu "TwmWindows" or f.warpto are setup. 🙈

📁 FILES

See earlier Customization section. (Yeah, that's it. Go scroll. 💅)

🌍 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

DISPLAY — This variable is used to determine which X server to use. It is also set during f.exec so that programs come up on the proper screen. 🖥️
HOME — This variable is used as the prefix for files that begin with a tilde and for locating the ctwm startup file. 🏠

👀 SEE ALSO

X(1), Xserver(1), xdm(1), xrdb(1)

©️ COPYRIGHT

Portions copyright 1988 Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation; portions copyright 1989 Hewlett-Packard Company and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, See X(1) for a full statement of rights and permissions.

See COPYRIGHT file in distribution for more information.

👑 AUTHORS

TWM

Tom LaStrange, Solbourne Computer; Jim Fulton, MIT X Consortium; Steve Pitschke, Stardent Computer; Keith Packard, MIT X Consortium; Dave Sternlicht, MIT X Consortium; Dave Payne, Apple Computer. 🫡

CTWM

Claude Lecommandeur, Swiss Polytechnical Institute of Lausanne (lecom@sic.epfl.ch); Richard Levitte (richard@levitte.org); Matthew Fuller (fullermd@over-yonder.net); and many other contributors. 💖

🌈 VERSION

This manual is build for ctwm 4.1.0.

And that's a wrap on the whole entire page, bestie!! 🎀✨ This edition of the manual is for ctwm 4.1.0, dated 2023-03-26, and it goes out to literally everyone who ever typed CTWM(1) into a terminal hoping for answers. You ate that. Go restyle your desktop. 💅🦋

📦 where this page comes from

arch rolling: ctwm 4.1.0-5 · custom:MIT AND custom:X
debian trixie: ctwm 4.1.0-1+b1 · HPND AND MIT
ubuntu noble: ctwm 4.1.0-1build2 · HPND AND MIT
ubuntu resolute: ctwm 4.1.0-1build3 · HPND AND MIT
ubuntu stonking: ctwm 4.1.0-2 · HPND AND MIT
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on 2026-10-13: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms

CTWM(1)

✨ NAME ✨

🦋 SYNTAX 🦋

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

✨ OPTIONS ✨

🎀 CUSTOMIZATION 🎀

✨ M4 PREPROCESSING ✨

Hostnames

User Info

ctwm info

X server info

Display info

ctwm compile-time options

Obsolete options

💖 VARIABLES 💖

AutoRelativeResize

AutoSqueeze { win-list }

BackingStore

BeNiceToColormap

BorderBottom pixels

BorderColor string [{ wincolorlist }]

BorderLeft pixels

BorderResizeCursors

BorderRight pixels

BorderShadowDepth pixels

BorderTileBackground string [{ wincolorlist }]

BorderTileForeground string [{ wincolorlist }]

BorderTop pixels

BorderWidth pixels

ButtonIndent pixels

CenterFeedbackWindow

ClearShadowContrast contrast

ClickToFocus

ClientBorderWidth

Color { colors-list }

ConstrainedMoveTime milliseconds

Cursors { cursor-list }

DarkShadowContrast contrast

DecorateTransients

DefaultBackground string

DefaultForeground string

DontIconifyByUnmapping { win-list }

DontMoveOff

DontNameDecorations

🎀 DontPaintRootWindow

🌸 DontSave { win-list }

🦋 DontSetInactive { win-list }

✨ DontShowWelcomeWindow

💖 DontSqueezeTitle [{ win-list }]

👑 DontToggleWorkSpaceManagerState

🧚 DontWarpCursorInWMap

⭐ EWMHIgnore { message-types }

🔥 ForceFocus [{ win-list }]

💜 ForceIcons

🌸 FramePadding pixels

💅 GrabServer

🦋 IconBackground string [{ win-list }]

🎀 IconBorderColor string [{ win-list }]

✨ IconBorderWidth pixels

🌈 IconDirectory string

👑 IconFont string

💜 IconForeground string [{ win-list }]

🧚 IconifyByUnmapping [{ win-list }]

🌸 IconifyStyle string

🦋 IconJustification string

🎀 IconManagerBackground string [{ win-list }]

✨ IconManagerDontShow [{ win-list }]

💖 IconManagerFont string

👑 IconManagerForeground string [{ win-list }]

🌈 IconManagerGeometry string [ columns ]

💜 IconManagerHighlight string [{ win-list }]

🧚 IconManagers { iconmgr-list }

🌸 IconManagerShadowDepth pixels

🎀 IconManagerShow { win-list }

🦋 IconMenuDontShow { win-list }

Pixmaps { pixmaps }

PixmapDirectory path

PrioritySwitching [Icons] { win-list }

PriorityNotSwitching [Icons] { win-list }

RaiseDelay milliseconds

`AutoRelativeResize`

`AutoSqueeze` `{ win-list }`

`BackingStore`

`BeNiceToColormap`

`BorderBottom` pixels

`BorderColor` string `[{ wincolorlist }]`

`BorderLeft` pixels

`BorderResizeCursors`

`BorderRight` pixels

`BorderShadowDepth` pixels

`BorderTileBackground` string `[{ wincolorlist }]`

`BorderTileForeground` string `[{ wincolorlist }]`

`BorderTop` pixels

`BorderWidth` pixels

`ButtonIndent` pixels

`CenterFeedbackWindow`

`ClearShadowContrast` contrast

`ClickToFocus`

`ClientBorderWidth`

`Color` `{ colors-list }`

`ConstrainedMoveTime` milliseconds

`Cursors` `{ cursor-list }`

`DarkShadowContrast` contrast

`DecorateTransients`

`DefaultBackground` string

`DefaultForeground` string

`DontIconifyByUnmapping` `{ win-list }`

`DontMoveOff`

`DontNameDecorations`

🎀 `DontPaintRootWindow`

🌸 `DontSave { win-list }`

🦋 `DontSetInactive { win-list }`

✨ `DontShowWelcomeWindow`

💖 `DontSqueezeTitle [{ win-list }]`

👑 `DontToggleWorkSpaceManagerState`

🧚 `DontWarpCursorInWMap`

⭐ `EWMHIgnore { message-types }`

🔥 `ForceFocus [{ win-list }]`

💜 `ForceIcons`

🌸 `FramePadding pixels`

💅 `GrabServer`

🦋 `IconBackground string [{ win-list }]`

🎀 `IconBorderColor string [{ win-list }]`

✨ `IconBorderWidth pixels`

🌈 `IconDirectory string`

👑 `IconFont string`

💜 `IconForeground string [{ win-list }]`

🧚 `IconifyByUnmapping [{ win-list }]`

🌸 `IconifyStyle string`

🦋 `IconJustification string`

🎀 `IconManagerBackground string [{ win-list }]`

✨ `IconManagerDontShow [{ win-list }]`

💖 `IconManagerFont string`

👑 `IconManagerForeground string [{ win-list }]`

🌈 `IconManagerGeometry string [ columns ]`

💜 `IconManagerHighlight string [{ win-list }]`

🧚 `IconManagers { iconmgr-list }`

🌸 `IconManagerShadowDepth pixels`

🎀 `IconManagerShow { win-list }`

🦋 `IconMenuDontShow { win-list }`

`f.altcontext` 💅

`f.altkeymap number` ✨

`f.autolower` 🫶

`f.autoraise` 🌸

`f.backiconmgr` 🎀

`f.backmapiconmgr` 🦋

`f.beep` 🔔

`f.bottomzoom` ⬇️

`f.changepriority rel-value` 👑

`f.changesize string` 📏

`f.circledown` 🔄

`f.circleup` 🔁

`f.colormap string` 🌈

`f.deiconify` 🪟

`f.delete` 🗑️

`f.deleteordestroy` 💥

`f.deltastop` 🛑

`f.destroy` ☠️

`f.downiconmgr` ⬇️

`f.downworkspace` 📉