TWM(1)

📦

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🎀 TWM(1) — Tab Window Manager for the X Window System 🎀

(General Commands Manual)

🍓 NAME 🍓

twm — Tab Window Manager for the X Window System. That's the whole name, bestie. ✨

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

twm [ options ]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

Okay so twm is a window manager for the X Window System. It provides titlebars, shaped windows, 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. It's giving "classic X, but make it customizable." 💅

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, twm is frequently executed in the foreground as the last client. When run this way, exiting twm causes the session to be terminated (i.e., logged out). So yeah — that exit is a whole logout, no cap.

🚨 Careful, bestie: if twm is the last client in an xdm(1)/xinit(1) setup with no session manager, exiting it terminates the session — i.e., logs you out.

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.

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). Click, don't hold — that's the iconify vibe check. 🎀

Windows are resized by pressing the right titlebutton (which resembles a group of nested squares), dragging the pointer over the 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. Lowkey the cleanest drag-to-resize flow. 🦋

When new windows are created, twm 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 of the screen. Three buttons, three whole placement moods. ✨

💅 OPTIONS 💅

twm accepts several command line options, which may be abbreviated, e.g., -d for -display (but upper/lower-case are different):

-clientId ID — Each time twm starts, it calls SmcOpenConnection to establish a new session. It can be told to restart from a previous session by giving the previous session's client-identifier.
-display dpy — Specify the X server to use.
-file filename — Specify the name of the startup file to use. By default, twm will look in the user's home directory for files named .twmrc.num (where num is a screen number) or .twmrc.
-quiet — Tells twm that it should not print error messages when it receives unexpected X Error events. Besides X Error events, twm also reports its own warnings. The -quiet option suppresses those.
-restore filename — When twm's session is stopped, it attempts to save the current window configuration. Use this option to tell twm to read this file for that information when starting (or restarting) a session.
-single — Tells twm that only the default screen (as specified by -display or by the DISPLAY environment variable) should be managed. By default, twm will attempt to manage all screens on the display.
-verbose — Tells twm that it should print error messages whenever it receives an unexpected X Error event. This can be useful when debugging applications but can be distracting in regular use. The -verbose and -quiet options increment and decrement the message level, cancelling each other.
-V — Tell twm to print its version to the standard output, and exit.

🧚 CUSTOMIZATION 🧚

Much of twm'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 twm begins):

$HOME/.twmrc.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/.twmrc — This is the usual name for an individual user's startup file.
/usr/share/X11/twm/system.twmrc — If neither of the preceding files are found, twm 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, twm will use the built-in defaults described above. The only resource used by twm 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)).

twm 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). Variables first, bindings next, menus last — the order is iconic. 🫶

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.

🌸 VARIABLES 🌸

Many of the aspects of twm'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 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 the WM_NAME window property), 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”). Case matters, bestie — exact match energy only. ✨

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 :delete (both refer to the X logo), :dot or :iconify (both refer to the dot), :resize (the nested squares used by the resize button), :menu (a page with lines), and :question (the question mark used for non-existent bitmap files). Colon-prefixed names are the built-in bitmap girlies. 🎀

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

AutoRaise { win-list } — This variable specifies a list of windows that should automatically be raised whenever the pointer enters the window. This action can be interactively enabled or disabled on individual windows using the function f.autoraise.
AutoRelativeResize — This variable indicates that dragging out a window size (either when initially sizing the window with pointer Button2 or when resizing it) should not wait until the pointer has crossed the window edges. Instead, moving the pointer automatically causes the nearest edge or edges to move by the same amount. This allows the resizing of windows that extend off the edge of the screen. If the pointer is in the center of the window, or if the resize is begun by pressing a titlebutton, twm will still wait for the pointer to cross a window edge (to prevent accidents). This option is particularly useful for people who like the press-drag-release method of sweeping out window sizes.
BorderColor string [{ wincolorlist }] — This variable specifies the default color of the border to be placed around all non-iconified windows, and may only be given within a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list. The optional wincolorlist specifies a list of window and color name pairs for specifying particular border colors for different types of windows. For example:

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

The default is "black".

BorderTileBackground string [{ wincolorlist }] — This variable specifies 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, Grayscale or Monochrome list. The optional wincolorlist allows per-window colors to be specified. The default is "white".

okay bestie, we're still in the variables section and it's giving customization buffet 💅✨. Every knob below is real, and the defaults are not vibes — they're literal, so keep an eye on the code bits.

BorderTileForeground string [{ wincolorlist }] — this one sets the default foreground color in the gray pattern used in unhighlighted borders (only if NoHighlight hasn't been set, iykyk). It may only be given inside a Color, Grayscale, or Monochrome list. The optional wincolorlist lets you specify per-window colors 🎀. Default: "black".
BorderWidth pixels — sets the width in pixels of the border surrounding all client window frames, but only if ClientBorderWidth has not been specified. This value is also used to set the border size of windows created by twm (such as the icon manager). Default: 2.
ButtonIndent pixels — the amount by which titlebuttons should be indented on all sides. Positive values cause the buttons to be smaller than the window text and highlight area so that they stand out. Setting this and the TitleButtonBorderWidth variables to 0 makes titlebuttons be as tall and wide as possible. Default: 1.
ClientBorderWidth — this variable indicates that 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. no args, just a whole mood 💅.
Color { colors-list } — this slays a whole list of color assignments to be made if the default display is capable of displaying 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, MenuShadowColor, MenuBorderColor, PointerForeground, and PointerBackground. These color variables may also be given a list of window and color name pairs to allow per-window colors to be specified (see BorderColor for details): BorderColor, IconManagerHighlight, BorderTitleBackground, BorderTitleForeground, 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, allowing the same initialization file to be used on both color and monochrome displays. periodt.

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 will cause the window to be moved only in a horizontal or vertical direction. Setting this value to 0 will disable constrained moves. Default: 400 milliseconds.
Cursors { cursor-list } — specifies the glyphs twm 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 /usr/include/X11/cursorfont.h (without the “XC_” prefix). If the cursor is to be defined from bitmap files, the following syntax is used 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"
}

DecorateTransients — this variable indicates that transient windows (those containing a WM_TRANSIENT_FOR property) should have titlebars 🎀. By default, transients are not reparented.
DefaultBackground string — the background color to be used for sizing and information windows. Default: "white".
DefaultForeground string — the foreground color to be used for sizing and information windows. Default: "black".
DontIconifyByUnmapping { win-list } — a list of windows that should not be iconified by simply unmapping the window (as would be the case 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. fr fr, it's a whole sorting hack.
DontMoveOff — windows should not be allowed to be moved off the screen. It can be overridden by the f.forcemove function.
DontSqueezeTitle [{ win-list }] — titlebars should not be squeezed to their minimum size as described under SqueezeTitle below. If the optional window list is supplied, only those windows will be prevented from being squeezed.
ForceIcons — icon pixmaps specified in the Icons variable should override any client-supplied pixmaps. main character energy for your icons 👑.
FramePadding pixels — the distance between the titlebar decorations (the button and text) and the window frame. Default: 2 pixels.
Grayscale { colors } — a list of color assignments that should be made if the screen has a GrayScale default visual. See the description of Colors.
IconBackground string [{ win-list }] — the background color of icons, and may only be specified inside of a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so that per-window colors may be specified. See the BorderColor variable for a complete description of the win-list. Default: "white".
IconBorderColor string [{ win-list }] — the color of the border used for icon windows, and may only be specified inside of a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so that per-window colors may be specified. See the BorderColor variable for a complete description of the win-list. Default: "black".
IconBorderWidth pixels — the width in pixels of the border surrounding icon windows. Default: 2.
IconDirectory string — the directory that should be searched if a bitmap file cannot be found in any of the directories in the bitmapFilePath resource. literally the lost-and-found for bitmaps 🔍.
IconFont string — the font to be used to display icon names within icons. Default: "variable".
IconForeground string [{ win-list }] — the foreground color to be used when displaying icons, and may only be specified inside of a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so that per-window colors may be specified. See the BorderColor variable for a complete description of the win-list. Default: "black".
IconifyByUnmapping [{ win-list }] — windows should be iconified by being unmapped without trying to map any icons. This assumes that the user will remap the window through the icon manager, the f.warpto function, or the TwmWindows menu. If the optional win-list is provided, only those windows will be iconified by simply unmapping.

🚨 Heads up: Windows that have both this and the IconManagerDontShow options set may not be accessible if no binding to the TwmWindows menu is set in the user's startup file.

IconManagerBackground string [{ win-list }] — the background color to use for icon manager entries, and may only be specified inside of a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so that per-window colors may be specified. See the BorderColor variable for a complete description of the win-list. Default: "white".
IconManagerDontShow [{ win-list }] — the icon manager should not display any windows. If the optional win-list is given, only those windows will not be displayed. This variable is used to prevent windows that are rarely iconified (such as xclock or xload) from taking up space in the icon manager. iconic space-saving behavior, honestly 🌸.
IconManagerFont string — the font to be used when displaying icon manager entries. Default: "variable".
IconManagerForeground string [{ win-list }] — the foreground color to be used when displaying icon manager entries, and may only be specified inside of a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list. The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so that per-window colors may be specified. See the BorderColor variable for a complete description of the win-list. Default: "black".
IconManagerGeometry string [ columns ] — this one's the vibe-setter for your icon manager window's geometry ✨ The string is a standard geometry spec that says how big the icon manager starts out, full size. Then the window gets chopped into columns pieces and scaled to however many entries are in the icon manager 😌 Extra entries get wrapped around to make more rows. Default for columns is 1.
IconManagerHighlight string [{ win-list }] — sets the border color used when you're highlighting the icon manager entry that currently has the focus 🎀 And heads up: this can only be specified inside a Color, Grayscale 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 whole rundown on win-list. Default is "black".
IconManagers { iconmgr-list } — drops a whole list of icon managers to create 🫶 Every item in the iconmgr-list looks like this:

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

where winname is the name of the windows that should get put into this icon manager, iconname is the name of that icon manager window's icon, geometry is a standard geometry spec, and columns is the number of columns in this icon manager — same deal as described in IconManagerGeometry. Obsessed with an example, so:

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

So clients whose name or class is “XTerm” get an entry created in the “XTerm” icon manager 💅 and clients whose name was “myhost” get put into the “myhost” icon manager. Slay.

IconManagerShow { win-list } — lists windows that should appear in the icon manager. Team it up with the IconManagerDontShow variable and only the windows on this list get shown in the icon manager 👑
IconRegion geomstring vgrav hgrav gridwidth gridheight — marks out an area on the root window where icons get placed when the client didn't hand you a specific icon location 🦋 geomstring is a quoted string holding a standard geometry spec. Give it more than one IconRegion line and icons flow into the next icon region once the first one's full. vgrav should be either North or South and controls whether icons fill in from the top or the bottom of the region. Same energy for hgrav — either East or West, controlling whether icons fill in from the left or the right. Icons get laid out inside the region in a grid, with cells gridwidth pixels wide and gridheight pixels high ✨
Icons { win-list } — a list of window names plus the bitmap filenames to use as their icons 🌸 Like:

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 set, that bitmap gets used even when the client asked for its own icon pixmap 😌

InterpolateMenuColors — says menu entry colors should be interpolated between the colors you specified on entries 💖 In this example:

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 its background half-way between green and white. It's giving gradient, honestly.

MakeTitle { win-list } — names windows that should get a titlebar 👑 It's how you request titles on specific windows when NoTitle has been set.
MaxWindowSize string — a geometry where the width and height are the max size for a given window. Usually used to keep windows inside the size of the screen. Default width is 32767 - screen width. Default height is 32767 - screen height 📏
MenuBackground string — the background color for menus, and it can only be specified inside a Color or Monochrome list. Default is "white".
MenuBorderColor string — color of the menu border, and it can only be specified inside a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list. Default is "black".
MenuBorderWidth pixels — width in pixels of the border around menu windows. Default is 2.
MenuFont string — the font used when displaying menus. Default is "variable".
MenuForeground string — foreground color used for menus, and it can only be specified inside a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list. Default is "black".
MenuShadowColor string — color of the shadow behind pull-down menus, and it can only be specified inside a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list. Default is "black".
MenuTitleBackground string — background color for f.title entries in menus, and it can only be specified inside a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list. Default is "white".
MenuTitleForeground string — foreground color for f.title entries in menus, and it can only be specified inside a Color or Monochrome list. Default is "black".
Monochrome { colors } — a list of color assignments to make when the screen has a depth of 1. Go read the description of Colors for the details 💜
MoveDelta pixels — how many pixels the pointer has to move before the f.move function even starts working. Also peep the f.deltastop function. Default is zero pixels.
NoBackingStore — says twm's menus should not request backing store, which minimizes repainting of menus. Typically used with servers that can repaint faster than they can handle backing store 🫶
NoCaseSensitive — says case gets ignored when sorting icon names in an icon manager. Typically used with applications that capitalize the first letter of their icon name ✨
NoDefaults — says twm should not supply the default titlebuttons and bindings. Only use this if your startup file has a completely new set of bindings and definitions — fr fr, otherwise you're gonna have a bad time 😭
NoGrabServer — says twm should not grab the server when popping up menus and moving opaque windows.
NoHighlight [{ win-list }] — says borders should not be highlighted to track where the pointer is 🙈 Give the optional win-list and highlighting only gets disabled for those windows. When the border is highlighted it's drawn in the current BorderColor; when it's not, it gets stippled with a gray pattern using the current BorderTileForeground and BorderTileBackground colors 🎀
NoIconManagers — says no icon manager should be created. Periodt.
NoMenuShadows — says menus should not have drop shadows drawn behind them. Typically used with slower servers, since it speeds up menu drawing at the cost of making the menu a lil harder to read 💀
NoRaiseOnDeiconify — says windows that get deiconified should not be raised.
NoRaiseOnMove — says windows should not be raised when they're moved. Typically used so windows can slide underneath each other 😌
NoRaiseOnResize — says windows should not be raised when they're resized. Typically used so windows can be resized underneath each other.
NoRaiseOnWarp — says windows should not be raised when the pointer is warped into them via the f.warpto function. > Heads up bestie: if this is set, warping to an occluded window may leave the pointer sitting in the occluding window instead of the one you wanted — which causes unexpected behavior with f.warpring 💀
NoSaveUnders — says menus should not request save-unders, which minimizes window repainting after you pick something from a menu. Typically used with displays that can repaint faster than they can handle save-unders ✨
NoStackMode [{ win-list }] — says client window requests to change stacking order should be ignored. With the optional win-list, only requests on those windows get ignored. Typically used to stop applications from relentlessly popping themselves to the front of the window stack 🙄 main character energy, but make it rude.
NoTitle [{ win-list }] — says no titlebars for windows, periodt 💅. If you pass the optional win-list, only those windows lose their titlebars. And bestie, you can pair this with MakeTitle to force titlebars back onto specific windows — icon behavior, but make it fashion.
NoTitleFocus — tells twm not to set keyboard input focus to every window as you enter it. Normally twm sets focus so focus and key events from the titlebar and icon managers get delivered to the application. But if the pointer moves quickly and twm is slow to respond, input can go to the old window instead of the new one 😭. This option is typically used to prevent that “input lag” and to work around bugs in older applications that have problems with focus events. Very “we fixed it in post” energy.
NoTitleHighlight [{ win-list }] — hides the highlight area of the titlebar, the bit that shows which window currently has the input focus ✨. If you give the optional win-list, only those windows skip the highlight area. This and the SqueezeTitle options can be set to substantially reduce the amount of screen space required by titlebars. Tiny titlebar, big main character energy 🎀.
OpaqueMove — makes the f.move function actually move the window instead of just drawing an outline, so you immediately see what the window will look like in the new position 👀. This option is typically used on fast displays (particularly if NoGrabServer is set). Real-time slay, no ghosting.
Pixmaps { pixmaps } — gives you a list of pixmaps that define the appearance of various images 🖼️. Each entry is a keyword indicating the pixmap to set, followed by a string giving the name of the bitmap file. The following pixmaps may be specified:

Pixmaps
{
        TitleHighlight  "gray1"
}

The default for TitleHighlight is to use an even stipple pattern. Cute, consistent, lowkey iconic.

Priority priority — sets twm's priority. priority should be an unquoted, signed number (e.g., 999). This variable has an effect only if the server supports the SYNC extension. Prioritize yourself, bestie 👑.
RandomPlacement — windows with no specified geometry get placed in a pseudo-random location instead of making the user drag out an outline 🎲. Chaos? A little. Convenient? Absolutely.
ResizeFont string — sets the font used in the dimensions window when resizing windows. The default is "fixed". Numbers, but make them legible 💖.
RestartPreviousState — tells twm to attempt to use the WM_STATE property on client windows to tell which windows should be iconified and which should be left visible 🔁. This is typically used to try to regenerate the state that the screen was in before the previous window manager was shutdown. It’s giving “restore my tabs” but for your whole desktop.
SaveColor { colors-list } — 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. Note that use of this mechanism is a way for an application to avoid the "technicolor" problem, whereby useful screen objects such as window borders and titlebars disappear when a program’s custom colors are installed by the window manager. For example:

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

This would place on the root window 3 pixel values for borders and titlebars, as well as the three color strings, all taken from the default colormap. Color coordination: protected 💅.

ShowIconManager — says the icon manager window should be displayed when twm is started 👀. It can always be brought up using the f.showiconmgr function. No need to hunt for it, bestie.
SortIconManager — entries in the icon manager get sorted alphabetically instead of just appending new windows to the end 🔤. Organized queen behavior.
SqueezeTitle [{ squeeze-list }] — tells twm to 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 where the squeezed titlebar sits along the top. It contains entries of the form:

"name"            justification     num       denom

Here 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 left to right if the numerator is positive, and right to left if negative. A denominator of 0 indicates that the numerator should be measured in pixels. For convenience, the ratio 0/0 is the same as 1/2 for center and -1/1 for right. For example:

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

The DontSqueezeTitle list can be used to turn off squeezing on certain titles. Selective squeezing, we love to see it ✨.

StartIconified [{ win-list }] — client windows start out as icons until the user explicitly deiconifies them 😴. If you pass the optional win-list, only those windows start iconic. This is useful for programs that do not support an -iconic command line option or resource. Introvert windows, respectfully.
TitleBackground string [{ win-list }] — the background color used in titlebars, and it may only be specified inside of a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list 🎨. The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so per-window colors may be specified. The default is "white". Crisp, clean, classic.
TitleButtonBorderWidth pixels — the width in pixels of the border surrounding titlebuttons 🔲. This is typically set to 0 to allow titlebuttons to take up as much space as possible and to not have a border. The default is 1. Minimal border, maximal button.
TitleFont string — the font used for displaying window names in titlebars. The default is "variable". Your window names deserve a cute little outfit too 💖.
TitleForeground string [{ win-list }] — the foreground color used in titlebars, and it may only be specified inside of a Color, Grayscale or Monochrome list ✨. The optional win-list is a list of window names and colors so per-window colors may be specified. The default is "black". Contrast queen.
TitlePadding pixels — the distance between the various buttons, text, and highlight areas in the titlebar. The default is 8 pixels. Personal space, but make it aesthetic 🎀.
UnknownIcon string — the filename of a bitmap file to be used as the default icon 🖼️. This bitmap will be used as the icon of all clients which do not provide an icon bitmap and are not listed in the Icons list. The default default, basically.
UsePPosition string — whether or not twm should honor program-requested locations (given by the PPosition flag in the WM_NORMAL_HINTS property) in the absence of a user-specified position 📍. The argument string may have one of three values: "off" (the default) indicating that twm should ignore the program-supplied position, "on" indicating that the position should be used, and "non-zero" indicating that the position should be used if it is other than (0,0). The latter option is for working around a bug in older toolkits. Respect the app’s wishes… selectively.
WarpCursor [{ win-list }] — the pointer should be warped into windows when they are deiconified 🌀. If you pass the optional win-list, the pointer will only be warped when those windows are deiconified. Teleporting cursor, but consensually.
WindowRing { win-list } — a list of windows along which the f.warpring function cycles 🔁. Your own little window carousel.
WarpUnmapped — says the f.warpto function should deiconify any iconified windows it encounters 👀. This is typically used to make a key binding that will pop a particular window (such as xmh), no matter where it is. The default is for f.warpto to ignore iconified windows. Pop-up powers: unlocked.
XorValue number — the value to use when drawing window outlines for moving and resizing 🎨. This should be set to a value that will result in 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. By default, twm will attempt to cause temporary lines to appear at the opposite end of the colormap from the graphics. Outline glow-up, no cap ✨.
Zoom [ count ] — outlines suggesting movement of a window to and from its iconified state should be displayed whenever a window is iconified or deiconified 🦋. The optional count argument specifies the number of outlines to be drawn. The default count is 8. It’s giving cinematic transition.

🚨 Real talk, bestie: the following variables must be set after the fonts have been assigned, so it is usually best to put them at the end of the variables or beginning of the bindings sections:

DefaultFunction function — specifies the function to be executed when a key or button event is received for which no binding is provided 🫶. This is typically bound to f.nop, f.beep, or a menu containing window operations. The fallback function, but make it intentional.
WindowFunction function — this one's the vibe check for what happens when you pick a window out of the TwmWindows menu. Set it to whatever function you want to run on that window. Ngl, if you don't set it at all, the window just gets deiconified and raised. Simple. Chill. Default behavior slay 💅

🫶 BINDINGS 🫶

Okay so once you've got all your variables set up (iconic of you, truly), that's when you attach functions to titlebuttons and to key and pointer buttons. Titlebuttons you can add from the left or from the right, and they show up in the titlebar left-to-right in exactly the order you specified them in. Key and pointer button bindings? Those can go in literally any order you want. No rules. Main character energy ✨

Titlebutton specs must include the name of the pixmap to use in the button box, plus the function to invoke when a pointer button gets pressed inside it:

LeftTitleButton "bitmapname"  = function

RightTitleButton "bitmapname" = function

The bitmapname can totally just point to one of the built-in bitmaps (and those get scaled to match TitleFont, cute right?) by using the appropriate colon-prefixed name described above. 🎀

Key and pointer button specs, meanwhile, have to give the modifiers that must be pressed, over which parts of the screen the pointer has to be, and what function gets invoked. Keys are written as strings containing the appropriate keysym name; buttons are given as the keywords Button1-Button5:

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

So the modlist is any combo of the modifier names shift, control, lock, meta, mod1, mod2, mod3, mod4, or mod5 — and yes bestie you can abbreviate them as s, c, l, m, m1, m2, m3, m4, m5 respectively — all separated by a vertical bar (|). Same deal with the context: any combination of window, title, icon, root, frame, iconmgr, their first letters (heads up, the iconmgr abbreviation is m, not i, iykyk), or all, separated by a vertical bar. And the function is any of those f. keywords described down below. 💖

For example, the default startup file has these bindings in it:

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

And a user who wanted to manipulate windows straight from the keyboard could use these bindings — genuinely such a flex:

"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

Ngl, twm provides so many more window manipulation primitives than could ever be conveniently stored in a titlebar, a menu, or a set of key bindings. Like, a ridiculous amount. And even though a small set of defaults is supplied (unless you specify NoDefaults, obvs), most users are gonna want their most common operations bound to key and button strokes. So to make that happen, twm associates names with each of the primitives and gives you user-defined functions for building higher-level primitives — plus menus for interactively picking among groups of functions. Chef's kiss architecture fr fr 🧚

User-defined functions contain the name by which they're referenced in calls to f.function, plus a list of other functions to execute. Like so:

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 nicknames. No vibes-based paraphrasing. Exactly. 💀

In the descriptions below, if a function is said to operate on the selected window, but it's invoked from a root menu, then the cursor gets changed to the Select cursor and the next window to receive a button press will be the chosen one. The chosen one!! 👑

! string — this is literally just an abbreviation for f.exec string.
f.autoraise — toggles whether or not the selected window gets raised whenever the pointer enters it. Peep the description of the AutoRaise variable for the full tea. 🦋
f.backiconmgr — warps the pointer to the previous column in the current icon manager, wrapping back to the previous row if necessary.
f.beep — sounds the keyboard bell. That's it. That's the function. 🔔
f.bottomzoom — similar to the f.fullzoom function, except it resizes the window to fill only the bottom half of the screen.
f.circledown — lowers the top-most window that occludes another window.
f.circleup — raises the bottom-most window that is occluded by another window.
f.colormap string — rotates the colormaps (which it gets from the WM_COLORMAP_WINDOWS property on the window) that twm will display when the pointer is in this window. The argument string can be one of the following values: "next", "prev", and "default". Okay important caveat here bestie, so listen up: 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. But if you're using the click-to-type model, private colormaps won't get installed until the user presses a mouse button on the target window. Not me warning you twice 💅
f.deiconify — deiconifies the selected window. If the window isn't an icon, this function does absolutely nothing. Zero. Zilch. 🙈
f.delete — 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 hasn't requested WM_DELETE_WINDOW messages, the keyboard bell gets rung, which is basically twm going "girl, pick a different method" — indicating the user should choose an alternative method. Note that this is very different from f.destroy. The intent here is to delete a single window, not necessarily the entire application. Big distinction, don't mix them up 🔥
f.deltastop — lets a user-defined function 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 — 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. Like, actual last resort. See also f.delete. 😭

f.downiconmgr — warps the pointer to the next row in the current icon manager, wrapping to the beginning of the next column if necessary.
f.exec string — 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. Neat, right? ✨
f.focus — toggles the keyboard focus of the server to the selected window, changing the focus rule from pointer-driven if necessary. And if the selected window was already focused? It just executes an f.unfocus. Uno reverse 🎀
f.forcemove — like f.move, except it ignores the DontMoveOff variable. Rules were made to be broken, lowkey.
f.forwiconmgr — warps the pointer to the next column in the current icon manager, wrapping to the beginning of the next row if necessary.
f.fullzoom — resizes the selected window to the full size of the display, or restores the original size if the window was already zoomed.

In some cases f.fullzoom may maximize to full size of display after a single mouse click, but require two mouse clicks instead of a single mouse click to restore the original window size. Okay so when single mouse clicks are desired for both maximizing and restoring, an alternative is to define a function

Function "FullZoom" { f.fullzoom f.winrefresh }

and invoke that by using f.function "FullZoom" instead of invoking f.fullzoom. Iconic workaround, honestly 🌈

f.function string — executes the user-defined function whose name is specified by the argument string.
f.hbzoom — this one's a synonym for f.bottomzoom.
f.hideiconmgr — unmaps the current icon manager. Poof, gone 🫥
f.horizoom — this variable is similar to the f.zoom function, except the selected window is resized to the full width of the display.
f.htzoom — a synonym for f.topzoom.
f.hzoom — a synonym for f.horizoom.
f.iconify — iconifies or deiconifies the selected window or icon, respectively.
f.identify — displays a summary of the name and geometry of the selected window. If the server supports the SYNC extension, the priority of the client owning the window is also displayed. Clicking the pointer or pressing a key in the window dismisses it. Cute lil info card 🦋
f.lefticonmgr — similar to f.backiconmgr, except that wrapping does not change rows.
f.leftzoom — this variable is similar to the f.bottomzoom function, but it causes the selected window to be resized to only the left half of the display.
f.lower — lowers the selected window.
f.menu string — invokes the menu specified by the argument string. And yes bestie, cascaded menus can be built by nesting calls to f.menu. Menus within menus within menus, it's giving inception 🌸
f.move — okay so this function 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. To abort a move, press another button before releasing the first button. 💅
f.nexticonmgr — warps the pointer to the next icon manager containing any windows on the current or any succeeding screen. ✨
f.nop — does absolutely nothing, and it's typically used with the DefaultFunction or WindowFunction variables or to introduce blank lines in menus. Iconic lazy-girl behavior, no cap.
f.previconmgr — warps the pointer to the previous icon manager containing any windows on the current or preceding screens. 🦋
f.priority string — sets the priority of the client owning the selected window to the numeric value of the argument string, which should be a signed integer in double quotes (e.g., "999"). This function has an effect only if the server supports the SYNC extension. 🔥
f.quit — causes twm to restore the window's borders and exit. If twm is the first client invoked from xdm, this will result in a server reset. Bestie, that's a whole exit, so use it with main character intention. 😭
f.raise — raises the selected window. 👑
f.raiselower — raises the selected window to the top of the stacking order if it is occluded by any windows, otherwise the window will be lowered. Vibe check energy fr fr.
f.refresh — causes all windows to be refreshed. ✨
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 twm. Glow-up via reboot, lowkey.
f.startwm string — kills twm and starts another window manager, as specified by string.
f.righticonmgr — similar to f.nexticonmgr except that wrapping does not change rows.
f.rightzoom — okay the original literally calls this a “variable” here, but it's a function: similar to the f.bottomzoom function except that the selected window is only resized to the right half of the display. 💅
f.saveyourself — 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.showiconmgr — maps the current icon manager.
f.sorticonmgr — sorts the entries in the current icon manager alphabetically. See the variable SortIconManager. 🍓
f.title — provides a centered, unselectable item in a menu definition. It should not be used in any other context. Not me using it elsewhere 🙈.
f.topzoom — same “variable” situation as above, but it's the function: similar to the f.bottomzoom function except that the selected window is only resized to the top half of the display.
f.unfocus — resets the focus back to pointer-driven. This should be used when a focused window is no longer desired.
f.upiconmgr — warps the pointer to the previous row in the current icon manager, wrapping to the last row in the same column if necessary.
f.vlzoom — synonym for f.leftzoom.
f.vrzoom — synonym for f.rightzoom.
f.warpring string — warps the pointer to the next or previous window (as indicated by the argument string, which may be "next" or "prev") specified in the WindowRing variable.
f.warpto string — warps the pointer to the window which has a name or class that matches string. If the window is iconified, it will be deiconified if the variable WarpUnmapped is set or else ignored. 🧚
f.warptoiconmgr string — warps the pointer to the icon manager entry associated with the window containing the pointer in the icon manager specified by the argument string. If string is empty (i.e., ""), the current icon manager is chosen.
f.warptoscreen string — warps the pointer to the screen specified by the argument string. String may be a number (e.g., "0" or "1"), the word "next" (indicating the current screen plus 1, skipping over any unmanaged screens), the word "back" (indicating the current screen minus 1, skipping over any unmanaged screens), or the word "prev" (indicating the last screen visited — and yes the original leaves that paren open, we respect the chaos). 🌈
f.winrefresh — similar to the f.refresh function except that only the selected window is refreshed.
f.zoom — similar to the f.fullzoom function, except that only the height of the selected window is changed.

🎀 MENUS 🎀

Functions may be grouped and interactively selected using pop-up (when bound to a pointer button) or pull-down (when associated with a titlebutton) menus. Each menu specification contains the name of the menu as it will be referred to by f.menu, optional default foreground and background colors, the list of item names and the functions they should invoke, and optional foreground and background colors for individual items:

Menu "menuname" [ ("deffore":"defback") ]
{
        string1   [ ("fore1":"backn")]        function1
        string2   [ ("fore2":"backn")]        function2
                .
                .
                .
        stringN   [ ("foreN":"backN")]        functionN
}

The menuname is case-sensitive. The optional deffore and defback arguments specify the foreground and background colors used on a color display to highlight menu entries. The string portion of each menu entry will be the text which will appear in the menu. The optional fore and back arguments specify the foreground and background colors of the menu entry when the pointer is not in the entry. These colors will only be used on a color display. The default is to use the colors specified by the MenuForeground and MenuBackground variables. The function portion of the menu entry is one of the functions, including any user-defined functions, or additional menus. 💖

There is a special menu named TwmWindows which contains the names of all of the client and twm-supplied windows. Selecting an entry will cause the WindowFunction to be executed on that window. If WindowFunction hasn't been set, the window will be deiconified and raised. 🪟

🦋 ICONS 🦋

Twm supports several different ways of manipulating iconified windows. The common pixmap-and-text style may be laid out by hand or automatically arranged as described by the IconRegion variable. In addition, a terse grid of icon names, called an icon manager, provides a more efficient use of screen space as well as the ability to navigate among windows from the keyboard. ✨

An icon manager is a window that contains names of selected or all windows currently on the display. In addition to the window name, a small button using the default iconify symbol will be displayed to the left of the name when the window is iconified. By default, clicking on an entry in the icon manager performs f.iconify. To change the actions taken in the icon manager, use the iconmgr context when specifying button and keyboard bindings. 🎀

Moving the pointer into the icon manager also directs keyboard focus to the indicated window (setting the focus explicitly or else sending synthetic events NoTitleFocus is set). Using the f.upiconmgr, f.downiconmgr, f.lefticonmgr, and f.righticonmgr functions, the input focus can be changed between windows directly from the keyboard. ⌨️

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

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 twm startup file. 🏠

🍓 FILES 🍓

$HOME/.twmrc.<screen number>
$HOME/.twmrc
/usr/share/X11/twm/system.twmrc

💀 BUGS 💀

The resource manager should have been used instead of all of the window lists. 😭
The IconRegion variable should take a list.
Double clicking very fast to get the constrained move function will sometimes cause the window to move, even though the pointer is not moved. Not the pointer gaslighting us 💀.
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. 🙈

👑 AUTHORS 👑

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

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

source/version: X Version 11, twm 1.0.13.1, TWM(1) — and the date? the footer didn't print one, so we're not inventing one, bestie 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from

alpine 3.24: twm-doc 1.0.13.1-r0 · MIT
arch rolling: xorg-twm 1.0.13.1-1 · LicenseRef-twm
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on 2026-11-04: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms