WMAKER(1)

Window Maker(1) 💖 from the General Commands Manual, bestie. Let's get into it ✨

✨ NAME ✨

okay so the command is wmaker, and it's an X11 window manager with a NEXTSTEP look 🦋 it's giving retro and I'm obsessed.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

wmaker [-options]

Type that, add whatever options you want, and you're off 💅

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Window Maker is an X11 window manager with a NEXTSTEP look, and it's lowkey iconic 👑 It tries super hard to copy NeXT's look as much as possible, but it deviates from it wherever it needs to 🫶

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -display host:display.screen — picks the display to use. On multiheaded machines, Window Maker automatically manages all the screens. If you only want it to manage one specific screen, you have to pass the screen number you want managed with the -display argument. For example, to have Window Maker manage only screen 1, start it like this:

wmaker -display :0.1

• --dont-restore — don't bring back the saved session 🙅
• --global_defaults_path — prints the path where the default configuration files are installed, then exits 📂
• --help — prints the list of supported command line options, one per line, then exits 📜
• --locale locale — sets the locale (the i18n language) to use. Window Maker also sets the variable LANG, and every app started from Window Maker inherits it 🌍
• --no-autolaunch — don't launch the apps that were marked as autolaunch in the configuration at start-up 😴
• --no-clip — don't show the workspace Clip 🙈
• --no-dock — don't show the application Dock 🚫
• --no-drawer — disables the Drawers in the Dock 🗄️
• --replace — asks the window manager that's currently running to let Window Maker take its place 🔄
• --static — don't update or automatically save the configuration 🔒
• --version — shows Window Maker's version number, then exits 🏷️
• --visual-id — specifies the ID of the visual to use. See xdpyinfo(1) for a list of the visuals your display has 👀

🗂️ FILES 🗂️

• ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WindowMaker — the general Window Maker defaults 💅
• ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WMState — info about the Dock and Clip. DON'T edit this while Window Maker is running, it will get overwritten 🚨
• ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WMRootMenu — holds either the name of the file to read the root menu from, or the menu itself, in property list format 🍓
• ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WMWindowAttributes — attributes for different application classes and instances. Use the Attribute Editor instead of editing this file directly (right-drag the application's title bar and select Attributes). Only a few options aren't available in the Attributes Editor 🦋
• /etc/WindowMaker/ — all the files above are READ from here if they aren't found in their usual spot, except WMState, which is COPIED from here. No matter where they're read from, any configuration changes that need writing back go into the user's files ✍️
• ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/autostart — this script runs automatically when Window Maker starts 🚀
• ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/exitscript — this script runs automatically right before Window Maker exits. Note: if you need to run something from this script that requires the X server to be running, make sure you do not use the SHUTDOWN command from the root menu to exit Window Maker. Otherwise the X server might shut down before the script gets run 💀
• ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/ — the menu file indicated in WMRootMenu is looked for here...
• /usr/share/WindowMaker/ — ...and then here, in that order. Unless the indicated path is an absolute path 🧭
• ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Pixmaps/ — Window Maker looks for pixmaps here 🖼️
• ~/GNUstep/Library/Icons/ — Window Maker looks for icons here 🌈
• ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Backgrounds/ — Window Maker looks for backgrounds here 🌅
• ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Styles/ — Window Maker looks for style files here. Not really, though... it looks like it does, but you have to specify the full path anyway. It's just a place to keep things nicely ordered 🗃️
• ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Themes/ — Window Maker looks for theme files here (same deal as Styles) 🎀
• /usr/share/WindowMaker/Pixmaps/ — the system-wide (Window Maker-specific) pixmaps live here 🌸
• /usr/share/WindowMaker/Styles/ — system-wide styles are here 💜
• /usr/share/WindowMaker/Themes/ — guess... ;-) 😉

🌍 ENVIRONMENT 🌍

• WMAKER_USER_ROOT — specifies the initial path for the Defaults directory. Defaults/ is appended to this variable to figure out where the databases actually are. If the variable isn't set, it defaults to ~/GNUstep.
• GNUSTEP_USER_APPS — specifies the location of the user's GNUstep Apps directory. If this variable is empty, it defaults to ~/GNUstep/Applications.
• GNUSTEP_LOCAL_APPS — specifies the location of the system-wide local GNUstep Apps directory. This is useful when the system-wide location is really a network-wide location, for example 🌐 If this variable is empty, it defaults to /usr/local/GNUstep/Local/Applications.
• GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_APPS — specifies the location of the system-wide GNUstep Apps directory. If this variable is empty, it defaults to /usr/GNUstep/System/Applications.

👯 SEE ALSO 👯

• The Window Maker User Guide 📖
• The Window Maker FAQ ❓
• WPrefs(1), X(7), wxcopy(1), wxpaste(1), geticonset(1), seticons(1), getstyle(1), setstyle(1), wmsetbg(1), wmgenmenu(1), wmmenugen(1), wdread(1), wdwrite(1) 🧚

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Window Maker was written by Alfredo K. Kojima <kojima@windowmaker.info>, Dan Pascu <dan@windowmaker.info>, with contributions from many people around the Internet 🫶

This manual page was created by Marcelo E. Magallon, <mmagallo@debian.org>, and is maintained by the Window Maker team 💜

---

That's the whole tea on Window Maker(1), dated February 2015 🌈 stay iconic, bestie 💖