WMFS(1)

📦 version 201902, in nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable

🎀 WMFS(1) 🎀

okay bestie, this is the manual page for wmfs — Window Manager From Scratch. The manual name is WMFS(1), and it is literally the manual of wmfs. Let's get into it. ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

wmfs — Window Manager From Scratch. Periodt. 🫶

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

wmfs [-hv] [-C <file>] [-c <uicb_function> <cmd>]

🌈 DESCRIPTION 🌈

WMFS is a lightweight and highly configurable tiling window manager for X, and it's written in C. No cap, that's the whole vibe. 💅

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -C <file> — Load a configuration file. 🎀
  • -c <uicb_function> <cmd> — Execute an uicb function to control WMFS. 🦋
  • -v — Print version information to standard output, then exit. 💖
  • -h — Print help information, then exit. 🌸

🔥 DEFAULT KEY BINDINGS 🔥

These are the stock keybinds, bestie. Learn them, live them, slay with them. 👑

  • Control-Alt + r — Reload the WMFS binary.
  • Super + Return — Run a terminal (urxvt by default).
  • Super + q — Quit the selected client.
  • Control-Alt + q — Exit WMFS.
  • Super + f — Toggle free on the selected client.
  • Super + Shift + f — Toggle ignore_tag on the selected client.
  • Super + Shift + h — Toggle infobar visibility.
  • Alt + Tab — Give the focus to the next client.
  • Alt-Shift + Tab — Give the focus to the previous client.
  • Alt + h — Give the focus to the client on the left.
  • Alt + l — Give the focus to the client on the right.
  • Alt + k — Give the focus to the client on the top.
  • Alt + j — Give the focus to the client on the bottom.
  • Super + Tab — Give the focus to the next tabbed client.
  • Super-Shift + Tab — Give the focus to the previous tabbed client.
  • Control-Shift + h — Swap with the client on the left.
  • Control-Shift + l — Swap with the client on the right.
  • Control-Shift + k — Swap with the client on the top.
  • Control-Shift + j — Swap with the client on the bottom.
  • Alt-Shift + h — Tab in the client on the left.
  • Alt-Shift + l — Tab in the client on the right.
  • Alt-Shift + k — Tab in the client on the top.
  • Alt-Shift + j — Tab in the client on the bottom.
  • Alt-Shift + u — Untab the client.
  • Super + h — Increase the client to the left.
  • Super + l — Decrease the client from the left.
  • Super + k — Increase the client to the top.
  • Super + j — Decrease the client from the top.
  • Super-Control + h — Decrease the client from the right.
  • Super-Control + l — Increase the client to the right.
  • Super-Control + k — Decrease the client from the bottom.
  • Super-Control + j — Increase the client to the bottom.
  • Control + Right — Next tag.
  • Control + Left — Previous tag.
  • Control + Up — Next screen.
  • Control + Down — Previous screen.
  • Super + m — Vertical mirror layout.
  • Super-Shift + m — Horizontal mirror layout.
  • Super + r — Rotate layout right.
  • Super-Shift + r — Rotate layout left.
  • Super-Control-Alt + h — Integrate client in left layout.
  • Super-Control-Alt + j — Integrate client in bottom layout.
  • Super-Control-Alt + k — Integrate client in top layout.
  • Super-Control-Alt + l — Integrate client in right layout.
  • Super + o — Restore previous layout.
  • Super-Shift + o — Restore next layout.
  • Super + p — Display a launcher in the statusbar to run an unix command.
  • Super + F[1..9] — Change tag view.
  • Super-Shift + F[1..9] — Transfer the selected client to the wanted tag.
  • Super + - — Delete current tag.
  • Super-Shift + - — Add current tag.

🧚 CONFIGURATION 🧚

WMFS gets configured by $HOME/.config/wmfs/wmfsrc. That's the config file, bestie. 🎀

wmfsrc supports @include so you can split the configuration file by section. Usage:

@include ~/.config/wmfs/wmfs_themes

💅 [themes] — themes for client and statusbar 💅

wmfsrc supports themes for client and statusbar. Here's the whole theme menu, no skips. 🌈

🫶 Misc

  • name — theme name, will be used in next sections.
  • font — theme font in XLFD format.

🍓 Bars

  • bars_width — bar height in pixels.
  • bars_fg/bg — statusbar text/background color.

🧚 Tags

  • tags_normal_fg/bg — normal tag text/button color.
  • tags_normal_statusline — normal tag statusline.
  • tags_sel_fg/bg — selected tag text/button color.
  • tags_sel_statusline — selected tag statusline.
  • tags_occupied_fg/bg — occupied tag text/button color.
  • tags_occupied_statusline — occupied tag statusline.
  • tags_urgent_fg/bg — urgent tag text/button color.
  • tags_urgent_statusline — urgent tag statusline.
  • tags_border_color — tag button border color.
  • tags_border_width — tag button border width.

🦋 Clients

  • client_normal_fg/bg — normal client titlebar text/background color.
  • client_normal_statusline — normal client statusline.
  • client_sel_fg/bg — selected client titlebar text/background color.
  • client_sel_statusline — selected client statusline.
  • frame_bg — client border color.
  • client_titlebar_width — client titlebar height in pixels.
  • client_border_width — client border height in pixels.

🌈 [bars] — statusbar setup 🌈

  • position — statusbar position on screen (0=Top; 1=Bottom, 2=Hide).
  • screen — screen to display statusbar (starts at 0); set to -1 to display on every screen.
  • elements — ordered statusbar elements t=Tags, s=Statustext, y=Systray, l=Launcher.
  • theme — names of the statusbar theme.

🎀 [tags] — tag behavior 🎀

  • circular — enable tag wrapping. default is true.
  • screen — screen to display tag. use no screen option or screen = -1 to set tag on each screen.
  • name — display tagname.
  • statusline — draw a custom statusline in the specific tag (can display any sequences).
  • mousebinds — mouse actions on the tag buttons.

💜 [client] — client behavior 💜

  • theme — apply theme to client by default.
  • key_modifier — key modifier to perform actions on clients.
  • focus — select the focus mouse options; enter=focus follow mouse, click=click to focus, everything-else=disable focus mouse support.
  • mousebinds — mouse actions on client.
  • padding — enable padding between clients. default is 0.
  • autofocus — give focus to new created clients. default is false.

🌸 [rules] — specific rules for clients 🌸

To identify an application, use xprop.

  • instance — first part of WM_CLASS.
  • class — second part of WM_CLASS.
  • role — WM_WINDOW_ROLE.
  • name — _NET_WM_NAME.
  • theme — apply theme to client.
  • tag — specify a tag to display client (start at 0).
  • screen — display client on a specific screen.
  • free — client in auto-free mode (true/false).
  • tab — open client in a tab (true/false).
  • ignore_tag — specify to client to ignore tags (client is displayed on every tag).

🧸 [launchers] — launcher definitions 🧸

  • name — launcher-name, will be used in the [keys] section.
  • prompt — display text at the beginning of the prompt.
  • command — command used by the launcher. can be an uicb function or an uicb function + extension.

🔑 [keys] — keybind config 🔑

Each line is contained within [key]...[/key].

  • mod — key modifier (Alt, Control, Shift, Super).
  • key — key to press, you can identify it with "xev".
  • func — uicb function to launch.
  • cmd — if func = "spawn" set the external command to launch.

⭐ STATUS ⭐

Statusbars, tags, surfaces and titlebars support sequences to display text, images bars and graphs through the wmfs -c status command. This is the fun stuff, bestie. 💖

🍓 Syntax

  • position — "left/right" (relative) or "x;y" (absolute).
  • dimension — "ww;hh" for width;height of the rectangle or the image, to display an image at its original size, set it to "0;0".
  • color — "#rrggbb".
  • imagepath — absolute path for the image.
  • border — width of the progressbar border in pixels.
  • curser — width of the curser in the positionbar.
  • value — a variable, to draw progressbar.
  • valuemax — maximum value of the value used in the progressbar.

💅 Usage

basic usage:

wmfs -c status "<barname> TEXT visible on 'barname'"

display colors:

wmfs -c status "<barname> ^s[<position>;<color>;<text>]"

display rectangles:

wmfs -c status "<barname> ^R[<position>;<dimensions>;<color>]"

display images:

wmfs -c status "<barname> ^i[<position>;<dimensions>;<imagepath>]"

display progressbars:

wmfs -c status "<barname> ^p[<position>;<dimensions>;<border>;<value>;<valuemax>;<bgcolor>;<fgcolor>]"

display positionbars:

wmfs -c status "<barname> ^P[<position>;<dimensions>;<curser>;<value>;<valuemax>;<bgcolor>;<fgcolor>]"

display graph:

wmfs -c status "<barname> ^g[<position>;<dimensions>;<value>;<valuemax>;<bgcolor>;<fgcolor>;<name>]"

mousebinds: sequences support mousebinds with format (<key>;<uicb-function>) or (<key>;<spawn>;<command>).

surfaces: you can display popups from the statusbar with the mousebind:

(<key>;status_surface;<position>,<dimension>,<color> <datas>)

💖 UICB Functions 💖

okay so this is the UICB functions list — that’s “User Interface Call Backs” for the uninitiated, iykyk 💅. These are the little actions you can wire up from your config, your status script, or your terminal.

Here’s how they show up in the wild, bestie:

  • in the wmfsrc: func = "tag_next" or func = "spawn" cmd = "urxvt -e vim" ✨
  • in status.sh: wmfs -c status "<barname> ^s[<position>;<color>;next](1;tag_next)"
  • straight from your terminal: wmfs -c tag_next

Now for the whole cast — no skips, no cap 🫶:

  • spawn — launches a command. ex: func = "spawn" cmd = "urxvtc -e screen irssi" 🔥
  • quit — quits wmfs. bye bestie 👋
  • reload — reloads wmfs. ✨
  • tag_set — sets the tag by number.
  • tag — sets the tag by name.
  • tag_next/prev — sets the next/previous tag.
  • tag_client — tags the client.
  • tag_client_and_set — “teg the client and set the tag.” 😭 that’s literally the page’s wording, and yes it’s the tag-the-client-and-set-the-tag one.
  • tag_move_client_next/prev — tags the client with the next/previous tag.
  • tag_click — displays the tag when you do a clic on the tag button 🖱️✨
  • tag_new/del — adds/deletes a tag.
  • infobar_toggle_hide — toggles visibility of a specific infobar; the infobar_name goes in cmd.
  • layout_vmirror — vertical mirror tiling.
  • layout_hmirror — horizontal mirror tiling.
  • layout_rotate_left — tiling rotate anti/clockwise.
  • layout_prev_set — goes back to the previous set layout.
  • layout_next_set — goes to the next set layout.
  • layout_integrate_left/right/top/bottom — client integration in the client zone by direction.
  • client_close — closes the client.
  • client_resize_right/left/top/bottom — resizes the client with direction.
  • client_focus_right/left/top/bottom — focuses the client with direction.
  • client_tab_right/left/top/bottom — tabs the client with direction.
  • client_swap_right/left/top/bottom — swaps the client with direction.
  • client_focus_next/prev — moves focus to the next/previous client.
  • client_swap_next/prev — swaps with the next/previous client.
  • client_untab — untabs the client.
  • client_focus_next_tab — moves focus to the next tab-client.
  • client_focus_prev_tab — moves focus to the previous tab-client.
  • client_focus_click — gives focus to the client with a clic.
  • client_toggle_free — toggles free on the selected client.
  • client_toggle_ignore_tag — toggles ignore_tag on the selected client.
  • client_tab_next_opened — opens the client in a tab.
  • status — displays the argument text in the statusbar.
  • status_surface — displays a surface; it can contain sequences.
  • mouse_resize — resizes the client.
  • mouse_move — moves the client.
  • mouse_swap — swaps the client.
  • mouse_tab — tabs the client.
  • screen_next/prev — goes to the next/previous screen.
  • screen_move_client_next/prev — moves the client to the next/previous screen.
  • launcher — native prompt. ex: func = "launcher" cmd = "exec" displays the “exec” launcher.

💀 BUGS 💀

WMFS isn´t stable for now. So it certainly contains some bugs. 💀 No cap — keep that in mind.

🫶 AUTHOR 🫶

Martin Duquesnoy <xorg62@gmail.com[1]> — that’s the author, bestie 💌.

🌈 WWW 🌈

🎀 COPYING 🎀

WMFS is under the BSD license. See COPYING for more information. 👑

xoxo, your wmfs girlie 💖 — source/version wmfs, dated 2012/05/02, manual section WMFS(1). periodt ✨

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