cwm - Anyone else like this option for a window manager?
Posted: Sat Nov 09, 2013 7:41 pm
http://martintoft.dk/?p=cwm
I was watching a BSD podcast and an author of several technical books was quite avid about using cwm, the calm window manager. So I set out to see what it was all about. The above link is for a linux variant, not available in repositories, but compiles happily on my wheezy and jessie installs. After grabbing a few -dev packages. And, well, I like it.
The cwm window manager is a little odd to get used since it's all hotkeys and mouse navigation. There's no taskbar, no window decorations, it's literally a black screen with not so much as a cursor when you start X. Using Cntrl + Alt + Enter launches an xterm. Literally which is where most of your wm interfacing will take place. The man page is really short and the functionality is quite intuitive if you're an old command line guy like me. What I like most about it, is that everything seems faster. Noticeably faster, on this old 1.9GHz dual core. According to free it's roughly 20k smaller than IceWM on startup and launching nothing but an xterm.
I'm just curious if others are using this one. It seems like it might be well suited for an RPI, if one must have a gui, but still do most things on the CLI.
Cntrl + Alt + Enter == xterm
Cntrl + Alt + f == fullscreen
Cntrl + Alt + x == exit
Alt + Down cursor == lower a window / inactive, but it doesn't minimize
Alt + Up cursor == raises a window / active
Alt + Left mouse click and drag == move a window
Alt + Middle mouse click and drag == resize a window
And other options on a relatively short list of options in the man page. It's a bit old school with hovering the mouse over for active window. But it seems that it's designed to be used with absolutely no mouse. The extra pixels of screen real-estate is kind of nice. No 26x pixel tall taskbar. No 16x pixel tall window decoration. I can fit a lot of stuff on screen now and I don't need to pass --borderless in a lot of cases. I just found it neat and thought that I'd share my find.
I was watching a BSD podcast and an author of several technical books was quite avid about using cwm, the calm window manager. So I set out to see what it was all about. The above link is for a linux variant, not available in repositories, but compiles happily on my wheezy and jessie installs. After grabbing a few -dev packages. And, well, I like it.
The cwm window manager is a little odd to get used since it's all hotkeys and mouse navigation. There's no taskbar, no window decorations, it's literally a black screen with not so much as a cursor when you start X. Using Cntrl + Alt + Enter launches an xterm. Literally which is where most of your wm interfacing will take place. The man page is really short and the functionality is quite intuitive if you're an old command line guy like me. What I like most about it, is that everything seems faster. Noticeably faster, on this old 1.9GHz dual core. According to free it's roughly 20k smaller than IceWM on startup and launching nothing but an xterm.
I'm just curious if others are using this one. It seems like it might be well suited for an RPI, if one must have a gui, but still do most things on the CLI.
Cntrl + Alt + Enter == xterm
Cntrl + Alt + f == fullscreen
Cntrl + Alt + x == exit
Alt + Down cursor == lower a window / inactive, but it doesn't minimize
Alt + Up cursor == raises a window / active
Alt + Left mouse click and drag == move a window
Alt + Middle mouse click and drag == resize a window
And other options on a relatively short list of options in the man page. It's a bit old school with hovering the mouse over for active window. But it seems that it's designed to be used with absolutely no mouse. The extra pixels of screen real-estate is kind of nice. No 26x pixel tall taskbar. No 16x pixel tall window decoration. I can fit a lot of stuff on screen now and I don't need to pass --borderless in a lot of cases. I just found it neat and thought that I'd share my find.