Acknowledgements.
Thanks to our testers and those who contributed patches!
Thanks to Branden Robinson for hosting the subversion repository when it temporarily needed a new home.
We acknowledge the contribution of long-term maintainer David Hawkey Jr., who sadly passed away some years ago.
Source Code.
Try out our git repository at sourceforge! To download the source tree:
$ git clone git://git.code.sf.net/p/vtwm/code vtwm
You can also browse around to see the source code tree, revision history and commit logs here.If you have a stack of patches you've been hacking on, we can create a branch for you on sourceforge for you to push your changes to. Contact on the mailing list (see below).
Use the experiences of other users now, who usually have a better
clue than
us about actually using VTWM. Maintain your list subscription
at sourceforge.net.
Archives can be found here.
Vtwm today...
VTWM, one of many TWM descendants, implements a Virtual Desktop (VD), meaning that what is currently on screen is just a portion of a larger workspace. What portion of the virtual desktop that is displayed, and whatever windows might be visible within it, are simple point-and-click operations within a scaled representation of the workspace.
VTWM...
-- is user-configurable: The VD's initial scale, size, and position. The colors of the VD, the real screen, and the windows within. The windows that may or may not be represented within. External image (XPM) files can decorate the VD and the real screen;
-- is not constrained. The VD can be freely moved and resized - it's just another managed window, after all;
-- allows the real screen to be positioned anywhere within the VD, or aligned on an user-defined grid. VTWM can toggle this behavior on-the-fly;
-- has "doors". They move the real screen to preset or set-on-the-fly coordinates in the VD with a single click or keystroke;
-- root window is really the root window - applications that can draw on the root can do so unhindered;
-- supports the moving and resizing of windows on the display from it's representation in the VD;
-- doesn't support moving a window on the display into the VD, or visa-versa. Not yet;
-- does generate more X protocol traffic than some other implementations, which may be a concern if a remote server is used.
VTWM suports a fully configurable 3D interface.
Check out the "Vtwm and..." page for sample configuration files and
examples of
the interfaces users of Vtwm have made for you. In fact they're using
it mostly
on a daily base.
Variables and Bindings: Make VTWM work with you.
VTWM parses one of a variety of
resource
files. They are simple, plain-text
documents. Within a resource file, you may specify variables that set up overall traits like
GUI
features, auto-raising windows, screen panning, and the like. You may
also bind
nearly any combination of pointer buttons or keys to any number of functions and contexts.
There is no configuration tool. Nobody's written one, and they
usually end
up crippling the potential, anyway.
VTWM maintains backward compatability with TWM, adds a slew of it's own
variables and functions, and can throw in m4
pre-processing, to boot!
Icon Managers: The badly-named feature.
Long before Microsoft presented the taskbar, TWM had the icon manager;
a little
window filled with buttons, each indicating the state of a managed
window. By
default, icon managers forward events to the indicated application
window.
Within this context, however, keys could be bound to navigation
functions, for
fast access to managed windows. Pointer buttons can be bound to nearly
any
function you'd bind directly to an application window. You can have
multiple
icon managers, too, for visually segregated applications.
VTWM's footprint.
The virtual desktop and other features of version 5.4 haven't made it
another
bloated X client. It requires only Xlib, Xext, and Xmu, but depending
on build
configuration, also the Xpm, regex, and/or rplay libraries. It can
(alledgedly) still build
and run under X11R4, and lose no self-supported functionality.
