Overview of the Window Manager

Documentation / Contents - Window Manager

• Overview of the Window Manager
• Desks: Your Virtual Desktops
  • Switching Desks
  • Moving a Window to Another Desk
• How Windows Get the Keyboard: Focus
  • The Three Focus Policies
• Moving, Resizing, and Minimizing Windows
  • Moving a Window
  • Resizing a Window
  • Minimizing a Window
  • Maximizing a Window
• The Window Menu
  • The Commands
  • Close Versus Exit
• Tiling Windows Into a Mosaic
  • Turning Tiling On

Other cards

• Copyright Information

The Window Manager: An Overview

cywm is Blueprint's window manager. It draws the frame around every application window, which is the title bar across the top, the border around the edges, and the two buttons at the top corner. It also decides where new windows go and gives you the keys and menus for moving, resizing, and switching between them.

This book covers the parts of cywm you use every day.

In This Book

• Desks: Your Virtual Desktops
• How Windows Get the Keyboard: Focus
• Moving, Resizing, and Minimizing Windows
• The Window Menu
• Tiling Windows Into a Mosaic

Where the Settings Live

Every choice described in this book has a matching control in Blueprint Preferences for the window manager, which is the cywm-prefs program. Each one also has a plain-text line in the cywm.conf file, so you can set it by hand if you prefer. The defaults match the classic SGI (Silicon Graphics) Indigo Magic Desktop, so if you never open the settings, cywm behaves the traditional way.