dwm

This article is about the X11 window manager. For other uses, see DWM (disambiguation).

dwm

dwm-5.7.2 showing urxvt, GIMP, Google Chrome and some open terminals
Developer(s)	Anselm R. Garbe[1]
Stable release	5.9 / July 10, 2011; 3 months ago (2011-07-10)
Written in	C
Operating system	Unix-like
Type	Window manager
License	MIT License
Website	dwm.suckless.org

dwm is a dynamic tiling window manager for X11 exhibiting the principles of minimalism which is known for having influenced the development of other window managers, including xmonad^[2] and awesome.^[3][4] It is externally similar to wmii, but internally much simpler. dwm is written purely in C and, for simplicity, lacks any configuration interface besides editing the source code.^[5] One of the project's guidelines is that the source code will never exceed 2000 lines, and options meant to be user-configurable are all contained in a single header file.^[4]

dwm supports multiple workspaces and unlike ratpoison allows moving and resizing windows with the mouse.^[6] Older versions of dwm optionally displayed their stdin in a status bar at the top of the screen. Recent versions use the root window name, which can be changed by an independent process. This is often used to show information that would appear in the notification area of other desktop environments—a clock, system load info, laptop battery and network status, music player information and the like. This status line is often complemented with dmenu, a textual application launcher from the same developer as dwm. dwm uses a focus-follows-mouse model and lacks any window decoration other than a border to show focus.

dmenu

See also: Comparison of application launchers

dmenu is a keyboard-driven menu utility developed as part of the dwm project. When invoked, usually by a user-configurable key combination, dmenu displays a horizontal menu of its stdin stream at the top edge of the screen. This is usually used to pipe in a list of executable names from the user's $PATH, but dmenu can be used for any purpose where a menu is required. The user can start typing a program name, and dmenu will narrow the list to show only substring matches for what the user typed. The user can also use the arrow keys to navigate the menu. When a choice is made, dmenu sends the selected text to stdout, which is usually piped into a shell to launch the program.

dmenu is similar in function to utilities such as Katapult or GNOME Do for linux or LaunchBar or Quicksilver for Mac OS X in that it allows quick launching of programs from a graphical environment using the keyboard.

In addition to dwm,^[7] dmenu is often used with other tiling window managers like xmonad,^[8] as well as floating window managers like Openbox,^[7] and other software like the uzbl web browser.^[9]

Forks and patches

dwm has been an influential project, many other window managers are based on dwm's source code or inspired by it. An extensive list of forks and patches can be found at the official site, a few notable examples:

• xmonad is a dwm rewrite in Haskell with additional features.
• awesome extends dwm with FreeType support, reconfigurability, Lua scripting support, theming, and more layout types.
• echinus extends dwm with FreeType support, EWMH, click-to-focus, reconfigurability, and more layout types.
• scrotwm borrows some code from dwm, adds reconfigurability and is restartable without losing state.

See also

Free software portal

• Comparison of X window managers

References

1. ^ Garbe, Anselm R. "Anselm R Garbe". garbe.us. http://garbe.us. Retrieved 2011-05-15. 
2. ^ Kolmodin, Lennart (April 2, 2007). "xmonad". Bits and Bytes. http://lennartkolmodin.blogspot.com/2007/04/xmonad.html. Retrieved 2011-05-15. 
3. ^ Danjou, Julien (20 Sept 2007). "Announcing "awesome"". dwm mailing list. http://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg02474.html. Retrieved 2011-05-15. 
4. ^ ^{a b} Auza, Jun (August 2, 2008). "20 Most Nimble and Simple X Window Managers for Linux". TechSource. http://www.junauza.com/2008/08/20-most-nimble-and-simple-x-window.html. 
5. ^ Byfield, Bruce (2007-05-31). "Keyboard-driven environments open a new window on the desktop". Linux.com. SourceForge, Inc.. http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/62218. Retrieved 2010-03-01. 
6. ^ http://www.linuxgoodies.com/review_dwm.html
7. ^ ^{a b} "Software Review: 2009 LnF Awards". Arch Linux Magazine. January 2010. http://www.archlinux.org/static/magazine/2010/ALM-2010-Jan.html#review. Retrieved 4 March 2010. 
8. ^ "100 open source gems - part 2". TuxRadar. Future Publishing. 21 May 2009. http://www.tuxradar.com/content/100-open-source-gems-part-2. Retrieved 3 March 2010. 
9. ^ Vervloesem, Koen (15 July 2009). "Uzbl: a browser following the UNIX philosophy". LWN.net. Eklektix, Inc.. http://lwn.net/Articles/341245/. Retrieved 3 March 2010. 

Further reading

• (German) Tobias Walkowiak, Dynamische Fenster mit DWM. Ressourcen sparen mit dem etwas anderen Window Manager, freeX, issue 6/07, (Oct/Nov 2007) pp. 44–47

External links

• Official website
• Going fast with DWM review in Linux Journal
• dwm review (Russian)
• Configuring dwm (German)
• Tiling WM review with several pages about twm (Russian)
• dwm for Windows (3rd party port)
• dwm page in Free Software Directory
• stali talk at CLT 2010 referenced dwm