Metacity

Metacity

Metacity running on GNOME
Developer(s)	GNOME Team
Initial release	2.4.2 4 October 2002
Stable release	2.34.0  (April 5, 2011; 7 months ago (2011-04-05)) [+/−]
Preview release	2.27.1  (8 September 2009) [+/−]
Written in	C
Operating system	Linux, Solaris, BSD, other Unix-like
Platform	GNOME
Type	X window manager
License	GNU General Public License
Website	http://blogs.gnome.org/metacity/

Metacity ( /məˈtæsɨti/)^[1] was the window manager used by default in the GNOME desktop environment^[2] until GNOME 3, where it was replaced by Mutter.^[3] The development of Metacity was started by Havoc Pennington and it is released under the GNU General Public License.

Before the introduction of Metacity in GNOME 2.2, GNOME used Enlightenment and then Sawfish as its window manager. Although Metacity is part of the GNOME project and designed to integrate into the GNOME desktop, it does not require GNOME to run, and GNOME can be used with different window managers provided that they support the part of the ICCCM specification that GNOME requires.

Metacity uses the GTK+ graphical widget toolkit to create its user interface components, which makes it themeable and makes it blend in with other GTK+ applications.

Aim

Metacity's focus is on simplicity and usability rather than novelties. Its author has characterized it as a "Boring window manager for the adult in you. Many window managers are like Marshmallow Froot Loops; Metacity is like Cheerios."^[4] People in favour of Metacity say that it is aimed at new computer users who do not need the abundant options and functionality of Sawfish or Enlightenment.^[5] Havoc Pennington wrote an essay explaining why he wrote Metacity and simplified the GNOME desktop.^[6] Devil's Pie and Brightside are among the packages that enable increased control over windows, however these applications cannot override Metacity's key bindings.

Themes

Despite the incomplete state of Metacity theme development documentation, many themes have been written for Metacity. A huge number of such themes can be downloaded from GNOME's art site, art.gnome.org. A popular theme engine is Clearlooks, which has been GNOME's default since version 2.12.^[7]

See also

Free software portal

• Comparison of X window managers

References

1. ^ "Description of the RPM package". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. http://web.archive.org/web/20070927225611/http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/ximian/gnome-2-snapshot/redhat-72-i386/metacity-2.4.3.0.200210290744-0.snap.ximian.1.i386.html. Retrieved 2006-10-17. 
2. ^ "GNOME 2.2 Gains Muscle and Polish". http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1157715,00.asp. Retrieved 2007-03-26. 
3. ^ Koen Vervloesem (2009-08-04). "Mutter: a window manager for GNOME 3". http://lwn.net/Articles/344734/. 
4. ^ "README of Metacity". http://git.gnome.org/cgit/metacity/tree/README. Retrieved 2009-05-09. 
5. ^ "Innovations in window management". http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/01/19/166244&tid=130&tid=132. Retrieved 2007-03-26. 
6. ^ "Free software and good user interfaces". http://ometer.com/free-software-ui.html. Retrieved 2006-10-17. 
7. ^ "GNOME Art – window borders". http://art.gnome.org/themes/metacity/?sort_by=rating&thumbnails_per_page=12&view=list&order=DESC. Retrieved 2006-10-17. 

External links

• Metacity blog
• Metacity Download Site
• Metacity Themes
• Understanding Metacity Themes, Thomas Thurman