wmi

git clone git://oldgit.suckless.org/wmi/
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FAQ (3967B)


      1 General
      2 -------
      3 
      4 Q: How do I split frames?
      5 A: First make sure, that your clients are maximized (through click on
      6 maximize button or invoking toggle-client-mode action).
      7 Second make sure, that at least two clients are running within the
      8 focussed frame. If so, just use one of the split-frame-* actions.
      9 Btw. the opposite of split-frame-* is join-frame-*.
     10 
     11 Q: It seems that the actions don't work? Nothing happens if I try to use
     12 exec action?
     13 A: Simply answer: you've to press RETURN after each action in input
     14 mode.
     15 
     16 Q: How can I directly select workspaces?
     17 A: You can use select-workspace action, but you can also define some
     18 shortcuts to select a specific workspace fast through chains. Just
     19 define following lines in your $HOME/.wmi/actions.conf file:
     20 chain.selws1.seq="select-workspace+workspace 1"
     21 chain.selws1.keys=alt+1
     22 chain.selws2.seq="select-workspace+workspace 2"
     23 chain.selws2.keys=alt+1
     24 This enables alt+1 and alt+2 for direct workspace selection.
     25 
     26 Q: How could I determine all installed Xft fonts?
     27 A: Use 'fc-list ""' command.
     28 
     29 Q: How could WMI be minimalist if it has hundreds of actions and
     30 is highly customizable?
     31 A: Compared to other window managers WMI is minimalist because it
     32 concentrates on basic internal actions which can be extended through
     33 chains or wmiremote scripts, but wether supports menus and icons  nor
     34 built-in dialogs for various things which may be found in conventional
     35 window managers.
     36 But WMI is not as minimalist as evilwm, larswm or failsafewm.
     37 
     38 Q: Why is WMI compared with vim?
     39 A: When WMI was specified, the author was much oriented on the vi-like
     40 approach of usage. First, it is designated to make it possible to control
     41 everything from input mode, similiar to vim. But you can control
     42 everything also via shortcuts, if you've configured any, also similiar
     43 to vim mappings. Second, you've only one input mode where the statusbar
     44 is located, this is similiar to vim. In opposite the emacs approach
     45 is to provide input bars under each buffer. And third, the splitting
     46 concept of WMI is pretty much oriented on the buffer splitting concept 
     47 of vim.
     48 To sum up: The WMI input mode is for window manipulation, the vim
     49 command mode is for file manipulation.
     50 
     51 
     52 Configuration
     53 -------------
     54 
     55 Q: The Xft fonts appear large, what can I do?
     56 A: Have a look at 
     57 http://pdx.freedesktop.org/~fontconfig/fontconfig-user.html, this should
     58 help you configure the fonts to a size and style you'd prefer.
     59 
     60 Q: Ion is more powerful than WMI, because WMI lacks of Lua support.
     61 A: Really? Who bars you from using Lua in conjunction with wmiremote?
     62 
     63 Q: Why is Lua not used as Ion does?
     64 A: I'm not against Lua in general, it's a simple Turing-complete
     65 procedural language as many others. You may like it or not.
     66 I think that the Lua integration in WMI would be adverse.
     67 First, it's double-complexity, because the time you invest in learning
     68 Lua could be invested to enhance your knowledge of C++ to implement
     69 native window manager improvements. Second, it's a bottleneck, because
     70 you're going to control fast native C++ code with interpreted Lua logic.
     71 Third, Lua would be an additional build- and runtime dependency, but WMI
     72 is designed to be a minimalist window manager.
     73 If you really need Lua 'integration' anyway, just use it in
     74 conjunction with wmiremote.
     75 
     76 Q: How do I undefine the default key bindings?
     77 A: Insert some dummy action to your actions.conf and bind the keys you
     78 want to make avaliable for applications to it (eg. alt+q since some
     79 browsers use that one to quit):
     80 extern.dummy.cmd=""
     81 extern.dummy.cmd=alt+q
     82 in wmi-9 there will also be an action "toggle-all-keys" to undefine
     83 all keys (useful for nested remote WMI sessions)
     84 
     85 
     86 Development
     87 -----------
     88 
     89 Q: Why X resource management isn't used for configuration files?
     90 A: Several reasons:
     91    - the self-made settings behavior is more simple
     92    - iteration over user defined keys is no problem/very simple
     93    - configuration is homogetic
     94    - the self-made settings behavior performs better