tesla wm

tesla wm is a small and fast tiling window manager. It is a fork of dwm (thanks Anselm!).

Download the tarball teslawm-2009-02-28.tar.gz or fetch development versions via mercurial:

$ hg clone http://spuerwerk.dyndns.org/~rfigura/teslawm/cgi-bin/hgweb.cgi

You can also browse the repository online

Status

Sadly, the code is more hackish than clean but i still think that many things are easier to accomplish with teslawm than with the original source. I just wished i had more time to work on this...

Be that as it may: I'm currently using it so it shouldn't have any nasty bugs and you are invited to test it.

differences to dwm

multihead code supports tiling layouts for every head
more layouts, especially note the rotateable tiling layout
yes, we still have the nmaster functionality integrated
more colors, frameless lens mode
more event handler functions (e.g. bury)
FLAG_NOFOCUS for virtual keyboard support
basic mouse-only support and an example config for media stations
aclock.c for fast status text generation, vmenu (former 9menu) integration
mouse grip support, exended event handling code
different installer and launch concept (every user hacks the source)
use stdin instead of xprop for status text and command input
ability to execute commands triggered by status input
extended bar rendering code

Many small changes and side effects improve the workflow like in this example: The new event code allows to precisely specify wether to switch focus on mouse movements. The current default behavior is not to change focus on mouseover when a modifier or a button is pressed. This helps to get the pointer from a focused window to the bar to do something with it - without using a keyboard or a mouse wheel.

So there are a lot of undocumented features for you to find out :-P

known bugs

fixed window mode is currently broken
mod-y: swapping seltags reacts strange when combined with layout changes
title button events don't work when there is no title
if a head gets attached all floats get mapped there - if it gets detached the reverse occurs
attaching a big display after startup may render the bar too small
there could be even less flicker and even faster operation
de-urgenting a window doesn't work when focus is implied by switching tags

news

2009-02-28 bugfix release:

added config.media.h for media stations
added better config for mouse only navigation
added kde desktp file
added FLAG_NOFOCUS for virtual keyboards
fixed xrandr
fixed installer
fixed font code

2009-01-02 experimental release:

added urgency handling
added more color types
added flexibility to the bar code
improved menu actor examples
improved startup script
sanitized color handling
sanitized setup and cleanup functions
sanitized and extracted font code
restored grip support
extended and fixed aclock
using bitfields for tags now
stole spawn() code from current dwm (thanks Neale Pickett)
mod-y sometimes also swaps layout (incomplete)

2008-07-28 hg tip:

fixed bar width in multihead setups with varying widths
improved flickering (hopefully for the future, too)
better positioning for floating
added extra/ directory for plugins
sanitized setflags, small config file change
fixed head ordering (now sort by x, y)
added sysfs battery display to aclock

2008-05-27 hg tip:

new install scheme, added some menu actors to distribution
new mappings for mid and MOD-any mousebuttons on tags
moved enternotify's focus() call to window enter handler
moved transient and fullscreen window handling to rules
added drawborder() function
added tagshow(): makes tags visible when new windows are sent to them
added softzoom() to keep invisible clients in order
added randr multihead support
added xft support
bug: menu programs lack xft support
bug: raise on focus should not be mandatory
bug: grow on focus should not be mandatory
bug: more flickers

2008-04-26 release:

improved mouse based control
added (un)shy() functions to be used on zoom()/bury()
added selwin() function for selecting windows by click
added trivial remote control feature
added handlers to be called for matching rules
sanitized restack(), thanks yiyus!
sanitized status text newline handling
fixed bury() focusing wrong
fixed view(NULL) crashing again...

2008-03-06 experimental update:

renamed dwm-rfigura to tesla wm
bug: config emits lots of warnings
broke hiding of bottom position on touching bottom grip
config.h format extended. please update your config.h
some keymappings were sanitized
published mercurial repository, updated website
added configurable buttonpress handlers on client windows
added basic grouping function: zoomtagged()
added two informational tiling modes showing a column per tag
added focusdown() to focus previously focused window
fixed focus issue: shy fullscreen window now gain focus
architecture: layout takes XRectangle wa argument
architecture: firstclient() and nextclient() iteration functions
architecture: basic multiple grip window support
misc cleanup

2007-12-18 experimental update:

implemented separation of positions for focusnext() / focusprev()
implemented client / rule flags: SHY INITSHY INITSMALL
improved fixed position code, made floating a position type
improved configurability, macros for default POS, FLAGS, MIN/MAXMWFACT, -PWFACT and MINHEIGHT/WIDTH
fixed gapless snapping: no jumping on offscreen initial position
fixed restack issue: floating windows shouldn't get behind non-floating windows
fixed grip placement: reacts on xrandr changes now
fixed flicker on invisible window creation
aclock: implemented acpi battery status (beta)
some code cleanup and simplifications, removed warnings
imported dwm-4.7 updates: d6d3085307d8, ddbb687cc566, 7bf680bc1473, LENGTH() macro

2007-11-15 experimental release:

new tile mode: treetile. this one works well with lots of windows
implemented gapless snapping for interactive positioning
don't overwrite prevtags if seltags is the same
fixed lens misbehaviour in combination with float geometry
fixed restart flicker, improved restart performance
fixed mplayer fullscreen
aclock: added cute apm battery display
vmenu: added a slightly modified wmii9menu and the menu.sh script
rewritten fibtile
removed barpos
removed libm.so usage
prototype for fixed window positioning feature
prototype for grip display and event handling

2007-11-03 update:

removed some dead code, cleaned up config.*.h and dwm.sh
fixes: nmaster display bug, grid- and fibtile, focusing inconsistencies, ...
a separate geometry for floating windows is stored and is not lost by temporary tiling
better unzoom makes automagic focusing of unzoomed windows less likely

2007-10-25 release:

fullscreen "lens" layout allows switching windows using focus keys
configurable mouse button bindings for tag-, layout-, title- and statusbar
the mouse button binding supports modifiers (currently only MODKEY)
an extended tile layout which supports nmaster and rotating the directions of the stacks
a configurable number of sticky tags are protected from changing view
a roll() function which does something like the opposite of zoom()
resize hinting can be configured in rules[] and reacts on client notification messages (beta)
additional example layouts fibtile and gridtile
a simple ascii clock program to be used for status display

objective

Good things shall always be sustained: Keep it simple. Minimize required interaction.

todo

remove all bugs (or at least remove all known bugs)
incorporate dmenu, update menu programs for xft font rendering
improve configuration scheme
More flexibility, better plugin support
further improve performance and avoid flickering where possible
simplify the source
Some features should be removed
experiment: complement remote control with change reporting

screenshots

extended tile mode

other layout features

even more tiling layouts

cheat sheet

keyboard shortcuts
==================

mod-p			start program via dmenu
mod-RETURN		start xterm
mod-DOWN		focus down
mod-UP			focus up
mod-x			focus previously focused window
mod-ESCAPE		close focused
mod-SPACE	       	softzoom focused to master area

shift-mod-SPACE	        unzoom focused
mod-f			cycle positioning type
mod-TAB			cycle layout
mod-y			view previous tagset
mod-b			toggle bar display

mod-+			in []E mode: add a master window
mod--			in []E mode: remove a master window
mod-LEFT		in []E mode: make master area smaller
mod-RIGHT		in []E mode: make master area larger
mod-c			in []E mode: rotate layout

mod-1 ... 9		view tag 1 ... 9
strg-mod-1 ... 9	toggle view tag 1...9
shift-mod-1 ... 9	set tag to 1 ... 9
strg-shift-Mod-1 ... 9  toggle tag 1...9

* q,w,e,r have the same meaning as 5,6,7,8.
* j,k have the same meaning as UP, DOWN
* h,l have the same meaning as LEFT, RIGHT

mouse shortcuts
===============

* anywhere on the bar:
wheel-up	        focus up
wheel-down		focus down

* on a tag:
button-left		view tag
button-right		toggle tag visibility
button-middle		tag client
mod-button-left		tag client
mod-button-right	toggle tag on client

* on the layout button:
button-left		cycle layout
button-right		zoom focused to master area
button-middle		toggle floating mode of focused

* on a window:
mod-button-left		move window
mod-button-right	resize window

other notes
===========

* clicking mouse buttons on the title and status bars should open a
  dropdown menu.

* tags 9 ("+") and 10 ("-") are sticky which means that they can only
  be toggled and are not being turned off when any other tag is
  left-clicked.