This documentation may be incomplete. For further questions how to customize kwm at a low level (only interesting for the kwinconfig developers....) please have a look at the generated kwmrc and the source code.
For all programmers: check out kwm.h
in
libkdecore for lots of
informations about how to use kwm for your purposes. For modules
the class KWMModuleApplication
(maybe some day in
libkdecore, at
present used and defined by krootwm) is also a good example on how
to write modules.
Why should I use kwm? I spent several days in learning how to configure 10 different windowmangers. And now that I have a 678 lines resource file doing exactly what I want, you are coming along and want to take my windowmanager away!
Answer: You should not, it is only a free offer. But IMHO your are making a mistake if not ;-)
Some arguments:
kwm.h
: Now
applications can
even maximize themselves (or sticky, or decorate/undecorate or
whatever) and define mini icons. This works also for mapped
(visible) windows!Why can't I define new shortcuts for launching applications or do whatever? This is very important for me!
Answer: Because this is not the task of the
windowmanger. Use KGlobalShortcut
for this
purpose.
Why does kwm look so much like Windows 95?
Answer: Ooops, does it? Let me see.... (Matthias trying to find somebody who has Windows 95 because he does not have any windows on all his computers... Damn... nobody has windows here. Well let's grab an old Linux distribution and install fvwm95-2.....) No, I cannot verify that at all. kwm looks much prettier and offers more core window management functionality :-)
Is it possible to add the KDE extensions to other windowmanagers?
Answer: Yes it is. You simple have to go through
kwm.h
/kwm.C
from libkdecore and
extend your favorite
windowmanager to respond correctly to these requests. BTW it
is also possible to implement an object request broker in
x86 assembler. It's just a question of the investment/result
ratio.
Please note that users need not change these
options in the kwmrc
file; they can use the Control
Center instead
which provides access to all these configuration options via a
nice GUI. See the Quickstart Guide for
information about how to use the Control Center.
[Buttons] Button[A-F]=Menu, Sticky, Iconify, Maximize, Close, Off [General] WindowMoveType=Opaque, Transparent FocusPolicy=ClickToFocus, FocusFollowMouse AutoRaise=0 (milliseconds) MaximizeOnlyVertically=off, on TitlebarLook=shaded, plain TitleAnimation=50 (milliseconds) ResizeAnimation=on, off ControlTab=on, off [session] proxyignore=xemacs,xterm,..., List of WM_COMMANDS that should be ignore for session management. Only for hackers!
Author:
Matthias Ettrich
Copy editor:
Kalle Dalheimer