AFTERSTEP(1.0) AFTERSTEP(1.0)
NAMEafterstep - X11 window manager
SYNOPSISafterstep [-d dpy ] [-debug] [-f config_file ] [-s]
DESCRIPTION
AfterStep is a continuation of the BowMan window manager which was
originally put together by Bo Yang. BowMan was based on the fvwm win‐
dow manager, written by Robert Nation. Fvwm was based on code from
twm. And so on... It is designed to emulate some of the look and feel
of the NEXTSTEP(tm) user interface, while adding useful, requested, and
neat features. The changes which comprise AfterStep's personality were
originally part of BowMan development, but due to a desire to move past
simple emulation and into a niche as its own valuable window manager,
the current designers decided to change the project name and move on.
BowMan development may continue, but we will no longer be a part of it.
Some major changes from fvwm 1.24 include:
1. NEXTSTEP(tm)-alike title bar, title buttons, borders and cor‐
ners.
2. AfterStep's Wharf is a much worked-out version of GoodStuff.
To avoid copyright complications it is not called a "dock."
3. NEXTSTEP(tm) style menus. However the menus are not con‐
trolled by applications, they are more of pop-up service lists
on the root window.
4. NEXTSTEP(tm) style icons. The default icons are consistent
with those in the NEXTSTEP(tm) interface, but they are config‐
urable.
However, the flexibility of fvwm was not traded off. The initiation
file, ~/.steprc , recognizes most of the fvwm 1.24r commands. Virtual
screens and the pager are still intact. Fvwm(1.24) modules should work
just fine. However, compatibility with fvwm-2 is not planned.
SPECIAL NOTE FOR XFREE86 USERS
XFree86 provides a virtual screen whose operation can be confusing
when used in conjunction with this virtual window manager. With
XFree86, windows which appear on the virtual screen actually get
drawn into video memory, so the virtual screen size is limited by
available video memory.
With AfterStep's virtual desktop, windows which do not appear on the
screen do not actually get drawn into video RAM. The size of the
virtual desktop is limited to about 32,000 by 32,000 pixels. It is
probably impractical to use a virtual desktop more than about 5 times
the visible screen in each direction. Note that memory usage with the
virtual desktop is a function of the number of windows which
exist. The size of the desktop makes no difference.
When becoming familiar with AfterStep , it is recommended that you
disable XFree86's virtual screen, by setting the virtual screen size to
the physical screen size. When familiar with AfterStep , you may want
to re-enable XFree86's virtual screen.
COPYRIGHTS
AfterStep is based on BowMan and shares copyrights with it. BowMan is
derived from Fvwm code, which is in turn derived from twm code, thus
AfterStep shares copyrights with Bowman, Fvwm, and twm.
AfterStep is copyright 1996 by Frank Fejes, Alfredo Kojima, and Dan
Weeks. All other modifications are copyright to their respective
authors.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted,
provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and
that both that copyright notice and this permission notice
appear in supporting documentation.
Please see the file CREDITS included with the AfterStep distribution
for the conditions that are incumbent on the users of AfterStep due to
its relations to fvwm and twm.
FRANK FEJES, DAN WEEKS, AND ALL OTHER CONTRIBUTERS DISCLAIM ALL WAR‐
RANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL ANY CONTRIBUTOR BE
LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAM‐
AGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN
AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTUOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT
OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
ANATOMY OF A WINDOW
AfterStep puts a decorative border on the top and bottom of most win‐
dows. This border consists of a bar on the bottom that is divided into
three sections. These sections are referred to as "handles". There is
also a top bar called the title bar which is used to display the name
of the window and two title-bar buttons.
Unless the standard defaults files are modified, pressing mouse button
1 on the titlebar will begin a move operation on the window. Pressing
button 1 on the bottom handle bar will begin a resize operation. Press‐
ing button 2 on either the titlebar or the bottom handle brings up an
extensive list of window operations.
The default configuration has a title-bar button on each side of the
title-bar. The one on the left is used to iconify the window, regard‐
less of which mouse button is used. The one on the right is used to
close the window, regardless of which mouse button is used. See the
section on "Mouse" for more information. Further modifications to
AfterStep's behavior can be made in the ~/.steprc file, using
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/afterstep/system.steprc as a guide.
Shaped windows such as xeyes or oclock get a title bar that floats
above the window and no bottom bar. The background area of shaped win‐
dows is transparent. If you are tight on memory, you can disable the
SHAPE extensions by modifying configure.h and recompiling AfterStep.
This way shaped windows get a solid color background and you save about
60 kbytes of memory when no shaped windows are present.
THE VIRTUAL DESKTOP
AfterStep provides multiple virtual desktops for users who wish to use
them. The screen is a viewport onto a desktop which is larger than (or
the same size as) the screen. Several distinct desktops can be
accessed. Concept: one desktop for each project, or one desktop for
each application, when view applications are distinct. Since each
desktop can be larger than the physical screen, windows which are
larger than the screen, or large groups of related windows, can eas‐
ily be viewed.
The size of the each virtual desktop must be specified at start-up
(default: 2 times the physical size of the screen). All virtual
desktops must be the same size. The total number of distinct desk‐
tops need not be specified, but is limited to approximately 4 billion
total. All windows on the current desktop can be displayed in a Pager,
or miniature view or the current desktop. Windows which are not on
the current desktop can be listed, along with their geometries, in a
window list, accessible as a pop-up menu.
"Sticky" windows are windows which transcend the virtual desktop by
"Sticking to the screen's glass." They always stay put on the
screen. This is convenient for things like clocks and xbiff's, so you
only need to run one such gadget, and it always stays with you.
Window geometries are specified relative to the current viewport.
That is, xterm -geometry +0+0, will always show up in the upper-left
hand corner of the visible portion of the screen. It is permissible to
specify geometries which place windows on the virtual desktop, but
off the screen. For example, if the visible screen is 1000 by 1000
pixels, and the desktop size is 3x3, and the current viewport is at
the upper left hand corner of the desktop, then invoking xterm -geome‐
try +1000+1000 will place the window just off of the lower right hand
corner of the screen. It can be found by moving the mouse to the
lower right hand corner of the screen, and waiting for it to scroll
into view. There is currently no way to cause a window to map onto a
desktop other than the currently active desk. A geometry specified as
something like xterm -geometry -5-5 will generally place the win‐
dows lower right hand corner 5 pixels from the lower right hand corner
of the visible portion of the screen. Not all applications support
window geometries with negative offsets.
Some applications, like xterm and xfontsel, allow the user to specify
the start-up desk on the command line. xterm -xrm "*Desk:1" will start
an xterm on desk number 1. Other applications do not understand this
option.
INITIALIZATION
During initialization, AfterStep will search for a configuration file
which describes key and button bindings, and a few other things. The
format of these files will be described later. First, AfterStep will
search for a file named .steprc in the user's home directory. Failing
that, it will look for /usr/lib/X11/afterstep/system.steprc for system-
wide defaults. If that file is not found, AfterStep will exit.
AfterStep will set two environment variables which will be inher‐
ited by its children. These are $DISPLAY which describes the
display on which AfterStep is running. $DISPLAY may be unix:0.0 or
:0.0, which doesn't work too well when passed through rsh to
another machine, so $HOSTDISPLAY will also be set, and will use a net‐
work-ready description of the display. Unfortunately, $HOSTDISPLAY
will use the tcp/ip transport protocol, even for a local connection,
so $DISPLAY should be used for local connections, as it may use
unix-domain sockets, which are faster.
ICONS
By default, AfterStep is compiled with XPM extensions which allow one
to use color icons similar to those in NEXTSTEP(tm), ctwm, Microsoft
Windows, or the Macintosh. In order to use these options, you will
need the XPM package, which should be available at:
ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/libraries. XPM extensions can be removed from
AfterStep if one wants to have monochrome icons and doesn't want pixmap
tiled titlebars, etc.
MODULES
A module is a separate program, which runs as a separate unix
process, but transmits commands to AfterStep to execute. These modules
get many kinds of window information from AfterStep. Users can write
their own modules to do any weird or bizarre manipulations, without
affecting the integrity of AfterStep itself.
Modules MUST be spawned by AfterStep, (i.e. not executed from the com‐
mand line) so that AfterStep can set up two pipes used for communica‐
tion between the module and AfterStep. Modules can be spawned during
AfterStep initialization via the Module option, or at any time during
the X session by use of the Module built-in function. Modules can exist
for the duration of the X session, or can perform a single task and
exit.
If a module is still active when AfterStep is told to quit, AfterStep
will close down the communication pipes, and wait to receive a SIGCHLD
from the module, indicating that it has detected the pipe closure, and
has exited. If modules fail to detect the pipe closure, AfterStep will
exit after approximately 30 seconds anyway. The number of simultane‐
ously executing modules is limited by the operating system's maximum
number of simultaneously open files, usually between 60 and 256.
Modules are documented in their own manual pages.
ICCCM COMPLIANCE
AfterStep attempts to be ICCCM 2.0 compliant. As of this (1.0)
release, colormap handling is not completely ICCCM compliant. In addi‐
tion, ICCCM states that it should be possible for applications to
receive ANY keystroke, which is not consistent with the keyboard
shortcut approach used in AfterStep and most other window managers.
The user can disable any AfterStep keystroke that should be passed to
the application and not intercepted by the window manager.
M4 PREPROCESSING
If AfterStep is compiled with the M4 option, AfterStep uses m4(1) to
preprocess its setup files before parsing. This way you can use m4
macros to perform operations at runtime. This makes it very easy to
work with different displays with different characteristics.
For example, depending on your mood, you might want different color
schemes. One way of doing this is by using the -m4opt to specify your
mood. For a sunny mood use -m4opt -DSunny; for a dark mood use -m4opt
-DDark. Your .steprc file might then contain:
ifdef(`Sunny',`
StdForeColor Black
StdBackColor LightSkyBlue
HiForeColor yellow
HiBackColor PeachPuff1
PagerBackColor BlanchedAlmond ')
ifdef(`Dark',`
StdForeColor Black
StdBackColor #60a0c0
HiForeColor black
HiBackColor #c06077
PagerBackColor #5c54c0
PagerForeColor orchid
StickyForeColor Black
StickyBackColor #60c0a0 ')
The following m4 symbols are predefined by AfterStep:
BITS_PER_RGB The number of significant bits in an RGB color.
(log base 2 of the number of distinct colors
that can be created. This is often different
from the number of colors that can be displayed
at once.)
CLASS Your visual class. Will return one of Stat‐
icGray, GrayScale, StaticColor, PseudoColor,
TrueColor, DirectColor, or, if it cannot deter‐
mine what you have, NonStandard.
CLIENTHOST The machine that is running the clients.
COLOR This will be either 'Yes' or 'No'. This is
just a wrapper around the CLASS definition.
Returns 'Yes' on *Color and 'No' on StaticGray
and GrayScale.
AFTERDIR This is set to the path where the modules were
configured to be installed.
AFTER_VERSION This is a string containing the version of
AfterStep.
HEIGHT The height of your display in pixels.
HOME The user's home directory. Obtained from the
environment.
HOSTNAME The canonical hostname running the clients (ie.
a fully-qualified version of CLIENTHOST).
OPTIONS This is a string of compile time options used.
Each option is separated from the other by a
space.
PLANES The number of bit planes your display supports
in the default root window.
RELEASE The release number of your X server. For MIT
X11R5 this is 5.
REVISION The X minor protocol revision. As seen by Pro‐
tocolRevision(3).
SERVERHOST This variable is set to the name of the machine
that is running the X server.
TWM_TYPE Tells which twm offshoot is running. It will
always be set to the string "afterstep" in this
program. This is useful for protecting parts
of your .twmrc file that AfterStep proper won't
understand (like WorkSpaces) so that it is
still usable with other twm programs.
USER The name of the user running the program.
Obtained from the environment.
VENDOR The vendor of your X server. For example: MIT
X Consortium.
VERSION The X major protocol version. As seen by Pro‐
tocolVersion(3).
WIDTH The width of your display in pixels.
X_RESOLUTION The X resolution of your display in pixels per
meter.
Y_RESOLUTION The Y resolution of your display in pixels per
meter.
You may well find that if you research the m4(1) manual well and under‐
stand the power of m4, this will be a very useful and powerful tool.
But if you use any of the symbols which are predefined by m4, you are
in severe danger! For example, Sun's m4 predefines include, so if you
use that name in your .steprc, you are out of luck. The correct solu‐
tion to this problem is to put a set of quotes around the troublesome
word: `include'.
To help alleviate this problem, the following options may be useful.
To change the quoting characters used by m4, use the options -m4-squote
and -m4-equote. Be sure to specify both options otherwise m4 will be
confused. When these are given, a changequote macro is given before
the users steprc file is processed.
NOTE: Some versions of m4 are broken with respect to changing quoting
characters and included files. When the quoting strings are longer
than one character, the macro "include(<<file>>)", where "<<" and ">>"
are the quoting characters, contains extra characters around the con‐
tents of the included file. This will confuse AfterStep. SunOS 4.1.3
is known to have this problem.
If you are using GNU m4 an additional option is available. By specify‐
ing -m4-prefix when starting AfterStep, m4 is instructed to prefix all
builtin macros with m4_. Thus, include becomes m4_include.
The availability of the m4 preprocessing is subject to the compilation
define M4, which is commented out in the configure.h as distributed.
OPTIONS-d displayname
Manage the display called, "displayname", instead of the name
obtained from the environment variable $DISPLAY.
-debug
Puts X transactions in synchronous mode, which dramatically
slows things down, but guarantees that AfterStep's internal
error messages are correct.
-f config_file
Causes AfterStep to use config_file instead of ~/.steprc as the
window manager configuration file.
-s Run AfterStep on only the specified screen of a multi-screen
display. Normally, AfterStep will attempt to start up on all
screens of a multi-screen display. The "specified screen" is
the one provided in the DISPLAY environment variable, or pro‐
vided through the -d option.
CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
The configuration file, usually ~/.steprc , is used to describe mouse
and button bindings, colors, the virtual display size, and related
items. This section describes the configuration options. Lines within
the configuration file beginning with '#' will be ignored by AfterStep.
Lines starting with '*' are expected to contain module configuration
commands.
StdForeColor colorname
Sets the foreground color for menus and non-selected
window titles to colorname. When using a monochrome screen,
this option is ignored, and black is used.
StdBackColor colorname
Sets the background color for menus, and non-selected win‐
dows to colorname. When using a monochrome screen, this
option is ignored, and white is used.
StickyForeColor colorname
Sets the foreground color for non-selected window sticky
(Sticks-to-glass) titles to colorname. When using a monochrome
screen, this option is ignored, and black is used.
StickyBackColor colorname
Sets the background color for non-selected window sticky
(Sticks-to-glass) windows to colorname. When using a monochrome
screen, this option is ignored, and white is used.
HiForeColor colorname
Sets the color for selected window's title to colorname. When
using a monochrome screen, this option is ignored, and black is
used. Note that this currently also controls the menu high‐
lights, popup menu titles and the icon title font. This is a
"feature."
HiBackColor colorname
Sets the background color for the selected window to colorname.
When using a monochrome screen, this option is ignored, and
white is used. Note that this also controls the IconTitle back‐
ground color.
MenuForeColor colorname
Sets the menu foreground color. When using monochrome, this
option is ignored.
MenuBackColor colorname
Sets the menu background color. When using monochrome, this
option is ignored.
MenuStippleColor colorname
Sets the color for shaded out entries in menus (for functions
which are not allowed on the currently selected window).
When using monochrome, this option is ignored, and a stip‐
ple pattern is used.
MenusHigh
Makes the popup menu submenus appear at the top of the parent
menu instead of starting at the point in the parent window where
the submenu item lies.
PagerBackColor colorname
Causes the pager background color to be colorname , instead of
white. On a monochrome screen, this option is ignored. If
the NO_PAGER option is set when building AfterStep , this option
is unavailable.
PagerForeColor colorname
Causes the pager foreground color to be colorname , instead of
black. This is the color used to high- light the current view‐
port in the pager window. On a monochrome screen, this option
is ignored. If the NO_PAGER option is set when building After‐
Step , this option is unavailable.
PagerFont fontname
Makes AfterStep use the font fontname instead of "fixed" for the
pager labels.
TextureTypes focusedtitle unfocusedtitle stickytitle menutitle menuitem
Specifies the type of gradient fill to be used on each of the
above parts of the AfterStep windows. Currently valid values
are:
0 - No texture
1 - Wharf-style gradient
2 - Horizontal one way gradient
3 - Horizontal cylindrical gradient
4 - Vertical one way gradient
5 - Vertical cylindrical gradient
128 - User specified pixmap (See TitlePixmap, etc)
The entry from the included sample.steprc is TextureTypes 1 1 1
1 1. This makes all gradients fill from the upper left to the
lower right with your specified colors.
TextureMaxColors title unfocusedtitle stickytitle menutitle menuitem
The number of colors to use on textures. Default is TextureMax‐
Colors 10 10 10 10 10 on 8 bpp screens and TextureMaxColors 128
128 128 128 128 on 16+ bpp screens. The actual number of allo‐
cated colors may be lower. You must at least specify a value
for title.
TitleTextureColor from to
Colors that the gradient will go from and to when gradients are
drawn in a window titlebar. The default values for from and to
are #101030 and #303080 respectively. Values must be in either
standard X color names or hex notation.
UTitleTextureColor from to
Colors that the gradient will go from and to when gradients are
drawn in a non-focused window titlebar. The default values for
from and to are #86868a and #c0b6c3 respectively. Values must
be in either standard X color names or hex notation.
STitleTextureColor from to
Colors that the gradient will go from and to when gradients are
drawn in a sticky window titlebar. The default values for from
and to are #86868a and #c0b6c3 respectively. Values must be in
either standard X color names or hex notation.
MenuTextureColor from to
Colors that the gradient will go from and to when gradients are
drawn on the menu entries. The default values for from and to
are #101030 and #404090 respectively. Values must be in either
standard X color names or hex notation.
MTitleTextureColor from to
Colors that the gradient will go from and to when gradients are
drawn for menu titles. The default values for from and to are
#101030 and #303080 respectively. Values must be in either
standard X color names or hex notation.
TitlePixmap xpmname
If the TextureType of the focused titlebar is set to 128, this
command causes the xpm defined by xpmname to be tiled in the
titlebar instead of a solid color or a gradient texture. Note
that the titlebar by default can show a pixmap of up to 19 pix‐
els in height, though it may be of any length. One need not
specify the complete path if the xpm is in the directory defined
by PixmapPath.
UTitlePixmap xpmname
If the TextureType of unfocused titlebars is set to 128, this
command causes the xpm defined by xpmname to be tiled in the
titlebar instead of a solid color or a gradient texture. Note
that the titlebar by default can show a pixmap of up to 19 pix‐
els in height, though the xpm graphic may be of any actual
height and length. The full path to the xpm is not required if
it is in the directory defined by PixmapPath.
STitlePixmap xpmname
If the TextureType of sticky titlebars is set to 128, this com‐
mand causes the xpm defined by xpmname to be tiled in the title‐
bar of sticky windows instead of a solid color or a gradient
texture. Note that the titlebar by default can show a pixmap of
up to 19 pixels in height, though the xpm graphic may be of any
actual height and length. The full path to the xpm is not
required if it is in the directory defined by PixmapPath.
TexturedHandle
Turns on textures for all window handles. The handle texture
will be the same as the texture used in the window's titlebar.
GradientText
Causes a gradient to be applied to the titlebar text of the
focused window. The gradient colors are set using TextGradient‐
Color.
TextGradientColor from to
Colors that the gradient will go from and to when gradients are
drawn for the titlebar text. The default values for from and to
are #101030 and #303080 respectively. Values must be in either
standard X color names or hex notation.
TitleTextAlign num
Defines the alignment of the window title in the titlebar. The
allowable values for num are as follows:
1: left aligned
2: right aligned
3: center aligned (default)
TitlebarNoPush
Causes the titlebar not to appear to be "pushed in" when you
click on it with a mouse button. This is useful to reduce video
strain or if you use textured pixmaps that do not look good
"pushed in."
TitleButton num xpmname
Defines the pixmaps to use instead of the default NEXTSTEP(tm)
style titlebar buttons that are the default. Up to 8 buttons
are possible. num specifies the position of the button on the
window and is an integer from 1-8. The positions are indicated
as below:
1 3 5 7 TitleBarText 8 6 4 2
Note that you must bind an action to any new buttons you add
using the Mouse definitions. The pixmap defined by xpmname
should be exactly 10x10 pixels to fit inside the gray button
bevel.
Font fontname
Makes AfterStep use the font fontname instead of "fixed" for
menus, the resize indicators, and icon labels (if IconFont is
not specified).
WindowFont fontname
Makes AfterStep use the font fontname instead of "fixed" for the
window title bar.
NoTitle windowname
Keeps AfterStep from putting a titlebar in the decorations for
windows named windowname. This is handy for clocks and simi‐
lar gadgets that you don't want to take up too much space.
windowname can be a window's name or its class.
Windowname can contain the wildcards "*" and "?" which match
window names in the normal unix filename matching manner: "*"
matches any number of any character and "?" matches one of any
character. Actual "*", "?", and "\" characters in a window name
can be entered by preceding the character with a "\".
Sticky windowname
Sticky windows "stick to the screen's glass." That is, they
don't move the the viewport into the virtual desktop changes.
windowname can be a window's name or its class. See NoTitle for
a discussion of the windowname parameter.
StaysOnTop windowname
These windows always try to stay on top of the other win‐
dows. This might be handy for clocks or mailboxes that you
would always like to be visible. If the window is explicitly
lowered, it will not try to force its way back to the top
until it is explicitly raised. windowname can be a window's
name or its class. See NoTitle for a discussion of the window‐
name parameter.
StartsOnDesk windowname desk-number
This command causes windows whose name or class is windowname
to be initially placed on desktop number desk-number. windowname
should be enclosed in double quotes. If the window requires
interactive placement, an outline will be displayed on the cur‐
rent desk, but the window will appear on the specified desk.
See NoTitle for a discussion of the windowname parameter.
CirculateSkip windowname
Causes windows with the indicated name to be skipped over
when the CirculateUp, CirculateDown or Warp functions are
invoked. windowname can be a window's name or its class. See
NoTitle for a discussion of the windowname parameter.
CirculateSkipIcons
Causes circulate and warp operations to skip over iconified
windows.
WindowListSkip windowname
Causes windows with the indicated name to be left out of the
window list. See NoTitle for a discussion of the windowname
parameter.
NoFocus windowname
Causes windows with the indicated name to not take the focus
when the pointer moves over them in focus-follows-mouse (the
default) mode, or when the window is clicked in ClickToFocus
mode. See NoTitle for a discussion of the windowname parameter.
Style windowname options
This command is intended to replace the commands NoFocus,
NoBorder, NoTitle, StartsOnDesk, Sticky, StaysOnTop, Icon, Win‐
dowListSkip, CirculateSkip, SuppressIcons, BoundaryWidth,
NoBoundaryWidth, StdForeColor, and StdBackColor with a single
flexible and comprehensive command. This command is used to set
attributes of a window to values other than the default, or to
set the window-manager default styles. windowname can be a
window's name, class or resource string. It can contain
the wildcards "*" and/or "?", which are matched in the usual
unix filename manner. options is a comma separated list con‐
taining all or some of the keywords BorderWidth, HandleWidth,
NoFocus, Icon/NoIcon, NoTitle/Title, NoHandles/Handles, Win‐
dowListSkip/WindowListHit, CirculateSkip/CirculateHit, StaysOn‐
Top/StaysPut, Sticky/Slippery, StartIconic/StartNormal, Color,
ForeColor, BackColor, StartsOnDesk/StartsAnyWhere, and IconTi‐
tle/NoIconTitle.
In the above list, some options are listed as style-
option/opposite-style-option. The opposite-style-option for
entries that have them describes the default behavior, and can
be used if you want to change the default behavior.
Icon takes an (optional) unquoted string argument which is the
icon bitmap or pixmap to use. StartsOnDesk takes a numeric
argument which is the desktop number on which the window should
be initially placed. BorderWidth takes a numeric argument which
is the width of the border to place the window if it does not
have resize-handles. HandleWidth takes a numeric argument which
is the height of the bottom bar to place with the window if it
has resize handles.
Color takes two arguments. The first is the window label's text
color, and the second is the window decoration's normal back‐
ground color. The two colors are separated with a slash. If
the use of a slash causes problems, then the separate ForeColor
and BackColor options can be used.
An example:
# Change default AfterStep behavior to no titlebars on windows!
# Also, define a default icon.
Style "*" NoTitle,Icon unknown1.xpm,BorderWidth 4,HandleWidth 5
# now, window specific changes:
Style "Fvwm*" NoHandles,Sticky,WindowListSkip
# the above line is for those that use Fvwm
# modules with AfterStep
Style "Pager" StaysOnTop
Style "*clock" NoHandles,Sticky,StaysOnTop,WindowListSkip
Style "xbiff" Sticky,WindowListSkip
Style "Wharf" NoHandles,Sticky,WindowListSkip
Style "sxpm" NoHandles
# Put title-bars back on xterms only!
Style "xterm" Title, Color black/grey
Style "rxvt" Icon term.xpm
Style "xterm" Icon rterm.xpm
Style "xcalc" Icon xcalc.xpm
Style "xbiff" Icon mail1.xpm
Style "xmh" Icon mail1.xpm, StartsOnDesk 2
Style "xman" Icon xman.xpm
Style "matlab" Icon math4.xpm, StartsOnDesk 3
Style "xmag" Icon magnifying_glass2.xpm
Style "xgraph" Icon graphs.xpm
Style "Maker" StartsOnDesk 1
Style "signal" StartsOnDesk 3
Note that all properties for a window will be read together. In
the above example "Pager" gets the property StaysOnTop via an
exact window name match, but also gets NoHandles,Sticky, and
WindowListSkip by a match to "AfterStep*". It will get NoTi‐
tle by virtue of a match to "*". If conflicting styles are
specified for a window, then the last style specified will be
used.
If the NoIcon attribute is set, then the specified window will
simply disappear when it is iconified. The window can be
recovered through the window list. If Icon is set without an
argument, then the NoIcon attribute is cleared, but no icon is
specified. An example which allows only the Pager module icon
to exist:
Style "*" NoIcon
Style "Pager" Icon
CenterOnCirculate
When circulating, the desktop page containing the window which
the pointer is moving to is automatically selected. If Cen‐
terOnCirculate is selected, then AfterStep will do its best to
center the target window in the desktop viewport, rather
than just lining up to the closest page.
DeskTopSize HorizontalxVertical
Defines the virtual desktop size in units of the physical screen
size.
DeskTopScale Scale
Defines the virtual desktop scale with respect to the screen.
BoundaryWidth Width
Changes the bottom bar (handle) size (in pixels) on windows to
the specified value. The default size is 8.
NoBoundaryWidth Width
Changes the width of the bottom bar (handle) for windows with no
titles and no resize corners. The default is 0. Any positive
or zero value is acceptable. The handles without resize corners
have the same mouse and keyboard bindings as the handles on nor‐
mal windows.
XORvalue number
Changes the value with which bits are XOR'ed when doing rub‐
ber-band window moving or resizing. Setting this value is a
trial-and-error process.
EdgeScroll horizontal vertical
Specifies the percentage of a page to scroll when the cursor
hits the edge of a page. If you don't want any paging or
scrolling when you hit the edge of a page, include EdgeScroll
0 0 in your .steprc file. If you want whole pages, use Edge‐
Scroll 100 100. Both horizontal and vertical should be posi‐
tive numbers.
If the horizontal and vertical percentages are multiplied by
1000, then scrolling will wrap around at the edge of the desk‐
top. If "EdgeScroll 100000 100000" is used, AfterStep will
scroll by whole pages, wrapping around at the edge of the desk‐
top.
PagingDefault pagingdefaultvalue
Tells AfterStep if it should start up with paging enabled
or disabled. "PagingDefault 0" will start AfterStep with paging
disabled, "PagingDefault 1" will start AfterStep with paging
enabled by default.
EdgeResistance scrolling moving
Tells how hard it should be to change the desktop viewport by
moving the mouse over the edge of the screen, and how hard it
should be to move a window over the edge of the screen.
The first parameter tells how milliseconds the pointer
must spend on the screen edge before AfterStep will move the
viewport. This is intended for people who use EdgeScroll 100
100, but find themselves accidentally flipping pages when they
don't want to.
The second parameter tells how many pixels over the edge of the
screen a window's edge must move before it actually moves par‐
tially off the screen.
Note that, with EdgeScroll 0 0, it is still possible to move or
resize windows across the edge of the current screen. By
making the first parameter to EdgeResistance 10000, this type
of motion is impossible. With EdgeResistances less than
10000, but greater than 0, moving over pages becomes difficult
but not impossible.
OpaqueMove percentage
Tells AfterStep the maximum size window with which opaque
window movement should be used. The percentage is percent of
the total screen area. With OpaqueMove 0, all windows will be
moved using the traditional rubber-band outline. With
OpaqueMove 100, all windows will be move as solid windows. The
default is OpaqueMove 5 which allows small windows to be moved
in an opaque manner, but large windows to be moved as rubber-
bands. Using this option with large values can slow down your
video response on slower systems.
ClickToFocus [flag]
Normally keyboard input goes to the window the mouse pointer is
in. If this option is set, the keyboard input (aka focus) stays
with one window until a new window is clicked on.
If the (optional) flag is given a nonzero value, a mouse button
click that changes the keyboard focus is caught and processed
only by AfterStep. If the flag is zero, or is not supplied, a
click that changes the focus is passed through for the applica‐
tion to process.
When the flag is nonzero, it is useful to assign a NoFocus style
to all applications that are entirely mouse-controlled (e.g.
Wharf).
SloppyFocus
This option changes the way focus-follows-mouse (the AfterStep
default) mode behaves when the mouse pointer enters the root
window (that is, the background area). Normally, the keyboard
focus would disappear at this stage, but when SloppyFocus is on,
exiting a window to enter the root window leaves the focus
unchanged. The focus will not be removed from the last (non-
root) window you visited until the mouse pointer enters a new
window.
SloppyFocus has no effect in ClickToFocus mode.
ClickToRaise buttons
In focus-follows-mouse mode, ClickToRaise specifies mouse but‐
tons that raise a partially obscured window to the top. On a
window that is fully visible (except a normal window may still
be below StaysOnTop windows) all the mouse buttons behave nor‐
mally. Please note that in most applications you can use mouse
buttons in combination with the shift key to avoid the Click‐
ToRaise behavior when needed.
In click-to-focus mode, ClickToRaise specifies the mouse buttons
that raise an unfocused window to the top. The rest of the
mouse buttons merely change the focus without raising, although
you can have them do delayed raising with the AutoRaise command
or the Auto module.
In both focusing modes, ClickToRaise is not triggered on window
decorations such as the title bar, but only on the application
area.
The mouse buttons are numbered as in the Button command. You
can specify any or all of your mouse buttons here as a space- or
comma-separated list.
OpaqueResize
Causes resize operations to be done with the window itself,
instead of an outline. Using this option does not always work
well on slower video systems.
DontMoveOff
Prevents windows from being moved off or initially placed off
of the desktop. A few programs will not work correctly if you
use this option. This only keeps windows from being com‐
pletely lost off the edge of the desktop. It insists on keeping
16 pixels on the desktop, but doesn't care a bit about keep‐
ing the whole window on the desk. See EdgeResistance if you
don't like having windows partially off the screen.
AutoRaise delay
This built-in was replaced by the module Auto(1).
Pager X_Location Y_Location
Enables a paging style of moving across the desktop. A Pager
window will appear at ( X_Location, Y_Location ) (not a pop-
up). Miniature versions of all the windows on the virtual
desktop are shown in the pager. The color of the miniature ver‐
sion is the same as the color of the full-size window's bor‐
der.
In the Pager window, pressing mouse button 1 will move the
desktop viewport to the selected page (in click-to-focus mode,
it will also move the keyboard focus to the window whose minia‐
ture you click on). Pressing button 2 on a window in the
pager will begin a window move, using the miniature to quickly
move the window anywhere on the desktop. Pressing button 3 will
move the top-left corner of the viewport to the location of the
button press, even if it does not line up with a page. Drag‐
ging button 3 will cause the selected viewport to scroll as
you move the pointer. The Pager is automatically sticky,
but does not automatically StayOnTop.
Mouse Button Context Modifiers Function
Defines a mouse binding. Button is the mouse button number. If
Button is zero, then any button will perform the specified
function. Context describes in what context the binding
applies. Valid contexts are R for the root window, W for an
application window, T for a window title bar, S for a window
titlebar, or bottom bar, F for a window frame (the handle cor‐
ners), I for an Icon window, or any combination of these let‐
ters. 1 is for the left title-bar button and 2 is for the
title-bar button A is for any context except for title-bar
buttons. For instance, a context of FST will apply when the
mouse is anywhere in a window's border, except the title-bar
buttons.
Modifiers is any combination of N for no modifiers, C for con‐
trol, S for shift, M for Meta, or A for any modifier. For
example, a modifier of CM will apply when both the Meta and
shift keys are down. Function is one of the following: After‐
Step's built in functions, a Pop-up menu, or a user-defined
function.
Key keyname Context Modifiers Function
Binds a keyboard key to a specified AfterStep built in func‐
tion. Definition is the same as for a mouse binding, except
that the mouse button number is replaced with a key name. The
keyname is one of the entries from /usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h,
with the leading XK_ omitted. The Context and Modifiers fields
are defined as in the mouse binding. Function is one of the
following: AfterStep's built in functions, a Pop-up menu, or an
exec call to a program.
Binding a key to a title-bar button will not cause that button
to appear unless a mouse binding also exists.
IconBox left top right bottom
Defines regions of the screen in which to place icons. Up to
four icon boxes can be defined. If an IconBox line is pro‐
vided, the icons will automatically be placed in them, if possi‐
ble. Each time a window is iconified, a new place is found
for it. Icon boxes are searched for space going left to
right, then top to bottom. Icons will not be automatically
placed on top of other icons, but they may be placed
underneath application windows. If left or right is negative,
then AfterStep will add the screen width to it. If top or
bottom is negative, then AfterStep will add the screen height to
it. NOTE: -0 is not parsed as the right or bottom pixel on
the screen. You have to use -1 instead.
If no IconBox line is provided, or all icon boxes are full,
then AfterStep will place icons near the current pointer loca‐
tion.
StubbornIconPlacement
When used with IconBoxes, causes icons to avoid placing
themselves underneath existing windows.
StubbornIcons
Changes de-iconification behavior a bit. Instead of having win‐
dows always de-Iconify themselves on the current page, the
de-iconify into their original position.
SuppressIcons Prevents icon windows from being created or drawn. When
used with the window-list, this provides a sort of icon manager.
StickyIcons
Causes icons to always stick to the screen's glass. That is,
icons always follow you around the desktop. When a window is
de-iconified, it gets unstuck. Some people find this a use‐
ful way of moving windows around.
IconTitle
Makes AfterStep add icon titles to the application's icon. Note
that using icon titles will leave less space for the application
icon itself on the button, since the icontitle covers up part of
the button.
IconFont fontname
Makes AfterStep use the font fontname instead of "fixed" for
the IconTitle fonts.
ButtonNoBorder
Defines that the icon buttons should not have any borders drawn
around them. This is particularly useful to have "flat" icon
buttons, or if one defines a pixmap as the background for the
buttons that already includes a border.
ButtonTextureType num
Defines the gradient type to use on the icon buttons. See the
discussion of TextureTypes for the allowable values for num.
Use 0 for num if you want to set a solid color for the texture
with ButtonBgColor.
ButtonTextureColor from to
Colors that the gradient will go from and to when gradients are
drawn for icon buttons. The default values for from and to are
#101030 and #303080 respectively. Values must be in either
standard X color names or hex notation.
ButtonMaxColors NumColors
The number of colors to use on icon button textures. The
default is 10 on 8-bit video systems and 128 on 16+ bit video
systems.
ButtonBgColor Color
If ButtonTextureType is set to 0, this command forces AfterStep
to use Color for the button background. The default value for
Color is #bdbebd. Values must be in either standard X color
names or hex notation.
ButtonPixmap xpmname
Defines the xpm file to be used as the background for icon but‐
tons. This xpm will be what shows through the transparent pix‐
els in the application's defined xpm icon. Application icons
can be defined using Icon or Style.
IconPath path
Specifies the full path name of a directory where bitmap (mono‐
chrome) icons can be found. The path should start with a
slash. Multiple directories may be specified in a colon sepa‐
rated list, just like the PATH environment variable.
PixmapPath path
Specifies the full path name of a directory where pixmap
(color) icons can be found. The path should start with a
slash. Multiple directories may be specified in a colon sepa‐
rated list, just like the PATH environment variable.
Icon windowname bitmap-file
Specifies the bitmap to be used for a window when it is iconi‐
fied. The windowname can be an applications window name or
class name, and must be enclosed in quotes. The bitmap-file
is either the full path name to a standard X11 bitmap file,
or a file in the IconPath or PixmapPath. The specified bit‐
map/pixmap is used in preference to any icon supplied by the
window itself.
If AfterStep is compiled with XPM support for color icons,
then can be an XPM pixmap file.
windowname should be enclosed in double quotes, but bitmap-file
should not. No environmental variables should be used in the
bitmap-file specification.
If windowname is an empty string, then the specified file is the
default icon, and will be used if no other icon bitmap or
pixmap can be found:
Icon "" my-favorite-icon
DecorateTransients
Causes transient windows, which are normally left undecorated,
to be given the usual AfterStep decorations. Note that some
pop-up windows, such as the xterm menus, are not managed by the
window manager, and still do not receive decorations.
RandomPlacement
Causes windows which would normally require user placement to
be automatically placed in ever-so-slightly random locations.
SmartPlacement
Causes windows which would normally require user placement to
be automatically placed in a smart location - a location in
which they do not overlap any other windows on the screen. If no
such position can be found, user-placement or random placement
will be used as a fall-back method. For the best of all possi‐
ble worlds, use both random placement and SmartPlacement.
StubbornPlacement
When using SmartPlacement, causes new windows to avoid placing
themselves over icons.
NoPPosition
Instructs AfterStep to ignore the PPosition field when adding
new windows. Adherence to the PPosition field is required
for some applications, but if you don't have one of those, its a
real headache.
ClickTime
delay Specifies the maximum delay (in milli-seconds) between
a button press and a button release for the Function builtin to
consider the action a mouse click. The default delay is 150
milli-seconds.
The same delay is used to decide whether a pop-up menu brought
up by pressing a mouse button should stay visible after the
mouse button is released.
ModulePath
Specifies a path for AfterStep to search when looking for a
module to load. The path is a colon separated list, just
like the usual Unix PATH environment variable. Individual direc‐
tories do not need trailing slashes.
Module ModuleName
Specifies a module which should be spawned during initializa‐
tion. The modules in the main distribution are Wharf, Auto,
Pager, and Audio. Fvwm 1.24 modules like FvwmPager, FvwmBanner,
FvwmWinList, FvwmClean, FvwnIdent, FvwmSave, FvwmScroll, and
FvwmDebug can also be used by AfterStep. These modules have
their own man pages. Module can also be used as a builtin.
Modules can be short lived transient programs, or, like Wharf,
can be intended to remain for the duration of the X ses‐
sion. Modules called by Module will be terminated by the win‐
dow-manager prior to restarts and quits, if possible. See the
introductory section on modules.
Cursor cursor_num cursor_type
This provides a very awkward way of changing cursor styles.
Cursor num tells which cursor you are changing, and is a
number between 0 and 12, as follows:
0 POSITION - used when initially placing windows
1 TITLE - used in a window title-bar
2 DEFAULT - used in windows that don't bother to set
their cursor
3 SYS - used in one of the title-bar buttons
4 MOVE - used when moving or resizing windows
5 WAIT - used during an EXEC builtin command
6 MENU - used in menus
7 SELECT - used for various builtin commands such as
iconify
8 DESTROY - used for DESTROY and DELETE built-ins
9 TOP - used in the top side-bar of a window
10 RIGHT - used in the right side-bar (not available)
11 BOTTOM - used in the bottom handle of a window
12 LEFT - used in the left side-bar (not available)
13 TOP_LEFT - used in the top left corner
14 TOP_RIGHT - used in the top right corner
15 BOTTOM_LEFT - used in the bottom left corner
16 BOTTOM_RIGHT - used in the bottom right corner
The cursor_type argument is a number which tells the cursor
shape to use. The available numbers can be found in
/usr/include/X11/cursorfont.h, and are currently even numbers
between 0 and 152. At the current time, the following cursor
types are available.
0 X_cursor 2 arrow
4 based_arrow_down 6 based_arrow_up
8 boat 10 bogosity
12 bottom_left_corner 14 bottom_right_corner
16 bottom_side 18 bottom_tee
20 box_spiral 22 center_ptr
24 circle 26 clock
28 coffee_mug 30 cross
32 cross_reverse 34 crosshair
36 diamond_cross 38 dot
40 dotbox 42 double_arrow
44 draft_large 46 draft_small
48 draped_box 50 exchange
52 fleur 54 gobbler
56 gumby 58 hand1
60 hand2 62 heart
64 icon 66 iron_cross
68 left_ptr 70 left_side
72 left_tee 74 leftbutton
76 ll_angle 78 lr_angle
80 man 82 middlebutton
84 mouse 86 pencil
88 pirate 90 plus
92 question_arrow 94 right_ptr
96 right_side 98 right_tee
100 rightbutton 102 rtl_logo
104 sailboat 106 sb_down_arrow
108 sb_h_double_arrow 110 sb_left_arrow
112 sb_right_arrow 114 sb_up_arrow
116 sb_v_double_arrow 118 shuttle
120 sizing 122 spider
124 spraycan 126 star
128 target 130 tcross
132 top_left_arrow 134 top_left_corner
136 top_right_corner 138 top_side
140 top_tee 142 trek
144 ul_angle 146 umbrella
148 ur_angle 150 watch
152 xterm
AppsBackingStore
Causes application windows to request backing store. Speci‐
fying this option causes the window manager to fail to be
ICCCM compliant. While this option can speed things up in an X-
terminal, where re-draws of windows is expensive, it may not
help much on regular workstations.
SaveUnders
Causes the AfterStep decoration frames to request saveunders.
This will cause AfterStep to save those portions of windows that
are not visible to memory (not video memory). This can signifi‐
cantly improve the performance during opaque moves, but it
causes a significant increase in memory usage. This can also
cause garbled display with some applications.
BackingStore
Causes AfterStep decorations to request backing store. See the
discussion for AppsBackingStore.
Popup PopupName
Starts the definition of a pop-up menu which will later be
bound to a mouse button or key. PopupName must be enclosed in
quotes. Menu entries are included on lines following the
Popup keyword. The menu definition ends with the key word
EndPopup. Menu entries are specified as shown in the following
example. The first word on each line is the built-in func‐
tion which will be performed, followed by the caption (enclosed
in quotes) which will be shown in the menu, followed by any
additional arguments needed by the built-in function. Sub-
menus can be specified by using the Popup built-in, as long
as the sub-menu was defined earlier in the configuration
file.
Popup "Window Ops"
Title "Window Ops"
Move "Move"
Resize "Resize"
Raise "Raise"
Lower "Lower"
Iconify "(De)Iconify"
Nop " "
Destroy "Destroy"
Title "HARDCOPY"
Exec "Hardcopy" exec xdpr &
Exec "Hardcopy RV" exec xdpr -rv &
EndPopup
Note that if a tab character is embedded in the caption of a
menu entry, then the text following the tab will be entered
into a second column in the menu, and the entire menu will be
left-adjusted. This is intended for shortcut labeling. The
tab character must really be a tab. If it is expanded into spa‐
ces it will not work! For example
Popup "Window Ops"
Title "Window Ops Alt-F1"
Is the start of a left adjusted menu. Alt-F1 will be placed
toward the right side of the menu. Shortcut keys may be speci‐
fied in the menu definition by preceding the character with an
ampersand. The ampersand will not be displayed, but the char‐
acter after it will be displayed at the right side of the same
entry, and if the user presses the corresponding key, then
that item will be activated as if the user had clicked on it
with the mouse. Only alphabetic and numeric characters may be
used as shortcut keys. The shift state of the keyboard is
ignored when testing shortcut characters. For example:-
Popup "Window Ops"
Maximize "Ma&ximise" 100 100
EndMenu
When this menu is popped up, the entry will appear as "Maxi‐
mize x", and pressing the x key will cause the current window
to be maximized. Shortcut keys are not operative unless
MENU_HOTKEYS was defined when building AfterStep. If WIN‐
DOWLIST_HOTKETS was also defined, then hot keys are automati‐
cally added to the WindowList when it is displayed.
Function FunctionName
Starts the definition of a complex function, composed of the
AfterStep built-in functions, which will later be bound to a
mouse button or key. FunctionName must be enclosed in quotes.
Function entries are included on lines following the Function
keyword. The definition ends with the key word EndFunction.
Function entries are specified as shown in the following exam‐
ple. The first word on each line is the built-in function
which will be per- formed, followed the type of event which
should trigger the action (enclosed in quotes), followed by
any additional arguments needed by the built-in function. Menus
can be specified by using the Popup built-in, as long as the
menu was defined earlier in the configuration file.
The trigger actions which are recognized are Immediate, Motion,
Click, DoubleClick and TripleClick. Immediate actions are exe‐
cuted as soon as the function is activated, even if a window
has not been selected. If there are actions other than
immediate ones, AfterStep will wait to see if the user is click‐
ing, double-clicking, triple-clicking or dragging the mouse.
After the decision is made AfterStep will execute only the
builtins from the function definition whose trigger action
matches the action performed by the user. If the following
example were bound to button 1 in a window title-bar, then, when
button 1 is pressed, AfterStep would wait 150 msec to see
if the button is released. If the button is not released,
AfterStep will start a move operation. When the move operation
is complete, a raise operation will be performed. If a button
release is detected, then AfterStep will wait another 150
msec for a second click. If only one click is detected, then
the window will be raised. If two clicks are detected, the
window will be alternately raised and lowered. If three
clicks are detected the window will be Shaded or un-Shaded,
depending on the prior state of the window. The 150 msec wait
duration can be altered using the ClickTime option.
Function "Move-or-Raise"
Move "Motion"
Raise "Motion"
Raise "Click"
RaiseLower "DoubleClick"
Shade "TripleClick"
EndFunction
The clicking, double-clicking and triple-clicking concepts do
not carry through to using keyboard shortcuts.
Two special functions exist: InitFunction and RestartFunc‐
tion. The InitFunction will be called when AfterStep is
started for the first time in any X session, and can be
used to start modules, set background patterns, and begin
programs. The restart function will be called when After‐
Step is restarted. It can be used to start modules and set
background patterns, but probably should not be used to
start programs.
BUILT IN FUNCTIONS
AfterStep supports a small set of built in functions which can be
bound to keyboard or mouse buttons.
Nop
Does nothing. This is used to insert a blank line or separator
in a menu. If the menu item specification is Nop " ", then a
blank line is inserted. If it looks like Nop "", then nothing
is inserted.
Title
Does nothing. This is used to insert a title line in a popup
or menu.
Beep
Makes the computer beep.
Quit
Exits AfterStep, generally causing X to exit too.
Restart name WindowManagerName
Causes AfterStep to re-read itself if WindowManagerName = after‐
step, or to switch to an alternate window manager if WindowMan‐
agerName != afterstep. If the window manager is not in your
default search path, then you should use the full path name
for WindowManagerName.
WindowManagerName is not quoted, but name is. name is the
name that appears in a menu, if that is where the function is
called from. name is required even if the function is not
called from a menu, for ease of parsing.
This command should not have a trailing ampersand or any com‐
mand line arguments, and should not make use of any environ‐
mental variables. Of the following examples, the first three are
sure losers, but the fourth is OK:
Key F1 R N Restart " " afterstep &
Key F1 R N Restart " " $(HOME)/bin/afterstep
Key F1 R N Restart " " twm -f .mystartupfile
Key F1 R N Restart " " /usr/local/bin/afterstep
Refresh
Causes all windows on the screen to re-draw themselves.
Move
Allows the user to move a window. If called from somewhere in
a window or its border, then that window will be moved. If
called from the root window, then the user will be allowed to
select the target window
Resize
Allows the user to resize a window.
Raise
Allows the user to raise a window.
Lower
Allows the user to lower a window.
RaiseLower
Alternately raises and lowers a window.
Shade
Emulates the MacOS WindowShade feature. Once activated the win‐
dow will become a titlebar only.
Delete
Sends a message to a window asking that it remove itself, fre‐
quently causing the application to exit.
Destroy
Destroys a window. Guaranteed to get rid of the window, but
is a fairly violent way to terminate an application.
Close
If the window accepts the delete window protocol, a message is
sent to the window asking it to grace- fully remove itself. If
the window does not under- stand the delete window protocol,
then the window is destroyed.
Iconify [value]
Iconifies a window if it is not already iconified, or de-
iconifies it if it is already iconified. If the optional argu‐
ment value is positive, the only iconification will be
allowed, and de-iconification will be inhibited. It the optional
argument is negative, only de-iconification will be allowed.
Maximize [horizontal vertical]
Without its optional arguments, Maximize causes the window to
alternately switch from a full-screen size to its normal
size.
With the optional arguments horizontal and vertical, which are
expressed as percentage of a full screen, the user can
control the new size of the window. If horizontal > 0, then
the horizontal dimension of the window will be set to hori‐
zontal*screen_width/100. The vertical resizing is similar. For
example, the following will switch a window to the full vertical
size of the screen: Maximize 0 100
The following causes windows to be stretched to the full width:
Maximize 100 0
This makes a window that is half the screen size in each direc‐
tion: Maximize 50 50
Values larger than 100 can be used with caution.
Stick
Makes a window sticky if it is not already sticky, or non-
sticky if it is already sticky.
Scroll horizontal vertical
Scrolls the virtual desktop's viewport by horizontal pages in
the x-direction, and vertical pages in the y-direction. Either
or both entries may be negative. Both horizontal and vertical
values are expressed in percent of pages, so Scroll 100 100
means to scroll down and left by one full page. Scroll 50 25
means to scroll left half a page and down a quarter of a
page. The scroll function should not be called from pop-up
menus. Normally, scrolling stops at the edge of the desktop.
If the horizontal and vertical percentages are multiplied by
1000, then scrolling will wrap around at the edge of the desk‐
top. If "Scroll 100000 0" is executed over and over, AfterStep
will move to the next desktop page on each execution, and
will wrap around at the edge of the desktop, so that every
page is hit in turn.
TogglePage
Temporarily disables edge scrolling. Edge scrolling can be re-
enabled by calling this again.
CursorMove horizontal vertical
Moves the mouse pointer by horizontal pages in the x-direction,
and vertical pages in the y-direction. Either or both entries
may be negative. Both horizontal and vertical values are
expressed in percent of pages, so CursorMove 100 100 means to
move down and left by one full page. CursorMove 50 25 means to
move left half a page and down a quarter of a page. The Cur‐
sorMove function should not be called from pop-up menus.
CirculateUp [name window_name]
Causes the pointer to move to the previous window in the list
of windows for which CirculateSkip has not not been specified as
CirculateSkip.
If the optional arguments are supplied, then the focus will
move to the first window whose name (or icon name or class)
matches window_name. The optional argument name is required
if window_name is supplied, and is enclosed in quotes. This
argument is the name which appears in menus if the function
is called from a menu, but serves no purpose if the function is
not called from a menu
Here's an example that moves the focus to an xterm window when
Alt-F1 is pressed:
Key F1 A M CirculateUp "whatever" xterm
CirculateDown [name window_name]
Causes the pointer to move to the next window in the list of
windows for which CirculateSkip has not not been specified as
CirculateSkip.
If the optional arguments are supplied, then the focus will
move to the first window whose name (or icon name or class)
matches window_name. The optional argument name is required
if window_name is supplied, and is enclosed in quotes. This
argument is the name which appears in menus if the function
is called from a menu, but serves no purpose if the function is
not called from a menu
Warp [name window_name]
Same as CirculateDown, but De-Iconifies any iconified windows
as it focuses on them.
Wait name
This built-in is intended to be used in AfterStep functions
only. It causes execution of a function to pause until a new
window named name appears. AfterStep remains fully functional
during a wait. This is particularly useful in the InitFunction,
if you are trying to start windows on specific desktops:
Function "InitFunction"
Exec "I" exec xterm -geometry 80x64+0+0
Wait "I" xterm
Desk "I" 0 2
Exec "I" exec xmh -font fixed -geometry 507x750+0+0 &
Wait "I" xmh
Desk "I" 0 0
EndFunction
The above function starts an xterm on the current desk, waits
for it to map itself, then switches to desk 2, and starts
an xmh. After the xmh window appears, control moves to desk 0.
Focus
Moves the viewport or window as needed to make the selected
window visible. Sets the keyboard focus to the selected win‐
dow. Raises the window if needed to make it visible. Warps
the pointer into the selected window in focus-follows-mouse
mode. Does not de-iconify. This function is primarily handy
when used with a module such as the FvwmWinList.
Desk arg1 arg2
Changes to another desktop (workspace, room).
If arg1 is non zero, then the next desktop number will be the
current desktop number plus arg1. Desktop numbers, like arg1 can
be negative.
If arg1 is zero, then the new desktop number will be arg2.
The number of active desktops is determined dynamically.
Only desktops which contain windows or are currently being dis‐
played are active. Desktop numbers must be between 2147483647
and -2147483648 (is that enough?).
WindowsDesk new_desk
Moves the selected window to the desktop specified as new_desk.
GotoPage x y
Moves the desktop viewport to page (x,y). The upper left page is
(0,0), the upper right is (N,0), where N is one less than the
current number of horizontal pages specified in the DeskTop‐
Size command. The lower left page is (0,M), and the lower
right page is (N,M), where M is the desktop's vertical size as
specified in the DeskTopSize command. The GotoPage function
should not be used in a pop-up menu.
WindowList arg1 arg2
Generates a pop-up menu (and pops it up) in which the title
and geometry of each of the windows currently on the desk top
are shown. The geometry of iconified windows is shown in
brackets. Selecting an item from the window list pop-up menu
will cause that window to be moved onto the desktop if it is
currently not on it, will move the desktop viewport to the
page containing the upper left hand corner of the window, will
de-iconify the window if it is iconified, and will raise the
window.
If arg1 is an even number, then the windows will be listed using
the window name (the name that shows up in the title-bar).
If it is odd, then the window's icon name is used.
If arg1 is less than 2, then all windows on all desktops
(except those listed in WindowListSkip directives), will be
show.
If arg1 is 2 or 3, then only windows on the current desktop will
be shown.
If arg1 is 4 or 5, then only windows on desktop number arg2
will be shown.
Exec name command
Executes command. command is not quoted, but name is. name is
the name that appears in a menu, if that is where the function
is called from. name is required even if the function is not
called from a menu, for ease of parsing.
The following example binds function key F1 in the root win‐
dow, with no modifiers, to the exec function. The program
rxvt(1) will be started, with an assortment of options.
Key F1 R N Exec "rxvt" exec rxvt -fg yellow -bg blue -e
/bin/tcsh &
Popup
NOTE: This built-in takes a slightly different form when used to
bind a sub-menu into a menu than it does when binding the
main menu to a key or mouse button. The form described here is
for binding a main menu to a key or mouse button. Used to
bind a previously defined pop-up menu to a key or mouse button.
The following example binds mouse buttons 2 and 3 to a pop-
up called "Window Ops", whose definition was provided as an
example earlier in this man page. The menu will pop-up if
the buttons 2 or 3 are pressed in the window frame, side-
bar, or title-bar, with no modifiers (none of shift, control,
or meta).
Mouse 2 FST N Popup "Window Ops"
Mouse 3 FST N Popup "Window Ops"
Pop-ups can be bound to keys through the use of the key modi‐
fier. Pop-ups can be operated without using the mouse by binding
to keys, and operating via the up arrow, down arrow, and enter
keys.
The following example defines a sub menu, "Quit-Verify" and
binds it into a main menu, called "Utilities".
Popup "Quit-Verify"
Title "Really Quit AfterStep?"
Quit "Yes, Really Quit"
Restart "Restart AfterStep" afterstep
Nop "No, Don't Quit"
EndPopup
Popup "Utilities"
Title "Utilities"
Exec "Xterm" exec xterm &
Exec "Rxvt" exec rxvt &
Exec "Top" exec rxvt -T Top -n Top -e top &
Exec "Calculator" exec xcalc &
Exec "Xman" exec xman &
Exec "Xmag" exec xmag &
Popup "Exit AfterStep" Quit-Verify
EndPopup
Sub-menus must be defined prior to the main menu in which they
are bound. Sub-menu nesting can be arbitrarily deep.
Function
Used to bind a previously defined function to a key or mouse
button.
The following example binds mouse button 1 to a function
called "Move-or-Raise", whose definition was provided as an
example earlier in this man page. After performing this bind‐
ing, AfterStep will execute to move-or-raise function whenever
button 1 is pressed in a window title-bar.
Mouse 1 T A Function "Move-or-Raise"
Module ModuleName
Specifies a module which should be spawned. At the current
time, the only included modules are Wharf and Pager. Wharf
will normally be spawned during initialization instead of
in response to a mouse binding or menu action. Modules can be
short lived transient programs, or, like Wharf, can be
intended to remain for the duration of the X session. Module
will be terminated by the window manager prior to restarts
and quits, if possible.
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
All window-manager operations can be performed from the keyboard,
so mouse-less operation should not be difficult. In addition to
scrolling around the virtual desktop by binding the Scroll
built-in to appropriate keys, Pop-ups, move, resize and most other
built-ins can be bound to keys. Once a built-in function is started,
the pointer is moved by using the up, down, left, and right arrows,
and the action is terminated by pressing return. Holding down the
shift key will cause the pointer movement to go in larger steps, and
holding down the control key will cause the cursor movement to go in
smaller steps. Standard emacs and vi cursor movement controls (^n, ^p,
^f, ^b, and ^j, ^k, ^h, ^l) can be used instead of the arrow keys.
SUPPLIED CONFIGURATION
A sample configuration file, sample.steprc was supplied with the
AfterStep distribution. It is well commented and can be used as a
source of examples for AfterStep configuration.
USE ON MULTI-SCREEN DISPLAYS
AfterStep does work on multi-screen displays. If the -s command line
argument is not given to AfterStep , it will automatically start up on
every screen on the specified display. After AfterStep starts, each
screen is treated independently. Re-starts of AfterStep need to be
performed separately on each screen. The use of EdgeScroll 0 0 is
strongly recommended for multi-screen displays.
You may need to quit on each screen to quit from the X session com‐
pletely.
Multi-screen support is only available if you compile with -DMULTI‐
PLE_SCREENS
SEE ALSOWharf(1),Animate(1),Audio(1),Auto(1),asclock(1),Banner(1),Pager(1)AUTHORS
Frank Fejes (frank@canweb.net)
Alfredo Kenji Kojima (kojima@inf.ufrgs.br)
Dan Weeks (dan@mango.sfasu.edu)
AfterStep March 1997 AFTERSTEP(1.0)
