7 <http://windowmaker.org>
23 Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine
24 device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free
25 service, except that you undoubtably will destroy it via some
26 typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you
27 to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY
28 BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T
29 YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND
30 FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO
31 ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER
32 AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING
33 WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ
34 THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE
35 DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU
37 -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
43 Window Maker is the GNU window manager for the X Window System. It was designed
44 to emulate the look and feel of part of the NEXTSTEP(tm) GUI. It's supposed to
45 be relatively fast and small, feature rich, easy to configure and easy to use,
46 with a simple and elegant appearance borrowed from NEXTSTEP(tm).
48 Window Maker was designed keeping integration with GNUstep in mind and is the
49 "official" window manager for it. It is also part of the GNU project
50 (www.gnu.org) Read more about GNUstep further on this file.
52 Hints (information given by applications to integrate well with the window
53 manager) for Motif(tm) and NETWM are also supported (NETWM is used by KDE and
54 GNOME, so they are automatically supported as a result). So you can replace any
55 of the window managers for these environments with Window Maker while keeping
56 most, if not all, of the native window manager functionality.
58 Window Maker was previously called WindowMaker.
60 Window Maker has no connection with Windowmaker, the software for making windows
69 * README files all over the source tree have info related to the stuff
72 * INSTALL has installation instructions and some troubleshooting tips.
73 You're meant to read it before installing. It was not written just to fill up
76 * FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions. READ IT!!! FAQ.I18N is for
77 internationalization related questions.
79 * NEWS: list user visible changes from the previous version. Read it if
82 * BUGFORM: use it to send bug reports. Please do use it.
84 * ChangeLog: what changed from the previous version?
86 * BUGS: list of known bugs
91 The Window Maker User's Guide can be downloaded from the official ftp
94 The User Guide explains how to use Window Maker, the configuration files
100 Type "man wmaker" in the shell prompt to get general help about Window Maker
104 Directories & Files in the Source Tree
105 ======================================
107 * Install is a script for configuring and compiling Window Maker in a easy
108 way (not that the normal way is difficult, but...).
110 * AUTHORS: the credits
112 * TODO: plans for the future
114 * contrib/ has some contributed patches that are not supported by Window Maker
115 because they conflict with design philosophies of the developers or some other
118 * util/ has various utility programs.
120 * WPrefs.app/ is the configuration program.
122 * src/wconfig.h has compile time options you can change to select some
123 options/features and other stuff.
125 * WINGs/ NEXTSTEP lookalike widget library
127 * wrlib/ image processing library
129 * po/ has message catalogs wich are the translated versions of the messages
130 displayed by Window Maker.
132 * docklib-x.x.tar.gz a library for writing dockapps
138 There is a mailing list for discussing Window Maker at
139 wmaker-user@lists.windowmaker.org To subscribe to it, send a message to
140 wmaker-user-subscribe@lists.windowmaker.info
142 If you got a problem, ask there (after reading the docs, of course). The people
143 there is more likely to be able to answer your questions than we are. For bug
144 reports use the BUGFORM.
146 If you have a problem with a precompiled version of Window Maker (rpm, deb etc),
147 first ask the person who made the package.
149 IMPORTANT NOTE: when asking for help (in the mailing list or to the developerts,
150 directly) *always* send information about the system you are using. You can use
151 the system information section at the end of BUGFORM as a guideline. Another
152 thing: please don't send HTML mail.
155 There is also a #windowmaker IRC channel at freenode. To join there, connect
156 your irc client to irc.freenode.net. irc.windowmaker.org will direct you to the
163 GNUstep is a complete object-oriented development system, based on the OpenStep
164 specification released by NeXT(tm) (now Apple(tm)) and Sun(tm). It will provide
165 everything one needs to produce cross-platform, object-oriented, graphical (and
166 non-graphical) applications; providing among other things, base system
167 libraries, a high-level GUI application framework that uses a Display
168 PostScript(tm)-like imaging model (DGS), objects for accessing relational
169 databases, distributed objects and a graphical development environment, with
170 tools like interface modeller, a project management system (project center) and
173 The GNUstep development system will be used to create a user environment, with
174 everything needed for a complete graphical user interface, such as a file
175 viewer, text editors and other applications. Note that the user environment (or
176 "desktop environment") is only a small part of the whole GNUstep project and
177 therefore it does not "compete" with other projects like KDE or GNOME, simply
178 because they are completely different things.
180 For more information on the GNUstep project, visit: http://www.gnustep.org
183 Running multiple instances of Window Maker
184 ==========================================
186 It is not a good idea to run more than one instance of Window Maker
187 from the same user (so that wmaker will use the same configuration files) at the
188 same time. You might get unexpected behaviour when Window Maker updates it's
191 If you really desire to do this, try running Window Maker with the command line
192 option --static so that it will not update or change any of the configuration
199 If you want to diminish Window Maker's memory usage and improve performance,
200 while keeping a nice appearance and good functionality, follow the items bellow:
202 - use solid textures for everything, mainly titlebars and menus. If you want a
203 nice looking desktop, use the Traditional style.
204 - turn NewStyle and Superfluous off
205 - do not bind many shortcuts in the menu and keep only the essential items in
207 - turn on DisableClip
208 - edit wconfig.h and disable the NUMLOCK_HACK and the features you don't use
209 anyway (keep in mind that some of the #defines might not work, as they are not
210 fully supported). Make sure to always keep NumLock and ScrollLock turned off.
211 - turn on DisableAnimations. You can also #undefine ANIMATIONS in wconfig.h
212 - strip down the default IconPath and PixmapPath entries to contain only
213 the paths that you really have in your system.
214 - do not use large images in the root background
215 - remove support for image formats you don't use
216 - to reduce memory usage, disable the icon cache, by setting the RIMAGE_CACHE
217 environment variable to 0. If you want to increase performance at the cost of
218 memory usage, set it's value to a value like the number of different icons you
219 use. Also, disable anti-aliased text support in ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WMGLOBAL.
222 Keyboard Mouse Control
223 ======================
225 Many people ask about adding keyboard control of mouse, like in fvwm, but Window
226 Maker will not have such feature. The XKB extension supports mouse simulation
227 from the keyboard, in a much more powerfull fashion than any simulation done by
230 To enable it, hit the Control+Shift+NumLock or Shift+NumLock key combination.
231 You should hear the speaker beeping. To disable it, do the same thing.
233 To control the mouse the numeric keypad is used as follows:
234 - 4 (left arrow), 7 (Home), 8 (up arrow), 9 (PgUp), 6 (right arrow),
235 3 (PgDn), 2 (down arrow) and 1 (End) move the mouse to the corresponding
237 - holding one of the above keys and then holding the 5 key will move the
239 - / will select the first mouse button (left button);
240 - * will select the second mouse button (middle button);
241 - - will select the third mouse button (right button);
242 - 5 will do a click with the currently selected mouse button;
243 - + will do a double-click with the currently selected button;
244 - 0 (Ins) will click and hold the currently selected button;
245 - . (Del) will release the currently selected button that was previously
246 clicked with the 0 (Ins) key.
249 The above key values work in a XFree86 3.2 (X11R6.1) X server but your
253 How to make a gdb backtrace
254 ===========================
256 Backtraces can help us fix bugs that make Window Maker crash. If you find a bug
257 that crashes Window Maker, please send a backtrace with your bug report.
259 To make a usefull backtrace, you need a core file with debugging information
260 produced by Window Maker when it crashes. It should have been installed without
263 To compile wmaker with debugging information:
268 If you get the dialog window telling you that wmaker crashed and asks you what
269 to do, tell it to "Abort and leave a core file".
273 gdb .libs/wmaker path_to_the_core_file
275 Then, in the gdb prompt type "bt". Quit from gdb by typing "quit" and then, in
276 the shell prompt, type "exit".
278 The file named typescript will contain the backtrace.
282 Copyrights & Disclaimers
283 ========================
285 Window Maker is copyrighted by Alfredo K. Kojima and is licensed through the GNU
286 General Public License. Read the COPYING file for the complete license.
288 The icons that are distributed with this program and were made by Marco van
289 Hylckama Vlieg, are licensed through the GNU General Public License. Read the
290 COPYING file for the complete license.
292 The icons listed in COPYING.WTFPL and are distributed in this program and were
293 made by Banlu Kemiyatorn (]d), are licensed through the "do What The Fuck you
294 want to Public License". Read the COPYING.WTFPL file for the complete license.
296 NeXT, OpenStep and NEXTSTEP are a trademarks of NeXT Computer, Inc. All other
297 trademarks are property of their respective owners.
299 The authors reserve the right to make changes in the software without prior
306 Alfredo K. Kojima <kojima@windowmaker.info>
307 Dan Pascu <dan@windowmaker.info>
308 ]d <id@windowmaker.info>
310 Please don't ask us questions before reading the documentation (esp. the FAQ,
311 this file and INSTALL files) and about "cool" things you see in people's desktop
315 The AUTHORS file contains a list of the people who have contributed to the
316 project. The name of people who have helped with localization (translation) can
317 be found in po/README and Window Maker/README
319 If you have any comments, fixes and bug reports (filled BUGFORMs) send them
320 to wmaker-dev@lists.windowmaker.org