1 wmii-lua copyright (c) 2007 Bart Trojanowski <bart@jukie.net>
3 website - http://www.jukie.net/~bart/blog/tag/wmiirc-lua
4 irc - #wmiirc-lua on oftc.net
5 email - http://groups.google.ca/group/wmii-lua
6 source - http://github.com/bartman/wmii-lua
10 wmii [1], window manager improved-improved, is a dynamic window manager
11 for X11. It supports classic and tiled window management with extended
12 keyboard, mouse, and 9P-based [2] remote control.
14 wmii-lua [3] implements an "event loop" script for the wmii window
15 manager. The goals of the project are to
17 - be fast, small, feature rich, and extensible through plugins,
18 - avoid threading and polling at all costs, and
19 - replicate the functionality of wmii+ruby.
21 As the name suggests the script is written in Lua. Before writing it I
22 was a happy user of wmii+ruby. Happy, until powertop [4] was written.
23 Powertop told me that ruby was the number 1 reason my battery life
24 sucked. I chose lua because it helps me achieve the first and second
28 Requirements for wmii-lua
29 -------------------------
30 The following are required to build wmii-lua project:
35 - patience (no, it's not a package)
37 Naturally, wmii-lua depends on wmii. It also depends on libixp, which
38 is used to communicate with wmii. Both of these projects come from
39 suskless.org and are tracked upstream using mercurial. You are free
40 chose how you wish to get libixp and wmii:
42 - from your distribution
43 - from wmii-lua's extra packages
44 - from suckless.org's mercurial repositories
46 Your distribution may have upto date libixp and wmii. Great.
48 The easiest way to build libixp and wmii from source is to use the git
49 submodules of this repository. But that assumes that you have received
50 this project in a form of a git repository from the above URL. More on
51 this under "building" below.
54 Installing prerequisites
55 ------------------------
56 If you are running Debian (or derivative) these steps may help you:
58 apt-get install git-core \
59 build-essential debhelper \
60 libx11-dev libxext-dev libxt-dev \
61 libxrandr-dev libxinerama-dev \
62 lua5.1 liblua5.1-0-dev \
63 liblua5.1-posix1-dev \
64 dwm-tools xclip dstat pkg-config
66 Note that liblua5.1-posix1 may actually be liblua5.1-posix0 or someother
67 suffix. Please check what's available on your platform.
69 apt-get build-dep libixp wmii
71 Note that you will need *deb-src* lines in your `/etc/apt/source` config
72 file. Without the build-dep will not work.
74 If you chose to work on plugins, you can install all lua packages
77 apt-cache search lua5.1 | awk '/liblua5.1/ { print $1 }' \
78 | xargs sudo apt-get install -y
81 Building & Installation
82 -----------------------
83 Now that you have the prerequisites installed, you can choose one of the
84 following three options.
86 A. Install in $HOME only
88 This method installs wmii-lua in ~/usr and ~/.wmii-lua only. Ther is
89 no need for super user privileges.
91 # (optional) get the sources
92 git clone git://github.com/bartman/wmii-lua.git
95 # (optional) configure where things go
99 # (optional) build and install libixp and wmii
101 make ext-install-user
103 # build and install wmii-lua
106 B. Install system wide
108 # (optional) get the sources
109 git clone git://github.com/bartman/wmii-lua.git
112 # (optional) configure where things go
116 # (optional) build and install libixp and wmii
119 sudo make ext-install
121 # Build wmii-lua as anyone
124 # Installing software in system directories as root
127 # Setting up $HOME for wmii-lua
130 C. Make a Debian package
132 # (optional) get the sources
133 git clone git://github.com/bartman/wmii-lua.git
136 # Switch to the debian branch
137 git checkout -b debian -t origin/debian
145 # Setting up $HOME for wmii-lua
151 wmii-lua is now ready to run, but you still have to make wmii your
152 window manager. You can do this by running the wmii executable from
153 .initrc or .xsession... your choice.
163 Note: the base configuration uses Mod4 -- the windows key on PC
164 keyboards -- for some of the binding. If your keyboard, like my
165 Thinkpad's, does not have a windows key you can "make one" with
166 xmodmaprc. See: contrib/remap-caps-ctrl-mod4
170 All configuration of wmii-lua is done by editing the ~/.wmii-lua/wmiirc
171 file. See doc/configuration for more help on configuring wmii-lua.
173 wmii-lua supports all the keyboard shortcuts of wmii's shell wmiirc,
174 some of the features of wmii+ruby, as well as some additional ones. See
175 the doc/key-bindings for information on how to control wmii with the
176 extended key bindings wmii-lua provides.
178 More advanced users may also write plugins for wmii-lua using the
179 plugin API. Plugins live in ~/.wmii-lua/plugins/ directory, and several
180 come with this package. See the wmii.3lua man page, and doc/plugin-api
181 for more information about how to write code for wmii-lua.
189 The following people have contributed especially to wmii-lua in
190 various ways. They are copyright holders of their respective
193 - Bart Trojanowski <bart@jukie.net>
204 wmii-lua is licensed under GPLv2.
208 [1] http://www.suckless.org/
209 [2] http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/sys/man/5/INDEX.html
210 [3] http://www.jukie.net/~bart/blog/wmiirc-in-lua
211 [4] http://www.linuxpowertop.org