Window Maker

Window Maker is an ultra-fast, lightweight, and extensible window manager for the X Window System (X11). Originally crafted to emulate the timeless, elegant look and feel of the NeXTSTEP™ / OpenStep interface, Window Maker delivers a distraction-free desktop environment with native GNUstep integration, comprehensive EWMH / NetWM compliance, and modern compositing / visual enhancements.

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📑 Table of Contents

1. 🌟 Complete Feature Matrix & Capabilities
   • 1. Compositor Integration & Visual Effects
   • 2. Vim-Style Window Marking & Directional Focus
   • 3. Multi-Key Sequences & Sticky Chains
   • 4. Multi-Monitor, RandR & Hotplug Intelligence
   • 5. Next-Gen Image Engine (wrlib) & JPEG XL
   • 6. Desktop Hot Corners & Screenshot Engine
   • 7. WINGs Widget Toolkit & Modern Typography
   • 8. Modern Glass UI Architecture Blueprint
2. 🚀 Installation & Multi-Distribution Guides
3. 🖥️ Starting Window Maker
4. ⚙️ Configuration Reference & WPrefs Suite
5. 📚 Specialized Documentation Index
6. 📄 License & Authors

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🌟 Complete Feature Matrix & Capabilities

1. Compositor Integration & Visual Effects

Window Maker features native support for X11 compositors (Picom, Compton, xcompmgr, and Compiz) with full management from the new Effects panel in WPrefs.app:

• Automated Configuration Templates: Automatically bootstraps ~/.config/picom/picom.conf or ~/.config/compton.conf if missing.
• Backend Selection: Seamlessly toggle between GLX (hardware-accelerated OpenGL) and XRender backends.
• Dock & Clip Transparency Slider: Granular 0%–100% opacity controls (DockOpacity), allowing background wallpapers to show through tiles and clips with modern frosted aesthetics.
• Window Animations & Transitions:
  • Configurable movement and launch transitions: Classic (legacy acceleration), Smooth (ease-in/out), and Gentle (smoothstep).
  • Glide Iconification: Smooth sliding minimization animations.
  • Live window content rendering during interactive drags (ShowContentWhileMoving) and resizes (ShowContentWhileResizing).

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2. Vim-Style Window Marking & Directional Focus

Navigate complex multi-window workspaces without touching the mouse:

• Vim-Inspired Window Marking:
  • Assign arbitrary key labels to windows (e.g., Super+M x marks focused window with x).
  • Jump (MarkJumpKey): Focus and raise the labeled window immediately.
  • Bring (MarkBringKey): Teleport the marked window to your active workspace.
  • Swap (MarkSwapKey): Swap positions and focus between the active window and marked window.
  • Persistence: All marks survive restarts and are saved in ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WMState.
• Directional Window Focus:
  • Move keyboard focus topologically (FocusWindowLeftKey, FocusWindowRightKey, FocusWindowUpKey, FocusWindowDownKey) using window center geometric vectors.
• Universal Window Cycling:
  • Alt-Tab switcher can optionally cycle windows across all virtual workspaces (CycleAllWorkspaces = YES).

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3. Multi-Key Sequences & Sticky Chains

• Prefix-Based Keybindings: Supports Emacs/tmux-style leader-key sequences (e.g., <Leader> -> w -> v for vertical split/tile).
• Sticky-Chain Mode: Keep prefix states open across rapid successive commands with configurable expiration timeout (KeychainTimeoutDelay, default $500\text{ms}$) and explicit cancellation (KeychainCancelKey).
• Customizable Unicode Modifier Labels (ModifierKeyShortLabels): Replace standard text abbreviations with macOS-style glyphs (⌘, ⌥, ⇧, ⌃) or custom symbols in menus.

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4. Multi-Monitor, RandR & Hotplug Intelligence

• Dynamic Head Snap (wClipSnapToHead): When monitors are hotplugged or disconnected, Clips and AppIcons automatically compute their relative coordinates and snap into visible heads without clipping off-screen.
• Hotplug Monitor Auto-Activation (HotplugMonitor): Automatically detects and activates newly plugged displays, expanding your desktop to the right.
• Multi-Head Dock Pinning (KeepDockOnPrimaryHead): Pins the main application dock to the primary display head across dynamic layout adjustments.
• EWMH _NET_WM_MOVERESIZE Support: Full compatibility with client-side decorated applications (VS Code, Google Chrome, Discord, Steam) for interactive moving and resizing.
• Multi-Head Fullscreen (_NET_WM_FULLSCREEN_MONITORS): Multi-display spanning for video players and presentations.

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5. Next-Gen Image Engine (wrlib) & JPEG XL

• JPEG XL (JXL) Support: Direct native loading of next-generation .jxl images via libjxl.
• Comprehensive Image Support: WebP, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, GIF, XPM, PNM, and SVG.
• In-Memory Image Rasterization: Fast in-memory image encode/decode pipelines that reduce disk thrashing during theme and icon switches.
• Catmull-Rom Scaling: High-fidelity cubic interpolation for crystal-clear icon and thumbnail rendering.
• wmiv Image Viewer Upgrades:
  • Direct archive reading (view images inside .zip, .tar.gz, .7z via libarchive).
  • Copy current image directly to clipboard (Ctrl+C).
  • Graceful handling and filtering of unsupported formats.

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6. Desktop Hot Corners & Screenshot Engine

• Programmable Hot Corners (HotCorners):
  • Assign distinct actions or shell scripts to the 4 screen corners (Top-Left, Top-Right, Bottom-Left, Bottom-Right).
  • Configurable edge sensitivity radius (HotCornerEdge, 2–10px) and trigger activation delay (HotCornerDelay, default $250\text{ms}$).
• Built-in Screenshot Engine:
  • Three capture modes: Entire Screen, Active Window, or Interactive Selection Rectangle.
  • Customizable strftime naming templates (ScreenshotFileNameTemplate) saved directly to ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Screenshots/.

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7. WINGs Widget Toolkit & Modern Typography

• Multi-Tier Font Fallback: Dynamic fallback cascade preventing crashes when specialized legacy X11 fonts are absent.
• Ghosting & Caret Drift Elimination: Completely rebuilt text-selection and caret-tracking calculations in wtextfield.
• Unbroken UTF-8 Titlebars & Menus: Unicode string sanitization ensuring right-to-left and multibyte titles never truncate improperly.
• Titlebar Language Switcher: Compact XKB layout switcher button cycling through active keyboard language groups on click.

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8. Modern Glass UI Architecture Blueprint

Comprehensive roadmap and design notes (doc/GLASS_AND_MODERN_UI_NOTES.md):

• Translucent rounded window borders and titlebars.
• Frosted acrylic popovers with subtle inset lighting highlights.
• High-DPI icon assets and scalable SVG workflow.

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🚀 Installation & Multi-Distribution Guides

1. Install Dependencies

Debian / Ubuntu / Devuan / Linux Mint

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config \
    libx11-dev libxext-dev libxft-dev libxinerama-dev libxrandr-dev \
    libxmu-dev libxpm-dev libpng-dev libjpeg-dev libtiff-dev libgif-dev \
    libwebp-dev libjxl-dev libfontconfig1-dev libfreetype6-dev \
    libxres-dev libxkbfile-dev compton

(Detailed guide: doc/BUILDING_ON_DEBIAN_UBUNTU.md)

Arch Linux / CachyOS / Manjaro

sudo pacman -S base-devel libx11 libxext libxft libxinerama libxrandr \
    libxmu libxpm libpng libjpeg-turbo libtiff giflib libwebp libjxl \
    fontconfig freetype2 libxres libxkbfile picom

PCLinuxOS / ALT Linux / Fedora / openSUSE

(Detailed guide: doc/BUILDING_ON_PCLINUXOS_ALT.md)

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2. Build & Install

# Clone repository
git clone git@github.com:theokeist/wmaker.git
cd wmaker

# Generate build configuration
./autogen.sh

# Configure with modern features enabled
./configure \
    --prefix=/usr/local \
    --enable-modelock \
    --enable-randr \
    --enable-xinerama \
    --enable-jxl \
    --enable-webp

# Compile using all available CPU cores
make -j$(nproc)

# Install binaries, manual pages, and icons
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

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🖥️ Starting Window Maker

1. Display Managers (GDM, LightDM, SDDM)

Window Maker provides /usr/share/xsessions/wmaker.desktop. Simply select Window Maker in your display manager session dropdown.

2. Console Start (startx / .xinitrc)

Add the following to your ~/.xinitrc:

#!/bin/sh

# Set keyboard layout (optional)
setxkbmap us,cz

# Launch compositor daemon in background
compton -b &

# Start Window Maker
exec wmaker

(Comprehensive session management guide: doc/RUNNING_WMAKER.md)

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⚙️ Configuration Reference & WPrefs Suite

All user preferences are organized under ~/GNUstep/Defaults/:

File	Description
WindowMaker	Core settings: focus modes, animations, keybindings, compositor toggles, dock opacity.
WMRootMenu	Applications root menu hierarchy, submenu cascades, and execution commands.
WMWindowAttributes	Per-window specifications (e.g. AlwaysOnTop, Borderless, SkipWindowList).
WMState	Workspace definitions, docked app positions, clip states, and Vim-style window marks.
compton.conf	Compositor parameters (shadow blur radius, opacity rules, fading speed).

Graphical Preferences Suite (WPrefs.app)

Launch WPrefs from the desktop menu or terminal to graphically customize:

• Effects & Compositor: Backend switching, dock transparency, window animation curves.
• Window Handling: Focus policies (Click-to-Focus, Sloppy, Focus-Follows-Mouse), auto-raise delays.
• Expert Preferences: Mouse wheel focus, multi-workspace cycling, monitor hotplugging.
• Keyboard Shortcuts: Multi-key sequences, directional focus keys, screenshot shortcuts.
• Theme & Appearance: Textures, titlebar gradients, font smoothing, and color schemes.

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📚 Specialized Documentation Index

• doc/RUNNING_WMAKER.md — Running Window Maker via xinitrc, display managers, and sessions.
• doc/BUILDING_ON_DEBIAN_UBUNTU.md — Step-by-step Debian 12/13 & Ubuntu 25.10 build instructions.
• doc/BUILDING_ON_PCLINUXOS_ALT.md — RPM distro compilation and packaging guide.
• doc/GLASS_AND_MODERN_UI_NOTES.md — Glass UI design architecture and wrlib materials blueprint.
• doc/GS_DESKTOP_POLISHING.md — GNUstep workspace polishing and styling.
• doc/WINGS_APP_WORKFLOW.md — Building lightweight X11 GUI applications with WINGs.
• FAQ — Comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions & Troubleshooting.

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📄 License & Authors

• License: Window Maker is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL v2 or later). Accompanying libraries (WINGs, wrlib, wmlib) are licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL v2 or later).
• Original Authors: Alfredo K. Kojima, Dan Pascu, Banlu Kemiyatorn, and the Window Maker Team.
• Repository: theokeist/wmaker (synchronized with window-maker/wmaker).