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cocowm

cocowm is a Column Commander Window Manager for X11 Window System that specializes in automating layout management by arranging program windows automatically in columns. Therefore, cocowm is a tiling window manager and in particular is most inspired by the Plan9 acme editor, as well as the Plan B operating system's GUI.

A key differentiation of cocowm as compared to other window managers is that cocowm is oriented towards receiving high-level commands from the user, such as "move window to left", via a keyboard shortcut, which moves a window one column to the left and resizes if space allows for it, rather than by manually micro-managing precise placement and size using a mouse.

Controls

cocowm is fully controllable using keyboard and partially controllable using mouse.

Edit keyboard.c to modify default key bindings.

cocowm is used best when windows are explicitly created by the user using cocowm command line via Win+Enter or Win+Space.

So, for example, don't ask your browser to create a new window, but ask cocowm to do it.

cocowm tries to help in selecting the correct program using the following magic:

Running commands

Open the prompt via Win+Enter or Win+Space. Exit the prompt using Esc (cancel) or Enter (launch).

  • Run URLs: If no spaces but has at least one '.', prefix the line with "firefox-esr ".
  • Run shell commands: If the line begins with '!', prefix the line with "xterm -hold -e "

Edit action.c to modify these.

Focusing windows

  • Win+Left Left.
  • Win+Right Right.
  • Win+Up Up.
  • Win+Down Down.
  • Win+Tab Previous.

Moving the focused window

  • Ctrl+Win+Left Left.
  • Ctrl+Win+Right Right.
  • Ctrl+Win+Up Up.
  • Ctrl+Win+Down Down.

Actions for the focused window

  • Win+o Toggle keep open.
  • Win+m Toggle minimize.
  • Win+h Toggle hide others.
  • Win+f Toggle fullscreen.
  • Win+r Restart command.
  • Win+Space Replace with new command.
  • Win+Enter Run new command.
  • Win+q Close.

Minimize means window is explicitly hidden and needs to be reopened manually.

Hide means window is temporarily hidden and is shown automatically when hiding is toggled off.

Managing the window manager.

  • F11 Restart.
  • F12 Quit.

Dependencies

  • No dependencies if you're compiling for a normal/sane Unix-like system that has X11 Window System.

Compiling

$ ./configure ~
$ make
$ make install

Customizing

  • Edit Makefile.in and e.g. remove or add compile-time options using -D in the CFLAGS. E.g. see 'WANT_ONE_PER_COLUMN' option.
  • Edit files such as keyboard.c
  • Edit hspacing and vspacing in init.c

Customize using .Xresources / .Xdefaults

Have the .Xresources or.Xdefaults file, based on what your system reads when logging in to X11 session, or read it manually.

The file could look like this:

*font: -xos4-terminus-bold-r-normal--16-160-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1
*foreground: black
*background: #f5efe0
*internalBorder: 4

Load it:

$ xrdb -load ~/.Xdefaults

And restart cocowm.

Running

Running with 3 columns:

$ cocowm 3

See also

  • mxswm another window manager by the same author.
  • cocovt terminal emulator by the same author that is friends with cocowm.