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Basic Window Manager

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basic_wm is a simple reparenting, non-compositing X window manager that demonstrates how to implement the fundamental functionality of a window manager:

  • Managing the life cycle of windows
  • Reparenting windows
  • Basic window operations (moving, resizing, closing)

It serves as a pedagogical example for my series of articles, How X Window Managers Work, And How To Write One.

Building and Running

To build this example window manager, you will need:

To run and test it, you will need:

  • Xephyr
  • xinit
  • Some X utilities such as xclock, xeyes, and xterm to play with

On Debian / Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install \
    build-essential pkg-config libx11-dev libgoogle-glog-dev \
    xserver-xephyr xinit x11-apps xterm

On Fedora:

sudo yum install \
    make gcc gcc-c++ libX11-devel glog-devel \
    xorg-x11-server-Xephyr xorg-x11-apps xterm

On Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S base-devel libx11 google-glog \
    xorg-server-xephyr xorg-xinit xorg-xclock xorg-xeyes xterm

Once you have all the dependencies, building and running it is as simple as:

./build_and_run.sh

This will launch a simple Xephyr session like in the following screenshot: Screenshot

Usage

Supported keyboard shortcuts:

  • Alt + Left Click: Move window
  • Alt + Right Click: Resize window
  • Alt + F4: Close window
  • Alt + Tab: Switch window

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An example basic X11 window manager.

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