FVWM is a powerful ICCCM2 compliant multiple virtual desktop window manager for the X Window System. It was originally derived from twm.
It is designed to minimize memory consumption, provide a 3D look to window frames, and a virtual desktop.
There are 3rd party projects to provide automatic configuration and themes (FVWM-Crystal and FVWM Themes). FVWM itself provides a default configuration file generator, in which certain options can be chosen.
Key Features
- Image rendering.
- Supports any number of virtual desktops, each divided into multiple pages.
- Xft2 font support with anti-aliasing, drop shadows of any size, at any offset and at any direction, text rotation.
- Titlebars can be disabled, or rendered on any window edge.
- Animated window shading in all directions.
- Perl based module library for extending FVWM using Perl, scripting and pre-processing of configuration files.
- Full PNG Support, including alpha blending.
- Extended via scripting. Preprocessing allows dynamic configurations.
- Toolkit to build dialogs, menus and applications at runtime.
- Configurable desktop panels.
- Mouse Gestures allow to draw shapes with the mouse, and bind them to commands.
- Dynamic menus; utilities to browse the filesystem, fetch headlines from the internet from menus included.
- Session management support.
- Xinerama extension support to use more than one monitor.
- Support for XRender, and Xcursor.
- Dynamically extensible using modules.
- Side titles.
- EWMH, ICCCM-2 and GNOME Hints support.
- Internationalisation support, including multi-byte characters and bidirectional text.
- Bi-directional Asian text support.
- Extended Window Manager Hints support allows the use of docks, widgets, and such.
- Colorset used to define color, gradient, transparency, etc. in specific areas of themes, backgrounds, icons, etc.
- WindowStyle command used to segregate styles to individual elements.
- Unmanaged command used to separate any window from FVWM control.
- FocusStyle allows focus stealing.
- Window states can be used to perform functions on similar groups.
- XFT font are support.
- Module dynamic actions allow changes while running.
- Menu now uses XDG specifications.
- PNG/SVG support for icons.
- Mouse gestures and window-specific key / mouse bindings.
- Lots of new style options for themers.
- A new script to upgrade FVWM 2.4 configuration files.
Website: fvwm.org
Support: Wiki, GitHub Code Repository
Developer: FVWM Team
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
FVWM is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Stacking Window Managers | |
|---|---|
| Openbox | Standards compliant, fast, light-weight, extensible window manager |
| KWin | Window manager for the KDE Plasma Desktop |
| Mutter | Wayland display server and X11 window manager and compositor library |
| FVWM | Powerful ICCCM-compliant multiple virtual desktop window manager |
| berry | Healthy, bite-sized window manager |
| xfwm | Part of the Xfce desktop environment |
| Window Maker | NeXTSTEP-like window manager |
| JWM | Joe’s Window Manager |
| Gala | Designed by elementary for use with Pantheon |
| Fluxbox | Highly configurable and low resource |
| evilwm | Maximises screen real estate and provides good keyboard control |
| Worm | Tiny, dynamic, tag-based window manager |
| Blackbox | Similar to the NeXT interface and Window Maker |
| Enlightenment | Focuses on pushing the limits of existing technologies |
| PekWM | Originally based on the aewm++ window manager |
| Marco | MATE default window manager |
| 2bwm | Offers 2 borders, and written over the XCB library |
| cwm | OpenBSD fork of calmwn, a clean and lightweight window manager |
| IceWM | Win95-OS/2-Motif-like window manager |
| Sawfish | Extensible window manager using an Emacs Lisp-like scripting language |
| Moksha | Modern iteration of the Enlightenment window manager |
| Magpie | X11 window manager and compositor library |
| sowm | Itsy bitsy floating window manager |
| Compiz | OpenGL window and compositing manager |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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