FVWM – ICCCM-compliant multiple virtual desktop window manager

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.

Features include:

• 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.

Return to Stacking Window Managers | Return to Window Managers

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