Last Updated on July 10, 2021
FVWM-Crystal aims to create an easy to use, powerful desktop environment. Unlike many other lightweight environments, it also features plenty of eye-candy.
FVWM-Crystal boils down to a set of FVWM configuration files, some Python and shell scripts, a set of application icons and images. This combination produces a fairly decent and customized window manager using FVWM as it’s basic component. With additional software such as ROX-Filer users can create a usable and attractive desktop environment.
The environment is very easy to set up as well as being lightweight, which makes it fast even on archaic PCs with Pentium I and IIs processors.
Features include:
- Transparent elements of the interface: panels, menus, dialogs.
- Window decorations, panel/menu colorsets and desktop wallpaper changeable from the main menu; choice saved for next X sessions.
- Flexible window decorations: can have different tilebar buttons layout, pixmaps, button functions.
- Different “desktop layouts” (panel placement and functions, desktop functions, window icons/thumbnails), changeable from the menu.
- Advanced keyboard support: keybindings for controlling the desktop switching, window management (moving, resizing, focusing, basic operations like minimalization or closing) – nearly 100 different keybindings.
- Support for controlling music players, using the keyboard or panel buttons and menus; currently MPD, XMMS, XMMS2, Quod Libet, AlsaPlayer, MPlayer, audacious, cmus, mocp and cdcd are supported.
- Advanced support of the terminal windows: special “QuakeConsole” terminal accessible by an Alt+` (grave) keystroke similar to the console found in FPP games; terminals can be opened using RMB on the desktop; terminal windows don’t release focus for newly opened windows (by default).
- Python script for generating different panels and menus with installed applications – automatically finds programs in
$PATHand creates specified menus and panels. - Support for nearly 400 different applications – icons, menu/panel database entries, window styles.
- Different language support using gettext.
Website: fvwm-crystal.sourceforge.io
Support: Documentation
Developer: Maciej Delmanowski, Rafa Bisingier, Dominik Tomasik, Lukasz Strzygowski, Michael Stilkerich, Myles Green, and Dominique Michel
License: GNU GPL v2
FVWM-Crystal is written in Python. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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