evilwm is a minimalist window manager for the X Window System. It works by drawing a one pixel border around each window, and providing convenient keyboard shortcuts for doing everything.
While providing almost everything a user would want (including virtual desktops), and working at a blinding speed, it is extremely compact in size.
It maximises screen real estate, provides good keyboard control with repositioning and maximize toggles, solid window drags, snap-to-border support, and virtual desktops. It is currently based on aewm.
Key Features
- No window decorations apart from a simple 1 pixel border.
- No icons.
- Good keyboard control, including repositioning and maximise toggles.
- Solid window drags.
- Snap-to-border support.
- Virtual desktops.
- EWMH support (not complete). EWMH is a spec that defines interactions between window managers, applications, and the utilities that form part of a desktop environment. It builds on the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual [ICCCM], which defines window manager interactions at a lower level.
- Xrandr support. Xrandr is an official configuration utility to the RandR (Resize and Rotate) X Window System extension. It can be used to set the size, orientation or reflection of the outputs for a screen.
- Small binary size.
Website: www.6809.org.uk/evilwm
Support: Manual
Developer: Ciaran Anscomb
License: AEWM License
evilwm 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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