~ctwm/ctwm/trunk

= CTWM

== Intro

ctwm is an extension to twm, originally written by Claude Lecommandeur

that support multiple virtual screens, and a lot of other goodies.

You can use and manage up to 32 virtual screens called workspaces.  You

swap from one workspace to another by clicking on a button in an

optionnal panel of buttons (the workspace manager) or by invoking a

function.

You can customize each workspace by choosing different colors, names and

pixmaps for the buttons and background root windows.

Major features include:

* Optional 3D window titles and border (ala Motif).

* Shaped, colored icons.

* Multiple icons for clients based on the icon name.

* Windows can belong to several workspaces.

* A map of your workspaces to move quickly windows between

   different workspaces.

* Animations: icons, root backgrounds and buttons can be animated.

* Pinnable and sticky menus.

* etc...

The sources files were once the twm ones only workmgr.[ch] added (written

from scratch by Claude Lecommandeur) and minor modifications to some twm

files.  Since then much more extensive changes and reorganization have

been done, so the codebase is now significantly different from plain twm.

If you find bugs in ctwm, or just want to tell us how much you like it,

please send a report to the mailing list.

There is a manual page, which always needs more work (any volunteers?).

Many useful information bits are only in the CHANGES.md file, so please

read it.

== Configuration

ctwm is build using CMake, which does its best to root around in your

system to find the pieces the build needs.  Occasionally though you might

have to give it some help, or change the defaults of what features are

expected.

In the common case, the included Makefile will do the necessary

invocations, and you won't need to worry about it; just run a normal

`make ; make install` invocation.  If you need to make alterations

though, you may have to invoke cmake manually and set various params on

the command line (cmake also has various GUI configurators, not covered

here).

The following parameters control configuration/installation locations:

CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX::

        Where paths are based.  This is a standard cmake var.  Referred

        to as `$PREFIX` below.

ETCDIR::

        Where ctwm will look for a `system.ctwmrc` to fall back to if it

        doesn't find a per-user config.  Nothing is installed here by

        default.

        (default: `$PREFIX/etc`)

BINDIR::

        Where the ctwm binary is installed.

        (default: `$PREFIX/bin`)

DATADIR::

        Where run-time data like image pixmaps are installed.

        (default: `$PREFIX/share/ctwm`)

MANDIR::

        Base directory under which manpage dirs like `man1` and `man2`

        live.

        (default: `$PREFIX/share/man` or `$PREFIX/man`, whichever is

        found first)

DOCDIR::

        Where non-manpage docs are installed.

        (default: `$PREFIX/share/doc/ctwm`)

EXAMPLEDIR::

        Where various example files get installed.  These include the

        system.ctwmrc that is compiled into ctwm as a fallback.

        (default: `$PREFIX/share/examples/ctwm`)

The following parameters control the features/external libs that are

available.  The defaults can be changed by passing parameters like

`-DUSE_XYZ=OFF` to the cmake command line.

USE_M4::

        Enables use of m4(1) for preprocessing config files at runtime.

        If your m4 is called something other than `m4` or `gm4`, you may

        need to also set M4_CMD to point at it.

        (**ON** by default)

USE_XPM::

        Enables the use of XPM images.  Disable if libxpm isn't present,

        which is just barely possible on very old systems.

        (**ON** by default)

USE_JPEG::

        Enables the use of jpeg images via libjpeg.  Disable if libjpeg

        isn't present.

        (**ON** by default)

USE_EWMH::

        Enables EWMH support.

        (**ON** by default)

USE_RPLAY::

        Build with sound support via librplay.  `USE_SOUND` is a still

        valid but deprecated alias for this, and will give a warning.

        (**OFF** by default)

USE_XRANDR::

        Enables the use of multi-monitors of different sizes via

        libXrandr.  Disable if libXrandr isn't present or is older than 1.5.

        (**ON** by default)

Additional vars you might need to set:

M4_CMD::

        Name of m4 program, if it's not `m4` or `gm4`, or full path to it

        if it's not in your `$PATH`.

## Building

In the simple case, the defaults should work.  Most modern or semi-modern

systems should fall into this.

    funny prompt> make

If you need to add special config, you'll have to pass extra bits to

cmake via an invocation like

    funny prompt> make CMAKE_EXTRAS="-DUSE_XPM=OFF -DM4_CMD=superm4"

Though in more complicated cases it may be simpler to just invoke cmake

directly:

    funny prompt> ( cd build ; cmake -DUSE_XPM=OFF -DM4_CMD=superm4 .. )

    funny prompt> make

=== Required Libs

ctwm requires various X11 libraries to be present.  That list will

generally include libX11, libXext, libXmu, libXt, libSM, and libICE.

Depending on your configuration, you may require extra libs as discussed

above (libXpm, libjpeg, and libXrandr are included in the default

config).  If you're on a system that separates header files etc. from the

shared lib itself (many Linux dists do), you'll probably need -devel or

similarly named packages installed for each of them as well.

== Installation

    funny prompt> make install

=== Packaging

The CMake build system includes sufficient info for CPack to be used to

build RPM (and presumably, though not tested, DEB) packages.  As a quick

example of usage:

    funny prompt> make

    funny prompt> (cd build && cpack -G RPM)

== Dev and Support

=== Mailing list

There is a mailing list for discussions: <ctwm@ctwm.org>.  Subscribe by

sending a mail with the subject "subscribe ctwm" to

<minimalist@ctwm.org>.

=== Repository

ctwm development uses breezy (see <https://www.breezy-vcs.org/>) for

version control.  The code is available on launchpad as `lp:ctwm`.  See

<https://launchpad.net/ctwm> for more details.

== Further information

Additional information can be found from the project webpage, at

<https://www.ctwm.org/>.

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