Abstract -------- window manager improved 2 (wmii) [1] is an improved, modularized and lightweight X11 window manager which supports tabbed, tiled and conventional window management through layouts. wmii consists of components that are independent processes and communicate via a socket-based virtual filesystem which is oriented on the "everything is file" paradigm of the Plan 9 [2] operating system. The core distribution of wmii contains the window manager itself, a master file system routing utility (wmiifs), a generic bar (wmiibar), a shortcut handler (wmiikeys), and a generic interaction menu (wmiimenu) beside several tiny utilities like wmiir, wmiiplumb, and wmiiwarp. Requirements ------------ In order to build wmii you need the Xlib header files. Furthermore, the wmii configuration scripts rely on the 9base package [3] which contains ports of various Plan 9 standard tools, in particular the rc shell. Installation ------------ Edit config.mk to match your local setup. wmii is installed into the /usr/local hierarchy by default. If your system is Mac OS X, then remove the '-static' flag in cmd/Makefile. Afterwards enter the following command to build and install wmii (if necessary as root): make clean install Running wmii ------------ Add the following line to your .xinitrc to start wmii using startx: exec wmii In order to connect wmii or wmiir to a specific display, make sure that the DISPLAY environment variable is set correctly, e.g.: DISPLAY=foo.bar:1 exec wmii This will start wmii on display :1 of the host foo.bar. Configuration ------------- The configuration of wmii is done by customizing the existing actions. Customizing an action means copying the appropriate file from the directory $WMII_CONFDIR (usually /usr/local/etc/wmii-3) to $HOME/.wmii-3 and editing it to fit your needs. The action of main interest is called 'wmiirc': it is executed on startup. Credits ------- Beside all thanks to the wmi contributors, the following people have contributed especially to wmii in various ways: - Christoph Wegscheider - Georg Neis - Uwe Zeisberger - Uriel - Scot Doyle - Sebastian Hartmann - Bernhard Leiner - Jonas Domeij - Vincent <10 (dot) 50 (at) free (dot) fr> - Oliver Kopp - Sebastian Roth - Steve Hoffman - Christof Musik - Steffen Liebergeld - Tobias Walkowiak - Sander van Dijk References ---------- [1] http://wmii.de [2] http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/ [3] http://wmii.de/repos/9base/ --Anselm R. Garbe