wm2 & wmx

• What are they?
• Where do I get them?
• What do they have?
• What don't they have?
• So why use them?

What are they?

wm2 and wmx are a pair of window managers written by Chris Cannam.

wm2 was written with a very definite, and quite minimalist design strategy. wmx is an offshoot of wm2 which provides the same interface style but which discards the minimalist design.

Where do I get them?

Current versions are wm2 v4 and wmx v4. Source is available from the author's pages at:

There are no RPMs or Debian packages that I know of.

What do they have?

window with focus

window without focus

Have:

• minimal window decorations
• window tag on each window containing name
• resize mark on bottom right corner
• simple window list (right-click on root window)

Allow you to:

• move windows (drag tab)
• resize windows (drag corner or edges)
• hide windows (hide button in tab)
• restore windows (from list)
• delete windows (hold down hide button)
• switch between visible windows (right-click tab/root)

At compile time you can choose:

• click-to-focus or focus-follows-mouse
• auto-raise
• font
• decoration colors
• frame thickness

What don't they have?

Don't have:

• icons
• configurability
• toolbars, docking buttons, etc

wmx window with pixmap decoration

wmx desktop with channel

wmx has but wm2 doesn't:

• pixmap support for window decorations and menus
• middle-button app-launcher menu
• multiple desktops (channels)
• keyboard shortcuts

So why use them?

Pros:

• Good design philosophy?
• No icons
• No endless configuring
• Looks nice out-of-the-box

• Not configurable
• No multi-screen support
• Not really that small