Manpages - spectrwm.1
Specify a configuration file to load instead of scanning for one.
Print version and exit.
is a minimalistic window manager that tries to stay out of the way so that valuable screen real estate can be used for much more important stuff. It has sane defaults and does not require one to learn a language to do any configuration. It was written by hackers for hackers and it strives to be small, compact and fast.
When
starts up, it reads settings from its configuration file,
See the
section below.
The following notation is used throughout this page:
Meta
Shift
Named key or button
is very simple in its use. Most of the actions are initiated via key or pointer bindings. See the
section below for defaults and customizations.
looks for the user-configuration file in the following order:
(if
is either not set or empty)
If the user-configuration file is not found,
then looks for the global configuration file in the following order:
(each colon-separated directory in
(if
is either not set or empty)
The format of the file is
For example:
Enabling or disabling an option is done by using 1 or 0 respectively.
Colors need to be specified per the
specification.
Comments begin with a #. When a literal
is desired in an option, then it must be escaped with a backslash, i.e. \#
The file supports the following keywords:
Launch an application in a specified workspace at start-of-day. Defined in the format
e.g. ws[2]:xterm launches an
in workspace 2.
Note that workspace mapping is handled via
When
spawns windows via a daemon, ensure the daemon is started with the correct
in its environment.
For example, starting
via
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libswmhack.so.0.0 urxvtd -q -o -f
Spawned programs automatically have
set when executed.
It is advised to check the man page of
as
is sometimes ignored by some operating systems. A workaround is available, e.g. launch an xterm(1) in workspace 2:
autorun = ws[2]:xterm -name ws2 quirk[XTerm:ws2] = WS[2]
External script that populates additional information in the status bar, such as battery life.
Process
character sequences in
output; default is 0.
Place the statusbar at the bottom of each region instead of the top.
Border color of the status bar(s) in screen
Border color of the status bar(s) on unfocused region(s) in screen
Set status bar border thickness in pixels. Disable border by setting to 0.
Background color of the status bar(s) in screen
A comma separated list of up to 10 colors can be specified. The first value is used as the default background color. Any of these colors can then be selected as a background color in the status bar through the use of the markup sequence
where n is between 0 and 9.
Background color for selections on the status bar(s) in screen
Defaults to the value of
Set default
state; default is 1.
Set default
state on workspace
default is 1.
Fonts used in the status bar. Either Xft or X Logical Font Description (XLFD) may be used to specify fonts. Fallback fonts may be specified by separating each font with a comma. If all entries are in XLFD syntax, font set will be used. If at least one entry is Xft, Xft will be used.
The default is to use font set.
If Xft is used, a comma-separated list of up to 10 fonts can be specified. The first entry is the default font. Any font defined here can then be selected in the status bar through the use of the markup sequence
where n is between 0 and 9.
Also note that
does not support Xft fonts.
Xft examples:
bar_font = Terminus:style=Regular:pixelsize=14:antialias=true
bar_font = --profont-medium----11-------,Terminus:pixelsize=14,--clean-medium----12-------
Font set examples:
bar_font = --terminus-medium----14-------*
bar_font = --profont-medium----11-------,--terminus-medium----14-------,--clean-medium----12-------*
To list the available fonts in your system see
or
manpages. The
application can help with the XLFD setting.
Foreground color of the status bar(s) in screen
A comma separated list of up to 10 colors can be specified. The first value is used as the default foreground color. Any of these colors can then be selected as a foreground color in the status bar through the use of the markup sequence
where n is between 0 and 9.
Foreground color for selections on the status bar(s) in screen
Defaults to the value of
Specify a font which uses the Unicode Private Use Area (U+E000 -> U+F8FF). Some fonts use these code points to provide special icon glyphs. Available only with Xft fonts.
Set the bar format string, overriding
and all of the
options. The format is passed through
before being used. It may contain the following character sequences:
sequence effects.
is a positive integer used to allocate horizontal space between ’L’, ’C’ and ’R’ sections (see justify). The default weight is 1.
can have the value L, C, R or T. L, C, R are for left, center and right justified sections respectively. A ’T’ section will limit its space usage to fit to the text. If no value is specified for a given section, the setting from
is used.
The currently recognized text markup sequences are:
Any markup sequence found after +@stp will appear as normal characters in the status bar.
Note that markup sequences in
script output will only be processed if
is enabled.
All character sequences may limit its output to a specific length, for example +64A. By default, no padding/alignment is done in case the length of the replaced string is less than the specified length (64 in the example). The padding/alignment can be enabled using a ’_’ character in the sequence. For example: +_64W, +64_W and +_64_W enable padding before (right alignment), after (left alignment), and both before and after (center alignment) window name, respectively. Any characters that don’t match the specification are copied as-is.
Justify the status bar text. Possible values are
and
Note that if the output is not left justified, it may not be properly aligned in some circumstances, due to the white-spaces in the default static format. See the
option for more details.
Bind key or button combo to action
See the
section below.
Set window border thickness in pixels. Disable all borders by setting to 0.
Set region containment boundary width in pixels. This is how far a window must be dragged/resized (with the pointer) beyond the region edge before it is allowed outside the region. Disable the window containment effect by setting to 0.
Enable or disable displaying the clock in the status bar. Disable by setting to 0 so a custom clock could be used in the
script.
Border color of the currently focused window. Default is red.
Border color of the currently focused, maximized window. Defaults to the value of
Border color of unfocused windows, default is rgb:88/88/88.
Border color of unfocused, maximized windows. Defaults to the value of
Some applications have dialogue windows that are too small to be useful. This ratio is the screen size to what they will be resized. For example, 0.6 is 60% of the physical screen size.
Remove border when bar is disabled and there is only one window on the region. Enable by setting to 1. Setting this to
removes border from lone tiled windows, regardless of the bar being enabled/disabled. Defaults to 0.
Window to put focus when the focused window is closed. Possible values are
(default) and
and
are relative to the window that is closed.
Whether to allow the focus to jump to the last window when the first window is closed or vice versa. Disable by setting to 0.
Window to put focus when no window has been focused. Possible values are
and
(default).
Window focus behavior with respect to the pointer. Possible values:
Set window focus on border crossings caused by cursor motion and window interaction.
Set window focus on all cursor border crossings, including workspace switches and changes to layout.
Set window focus on window interaction only.
Display the number of iconic (minimized) windows in the status bar. Enable by setting to 1.
Clear all key bindings (not button bindings) and load new bindings from the specified file. This allows you to load pre-defined key bindings for your keyboard layout. See the
section below for a list of keyboard mapping files that have been provided for several keyboard layouts.
Note that
can be specified if you only want to clear bindings.
Select layout to use at start-of-day. Defined in the format
e.g. ws[2]:-4:0:1:0:horizontal sets worskspace 2 to the horizontal stack mode, shrinks the master area by 4 ticks and adds one window to the stack, while maintaining default floating window behavior. Possible
values are
and
See
and
for more information. Note that the stacking options are complicated and have side-effects. One should familiarize oneself with these commands before experimenting with the
option.
This setting is not retained at restart.
When set to 1,
will also hide/restore the bar visibility of the affected workspace. Defaults to 0.
Change mod key. Mod1 is generally the ALT key and Mod4 is the windows key on a PC.
Set the name of a workspace at start-of-day. Defined in the format
e.g. ws[1]:Console sets the name of workspace 1 to
Define new action to spawn a program
See the
section below.
Add “quirk” for windows with class
instance
(optional) and name
(optional). See the
section below.
Allocates a custom region, removing any autodetected regions which occupy the same space on the screen. Defined in the format
e.g. screen[1]:800x1200+0+0.
To make a region span multiple monitors, create a region big enough to cover them all, e.g. screen[1]:2048x768+0+0 makes the region span two monitors with 1024x768 resolution sitting one next to the other.
Pixel width of empty space within region borders. Disable by setting to 0.
Position in stack to place newly spawned windows. Possible values are
and
(default).
and
are relative to the focused window.
Enable or disable displaying the current stacking algorithm in the status bar.
Set a preferred minimum width for the terminal. If this value is greater than 0,
will attempt to adjust the font sizes in the terminal to keep the terminal width above this number as the window is resized. Only
is currently supported. The
binary must not be setuid or setgid, which it is by default on most systems. Users may need to set program[term] (see the
section) to use an alternate copy of the
binary without the setgid bit set.
Pixel width of empty space between tiled windows. Negative values cause overlap. Set this to the opposite of
to collapse the border between tiles. Disable by setting to 0.
Minimizes the space consumed by the urgency hint indicator by removing the placeholders for non-urgent workspaces, the trailing space when there are urgent windows and the default leading space. Enable by setting to 1.
Enable or disable the urgency hint indicator in the status bar. Note that many terminal emulators require an explicit setting for the bell character to trigger urgency on the window. In
for example, one needs to add the following line to
xterm.bellIsUrgent: true
Enable or disable displaying the current master window count and stack column/row count in the status bar. Enable by setting to 1. See
and
for more information.
Focus on the target window/workspace/region when clamped. For example, when attempting to switch to a workspace that is mapped on another region and
is enabled, focus on the region with the target workspace. Enable by setting to 1.
Centers the pointer on the focused window when using bindings to change focus, switch workspaces, change regions, etc. Enable by setting to 1.
Enable or disable displaying the window class name (from WM_CLASS) in the status bar. Enable by setting to 1.
Enable or disable displaying the window instance name (from WM_CLASS) in the status bar. Enable by setting to 1.
Enable or disable displaying the window display name (from _NET_WM_NAME/WM_NAME) in the status bar. Enable by setting to 1.
To prevent excessively large window names from pushing the remaining text off the bar, it’s limited to 64 characters, by default. See the
option for more details.
Prevents workspaces from being swapped when attempting to switch to a workspace that is mapped to another region. Use
if you want to focus on the region containing the workspace and
if you want to also send the pointer. Enable by setting to 1.
Configure the status bar workspace indicator. One or more of the following options may be specified in a comma-separated list:
Include the current workspace.
Include workspaces with windows.
Include empty workspaces.
Include named workspaces.
Include workspaces with urgent window(s).
Include all workspaces.
Always exclude the current workspace from the list.
Indicate the current workspace if it is in the list.
Indicate workspaces in the list that contain urgent window(s).
Display the names of named workspaces in the list.
The default is
Set the total number of workspaces available. Minimum is 1, maximum is 22, default is 10.
allows you to define custom actions to launch programs of your choice and then bind them the same as with built-in actions. See the
section below.
Custom programs in the configuration file are specified as follows:
is any identifier that does not conflict with a built-in action or keyword,
is the desired program, and
is zero or more arguments to the program.
With the exception of ’~’ expansion, program calls are executed as-is without any interpretation. A shell can be called to execute shell commands. (e.g. sh -c ’command string’).
Remember that when using
in your program call, it must be escaped with a backslash, i.e. \#
The following argument variables will be substituted for values at the time the program is spawned:
-b if
is enabled.
Example:
program[ff] = usr/local/bin/firefox http://spectrwm.org bind[ff] = MOD+Shift+b # Now M-S-b launches firefox
To cancel the previous, unbind it:
bind[] = MOD+Shift+b
Default programs:
xterm
xlock
dmenu_run $dmenu_bottom -fn $bar_font -nb $bar_color -nf $bar_font_color -sb $bar_color_selected -sf $bar_font_color_selected
dmenu $dmenu_bottom -i -fn $bar_font -nb $bar_color -nf $bar_font_color -sb $bar_color_selected -sf $bar_font_color_selected
dmenu $dmenu_bottom -p Workspace -fn $bar_font -nb $bar_color -nf $bar_font_color -sb $bar_color_selected -sf $bar_font_color_selected
initscreen.sh # optional
screenshot.sh full # optional
screenshot.sh window # optional
Note that optional default programs will not be validated unless overridden. If a default program fails validation, you can resolve the exception by installing the program, modifying the program call or disabling the program by freeing the respective binding.
For example, to override
program[lock] = xscreensaver-command -lock
To unbind
and prevent it from being validated:
bind[] = MOD+Shift+Delete
provides many functions (or actions) accessed via key or pointer bindings.
The default bindings are listed below:
focus
move
resize
resize_centered
term
menu
quit
restart
restart_of_day
cycle_layout
flip_layout
layout_vertical
layout_horizontal
layout_max
stack_reset
stack_balance
master_shrink
master_grow
master_add
master_del
stack_inc
stack_dec
swap_main
focus_next
focus_prev
focus_main
focus_urgent
swap_next
swap_prev
bar_toggle
bar_toggle_ws
wind_del
wind_kill
mvrg_next
mvrg_prev
ws_empty
ws_empty_move
ws_next
ws_prev
ws_next_all
ws_prev_all
ws_prior
ws_prev_move
ws_next_move
rg_next
rg_prev
rg_move_next
rg_move_prev
screenshot_all
screenshot_wind
version
float_toggle
lock
initscr
iconify
uniconify
maximize_toggle
fullscreen_toggle
raise
always_raise
button2
width_shrink
width_grow
height_shrink
height_grow
move_left
move_right
move_up
move_down
name_workspace
search_workspace
search_win
The action names and descriptions are listed below:
Focus window/region under pointer.
Move window with pointer while binding is pressed.
Resize window with pointer while binding is pressed.
Same as
but keep window centered.
Spawn a new terminal (see
above).
Menu (see
above).
Quit
Restart
Same as
but configuration file is loaded in full.
Cycle layout.
Swap the master and stacking areas.
Switch to vertical layout.
Switch to horizontal layout.
Switch to max layout.
Reset layout.
Balance master/stacking area.
Shrink master area.
Grow master area.
Add windows to master area.
Remove windows from master area.
Add columns/rows to stacking area.
Remove columns/rows from stacking area.
Move current window to master area.
Focus next window in workspace.
Focus previous window in workspace.
Focus on main window in workspace.
Focus on next window with the urgency hint flag set. The workspace is switched if needed.
Swap with next window in workspace.
Swap with previous window in workspace.
Toggle overall visibility of status bars.
Toggle status bar on current workspace.
Delete current window in workspace.
Destroy current window in workspace.
Switch to workspace
where
is 1 through
Move current window to workspace
where
is 1 through
Focus on region
where
is 1 through 9.
Move current window to region
where
is 1 through 9.
Move current window to workspace in next region.
Move current window to workspace in previous region.
Switch to the first empty workspace.
Switch to the first empty workspace and move current window.
Switch to next workspace with a window in it.
Switch to previous workspace with a window in it.
Switch to next workspace.
Switch to previous workspace.
Switch to next workspace with the current window.
Switch to previous workspace with the current window.
Switch to last visited workspace.
Switch to next region.
Switch to previous region.
Switch region to next screen.
Switch region to previous screen.
Take screenshot of entire screen (if enabled) (see
above).
Take screenshot of selected window (if enabled) (see
above).
Toggle version in status bar.
Toggle focused window between tiled and floating.
Lock screen (see
above).
Reinitialize physical screens (see
above).
Minimize (unmap) currently focused window.
Restore (map) window returned by
selection.
Toggle maximization of focused window.
Toggle fullscreen state of focused window.
Raise the current window.
When set tiled windows are allowed to obscure floating windows.
Fake a middle mouse button click (Button2).
Shrink the width of a floating window.
Grow the width of a floating window.
Shrink the height of a floating window.
Grow the height of a floating window.
Move a floating window a step to the left.
Move a floating window a step to the right.
Move a floating window a step upwards.
Move a floating window a step downwards.
Name the current workspace.
Search for a workspace.
Search the windows in the current workspace.
Custom bindings in the configuration file are specified as follows:
is one of the actions listed above (or empty to unbind) and
is in the form of zero or more modifier keys and/or special arguments (Mod1, Shift, MOD, etc.) and a normal key (b, Space, etc) or a button (Button1 .. Button255), separated by
Multiple key/button combinations may be bound to the same action.
Special arguments:
Substituted for the currently defined
Select all modifier combinations not handled by another binding.
Reprocess binding press/release events for other programs to handle. Unavailable for
and
example:
bind[reset] = Mod4+q # bind Windows-key + q to reset bind[] = Mod1+q # unbind Alt + q bind[move] = MOD+Button3 # Bind move to M-Button3 bind[] = MOD+Button1 # Unbind default move binding.
example:
bind[focus] = ANYMOD+Button3 bind[move] = MOD+Button3
In the above example,
initiates
and
pressed with any other combination of modifiers sets focus to the window/region under the pointer.
example:
bind[focus] = REPLAY+Button3
In the above example, when
is pressed without any modifier(s), focus is set to the window under the pointer and the button press is passed to the window.
To bind non-latin characters such as å or π you must enter the xkb character name instead of the character itself. Run
focus the window and press the specific key and in the terminal output read the symbol name. In the following example for å:
KeyPress event, serial 41, synthetic NO, window 0x2600001, root 0x15a, subw 0x0, time 106213808, (11,5), root:(359,823), state 0x0, keycode 24 (keysym 0xe5, aring), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 2 bytes: (c3 a5) “å” XmbLookupString gives 2 bytes: (c3 a5) “å” XFilterEvent returns: False
The xkb name is aring. In other words, in
add:
bind[program] = MOD+aring
To clear all default keyboard bindings and specify your own, see the
option.
Keyboard mapping files for several keyboard layouts are listed below. These files can be used with the
setting to load pre-defined key bindings for the specified keyboard layout.
Czech Republic keyboard layout
Spanish keyboard layout
French keyboard layout
Swiss French keyboard layout
Swedish keyboard layout
United States keyboard layout
provides “quirks” which handle windows that must be treated specially in a tiling window manager, such as some dialogs and fullscreen apps.
The default quirks are described below:
TRANSSZ
FLOAT
FLOAT + ANYWHERE
FLOAT + FULLSCREEN + FOCUSPREV
FLOAT
FLOAT
FLOAT
FLOAT + ANYWHERE
FLOAT + ANYWHERE
FULLSCREEN + FLOAT
FLOAT + ANYWHERE
FLOAT + ANYWHERE
XTERM_FONTADJ
The quirks themselves are described below:
Allow window to position itself, uncentered.
This window should not be tiled, but allowed to float freely.
When the window first appears on the screen, change focus to the window if there are no other windows on the workspace with the same WM_CLASS class/instance value. Has no effect when
is set to
On exit force focus on previously focused application not previous application in the stack.
Remove border to allow window to use full region size.
Ignore the PID when determining the initial workspace for a new window. Especially useful for terminal windows that share a process.
Ignore the spawn workspace when determining the initial workspace for a new window.
Remove border when window is unfocused and floating.
Remove from normal focus cycle (focus_prev or focus_next). The window can still be focused using search_win.
Don’t change focus to the window when it first appears on the screen. Has no effect when
is set to
When an application requests focus on the window via a _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW client message (source indication of 1), comply with the request. Note that a source indication of 0 (unspecified) or 2 (pager) are always obeyed.
Adjusts size on transient windows that are too small using
(see
Force a new window to appear on workspace
Adjust
fonts when resizing.
Custom quirks in the configuration file are specified as follows:
(optional) and
(optional) are patterns used to determine which window(s) the quirk(s) apply to and
is one of the quirks from the list above.
Note that patterns are interpreted as POSIX Extended Regular Expressions. Any ’:’, ’[’ or ’]’ must be escaped with ’\’. See
for more information on POSIX Extended Regular Expressions.
For example:
quirk[MPlayer] = FLOAT + FULLSCREEN + FOCUSPREV # Float all windows having a class of ’MPlayer’ quirk[.*] = FLOAT # Float all windows by default. quirk[.*:.*:.*] = FLOAT # Same as above. quirk[Firefox:Navigator] = FLOAT # Float all Firefox browser windows. quirk[::Console] = FLOAT # Float windows with WM_CLASS not set and a window name of ’Console’. quirk[\[0-9\].*:.*:\[\[\:alnum\:\]\]*] = FLOAT
WM_CLASS instance and a _NET_WM_NAME/WM_NAME either blank or containing alphanumeric characters without spaces. quirk[pcb:pcb] = NONE # remove existing quirk
You can obtain
and
by running
and then clicking on the desired window. In the following example the main window of Firefox was clicked:
$ xprop | grep -E “^(WM_CLASS|_NET_WM_NAME|WM_NAME)” WM_CLASS(STRING) = “Navigator”, “Firefox” WM_NAME(STRING) = “spectrwm - ConformalOpenSource” _NET_WM_NAME(UTF8_STRING) = “spectrwm - ConformalOpenSource”
Note that
displays WM_CLASS as:
WM_CLASS(STRING) = “<instance>”, “<class>”
In the example above the quirk entry would be:
quirk[Firefox:Navigator] = FLOAT
also automatically assigns quirks to windows based on the value of the window’s _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE property as follows:
FLOAT + ANYWHERE
FLOAT + ANYWHERE
FLOAT + ANYWHERE
FLOAT
FLOAT
In all other cases, no automatic quirks are assigned to the window. Quirks specified in the configuration file override the automatic quirks.
partially implements the Extended Window Manager Hints (EWMH) specification. This enables controlling windows as well as
itself from external scripts and programs. This is achieved by
responding to certain ClientMessage events. From the terminal these events can be conveniently sent using tools such as
and
For the actual format of these ClientMessage events, see the EWMH specification.
The id of the currently focused window is stored in the _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW property of the root window. This can be used for example to retrieve the title of the currently active window with
and
$ WINDOWID=`xprop -root _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW | grep -o “0x.*”` $ xprop -id $WINDOWID _NET_WM_NAME | grep -o “\”.*\“”
A window can be focused by sending a _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW client message to the root window. For example, using
to send the message (assuming 0x4a0000b is the id of the window to be focused):
$ wmctrl -i -a 0x4a0000b
Windows can be closed by sending a _NET_CLOSE_WINDOW client message to the root window. For example, using
to send the message (assuming 0x4a0000b is the id of the window to be closed):
$ wmctrl -i -c 0x4a0000b
Windows can be floated and un-floated by adding or removing the _NET_WM_STATE_ABOVE atom from the _NET_WM_STATE property of the window. This can be achieved by sending a _NET_WM_STATE client message to the root window. For example, the following toggles the floating state of a window using
to send the message (assuming 0x4a0000b is the id of the window to be floated or un-floated):
$ wmctrl -i -r 0x4a0000b -b toggle,_NET_WM_STATE_ABOVE
Windows can also be iconified and un-iconified by substituting _NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN for _NET_WM_STATE_ABOVE in the previous example:
$ wmctrl -i -r 0x4a0000b -b toggle,_NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN
Floating windows can also be resized and moved by sending a _NET_MOVERESIZE_WINDOW client message to the root window. For example, using
to send the message (assuming 0x4a0000b is the id of the window to be resize/moved):
$ wmctrl -i -r 0x4a0000b -e 0,100,50,640,480
This moves the window to (100,50) and resizes it to 640x480.
Any _NET_MOVERESIZE_WINDOW events received for stacked windows are ignored.
Sending
a HUP signal will restart it.
user specific settings.
global settings.
was inspired by xmonad & dwm.
was written by:
Information about spectrwm.1 is found in manpage for: libswmhack.so .