1
WMCONFIG(1)
WMCONFIG(1) WMCONFIG(1)
NAME
wmconfig - Window Manager Config helper program
SYNOPSIS
wmconfig --output=manager [ --rootmenu=root_menu_name ]
[ --flag=flags ] [ --sysdir=system_directory ]
[ --userdir=user_directory ]
[ --no-icons ] [ --no-mini-icons ]
[ --directories ] [ --no-promote ]
[ --help ]
[ --version ]
[ file ... ]
DESCRIPTION
wmconfig is a program that will produce output consisting
of menu definitions compatible with the selected window
manager. You can include that output in your .rc file or
have the output read through a pipe for dynamic configura-
tions.
How does it work ?
wmconfig will read all the files located in
/etc/X11/wmconfig. It will then read the files from the
.wmconfig directory in the user's home directory. There-
fore, the user's settings will override the system-wide
settings from /etc/X11/wmconfig. If optionally any extra
files are given as an argument on the command line, those
will be read last and merged with the others (possibly
overriding the settings in system and user home dir files)
Each of these files have the following format. For exam-
ple, here's the gv package:
gv name "Ghostview"
gv icon "ghostview.bmp"
gv mini-icon "mini-gv.xpm"
gv exec "gv &"
gv group "Graphics/Viewers"
Config File Definition
The format of the config file is:
<package> <tag string>
package
denotes the name of the package, and is used internally by
wmconfig to group together multiple tags intended for the
same application. This item does not have any other spe-
cial meaning.
Thu Nov 6 1997 1
WMCONFIG(1) WMCONFIG(1)
tag
This can have several possible values. Among them:
name This is the name of the application, as it should
be displayed in the menu.
Example: name "My Cute Application"
icon This is the filename of an icon for this applica-
tion. Use of full paths is discouraged because not
all window managers can read and cope with full
paths in icon names. Try to put your icons in a
place where your window manager can find them by
default.
Example: icon "my-icon.xpm"
mini-icon
Some window managers support mini icons in menus or
title bars, etc. This tag is intended for those
kind of window managers (among them, mwm, fvwm2,
fvwm95, icewm). The same remarks from the icon tag
apply here. See the example from icon.
copy This will result in the configuration (entries) for
this application being completed (by copying) from
another application.
Example: copy anotherpackage
exec This is the command that will be excuted by the
window manager when this menu entry is selected.
Example: exec "xterm -T mailer pine"
group This is the group you want to have you application
listed under. The group items are separated by /
(that is a forward slash). Groups are created on
the fly, so you do have to be careful with typos!.
Example: group "Applications/Graphics Utili-
ties/Viewers"
The above example will generate code (for the win-
dow manager of your choice) to generate a menu
entry named Applications with another menu entry
under it named Graphics Utilities and finaly a menu
entry under that one named Viewers containing your
application as an entry.
User config files in $HOME/.wmconfig can have multiple
packages defined in there; order does not matter. The only
way to have an app in two different groups is to use copy
to copy another package and override the group setting.
OPTIONS
--output=manager
Where manager can currently be one of: fvwm2,
fvwm95, mwm, afterstep, icewm, wmaker, kde or
Thu Nov 6 1997 2
WMCONFIG(1) WMCONFIG(1)
debug. The only entry which is special in this list
is the debug entry, which will produce a nice tree-
like output to debug your settings and show you how
the data is represented internally by wmconfig.
--flag=flags
Where flags can be one of:
no-icons - this will tell wmconfig not to produce
any icon-related output. You might want to do this
if you don't want to have Icon styles applied to
your application in your window manager. For
instance, if you don't want to have iconified win-
dows on the desktop.
no-mini-icons - the same thing, except for mini-
icons (currently only supported by fvwm2 and
fvwm95).
directories - some window managers are expecting
their menu configuration as a hierarchy of directo-
ries/files. This option is working together with
--output setting. Currently it is known to work
only when invoked with --output=afterstep, and it
will create the directories/files in
~/GNUstep/Library/AfterStep/start (this is a hard-
coded path and can not be changed without a recom-
pile).
no-promote - Menus that have only one application
defined will be
(yeah, some people find it irritating to have menus
with only one app in!). This flag will turn off
this default behavior.
If you want to specify more than one flag at a
time, you can either repeat the --flag switch, or
list all the flags comma-separated with no spacing
in between.
Example:
--flag=flag1,flag2,flag3 or
--flag=flag1 --flag=flag2 ...
--sysdir=system_directory
This switch is used to set the system directory
instead of using the default (which is
/etc/X11/wmconfig).
--userdir=user_directory
The default value for this switch is .wmconfig.
This means that a directory called $HOME/.wmconfig
will be searched for files containing valid wmcon-
fig entries, and will be read after the system
directory is read. By using --userdir you have a
way to change that value.
Thu Nov 6 1997 3
WMCONFIG(1) WMCONFIG(1)
--rootmenu=root_menu_name
By default, the name of the root menu is RootStart.
If you want wmconfig to begin generating entryies
starting at a certain point in your already-exist-
ing menu tree, you will want to use this switch.
--no-icons
Does the same thing as --flag=no-icons
--no-mini-icons
Does the same thing as --flag=no-mini-icons
--directories
Does the same thing as --flag=directories
--no-promote
Does the same thing as --flag=no-promote
--help This is the popular "show me the help-screen !"
switch.
--version
This is the popular "what version was that ?"
switch.
BUGS
Definite bugs
Probably the source code of the whole thing is far more
useful than this man page.
Possible bugs
The BUGS section of this man page might be inaccurate.
FILES
/etc/X11/wmconfig
The default system directory containing wmconfig
files
$HOME/.wmconfig
The default user directory containing wmconfig
files
AUTHOR
Cristian Gafton lt;gafton@redhat.com
Red Hat Software, Inc.