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Dralnu
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 10:54 pm    Post subject: IceWM (An evolving HowTo and FAQ) Reply with quote

First thing first, this is my first doc like this, so if you think something needs to be changed, either PM me or post, and I'll see about fixing it. Thanks :)

Two things I have noticed about IceWM is this:

Old Docs
Few Users

This isn't a good thing, and personally I love IceWM. Only WM I've seen with a CPU monitor and Net monitor built into the panel.

For those of you who don't know IceWM that well, a few features:

Quote:
Automating startup via scripts
Seperate background for transparent windows [My screenshots for my layout are here: Sceenshots. Clean is the real wallpaper, Busy is the "transparent" wallpaper (BTW, it is real transparency)
Keyboard-controled (If you like keeping to the keyboard, its a handy feature)
Lightweight (like any good WM should be :))


Well, short list, but I kept out what I think is pretty much standard. Anyways, lets start from startup, shall we?

Setup for IceWM:
To set IceWM to your default, you have two choices:

Code:
echo "icewm" > ~/.xinitrc
echo "icewm-session" > ~/.xinitrc


The two are the same, except icewm-session will start with your ~/.icewm/startup script, along with icewmbg (the program used to draw your background). There isn't a reason not to use icewm-session, so I will figure it as the natural choice, and I'll go on.

Startup Script:
Ok, this is fairly simple. Lets look at a fairly simple script:

Code:
#!/bin/bash

#IceWM Startup Script
conky &
xscreensaver &


Thats fairly simple, right? Well, it is that simple, for the most part.

The problem comes when you want to start, say Kopete (the KDE IM app). If you simply

Code:
#!/bin/bash

#IceWM Startup Script
conky &
xscreensaver &
kopete &


then you can start kopete, but cann't log in. Why? Klauncher didn't launch Kopete. So, I found a fairly simple fix:

Code:
#!/bin/bash

#IceWM Startup Script
conky &
xscreensaver &
sleep 3 #this delays all the commands after, giving programs like klauncher time to start up
kopete &


It works. I'm unaware of the reasoning behind it not working previously, but that has it fixed.
Just remember: Any time you want to start an app requiring something like klauncher, put it after sleep to make sure it starts.

If you wish for a window to open on a specific desktop (lets say start a terminal on Workspace 4), you need to set it in your ~/.icewm/winoption file, which will make it start every time in that workspace.

The syntax (as I know it right now) is:

program.workspace: workspace number -1

This will start that program in that workspace every time if I remember right.

Lets move on to something a little more complex

The files in your ~/.icewm directory
First off, stock, your ~/.icewm is fairly sparse. The system-wide defaults are stored in

/usr/share/icewm

so anything you want to change, move the files to your ~/.icewm dir. Lets start with a few files:

Code:
cp /usr/share/icewm/[i]$FILE[/i] ~/.icewm/$FILE


replace $FILE with menu, preferences, prefoverride, toolbar, and keys. This will give you a good basis, and will cover most of what you may want to alter

NOTE:Themes will override you preferences file, so if you have to keep a change forever, set it in prefoverride

That gives you a good basis to start from, so lets continue:

Configuring your Background

NOTE: Only .xpm files can be used to background images. The use of convert from the ImageMagick package will prove useful in converting files from one format to another, so don't consider this too much of a set-back.

This is something that you should do in prefoverride if you want to keep it. If you make your own theme, then you can set it up there.

Ok, so lets look over your prefoverride file. It looks just like your preferences file, and its fairly well documented, so I'll skip that, and go to the desktop backgrounds. Scroll to the end of the file (very end), and look it over. Its well documented, but I'll give a few tips.

First off, uncomment your DesktopBackgroundColor line,and leave it empty, like so:

Code:
DesktopBackgroundColor=""


To prevent the color from overriding your Background (it may not all the time, but why leave it to chance?)

The end of my prefoverride is longer then most, and I'll tell you why.

Code:
#DesktopBackgroundImage="$PATH_TO_.XPM_FILE" #short descriptive name for image file
DesktopBackgroundImage="$CURRENT_BACKGROUND" #name for this image


This lets you specify several backgrounds and whatnot, and makes changing quickly without having to retype out the path.

Now, lets look over transparencies here

Enabling Diffrent Transparency images for Windows

This is one thing I found rather interesting about IceWM, and havn't seen in any other WM (I may have missed it somewhere), and I love it.

My previous shortcut works well with this, but we need to look over something else first.

To fully enable this feature, you need to uncomment DesktopTransparencyColor, and set it empty, like so

Code:
DesktopTransparencyColor=""


This will make sure to prevent the color from overriding your transparency background.

Then, like before, you can setup multiple entries, and uncomment/recomment as neccesary.

Keys

This is a handy feature that is very common amoung WMs and DEs, so I'll keep this short.
Your ~/.icewm/keys file is what you need to alter to configure this, and the defaults are OK, depending on who you are. The file is well-commented, and the defaults give a good examle, so I'll leave this alone now.

Menus and Toolbar
This is a fairly simple section, but can take some tweaking to get working right.

The syntax is fairly simple, so I'll dive into an example here:

Code:
[i][item type][/i] [i][item name][/i] [i]]icon][/i] [i][either command, or bracket][/i]


That is the syntax, the REAL example will be this:

Code:
menu Programs folder {
menu Internet folder {
prog Kopete "" kopete
}
}

Thats pretty much it. Just make sure to close out all of your curly brackets, and if you don't want an icon (or don't have one. The icons that are supported are in the icons folder. You can copy this to your ~/.icewm to use them, but make sure to copy the whole folder if you do), make sure to use "" for an empty entry.

There should be something at the top of your menu folder that may interest you. These run on the same syntax and format as the menu itself, so I'll leave that be.

Your toolbar uses the same syntax as your menu folder, and by default it should have xterm there for a good example. This should make configuing this a breeze.

There is a problem within this, and that is trying to execute commands that require long arguments (having a terminal with several options is one problem). Currently I don't know of a way around this, but I'm looking and have reported it as a bug.

The Toolbar itself
This section will cover the toolbar itself in all its glory.
I'll figure on the default toolbar here to make things easier for myself, and hopefully easier to understand.

On the far left is a button with "IceWM" in it. This is the menu button, which can also be accessed via the "Window" key on your keyboard (I'm not a mac user, so someone else will have to tell me what effects it on a mac keyboard).
Next to that, on its imediate right, it the "minimize all" button (or show desktop button, pick yourself a name of it).
Next to that is the "Window List" button, which list all the windows avalible to you, as well as workspace selections and the Windows windows which tells you whats open on all desktops.
Then there are the programs that are refrenced by the "toolbar" file.
The workspace selection buttons
The general window list that displays all the windows on that particular desktop
The icons
Your Net monitor
CPU Monitor
Clock
Minimize toolbar button

I think that covers the basics, and remember this is an ongoing work, so if something isn't here, ask for the info in a post, and I'll update and reply as soon as I can. Hope this helps someone out there :D

Almost forgot:

Additional Information
The IceWM docs themselves
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Last edited by Dralnu on Thu Aug 17, 2006 1:22 am; edited 1 time in total
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Memoreyx
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:13 am    Post subject: Icecc (from icewm-tools) Reply with quote

with icecc one can configure many things of icewm(such background,fonts,hotkeys,themes,toolbar,menus,...)
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Dralnu
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 1:12 am    Post subject: Re: Icecc (from icewm-tools) Reply with quote

Memoreyx wrote:
with icecc one can configure many things of icewm(such background,fonts,hotkeys,themes,toolbar,menus,...)


icecc is a pain to use. I tried it. Its easier for me to handle the configs myself then to try to go through that. It may work for you, but its a pain for me.
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