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https://github.com/driusan/dewm

A pure go autotiling window manager written with literate programming
https://github.com/driusan/dewm

go literate-programming tiling tiling-window-manager window-manager wm x11 x11-wm

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A pure go autotiling window manager written with literate programming

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## dewm - a window manager written with literate programming



dewm is a pure Go autotiling window manager. It's intended to make the text

editor [de](https://github.com/driusan/de) feel more similar to acme when windows

are spawned with the p9p plumber, with the window management handled at a window

manager level, rather than integrated into the text editor. (If you're unfamiliar

with acme, it's a text editor written by Rob Pike for Plan 9 after he got drunk

one night and forgot that he wrote "cat -v considered harmful.")



dewm is written in a [literate programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming)

style, in the hopes that it can inspire anyone else who's ever wanted to write

their own window manager that they can learn enough to do it. I knew next to

nothing about the X11 protocol or ICCCM conventions when I started this (and

still don't), so if I got anything wrong please feel free to either send a pull

request or email me so I can correct it. I don't want to misinform anyone who

reads the markdown source in the src/ directory.



## Basics



dewm arranges the screen into columns, and divides columns up between windows

that are in that column. Windows always spawn in the first empty column, or the

end of the last column if there are no empty columns. (If no columns exist, the

first one is created automatically.)



By default, all columns are equally sized, and each window in any given column

is equally sized, but they can be resized dynamically (see keybindings below).



## Keybindings



These keybindings are currently hardcoded, but may one day be configurable.



### Window Management

* `Alt-H/Alt-L` move the current window left or right 1 column.

* `Alt-J/Alt-K` move the current window up or down 1 window in current column

* `Ctrl-Alt-Up/Down` increase/decrease the size of the current window. Other

   windows will be dynamically resized to make sure the column still takes the

   whole height of the screen.)

* `Ctrl-Alt-Left/Right` increase/decrease the size of the column with the 

   currently active window. (Other columns will be dynamically resized to

   make up for it.)

* `Ctrl-Alt-Enter` toggle whether or not the current window is maximized.

* `Ctrl-Shift-N` create a new column 

* `Ctrl-Shift-D` delete any empty columns



### Other

* `Alt-E` spawn an xterm

* `Alt-Q` close the current window

* `Alt-Shift-Q` destroy the current window

* `Ctrl-Alt-Backspace` quit dewm



## Screenshots



This is what dewm looks like with two windows in two columns:



![dewm with two columns](https://driusan.github.io/dewm/dewm-twocolumn.png)



And this is it looks like if, after browsing a bit, you threw an xterm into

the mix.



![dewm with multiple windows in a column](https://driusan.github.io/dewm/dewm-multiwindow.png)



## Installation



The generated go files are included in this repo, so that you can install dewm

with the standard go get tool (`go get github.com/driusan/dewm`)



You should then be able to add:



```go

dewm

```



to the end of your `.xinitrc` or `.xsession` file (assuming `$GOBIN` is in your

path, otherwise you'll have to include the full the path to the executable,

wherever `go get` compiled it to.)



## License



Any code that I've written is MIT licensed. I've often used [taowm](https://github.com/nigeltao/taowm)

as a reference when figuring out how to do things. I don't think any reasonable

person would say this is a derivative work, but to be safe, LICENSE.taowm contains

the taowm (3-clause BSD) license and applies to any code that explicltly comes

from there.