Monsterwm - ArchWiki

# Monsterwm

Monsterwm is a minimal, lightweight, tiny but monstrous dynamic tiling window manager. It will try to stay as small as possible. Currently under 700 lines with the config file included. It provides a set of four different layout modes (vertical stack, bottom stack, grid and monocle/fullscreen) by default, and has floating mode support. Each virtual desktop has its own properties, unaffected by other desktops' settings. Finally monsterwm supports multiple monitors setups.

Monsterwm is written with `Xlib` but there is also an `XCB` fork available.

## Installation

Download the monsterwm-git or monsterwm-xcb-git package from the AUR.

## Configuration

Monsterwm uses its `config.h` file for configuration. By default, some hotkeys are already set. `MOD1` is the `Alt` and `MOD4` is the `Windows/Super` key.

- `MOD1 + h` (decrease the size of a current window)
- `MOD1 + l` (increase the size of a current window)
- `MOD1 + Shift + c` (close current window)
- `MOD1 + Tab` (move to last desktop)
- `MOD1 + k` (change to previous window)
- `MOD1 + j` (change to next window)
- `MOD1 + Shift + k` (move current window up)
- `MOD1 + Shift + j` (move current window down)
- `MOD1 + Enter` (change master to current window)
- `MOD1 + t` (switch to tile mode)
- `MOD1 + b` (switch to bottomstack mode)
- `MOD1 + g` (switch to grid mode)
- `MOD1 + m` (switch to monocle mode)
- `MOD4 + v` (open dmenu - requires dmenu)
- `MOD1 + Shift + Enter` (open xterm)
- `MOD1 + Left` (previous desktop)
- `MOD1 + Right` (next desktop)
- `MOD1 + F1-4` (change to desktop #)
- `MOD1 + Ctrl + q` (quit monsterwm with exit value 1)
- `MOD1 + Ctrl + r` (quit monsterwm with exit value 0)

You can find more information in the man page (`man monsterwm`).

## Floating Mode

In floating mode one can freely move and resize windows in the screen space. Changing desktops, adding or removing floating windows, does not affect the floating status of the windows. Windows will revert to their tiling mode position once the user selects a tiling mode. To enter the floating mode, either change the layout to `FLOAT`, or enabled it by moving or resizing a window with the mouse, the window is then marked as being in floating mode.

## Panel

The user can define an empty space on the bottom or top of the screen, to be used by a panel. The panel is toggleable, but will be visible if no windows are on the screen. Monsterwm does not provide a panel and/or statusbar itself. Instead it adheres to the UNIX philosophy and outputs information about the existing desktops suchs as the number of windows and the tiling mode/layout of each desktop, the current desktop and urgent hints whenever needed. The user can use whatever tool or panel suits him best (`dzen2`, `conky`, `some-sorta-bar`, `bar`, `bipolarbar`, `mopag`, w/e), to process and display that information.

To disable the panel completely set PANEL_HEIGHT to zero 0. The SHOW_PANELL setting controls whether the panel is visible on startup, it does not control whether there is a panel or not.

You can find an example of how to achieve this here. You can actually parse that information with any language you want, build anything you want, and display the information however you'd like. Do not be limited by that example.

## Patches

Some extensions to the code are supported in the form of patches. See other branches for the patch and code. Easiest way to apply a patch, is to `git merge` that branch.

Currently:

- centerwindow : center new floating windows on the screen and center any window with a shortcut
- fibonacci : adds fibonacci layout mode
- initlayouts : define initial layouts for every desktop
- monocleborders : adds borders to the monocle layout
- nmaster : adds nmaster layout - multiple master windows for BSTACK and TILE layouts
- rectangle : draws only a rectangle when moving/resizing windows to keep resources low (ie through an ssh forwarded session)
- showhide : adds a function to show and hide all windows on all desktops
- uselessgaps : adds gaps around every window on screen
- warpcursor : cursors follows and is placed in the center of the current window
- windowtitles : along with the rest desktop info, output the title of the current window

Another branch called [core], is an even more stripped and minimal version of monsterwm, on top of which the master branch is built and extended.

There is also xinerama support for multiple monitors.

- xinerama-core : the equivalent of core branch with xinerama support
- xinerama-master : the equivalent of master branch with xinerama support
- xinerama-init : configurable initial values for each desktop on each monitor

To install monsterwm with a patch, simply change the `_gitbranch=` line in the PKGBUILD to the name of the patch.

If you installed monsterwm with the #Compile from source method, you can change to the desired branch with:

    $ git checkout <branch>

and then continue normally. For example to build monsterwm with the fibonacci layout one would do:

    $ git checkout fibonacci
    $ make
    # make clean install

That way you can also combine patches. To do that one would `merge` another branch to the current one. For example to build monsterwm with uselessgaps, warpcursor and showhide, one would do:

    $ git config user.email <mailaddress>
    $ git config user.name <name>
    $ git checkout uselessgaps
    $ git checkout warpcursor
    $ git checkout showhide
    $ git checkout master
    $ git merge -m merge uselessgaps warpcursor showhide
    $ make
    # make install

Note that you can skip the first two lines if you've previously defined them globally:

    $ git config --global user.email <mailaddress>
    $ git config --global user.name <name>

## Customization

### Application Rules

One can define rules for a specific application, which will be applied once the application spawns. A rule is composed of four parts.

    /* class      desktop  follow  float */
    { "MPlayer",     2,    True,   False },

- the class or instance name of the application
- the desktop in which the application should appear - index starts from `0`
- whether that desktop should be focused when the application is started
- whether the application should start in floating mode

So the above rule, would place MPlayer to desktop `3` and change from the current desktop to that desktop, because `follow` is `True`. MPlayer will be tiled as every other window.

To get the application class or instance name you can use `xprop` . If the desktop is set to a 'negative' number then the window spawns in the current desktop.

If we change the above rule to this one:

    /* class      desktop  follow  float */
    { "MPlayer",     -1,   True,   True },

then MPlayer will be spawned in the current desktop, floating.

### Add custom keybinds

To add custom keybindings, you must edit `config.h` and recompile monsterwm. That's why it is important to set them up on the initial installation to avoid having to do this again. Below is a scenario in which you would need to add a keybinding to open the thunar filemanager with `MOD1+t`.

First, you must add a line such as the following, underneath the already-defined `const char*`:

    config.h

    /**
     * custom commands
     * must always end with ', NULL };'
     */
    static const char *termcmd[] = { "xterm",     NULL };
    const char* thunarcmd[] = {"thunar", NULL};
    ...

Note: You can name it whatever you want. In this case, it is named `thunarcmd`.

`thunarcmd` is just a title for the command you want to construct and run. Inside the curly brackets is where you define the command to be executed. Each command fragment that is separated by a space has its own value. For example the command sequence `ncmpcpp next`, would be entered as `{"ncmpcpp", "next", NULL`}. The `NULL` value must be included at the end of each hotkey.

To actually register the hotkey with the window manager, you must look below that at the struct named `keys[]`. This is where monsterwm stores all of its keybindings. An example entry for the `thunarcmd` made above would be:

    { MOD1,     XK_t,     spawn,     {.com = thunarcmd}},

- The first element specifies the first keypress which is either:
  - `MOD1` for the modkey only,
  - `MOD1` `SHIFT` for the modkey and then the shift key,
  - `MOD1` `CONTROL` for the modkey and then the control key,
  - `0` for no key at all.

You can also use `MOD4` which is the `super` or `windows` key instead of `MOD1`.

- The second element specifies the actual key that is pressed to differentiate it from other similar hotkeys.

In this case, we set it to `t`, which has `XK_` in front of it because that is how Xorg reads key presses. Just remember to include `XK_` in front of it. Some examples of these include `XK_a` for the `a` key, `XK_Space` for the `space bar` and `XK_1` for the `1` key.

Note that these are case-sensitive, so `XK_a` is not the same as `XK_A`. So for this example, the entire hotkey sequence that needs to be pressed is `MOD1+t`.

- The third element just specifies the function `spawn`, which has been written to be passed a command to execute.

Whenever you need to start an application or do anything that is not related to the internals of monsterwm `spawn` will be used.

- The final element inside the brackets specifies which command that was previously defined will be run.

In our case, it is `thunarcmd[]`, so we would do `{.com = thunarcmd}`. The `.com` stands for command.

You can do the same with the `buttons[]` structure. The buttons structure, uses the mouse instead of the keyboard.

- Button1 is the left button
- Button2 is the middle click
- Button3 is the right button

After this, recompile, hope for no errors, and install.

## See also

- monsterwm thread on the forums
- monsterwm screenshot thread
- monsterwm repository on github
- monsterwm-xcb repository on github
- Comparison of tiling window managers

Category:

- Dynamic WMs