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kwm can be configured using the KDE Control Center (application starter > KDE Control Center). Open the Windows tree to work with the various configuration options. The keyboard shortcuts can be configure in the Global Keys section.
To configure virtual desktops, open the Applications tree and choose Panel.
For those who prefer to edit a configuration file, this section explains
the options in the kwmrc
file, located in ~/.kde/share/config.
The kwmrc configuration file is divided into the following sections:
This section controls placement of window control buttons in the titlebar. It contains lines of the form
ButtonX=button-name
where X is a letter A-F, and button-name is one of Menu,
Sticky, Iconify, Maximize, Close, Off
. Buttons A, B, and C appear
on the left-hand side of the window title, and D, E, and F appear on the
right-hand side.
This section defines a number of miscellaneous configuration items:
KDE|CDE
(default is KDE)
CDE style AltTab-Feature to be usable with the classic focus policies. The CDE style is default with the classic focus policies, since KDE style does not make much sense under these circumstances. For all other focus policies you may choose the style.
If FocusPolicy
is FocusFollowMouse
, this item determines the
delay between the time a window gains focus when the mouse enters it
and the time the window is raised to the top.
When the user is positioning a window, and one of the window borders approaches the desktop border, the window will snap to the border. value determines how close the window must be to the desktop border to snap to it.
on|off
When off
, window operations involving the right mouse button are
disabled so that application windows can receive right mouse button events.
on|off
When on
, allows the user to press Ctrl+Tab
to switch between
virtual desktops.
When you have more than one desktop, the ElectricBorder feature allows you to move between them by moving the mouse to the edge of the screen. value specifies the length of time you must keep the mouse pointer positioned at the border before the desktop changes. A value of -1 disables this feature.
NoWarp|MiddleWarp|FullWarp
If the ElectricBorder
option is on
, turn this
on
to have the mouse moved to the corresponding position when the
desktop changes.
The number of pushes within the time frame given by the ElectricBorder
property
to switch to another virtual desktop without dragging a window.
ClickToFocus|FocusFollowMouse|ClassicFocusFollowsMouse|ClassicSloppyFocus
ClickToFocus
requires the user to click the mouse in a window to
give the window focus. FocusFollowMouse
always gives focus to the
window under the mouse. ClassicFocusFollowsMouse
no window without the mouse
gets the focus. Kwm's focusFollowMouse used to put the focus to new windows
or Alt-tab to allow better keyboard control.
off|on
When on
, this setting restricts the window maximize to the
vertical direction only.
1..10 (maximum speed)
When on
, minimizing and maximizing windows involves graphical animation.
(default is 1)
... (default is
"rstart -v")
off|on
When ShapeMode is on
, kwm uses user-defined pixmaps for window
borders instead of the default (see below).
ShapeMode
is on
. pixmap should be
the name of a pixmap file (.xpm) which must be located in
share/apps/kwm/pics.
The kwm sources include a subfolder "images", which contains an example for the the shape extensions.
shaded|plain|pixmap
This setting determines the appearance of window title bars. Choose
pixmap
to have kwm display a user-defined image in the
title bar, as specified by the following items.
TitlebarPixmapInactive=pixmap
These options specify what images are displayed in titlebars of
active and inactive windows, respectively, when TitleBarLook is
pixmap
.
Enabling TitleAnimation tells kwm to cause long window titles (too long to fit in the colored area of the titlebar) to slide back and forth in order to be visible. value specifies the speed of the animation. Set to 0 to disable the animation.
winMaximize|winShade|winMove|
winResize|winRestore|winIconify|winClose|winSticky|
winOperations
This option allows you to specify what window behavior should occur when the user double-clicks the titlebar.
on|off
When on
, the Alt-tab
operation cycles through all
windows on all desktops. When off
, Alt-tab
cycles through windows on
the current desktop only.
Opaque|Transparent
This option controls the visual feedback that occurs while the user drags a
window from one place to another on the desktop. Transparent
shows only a
window outline during a drag, while Opaque
shows the entire window.
cascade|interactive|manual|random|smart
This option determines how kwm places windows on the desktop
when they are first opened. manual
allows the user to place the window.
interactive
takes an additional percentage value, like this:
With interactive
placement, kwm uses the smart
placement
algorithm to place the window unless the placement would overlap existing
windows more than the specified percentage, in which case manual
placement
is used to allow the user to place the window. The percentage can be greater
than 100.
The other options let kwm place the window.
When the user is positioning a window, and one of the window borders approaches the border of another window, the border of the window being positioned will snap to the other window's border. value determines how close the window must be to snap to another window's border.
xemacs,xterm,...,
Comma delimited list of (non-KDE) applications whose application state (window properties) should not be saved when the user logs out. List the application name with any command line arguments.
This section defines the number of virtual desktops, their names, and positions. It contains lines like the following:
Specifies the number of virtual desktops. At the time of writing, kwm supports up to 8 desktops.
Specifies the name of Desktop #, for example,
Desktop1[C]=One
Desktops are numbered 1-8.
Specifies the geometry for Desktop #; for example,
Desktop1Region=101+0+923+722
Note that overwriting the regions in the config file will have very little effect, since kpanel will tell kwm reasonable values for the current desktop as soon as it starts up. When you logout, kwm will store these new settings.
Each property allows you to specify a comma separated list of regular expressions. A window whose title or class matches a specified expression will be decorated appropriately.
Note: These hints only affect NEW windows. Do not forget
to call kwmcom configure
or re-start kwm
after you changed the kwmrc file.
Instead of hacking the config file you probabaly want to use the
kstart
utility.
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