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Please note: some of this information is outdated...

Quick Start for Whim Starkits

First you need a Tclkit. A Tclkit is a standalone version of Tcl/Tk with a builtin Virtual File System (VFS). The .kit (Starkit) files that Whim is distributed as are a VFS image that tclkit can understand. This means there are only ever 2 files to install if you want to run Whim.

We suggest you use 8.5a4 for now, because it tends to work better. The binaries of Tclkit are available here:

See also: http://www.patthoyts.tk/tclkit.html

If you have Xnest installed (part of X11) you can start Whim without changing your existing configuration with:

 tclkit8.5 Whim433.kit

That should start Xnest, and Whim, so that you can try it.

There is also this alternative way:

From a console (no X running), execute the command:

  tclkit8.5 Whim400.kit

Whim will start X for you with a default set of options without modifying any of your existing window manager settings.

Changing the available Whim Desktops

Create a file in your home directory named .whim_desktops.

Add contents to ~/.whim_desktops like this:

 list Work "My Fancy Desktop" "Another Fancy Desktop"

Ubuntu Installation

Whim with Tile for a Fancy Appearance

A multi-platform Tile Starkit that works with Whim is available here:

To use the Tile Starkit you need to put the tile.kit/tile07.kit into a directory in your $PATH. Whim should find it, and use it.

Using Whim as Your Default WM

For an ~/.xinitrc you can use:

 tclkit8.5 /path/to/Whim308.4.kit

That should work with startx.

Nokia N770 Installation

Custom Titlebars

A few features:

  • added a comm server to allow non-tk applets to do i/o to Whim (port 4550)
  • reliable (new tests are added often)
  • authors eat their own dogfood
  • multiple desktops
  • transient support
  • scripting console
  • tile support (looks great :)
  • BSD license
  • 2 focus models (click-to-focus and focus-follows-mouse)
  • optional "Position Transients over Masters" behavior
  • optional "Position Windows Under Pointer" behavior
  • desktop applets (per-desktop)
  • move window to another desktop via a titlebar menu
  • take screenshot command in titlebar menus
  • interaction behavior configurable via the desktop menu
  • keybinding support
  • multilayer applets make it possible to run multiple applets per-desktop
  • auto start X if running from a console
  • copy out default configs if they dont exist

See also: Changelogs
  • SRIV Taking a screenshot doesn't include the window decorations, possible option here.

George Peter Staplin: That's odd, because it does for me. I right-click on the window and select "Take Screenshot" and the entire frame including window decorations is taken.

  • SRIV Taking a full screenshot looses focus on the focused window, causing the titlebar to be in the non-focused state. I solved this in my early screenshot code by automatically naming the capture file the window title name.

George Peter Staplin: There is a slight delay (1 second IIRC) before it's taken after the file dialog appears. I just verified that you can move into the window or click it to activate the window before Whim's screenshot.tcl applet takes the screenshot. I'm not sure if there is an easy way to enable this automatically, yet. screenshot.tcl could possibly get the $::active_window from Whim, and restore it with activate.window or entered.window.

SRIV One future feature I've been thinking about may solve the problem. How about a selectable size focus memory, that keeps track of the order of windows comming into focus, so that when a dialog pops up, then is dismissed, the previous window regains focus. Perhaps a memory of 4 to 8 would be valuable. I'm curious to see how Windows or other window managers handle this.

George Peter Staplin - We now use a sorted list of window ids for each desktop. So if you create windows A B C, and the focus order is A B C, and C is destroyed, then B gets focus, and so on. The list is resorted as focus patterns change, so the focus order should be correct in all cases now.

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