ECHINUS(1) BSD General Commands Manual ECHINUS(1)NAMEechinus — a lightweight window manager for X11
SYNOPSISechinus [-v] [-f conf]
DESCRIPTIONechinus is a lightweight window manager for X based on dwm's source code.
It manages windows in maximized, floating and tiled layouts. Either lay‐
out can be applied dynamically, optimizing the environment for the appli‐
cation in use and the task performed.
In maximized layout only one window can be seen at the moment, but you
can switch between them with hotkeys. In floating layout windows can be
resized and moved freely. Dialog windows are always managed floating,
regardless of the layout applied.
Windows are grouped by tags. Each window can be tagged with one or multi‐
ple tags. Selecting certain tags displays all windows with these tags.
echinus draws a small border around windows to indicate the focus state
and an optional titlebar.
The options are as follows:
-v Prints version information to standard output, then exits.
-f conf Specifies an alternative configuration file. By default,
echinus loads the configuration file from
~/.echinus/echinusrc, if present, then looks for the sys‐
tem-wide configuration file CONFDIR/echinusrc.
The following notation is used in this page:
A Alt.
C Control.
S Shift.
W Windows key.
M1 Left mouse button.
M2 Middle mouse button.
M3 Right mouse button.
KEY BINDINGS
The default key bindings are:
A-[F1..Fn] Views all windows with n-th tag.
A-Return Zooms/cycles current window to/from master area
(tiled layout only).
A-Space Toggles between tiled and floating layout (affects
all windows).
A-Tab Toggles to the previously selected tags.
A-b Toggles on/off statusbar space.
A-f Enables floating mode.
A-h Decreases the master area width about 5% (tiled lay‐
out only).
A-i Enables floating mode.
A-j Focuses next window.
A-k Focuses previous window.
A-l Increases the master are width about 5% (tiled layout
only).
A-m Enables maximized (monocle) mode.
A-r Enables tiled mode.
A-t Starts xterm.
A-w Enables bottom-tiled mode.
A-C-[1..n] Adds/removes all windows with n-th tag to/from the
view.
A-C-q Quits echinus.
A-C-S-[1..n] Adds/removes n-th tag to/from current window.
A-S-[1..n] Applies n-th tag to current window.
A-S-c Closes focused window.
MOUSE BINDINGS
The default mouse bindings are:
M1 When pressed on the titlebar, focuses window and raises
it on top of the stack.
M2 When pressed on the titlebar, resizes window.
M3 When pressed on the root window, draws a rectangle to
start a terminal in it.
A-M1 Moves current window while dragging. Tiled windows will
be toggled to the floating state.
A-M2 Zooms/cycles current window to/from master area. If it
is floating (but not fixed) it will be toggled to the
tiled state, instead.
A-M3 Resizes current window while dragging. Tiled windows
will be toggled to the floating state.
CUSTOMIZATION
The configuration file is a set of X resources (with a class of Echinus),
which are described in the sections below.
Every relative path specified is relative to the directory in which the
configuration file is in.
MAIN SETTINGS
deflayout
Layout applied to tag if not explicitly set by tags.layout later.
Value Meaning
b Bottom Stack
f Floating
i Ifloating
m Maximized
t Tiled
modkey Choose modkey.
mwfact Space occupied by master window in tiled layout (fraction of 1).
nmaster
Number of clients in master area in tiled layout.
sloppy Sets the type of sloppy focus to use.
Value Meaning
0 Click to focus
1 Sloppy focus for floating clients
2 Sloppy focus for everything
3 Sloppy focus and raise on focus
BORDER SETTINGS
border Width of the border (in pixels).
BUTTON SETTINGS
button.close.pixmap
button.iconify.pixmap
button.maximize.pixmap
Sets the close, iconify and maximize buttons in the titlebar.
COLOR SETTINGS
normal.bg
Sets the titlebar background for unfocused windows.
normal.border
Sets the color of a small border around each unfocused window.
normal.button
Sets the button foreground for unfocused windows.
normal.fg
Sets the titlebar foreground for unfocused windows.
selected.bg
selected.border
selected.button
selected.fg
Sets color options for focused windows.
HACKS SETTINGS
hidebastards
Hide panels, pagers and others with togglestruts function.
KEYBINDINS SETTINGS
ACSW + key [= options]
Binds key to the specified command (see COMMANDS) . Spaces are
mandatory.
Key is taken from the X11 files (usually located under an include
directory) keysym.h and, XF86keysym.h and removing the XK_ prefix
before use.
Commands options are specified after an equal sign.
MISC SETTINGS
command
Application to run on right click on root window.
opacity
Opacity value for inactive windows (xcompmgr needed).
TAGS SETTINGS
tags.layout{...}
Layout per tag on start (see deflayout) .
tags.name{...}
Names of the tags.
tags.number
Number of tags.
TITLE SETTINGS
decoratetiled
If one, draw titles in tiled mode.
font Titlebar font.
title Titlebar height.
titlelayout
Titlebar consists of 3 parts separated with dashes or spaces.
Left is aligned to left, center to center and right to right
(obviously). Default value is "N IMC" meaning name on the left
iconify, maximize and close buttons on right (note 2 spaces).
Value Meaning
dash skip space (space can't be used as first
character)
space Same as the above
C Close
I Iconify
M Maximize
N Window name
T Tagbar
COMMANDS
focusnext
focusprev
Focuses next or previous window.
focusview#
Toggles view number # and focuses the first client in it.
killclient
Closes current focused window.
movedown
moveleft
moveright
moveup x y w h
Moves the window by the specified number of pixels in the speci‐
fied direction.
restart
Restarts echinus.
quit Exits echinus.
resizedecx
resizedecy
resizeincx
rezizeincy x y w h
Resizes the window by the specified number of pixels in the spec‐
ified direction.
rule# class.title tag isfloating hastitle
Sets a rule for the specified window class or title. NULL indi‐
cates that no tag is needed.
spawn# Runs specified program (upto 64).
tag# Tags current window with tag number #.
togglefloating
Toggles floating or tiled mode.
togglemonitor
Switches from one monitor to another.
togglestruts
echinus has no bar, but this command switches the area on top or
bottom which won't be covered by windows in tiled on monocle
mode.
toggleview#
Toggles view number #.
view# Views tag number #.
viewlefttag
viewrighttag
Views tag on left or right.
viewprevtag
View previous tag set.
EXAMPLES
To move a window five pixels to the right:
Echinus*moveright: AS + l = +5 0 0 0
To resize a window five pixels down:
Echinus*resizedecy: AS + v = 0 0 0 -5
To make mplayer float and with a title by default:
Echinus*rule0: Mplayer.* NULL 1 1
To spawn an xterm when A + T is pressed:
Echinus*spawn0: A + t = xterm
To show the title centered and the close button on the right:
Echinus*titlelayout: -T-C
CONFORMING TOechinus is partially EWMH (NetWM) compliant, so you can use your
favourite panel or pager.
SEE ALSOdmenu(1)dwm(1)BUGSparsekey() doesn't handle non-alphanumeric keysyms.
You should find lots of them. If you did please contact me, my mail is
<polachok at gmail dot com>.
BSD April 29, 2024 BSD
