cwm is an OpenBSD fork of calmwn, a clean and lightweight window manager.
cwm is a stacking window manager oriented towards heavy keyboard usage, small footprint and ease of use. It contains many features that concentrate on the efficiency and transparency of window management, while maintaining the simplest and most pleasant aesthetic. cwm also aims to maintain the simplest and most pleasant aesthetic.
cwm actions are initiated either via key or mouse bindings.
cwm was originally inspired by evilwm, but was rewritten from scratch. It’s free and open source software.
Key Features
- Search for windows by their current title, old titles, and by their label. The priority for the search results are: label, current title, old titles in reverse order, and finally window class name. cwm keeps a history of the 5 previous titles of a window.
- Manages a list of applications defined with the command configuration option.
- Group windows together, and use the groups to perform operations on the entire group instead of just one window. Together with the sticky option, this can be used to emulate virtual desktops.
- Window handling (i.e. moving, resizing, minimizing, etc.) is a two-handed affair, often involving combinations of keyboard keys and multiple mouse keys.
Website: github.com/leahneukirchen/cwm
Support: Documentation
Developer: Marius Aamodt Eriksen, Andy Adamson, Niels Provos, Martin Murray, Dimitris Economou, Antti Nykänen, Leah Neukirchen
License: ISC License
cwm is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Stacking Window Managers | |
|---|---|
| Openbox | Standards compliant, fast, light-weight, extensible window manager |
| KWin | Window manager for the KDE Plasma Desktop |
| Mutter | Wayland display server and X11 window manager and compositor library |
| FVWM | Powerful ICCCM-compliant multiple virtual desktop window manager |
| berry | Healthy, bite-sized window manager |
| xfwm | Part of the Xfce desktop environment |
| Window Maker | NeXTSTEP-like window manager |
| JWM | Joe’s Window Manager |
| Gala | Designed by elementary for use with Pantheon |
| Fluxbox | Highly configurable and low resource |
| evilwm | Maximises screen real estate and provides good keyboard control |
| Worm | Tiny, dynamic, tag-based window manager |
| Blackbox | Similar to the NeXT interface and Window Maker |
| Enlightenment | Focuses on pushing the limits of existing technologies |
| PekWM | Originally based on the aewm++ window manager |
| Marco | MATE default window manager |
| 2bwm | Offers 2 borders, and written over the XCB library |
| cwm | OpenBSD fork of calmwn, a clean and lightweight window manager |
| IceWM | Win95-OS/2-Motif-like window manager |
| Sawfish | Extensible window manager using an Emacs Lisp-like scripting language |
| Moksha | Modern iteration of the Enlightenment window manager |
| Magpie | X11 window manager and compositor library |
| sowm | Itsy bitsy floating window manager |
| Compiz | OpenGL window and compositing manager |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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