EXWM (Emacs X Window Manager) is a full-featured tiling X window manager for Emacs built on top of XELB.
XELB (X protocol Emacs Lisp Binding) is a pure Elisp implementation of X11 protocol based on the XML description files from XCB project.
EXWM is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Fully keyboard-driven operations. EXWM uses the same syntax as Emacs itself to denote key events. Like Emacs, EXWM uses a key sequence (or key for short) rather than a single key event to make a key binding. There’s support for accessing keymaps in char-mode.
- Hybrid layout modes (tiling & stacking).
- Dynamic workspace support. They can be created or removed on-the-fly. There are several ways to add/or remove workspaces.
- Autohide minibuffer & echo area – the minibuffer and echo area (sharing the same mini-window) are fixed at the bottom of each workspace by default.
- Supports third-party compositing manager. EXWM is a non-reparenting window manager.
- ICCCM/EWMH compliance.
- (Optional) RandR (multi-monitor) support. RandR is disabled by default.
- (Optional) Builtin system tray. The system tray is displayed on active workspace only.
- (Optional) Builtin input method.
- exwm-xim module for using Emacs builtin input methods in X windows.
- Support for ‘managed’ per-application configuration to allow users to specify whether to manage an X window.
- Support for replacing / being replaced by other window managers. exwm-init and exwm-exit can also be used to manually start/stop EXWM.
Website: github.com/emacs-exwm/exwm
Support:
Developer: Chris Feng
License: GNU General Public License version 3, or (at your option) any later version
EXWM does not provide a status bar itself.
EXWM is written in the Emacs Lisp programming language. Learn Lisp with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| X11 Tiling Window Managers | |
|---|---|
| i3 | Improved tiling window manager |
| StumpWM | Common Lisp window manager |
| bspwm | Based on binary space partitioning |
| EXWM | Full-featured tiling X window manager for Emacs |
| herbstluftwm | Basic tiling concept is that the layout is represented by a binary tree |
| wmderland | Offers no bloated features, an easy-to-use config, and a very small footprint |
| Notion | Originally a fork of Ion |
| zwm | Minimal, opinionated window manager with a keyboard-driven workflow |
| Ratpoison | Keyboard-only window manager |
| NWM | Lightweight window manager with a simple, efficient workflow |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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