Marko Macek,
<Marko.Macek@gmx.net>
version 1.4.1,
2017 July 27
This document is the documentation for the IceWM X11 window manager. It is still incomplete. IceWM and its documentation is covered by a GNU LGPL license, which is included in the distribution.
The goal of IceWM is to provide a small, fast and familiar window manager for the X11 window system. Compatibility with the EWMH and ICCCM window manager protocols is desired and will be implemented where appropriate.
IceWM originally was designed to emulate the look of Motif, OS/2 Warp 4, OS/2 Warp 3 and Windows 95. Since it has a theming engine others styles are possible.
Generally, it tries to make all functions available both by keyboard and by mouse (this is not currently possible when using mouse focus). Extreme configurability was not the goal.
Further information can be found at the icewm website and at SourceForge.
The IceWM suite consists of the following core applications provided by the main package:
icewm - The actual window manager binary. It handles window placement and draws the window decorations.
icewmbg - The background setting application. It can assign plain
background color or images in different formats to the X background.
Either shared or separate for different workspaces.
This program should be started before icewm.
icewmtray - Catches the Docklet objects installed by various applications like PSI.
icewm-session - The IceWM session manager. It runs all of the above. This is the preferred program to start IceWM.
icewm-menu-gnome2 - This is used internally. It generates IceWM program menus from FreeDesktop .desktop files (KDE/GNOME(2) menus).
icewmhint - Used internally.
The icewm-session, icewm, icewmbg and icewmtray executables
must be in your path for the restart function to work correctly.
The icewm program alone is suitable for use
with desktop environments like GNOME.
If you wish to run the whole IceWM suite (WM, background changer,
Docklet support, and startup/shutdown script handling), use the
icewm-session binary instead of pure icewm. Note that this is
not a complete Session Manager but it helps to automate the startup.
First make sure that you choose the correct
X startup
script in your home directory.
For most distributions either the file $HOME/.xsession
or $HOME/.xinitrc is honored by startx and X display managers like KDM.
On RedHat, the $HOME/.Xclients may be used instead.
In all cases, choose the one
recommended by your distribution and make sure that there
is no concurrency between the X startup scripts.
Ensure that the script is executable.
Mine looks something like this:
#!/bin/bash
# run profile to set $PATH and other env vars correctly
. $HOME/.bash_profile
# setup touchpad and the external mouse
xset m 7 2
xinput set-ptr-feedback 0 7 1.9 1
# start icewm-session
exec icewm-session
xtermThe xterm on the last line is there simply to make sure that your X session doesn’t crash if icewm does (should never happen). You can restart icewm from there or start some other window manager. The session will close if you close the xterm.
After initialization icewm-session will search
the resource path for a startup script.
If this file is found and if it is executable
icewm-session will run this script.
During termination of icewm-session, the shutdown script is executed.
Additionally the flag --with-gnome is passed
if a GNOME session manager is detected.
Example ~/.icewm/startup script:
#!/bin/bash
[ -x ~/.icewm/restart ] && source ~/.icewm/restart
gnome-terminal --geometry 80x25+217+235 &
xscreensaver &Hint: this feature is meant for easy desktop initialization and it is part of IceWM due to popular demand. For more sophisticated session management one could use a real session manager. IceWM supports the XSESSION protocol.
Please note that if icewm-session is used as the only startup mechanism
(without having .xsession involved), one can write additional environment
settings into the file $HOME/.icewm/env but this only supports simple assignments.
This means: no multiline is supported, no redundant whitespaces, no POSIX shell code; however,
expansion of simple shell style variables should be supported on most
platforms). This extra environment is only effective in applications started by
icewm-session and their subprocesses.
Example (env):
PATH=~/bin:$PATH
LANG=de_DE.UTF-8IceWM implements four general focus models:
Exactly like Win95, OS/2 Warp. When window is clicked with a mouse, it is raised and activated.
Window is raised and focused when titlebar or frame border is clicked. Window is focused but not raised when window interior is clicked.
When the mouse is moved, focus is set to window under a mouse. It should be possible to change focus with the keyboard when mouse is not moved.
When a window is clicked, it is activated, but not raised. New windows do not automatically get the focus unless they are transient windows for the active window.
Detailed configuration is possible using the configuration file options.
Select and raise the window. On the window frame, resize the window.
When dragged, moves the window. When clicked, displays the context menu.
Move the window.
Lower the window.
Maximize/Restore the window.
Rollup/Unroll the window.
The Ctrl key can be used together with a mouse button to prevent a window from being raised to the top of the stack.
Activate the workspace with the window and raise the window. Toggles the minimized/active state of the window.
Move window to current workspace. This only works when windows from all workspaces are shown on the taskbar all the time.
Minimize/restore the window.
Toggle raised/lowered state of the window.
Add the window to the current workspace.
Lower the window.
Display a context menu.
The Alt key is assumed to be the key defined as the Mod1 modifier.
Raise the window.
Make a window occupy all desktops.
Lower the window to the bottom of the stack.
Close the window.
Restore the window state if maximized or minimized/hidden.
Focus to next window.
Focus to previous window.
Move the window.
Resize the window.
Minimize the window to taskbar.
Maximize the window.
Maximize the window vertically (toggle).
Hide the window (appears in window list, but not on taskbar).
Rollup the window.
Show the start menu.
Show the window list.
Show the system-menu of the window.
Focus to next window (down in zorder)
Focus to previous window (up in zorder)
Switch between windows (top→bottom).
Switch between windows (bottom→top).
Switch to the previous workspace (cycle).
Switch to the next workspace (cycle).
Switch to the previously active workspace.
Move the focused window to the previous workspace and activate it.
Move the focused window to the next workspace and activate it.
Move the focused window to the previously active workspace and activate it.
displays the session dialog.
Activate the internal taskbar command line for starting applications. (Ctrl+Enter to run in a terminal window)
IceWM looks in several locations for configuration information, themes and customization; together these locations are called the resource path. The resource path contains the following directories:
this is the user’s personal customization. This location can be customized by setting the ICEWM_PRIVCFG environment variable.
the system-wide defaults directory
the compiled-in default directory with default files
The directories are searched in the above order, so any file located
in the system/install directory can be overridden by the user by creating
the same directory hierarchy under $HOME/.icewm.
To customize icewm yourself, you should create the $HOME/.icewm
directory and copy the files that you wish to modify
(like preferences, winoptions), from /etc/icewm,
/usr/share/icewm or /usr/local/share/icewm and then modify as you like.
To customize the default themes, create the $HOME/.icewm/themes directory
and copy all the theme files there and then modify as necessary.
IceWM uses the following configuration files:
Currently selected theme
General settings - paths, colors, fonts…
Settings that should override the themes.
Menu of startable applications. Usually customized by the user.
Automatically generated menu of startable applications (this should be used for wmconfig, menu or similar packages, perhaps as a part of the login or X startup sequence).
Application window options
Global keybindings to launch applications (not window manager related)
Quick launch application icons on the taskbar.
File ~/.icewm/theme contains the currently selected theme.
It will be overwritten automatically when a theme is
selected from the Themes menu.
This section shows preferences that can be set in ~/.icewm/preferences.
Themes will not be able to override these settings.
Default values are shown following the equal sign.
The following settings can be set to value 1 (enabled) or value 0 (disabled).
Enables click to focus mode.
Window is raised when focused.
Window is focused when client area is clicked.
Window is raised when client area is clicked.
Window is raised when titlebar is clicked.
Window is raised when title bar button is clicked.
Window is raised when frame is clicked.
The click which raises the window is also passed to the client.
Windows will raise automatically after AutoRaiseDelay when focused.
When focus follows mouse always give the focus to the window under mouse pointer - Even when no mouse motion has occured. Using this is not recommended. Please prefer to use just ClickToFocus=0.
Window is focused after being mapped.
Transient window is focused after being mapped.
The window is focused when application raises it.
Colormap focus follows pointer.
Window can be resized when maximized.
Window is minimized to desktop area (in addition to the taskbar).
enable Alt+Tab window switcher.
Alt+Tab switches to minimized windows too.
Alt+Tab switches to windows on any workspace.
Move/resize status window is visible when moving/resizing the window.
Show name of current workspace while switching workspaces.
Show name of current workspace after explicit activation.
Pointer is moved in pointer focus move when focus is moved using the keyboard.
Window is immediately moved when dragged, no outline is shown.
Window is immediately resized when dragged, no outline is shown.
Makes 3 additional keys perform sensible functions. The keys must be mapped to MetaL,MetaR and Menu. The left one will activate the start menu and the right one will display the window list.
Windows must be placed manually by the user.
Ignore no-accept-focus hint set by some windows.
If enabled, menus will track the mouse even when no mouse button is pressed.
Snap to nearest screen edge/window when moving windows.
Distance in pixels before windows snap together
Workspace switches by moving mouse to left/right screen edge.
Reload menu files automatically if set to 1.
Show themes submenu.
Show the help menu item.
Preselect to Cancel (0) or the OK (1) button in message boxes
Bitmask of root window button click to use in window manager
Bitmask of buttons that raise the window when pressed
Resistance to move window with mouse outside screen limits. Setting it to 10000 makes the resistance infinite.
The following settings can be set to value 1 (enabled) or value 0 (disabled).
Task bar is visible.
Task bar is located at top of screen.
Keep the task bar below regular windows
Task bar will auto hide when mouse leaves it.
Auto show task bar when fullscreen window active.
Task bar clock is visible.
Show APM/ACPI/Battery/Power status monitor on task bar.
Enable TaskBarShowAPMStatus if a battery is present.
Show APM status on task bar in time-format.
Show APM status in graph mode.
Display status of mailbox (determined by $MAIL environment variable).
Beep when new mail arrives.
Display mail message count as tooltip.
Show button for the start menu on the task bar.
Show button for window list menu on taskbar.
Show windows on the taskbar.
Show show desktop button on taskbar.
Show Ellipsis in taskbar items.
Show windows in the tray.
Show windows from all workspaces on tray.
Show transient (dialogs, …) windows on task bar.
Show icons of windows on the task bar.
Show workspace switching buttons on task bar.
Show windows from all workspaces on task bar.
Path to a mbox file. Remote mail boxes are accessed by
specifying an URL using the Common Internet Scheme Syntax (RFC 1738):
scheme://[user[:password]@]server[:port][/path].
Supported schemes are pop3, imap and file. When the scheme is
omitted file:// is prepended silently. IMAP subfolders can be access by
using the path component.
Reserved characters like slash, at and colon
can be specified using escape sequences with a
hexadecimal encoding like %2f for the slash
or %40 for the at sign. For example:
file:///var/spool/mail/captnmark
pop3://markus:%2f%40%3a@maol.ch/
imap://mathias@localhost/INBOX.Maillisten.icewm-userShow memory usage status on task bar (Linux only).
Show network status on task bar (Linux only).
Show a button to collapse the taskbar.
Place workspace pager on left, not right.
Show a mini desktop preview on each workspace button.
Draw window icons inside large enough preview windows on pager (if PagerShowPreview=1).
Draw even minimized windows as unfilled rectangles (if PagerShowPreview=1).
Draw border around workspace buttons (if PagerShowPreview=1).
Show number of workspace on workspace button (if PagerShowPreview=1).
Execute taskbar applet commands (like MailCommand, ClockCommand, …) on single click.
Double height task bar
Show CPU status on task bar.
Show RAM usage in CPU status tool tip.
Show swap usage in CPU status tool tip.
Show ACPI temperature in CPU status tool tip.
Show ACPI temperature in CPU graph.
Show CPU frequency in CPU status tool tip.
format for the taskbar clock (time) (see strftime(3) manpage)
format for the taskbar clock tooltip (date+time) (see strftime(3) manpage).
mouse wheel support
similar to delayed auto raise.
Percentage of delay/timeout fuzziness to allow for merging of timer timeouts
Movement before click is interpreted as drag.
Time (ms) to recognize for double click.
Time to auto raise (must enable first with AutoRaise)
Time to auto hide taskbar (must enable first with TaskBarAutoHide).
Time before showing the tooltip.
Time before tooltip window is hidden (0 means never)
Initial scroll bar autoscroll delay
Scroll bar autoscroll delay
Auto scroll start delay
Auto scroll delay
List of workspace names, for example
WorkspaceNames=" 1 ", " 2 ", " 3 ", " 4 "Path to the icewm/lib directory.
Path to the icon directory. Multiple paths can be entered using the colon (UNIX) or semicolon (OS/2) as the separator.
program to run when the clock is double clicked.
program to run when mailbox icon is double clicked.
program to run to lock the screen.
program to run when Run is selected from the start menu.
Items to show in the window menus, posible values are:
a=rAise
c=Close
f=Fullscreen
h=Hide
i=trayIcon
k=Kill
l=Lower
m=Move
n=miNimize
r=Restore
s=Size
t=moveTo
u=rollUp
w=WindowsList
x=maXimize
y=laYer Examples:
WinMenuItems=rmsnxfhualyticw #Default menu
WinMenuItems=rmsnxfhualytickw #Menu with all possible options
WinMenuItems=rmsnxc #MS-Windows menuThis section shows settings that can be set in theme files. They can also be set in preferences file but themes will override the values set there. To override the theme values the settings should be set in prefoverride file. Default values are shown following the equal sign.
The following settings can be set to a numeric value.
Left/right border width.
Top/bottom border height.
Left/right border width of non-resizable windows.
Top/bottom border height of non-resizable windows.
Width of the window corner.
Height of the window corner.
Height of the title bar.
The following settings can be set to a string value.
Name of the title bar font.
Name of the menu font.
Name of the status display font.
Name of the font for Alt+Tab switcher window.
Name of the normal task bar item font.
Name of the active task bar item font.
Name of the window list font.
Name of the tool tip font.
Name of the task bar clock font.
New in 1.2.14: when IceWM is configured with—enable-xfreetype, only the settings with "Xft" suffix will be used. They specifiy the font name in fontconfig format:
MenuFontNameXft="sans-serif:size=12:bold"Color of the active window border.
TODO (see default preferences for complete list)
Color of the desktop background.
Image (.xpm) for desktop background. If you want icewm to ignore the desktop background image / color set both DesktopBackgroundColor ad DesktopBackgroundImage to an empty value ("").
Display desktop background centered and not tiled. (set to 0 or 1).
Display clock using LCD style pixmaps.
Within the menu configuration file you can configure which programs are to appear in the root/start menu.
The Toolbar configuration file is used to put programs as buttons on the taskbar.
Usually automatically generated menu configuration file of installed programs. The
programs file should be automatically generated by wmconfig (Redhat),
menu (Debian) or an equivalent program (kde2ice and gno2ice to convert
GNOME/KDE Menu hierarchy are available).
Programs can be added using the following syntax:
prog "title" icon_name program_executable optionsRestarting another window manager can be done using the restart program:
restart "title" icon_name program_executable optionsicon_name can be - if icon is not wanted.
The "runonce" keyword allows to launch an application only when no window has the WM_CLASS hint specified. Otherwise the first window having this class hint is mapped and raised. Syntax:
runonce "title" icon_name "res_name.res_class" program_executable options
runonce "title" icon_name "res_name" program_executable options
runonce "title" icon_name ".res_class" program_executable optionsThe class hint can be figured out by running
$ xprop | grep WM_CLASSSubmenus can be added using the following syntax:
menu "title" icon_name {
# contained items
}Only double quotes are interpreted by icewm. IceWM doesn’t run the shell automatically, so you may have to do that.
IceWM allows launching of arbitrary programs with any key combination. This is
configured in the keys file. The syntax of this file is like:
key "key combination" program options…
For example:
key "Alt+Ctrl+t" xterm -rvwinoptions file is used to configure settings for individual application windows.
Each line in the file must be in one of the possible formats:
window_class.window_name.window_role.option: argument
window_class.window_name.option: argument
window_class.window_role.option: argument
window_name.window_role.option: argument
window_class.option: argument
window_name.option: argument
window_role.option: argument
Each window on the desktop has (should) class and name resources associated with it. Some more recent applications will also have a window role resource, though not all do.
They can be determined using the xprop utility.
xprop should display a line like this when used on a toplevel window:
WM_CLASS = "name", "class"and may also display a line like this:
WM_WINDOW_ROLE = "window role"It’s possible that an application’s class and/or name contains the dot character (".") used by IceWM to separate class, name and role values. To lock it, precede it with the backslash character. In the following example, we suppose an application’s window has the.class as its class value and the.name as its name value :
class.name.option: argumentOptions that can be set per window are as follows:
The name of the icon.
Default workspace for window (number, counting from 0)
Default layer for the window. Layer can be one of the following strings:
Desktop window. There should be only one window in this layer.
Below default layer.
Default layer for the windows.
Above the default.
Layer for windows docked to the edge of the screen.
Layer for the windows above the dock.
Layer for the windows above the dock.
You can also use the numbers from WinMgr.h.
The default geometry for the window. This geometry should be specified in the usual X11-geometry-syntax, formal notation:
[=][<width>{xX}<height>][{+-}<xoffset>{+-}<yoffset>]The default tray option for the window. This affects both the tray and the task pane. Tray can be one of the following strings:
Don’t add an icon to the tray pane.
Add an icon the the tray. Remove the task pane button when minimized.
Add an icon the the tray. Never create a task pane button .
If set to 1, window will be visible on all workspaces.
If set to 1, window will not appear in the window list.
If set to 1, window will not appear on the task bar.
If set to 1, window will not be accessible using QuickSwitch feature (Alt+Tab).
If set to 1, the window manager leave more keys (Alt+F?) to the application.
If set to 0, window will not be movable.
If set to 0, window will not be resizable.
If set to 0, window will not be closable.
If set to 0, window will not be minimizable.
If set to 0, window will not be maximizable.
If set to 0, window will not be hidable.
If set to 0, window will not be shadable.
If set to 0, window will not have a title bar.
If set to 0, window will not have a system menu.
If set to 0, window will not have a border.
If set to 0, window will not have a resize border.
If set to 0, window will not have a close button.
If set to 0, window will not have a minimize button.
If set to 0, window will not have a maximize button.
if set to 1, window will not automatically get focus as application raises it.
if set to 1, icewm will focus even if the window does not handle input.
if set to 1, this window will limit the workspace available for regular applications. window has to be sticky at the moment to make it work
if set to 1 and the application had not registered WM_DELETE_WINDOW, a close confirmation dialog won’t be offered upon closing the window.
The window manager expects to find two XPM files for each icon specified in the configuration files as ICON. They should be named like this:
A small 16x16 pixmap.
A normal 32x32 pixmap.
A large 48x48 pixmap.
Other pixmap sizes like 20x20, 24x24, 40x40, 48x48, 64x64 might be used in the future. Perhaps we need a file format that can contain more than one image (with different sizes and color depths) like Windows’95 and OS/2 .ICO files.
It would be nice to have a feature from OS/2 that varies the icon size with screen resolution (16x16 and 32x32 icons are quite small on 4000x4000 screens ;-)
When compiled with the Imlib image library all of Imlib’s image formats (bmp, jpeg, ppm, tiff, gif, png, ps, xpm on my machine) are supported. Use them by specifying the full filename or an absolute path:
A PPM icon in your IconPath.
An PNG image with absolute location.
IceWM scans the theme and configuration directories for a subdirectory called cursors containing monochrome but transparent XPM files. To change the mouse cursor you have to use this filenames:
Default cursor (usually pointer to the left).
Menu cursor (usually pointer to the right).
Window movement cursor.
Cursor when you resize the window by top left.
Cursor when you resize the window by top.
Cursor when you resize the window by top right.
Cursor when you resize the window by left.
Cursor when you resize the window by right.
Cursor when you resize the window by bottom left.
Cursor when you resize the window by bottom.
Cursor when you resize the window by bottom right.
Themes are used to configure the way the window manager looks. Things like fonts, colors, border sizes, button pixmaps can be configured. Put together they form a theme.
Theme files are searched in the themes
subdirectories.
These directories contain other directories that contain related theme files and their .xpm files. Each theme file specifies fonts, colors, border sizes, …
The theme to use is specified in ~/.icewm/theme file:
Name of the theme to use. Both the directory and theme file name must be specified.
If the theme directory contains a file named fonts.dir created by mkfontdir the theme directory is inserted into the X servers font search path.
(freshmeat used to contain various nice themes created by users of IceWM.)
icewm supports the following options:
Set X display to DISPLAY.
Use configuration file CONFIG.
Display version.
Don’t use a configuration file. Uses builtin defaults only.
Dump various debug information to stderr.
A set of directories used by IceWM to locate resources like configuration files, themes, icons. See section about .
Version 1.4.1
Last updated 2017-07-30 10:59:06 CEST