Talk:FVWM Advanced

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Hi,

I am a FVWM newbie, and I would appreciate to have things as the meaning of the symbols in key and mouse binding, or a link to such references. That because it is so time consuming to read the man page, and when you don't know the meaning of those symbols, it is just a waste of time. When I red stuff as:

Key mykey A $[Mod1]2 QuakeConsole 

I have just no idea of what that mean, because I dont know the basic syntax of that expression. --Dominique 71 08:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry reading is such a chore for you. I know some people find it hard, and I wouldn't want to be rehashing the man page in here for you to read anyway... or would I?

I see you've taken that line above from fvwm-crystal. (I can tell due to the abuse of pointless environment variables). Here's what the syntax for the key command in FVWM is:

Key <name of key> <context> <modifier> <command>

Now, as far as <name of key> is concerned, that's determined from what X11 knows about your keyboard mapping. To cut out a very long explanation as to how FVWM does this, just take it from me that the XServer stores a big list of keys. These keys have associated with them, a number (called a keysym) and a name. This name is of use -- most keys on your keyboard you could use anyway. If you weren't sure you could use xev(1) to find out.

The context determines where the key is to be used. There's a number of contexts (all taken verbatim from 'man fvwm', btw):

Valid contexts are:
              'R'  for the root window, 'W' for an application window, 'D' for
              a desktop application (as kdesktop or Nautilus desktop), 'T' for
              a  window  title-bar, 'S' for a window side, top, or bottom bar,
              '[', ']', -' and '_' for the left, right, top  or  bottom  side
              only,  'F'  for  a window frame (the corners), '<', '^', '>' and
              'v' for the top left, top right, bottom  right  or  bottom  left
              corner, 'I' for an icon window, or '0' through '9' for title-bar
              buttons, or any combination of these letters.  'A'  is  for  any
              context.   For  instance,  a  context  of "FST" applies when the
              mouse is anywhere in a window's border except the title-bar but-
              tons.  Only 'S' and 'W' are valid for an undecorated window.

A modifier is whether or not a key such as shift (S) or control (C) or alt (M) or any combination thereof is also used.

A command can be any command including a function that FVWM recognises.

-- Thomas Adam (2006/12/01)

[edit] Thanks and Editing

Thanks very much for this HOWTO! It has been very helpful to start with fvwm, a window manager that I find awesome. I have added some comments reflecting the issues I have found difficult to understand. Please, let me know if you disagree with the editing. Mimosinnet 23:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)