The smallest, actually usable window manager.
- ~20 LOC.
- No modes, no mouse control, no virtual desktops, no menus.
- No configs, no eye-candy, not standards-compliant.
- Only one full-screen window visible at a time.
- Depends only on Xlib.
#include <X11/Xlib.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#define stk(s) XKeysymToKeycode(d, XStringToKeysym(s))
#define on(_, x) if (e.type == _) { x; }
#define map(k, x) if (e.xkey.keycode == stk(k)) { x; }
#define grab(...) const char *l[] = { __VA_ARGS__, 0 }; \
for (int i = 0; l[i]; i++) XGrabKey(d, stk(l[i]), Mod4Mask, r, 1, 1, 1);
int main() {
Display *d = XOpenDisplay(0); Window r = DefaultRootWindow(d); XEvent e;
XSelectInput(d, r, SubstructureRedirectMask);
grab("n", "q", "e");
while (!XNextEvent (d, &e)) {
on(ConfigureRequest, XMoveResizeWindow(d, e.xconfigure.window, 0, 0, e.xconfigure.width, e.xconfigure.height));
on(MapRequest, XMapWindow(d, e.xmaprequest.window);
XSetInputFocus(d, e.xmaprequest.window, 2, 0));
on(KeyPress, map("n", XCirculateSubwindowsUp(d, r); XSetInputFocus(d, e.xkey.window, 2, 0))
map("q", XKillClient(d, e.xkey.subwindow))
map("e", system("dmenu_run &")));
}
}
Yeah, that's the full source.
Because software should be small, hackable and fun, not a damn technical debt. You can grasp this one in <5 minutes.
The essential things a window manager should let me do are:
- Launch applications (
dmenu
):Mod4 + e
. - Switch between windows:
Mod4 + n
. - Close windows:
Mod4 + q
.
CC=gcc ./build.sh
, or use tcc
by default: ./build.sh
.
See 1wm-custom.c
for my own setup, adds ~10 LOC.