FvwmTabs

Section: Fvwm Modules (1)
Updated: 2007-08-07
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NAME

FvwmTabs - a generic tabbing module for the fvwm window manager.

SYNOPSIS

FvwmTabs is spawned by fvwm, so no command line invocation is possible.

DESCRIPTION

The FvwmTabs module is capable of swallowing any fvwm window & treating it as a tab in a tab-manager window. A tab-manager is sometimes called a tabber.

Each tab-manager can store any number of windows, each in its own tab. The number of tab-managers is limited only by system resources. Tab-managers can even be nested/swallowed within other tab-managers. (ie. a tab-manager can be added as an individual tab to another tab-manager.)

INVOCATION

FvwmTabs can be invoked by inserting the line "Module FvwmTabs" in your .fvwmrc file. This can be placed on a line by itself, if FvwmTabs is to be spawned during fvwm's initialization, or can be bound to a menu or mouse button or keystroke to invoke it later.

INSTALLING DEPENDENCIES

FvwmTabs requires 2 CPAN modules (that are NOT distributed with fvwm) to be installed on your system. They are Tk and X11::Protocol.

They are available at: <http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/N/NI/NI-S/Tk-804.027.tar.gz> and <http://search.cpan.org/~smccam/X11-Protocol-0.56/>.

To install either package:

tar zxvf $name.tar.gz ; cd $name ; perl Makefile.PL ; make install

FvwmTabs will tell you if you do not have these packages installed when you (try to) start it.

CONFIGURATION OPTIONS

FvwmTabs reads the same config file as fvwm when it starts up.

The following options are recognised by FvwmTabs:

*FvwmTabs: activeFG color: The text color of the button for the visible tab. The default color is yellow.
*FvwmTabs: activeBG color: The backgound color of the button for the visible tab. The default color is MidnightBlue.
*FvwmTabs: inactiveFG color: The text color of the buttons for the invisible tabs. The default color is antiquewhite.
*FvwmTabs: inactiveBG color>: The backgound color of the buttons for the invisible tabs. The default color is royalblue.
*FvwmTabs: titleFG color: The text color used in the titlebar. The default color is black.
*FvwmTabs: titleBG color: The background color used in the titlebar. The default color is antiquewhite.
*FvwmTabs: activeRelief style: The relief style to use for active buttons. style can be either raised, flat or sunken. The default style is sunken.
*FvwmTabs: inactiveRelief style: The relief style to use for inactive buttons. style can be either raised, flat or sunken. The default style is flat.
*FvwmTabs: buttonYPadding pixels: How much padding to use around top and bottom of tab buttons. The default value is 3 pixels.
*FvwmTabs: pollRate ms: Specifies how often to check for X events. ms is time in milliseconds. The default value, 250, should be fine for most users. If you are on a very slow machine you may wish to increase this.
*FvwmTabs: buttonFont font: The font to use on the tab buttons. The default font is Helvetica -12 bold.
*FvwmTabs: titleFont font: The font to use on the titlebar. The default font is Helvetica -12.
*FvwmTabs: menuFont font: The font to use on the menus. The default font is Helvetica -12.
*FvwmTabs: fontSelector fontProgram: The external font chooser program to launch when dynamically changing fonts. The default fontProgram is gfontsel --print -f ``%f''. Anti-gnome users might try xfontsel -print -pattern ``%f''. If set to none, no font menu options will appear.
*FvwmTabs: autoSwallowClass className [tabManagerId], ...
*FvwmTabs: autoSwallowResource resourceName [tabManagerId], ...
*FvwmTabs: autoSwallowName name [tabManagerId], ...: Specify windows to swallow automatically. These are comma-separated lists that specify the class/resource/name of a window & an optional tab-manager id into which the window should be swallowed. By default, the tab-manager id increments from zero - ie. 0 is the first tab-manager created, 1 the second, etc, but it may be overriden by specifying an argument to the NewTabber function. (No whitespace is allowed in tabber ids.) You can alternatively specify 'any' or 'lastFocus' which will put the window in the tab-manager with the least number of tabs or the last focused tab-manager, respectively. If no tab-manager number is specified, an implicit default value of 'any' is used. Note that className/resourceName/name can be a (Perl) regular expression.
*FvwmTabs: balloonBG color: The backgound color of the balloon popups that appear over the tab buttons. The default color is #C0C080.
*FvwmTabs: balloonFont font: The font to use on the balloon popups. The default font is Helvetica -12.
*FvwmTabs: balloonWait ms: How long the mouse cursor must pause (in milliseconds) over a tab button before the balloon pops up. The default value is 250.
*FvwmTabs: balloonMsg msg: Message to display in balloon popups. The default value is %tabNo:\n%iconText\n%title.
*FvwmTabs: autoResize bool: bool can be either true or false. If true, windows in the tab-manager automatically resize to the dimensions of the largest window in the tab-manager. The default value is false. If the user performs an explicit resize of a tab-manager window, all windows in the tab-manager are resized to the new window size.
*FvwmTabs: stateFile file: FvwmTabs has the ability to preserve its state (ie. remember the windows it has swallowed as tabs) b/w fvwm restarts. file specifies the name of a temporary file to record the state in, so it can be reconstructed when FvwmTabs restarts. The default file is "$FVWM_USERDIR/.fvwmtabs.state".
*FvwmTabs: fixedSizeTabs bool: bool can be either true or false. If true, the tab-manager will ensure each tab-button has the same dimensions. If false, the selected tab is expanded so that it is fully visible. The default value is false.
*FvwmTabs: showTitlebar bool: Show internal titlebar. If set to true a titlebar appears below the row of tab-buttons & displays the title associated with the current window. This titlebar is capable of displaying long or multi-line titles. The default value is true.
*FvwmTabs: useTMTitlebar bool: Add the title associated with the selected tab to the tab-manager titlebar. (ie. the titlebar at the top of the window, distinct from the titlebar below the tab-buttons.) Default value is true.
*FvwmTabs: dragDropIcon imageFile: Specify the icon to display when performing a drag-&-drop operation to reorder the tab-buttons. FvwmTabs will search the ImagePath for this image unless an absolute filename (ie. filename begins with '/') is specified. The default value is none. If none (or an invalid file) is specified a * is used.
*FvwmTabs: bBuggyFocus bool: FvwmTabs tries to work around a limitation in Perl/Tk (there is no way to access the timestamp associated with WM_TAKE_FOCUS events). On some systems this doesn't work and sometimes tab-managers have trouble acquiring the focus. If this happens to you, try setting this option to true. This can lead to focussing race-conditions (tab-managers temporarily ``steal'' focus in some situations) but this is less annoying than not being able to focus at all.
*FvwmTabs: enableSwallowDND bool: Swallow windows that (are moved to) overlap a tabber. Note: drag-&-drop can be enabled for individual tabbers via the menu. The default value is true.
*FvwmTabs: swallowDNDTolerance tol: Determines how much a window must overlap a tabber for it to be swallowed when drag-&-drop is enabled. If the value has a %-sign appended to it, windows must overlap by the specified percentage of the current size of the tabber. If no %-sign is present, the value is treated in units of pixels. The default value is 10 (pixels).
*FvwmTabs: useIconsOnTabs bool: Show the mini icon associated with each window on its tab button. Note: mini icons for apps that use EWMH icons look a bit distorted. This is because of the poor image resizing algorithm used in Tk. This should be rectified in the near future. The default value is true.
*FvwmTabs: killIcon image: Image to use on kill toolbar button. Default is none.
*FvwmTabs: addIcon image: Image to use on add toolbar button. Default is none.
*FvwmTabs: swallowIcon image: Image to use on add toolbar button when tabber will swallow next window to popup. Default is none. By using a separate icon to addIcon, this option provides visual feedback on when a tabber will unconditionally swallow the next window to popup.
*FvwmTabs: releaseIcon image: Image to use on release toolbar button. Default is none.
*FvwmTabs: menuIcon image: Image to use on menu toolbar button. Default is none.

FVWM FUNCTIONS FOR KEY BINDINGS

A number of fvwm functions are available once the FvwmTabs module is started.

NewTabber: Create a new tabber. Optional argument is tabber name. No whitespace is allowed in the tabber name. Can also prefix --geometry argument.
Example: NewTabber --geometry=+200+400 scottie
Tabize: Add a window (as a tab) to a tabber.
NextTab: Show/select the next tab.
PrevTab: Show/select the previous tab.
LastTab: Show/select the last selected tab (if there was one).
ReleaseTab: Release a tabbed window back to fvwm.
ReleaseIconifyTab: Release a tabbed window back to fvwm & iconify it.
ReleaseAllTabs: Release all windows in a tab-manager back to fvwm.
ReleaseIconifyAllTabs: Release all windows in a tab-manager back to fvwm & iconify them.
CloseTabber: Destroy a tab-manager. All windows in the tab-manager are released back to fvwm.
AddTab: Pick a new window to add to a tab-manager. Selecting this option & clicking on a window will add the selected window to the tab-manager.
MultiAddTab: Pick & add new windows to a tab-manager until ESC is pressed.
ShowTab tabNo: Show/select tab tabNo in the tab-manager. tabNo is zero-based. ie. 0 is the first tab, 1 is the second, etc.
AddToTabber: Add a window (as a tab) to a tab-manager.
SwapLeft: Swap the selected window with the window on its immediate left.
SwapRight: Swap the selected window with the window on its immediate right.
SelectTabber: Select a tab-manager for a new window to be added to.
EnableDND: Swallow windows that (are moved to) overlap a tabber.

KEY BINDINGS

By default, FvwmTabs reads a default user configuration file FvwmTabs-DefaultSetup which defines several useful key-bindings for FvwmTabs. You can tell FvwmTabs NOT to read this file with "SetEnv FvwmTabs_NoDefaultSetup" - this environment variable must be set before starting the module.

All of the key bindings can be changed using the standard fvwm Key command & making use of the aforementioned fvwm functions. ie.

Key (FvwmTabs*) A A CM Function AddTab

Then, pressing Ctrl-Alt-a (when the focus is in a tab-manager) will allow you to click on a window to add to the tab-manager.

The default key bindings (set in the FvwmTabs-DefaultSetup file) are:

Ctrl-Alt-a: AddTab
Ctrl-Alt-c: CloseTabber
Ctrl-Alt-i: ReleaseIconifyTab
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-I: ReleaseIconifyAllTabs
Ctrl-Alt-l: LastTab
Ctrl-Alt-m: MultiAddTab
Ctrl-Alt-n & Ctrl-Alt-Tab: NextTab
Ctrl-Alt-p: PrevTab
Ctrl-Alt-r: ReleaseTab
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-R: ReleaseAllTabs
Ctrl-Alt-t: NewTabber
Ctrl-Alt-num: ShowTab num.
Ctrl-Alt-Left: SwapLeft
Ctrl-Alt-Right: SwapRight

MOUSE BINDINGS

Mouse bindings on Tab Buttons

Mouse-1 on a tab-button displays the window associated with the tab.

Mouse-2 on a tab-button releases the window associated with the tab back to the window manager as a standalone window.

Mouse-3 on a tab-button releases the window associated with the tab back to the window manager & iconifies it.

The tab-buttons can be reordered with a drag-&-drop operation initiated with Ctrl-Mouse-2. A dragged tab is inserted before the tab-button onto which it is dropped.

Mouse bindings on Toolbar Icons

Mouse-1 on the ``menu'' button will bring up a menu of options. See MENU BINDINGS.

Mouse-1 on the ``release'' button will release the selected window from the tabber.

Mouse-2 on the ``release'' button will release all windows from the tabber, and iconify them.

Mouse-3 on the ``release'' button will release all windows from the tabber.

Mouse-1 on the ``add'' button will add the next window you click on to the tabber.

Mouse-2 on the ``add'' button will add the next window to popup to the tabber.

Mouse-3 on the ``add'' button will add every window you click on (until you press Esc) to the tabber.

Mouse-1 on the ``kill'' button will Close the selected window.

Mouse-2 on the ``kill'' button causes FvwmTabs to try to kill the selected window itself.

Mouse-3 on the ``kill'' button will Kill the selected window.

MENU BINDINGS

Mouse-1 on the ``menu'' button will bring up a menu of options:

Release All will release all tabbed programs back to the window manager as standalone windows.

Release All (Iconify) will release all tabbed programs back to the window manager as iconised standalone windows.

Add will add the next mouse-clicked window to the tab-manager.

Add Next will add the next window that is created to the tab-manager.

Multi Add keeps adding mouse-clicked windows to a tab-manager until the escape key is pressed. Useful for adding multiple windows to a tab-manager at once.

Font shows a sub-menu enabling you to dynamically configure the button/title/menu fonts, using the external program identified by the fontSelector option.

Show Titlebar toggles the display of the titlebar below the tab-buttons.

Window Tabizer Dialog will popup a dialog box for specifying windows to swallow. Windows can be specified explicitly (by name) or by using a (Perl) regular expression matcher. (Note: / character is automatically escaped.)

The menu options between the separators will display the window/tab associated with the text. (The menu text is actually the title associated with the window. The text on each tab-button is the icon name.)

About pops up a dialog with version/developer information.

Close will close the FvwmTabs window, invoking Release All in the process.

BUGS

•: Tab-managers don't take focus when iconified.
•: FvwmTabs doesn't obey "ClickToFocus" mode.
•: FvwmTabs has a problem swallowing shaded windows.
•: Using "Maximise" to resize tab-manager windows prevents dynamic resizing from working.

Please send bug reports, feature requests & queries about FvwmTabs to the fvwm mailing list: fvwm@fvwm.org. Be sure to include the word ``FvwmTabs'' somewhere in the subject line.

TODO

Features to be added to FvwmTabs in the future (in no particular order):

•: Colorset support. (use Colorset tracker from fvwm-perllib)
•: Use Ctrl-Mouse-1 instead of Ctrl-Mouse-2 to reorder (drag-&-drop) windows.
•: option: menu item to sort tabs by name, file extension, etc.
•: For autoSwallow options that specify a tab-manager, create the tab-manager if it doesn't already exist. (default behaviour is not to swallow it)

FVWMTABS HOMEPAGE

There is some useful information about FvwmTabs, including a short tutorial, on the authors website:

<http://members.optusnet.com.au/~scottsmedley/fvwmtabs/>.

LICENSING

FvwmTabs is GPL software.

See <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>

AUTHOR

Scott Smedley <ss@aao.gov.au>