WMANAGER-LOOP(1)					    BSD General Commands Manual 					  WMANAGER-LOOP(1)

NAME

     wmanager-loop -- loop running window managers chosen with wmanager

SYNOPSIS

     wmanager-loop [OPTIONS ...]

DESCRIPTION

     The wmanager-loop program starts either the window manager specified by the WM variable or the first window manager listed in ~/.wmanagerrc
     (or an X terminal emulator if none), and when it exits, runs wmanager(1) to prompt the user for the next window manager.  It loops doing this
     until the user chooses ``Exit this session'' in wmanager(1).  Any options given to wmanager-loop will be passed on to wmanager(1).

     If the WM environment variable is set, the wmanager-loop program tries to interpret it as a window manager specification in the following
     ways in the specified order:

     o	 a full path to an executable file to run as the window manager;

     o	 the name of a window manager listed in the /.wmanagerrc file; e.g.  ``fluxbox'' would match the following line:

	       fluxbox=/usr/bin/startfluxbox

     o	 the program name of a window manager listed in the /.wmanagerrc file; e.g.  ``startfluxbox'' would match the above example.

     o	 the start of such a program name; e.g.  ``start'' would match the above example.

     o	 the end of such a program name; e.g.  ``box'' would match the above example.

     If the WM variable is set and there is more than one line in ~/.wmanagerrc that matches the specification, wmanager-loop will exit with an
     error message.

     As mentioned above, if no window manager is specified in the WM environment variable or found in the ~/.wmanagerrc file, the wmanager-loop
     program attempts to start an X terminal emulator.	If the WMTERM environment variable is set, the wmanager-loop program uses it as the path
     to the emulator.  Otherwise it searches the user's path for a program named ``x-terminal-emulator'', ``urxvt'', ``rxvt'', or ``xterm'' in
     this order, and starts the first one found using its full path.  If none of the common terminal emulators on the above list is found, the
     wmanager-loop program just runs ``xterm'' in the hope that something will come up on the user's display.

ENVIRONMENT

     The wmanager-loop program uses the following environment variables:

     WM      The name, path, or partial path to the first window manager to execute.

     WMTERM  The name of the X terminal emulator to execute if no window manager could be found in the ~/.wmanagerrc file.  If not specified, the
	     wmanager-loop program searches the user's path as described above.

EXAMPLE

     To start using wmanager-loop, create a ~/.wmanagerrc file - generally with wmanagerrc-update(1) - and add something like the following at the
     end of your ~/.xsession file:

	   exec wmanager-loop -geometry +570+585

SEE ALSO

     wmanager(1), wmanagerrc-update(1)

HISTORY

     The wmanager-loop program was written by Tommi Virtanen in 2000 and later modified by Peter Pentchev.  This manual page was originally writ-
     ten in perldoc format by Tommi Virtanen in 2000, and converted to mdoc format and updated by Peter Pentchev in 2008.

AUTHORS

     Tommi Virtanen <tv@debian.org>
     Peter Pentchev <roam@ringlet.net>

BSD
								 September 8, 2009							       BSD