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
