Window Managers

nospam@example.com (WebThingy) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:00:00 -0700

Window Managers can be a fun way to tinker with your desktop. Some add functionality, some add toys, some strip everything down to the bare minimum, and some just help your computer run faster thanks to their low resource usage. No screenshots are posted here because these Window Managers are so highly customizeable that rarely do two look even remotely the same. You can see what I mean www.box-look.org

Here are the most well known Window Managers:

Blackbox
"Blackbox is the fast, lightweight window manager for the X Window System you have been looking for, without all those annoying library dependencies. Blackbox is built with C++ and contains completely original code (even though the graphics implementation is similar to that of WindowMaker).
What's different about Blackbox?
It's very simplistic; some might even perceive it as ascetical or downright barren. When migrating from an environment filled with images, eye-candy and gadgets, the typical Blackbox desktop can shock a new user due to the sheer amount of empty space. It's called screen estate and some people value it and want as much of it as possible. It doesn't have to be this way - you can add most of the tools and gadgets that you have in other environments.
Blackbox is very minimalist in its approach as a window manager. It manages windows, period. It doesn't do desktop icons and shortcuts, keyboard handling, flashy menus, tools and gadgets. All of these are available through 3rd-party tools and add-ons, which you can add to your environment as you please. It's just not Blackbox's job to provide them.
Blackbox is very flexible! By sticking to the basics, but implementing common standards, it allows scores of 3rd-party tools to be used to expand its default functionality. You can use Blackbox as the foundation and create any kind of desktop you can imagine!
No taskbar. Once you iconify (or minimize) a window, it's completely hidden off the desktop. You can retrieve it from a desktop context menu. Window shading (showing just the window bar) and multiple virtual desktops are provided as alternative ways of clearing up the desktop. "

http://blackboxwm.sourceforge.net

Enlightenment
"Enlightenment is a window manager. Enlightenment is a desktop shell. Enlightenment is the building blocks to create beautiful applications. Enlightenment, or simply e, is a group of people trying to make a new generation of software.
We are dedicated to providing advanced graphical libraries, tools, and environments. Currently, the project is made up of three different components: Enlightenment DR16, Enlightenment DR17, and the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries. While we are best known for the Enlightenment Window Manager itself there is a long history of providing advanced libraries and tools to support the window manager and other applications, such as Imlib, Imlib2, and FNLib which extend far beyond the window manager itself in scope. Today, in development toward the DR17 Desktop Shell we have created an entirely new set of libraries and tools that provide more power and flexibility than any other group of graphical libraries available, The Enlightenment Foundation Libraries."

website: www.enlightenment.org

Fluxbox
"Fluxbox is yet another window manager for X. It's based on the Blackbox 0.61.1 code. Fluxbox looks like blackbox and handles styles, colors, window placement and similar thing exactly like blackbox (100% theme/style compability).
So what's the difference between fluxbox and blackbox then?
The answer is: LOTS!
Configurable window tabs, Iconbar (for minimized/iconified windows) , Wheel scroll changes workspace, Configurable titlebar, KDE support, New native integrated keygrabber, Maximize over slit option, Partial GNOME support, Extended Window Manager Hints support, amd Slit dockap ordering!"
Because Fluxbox's small memory footprint and quick loading time, Fluxbox is popular in many Live CDs and for low powered laptops.

website: http://fluxbox.org

IceWM
"IceWM is a window manager for the X Window System (freedesktop, XFree86). The goal of IceWM is speed, simplicity, and not getting in the user's way. Features include: Fully usable with keyboard, Alt+Tab window switching, Efficient resource usage, Task bar (optional), Multiple workspaces, Themes, Usable with GNOME and KDE environments."

website: www.icewm.org

Openbox
"Openbox is a highly configurable, next generation window manager with extensive standards support.
The *box visual style is well known for its minimalistic appearance. Openbox uses the *box visual style, while providing a greater number of options for theme developers than previous *box implementations. The theme documentation describes the full range of options found in Openbox themes.
Openbox lets you bring the latest applications outside of a full desktop environment. Most modern applications have been written with GNOME and KDE in mind. With support for the latest freedesktop.org standards, as well as careful adherence to previous standards, Openbox provides an environment where applications work the way they were designed to.
Openbox is a highly configurable window manager. It allows you to change almost every aspect of how you interact with your desktop and invent completely new ways to use and control it. It can be like a video game for controlling windows. But Openbox can also be kept extremely simple, as it is in the default setup, meaning that it can suit just about anybody. Openbox gives you control without making you do everything.
Openbox makes desktop environments better. By running Openbox inside the GNOME or K desktop environments, you can combine their ease and functionality with the power of Openbox. Your desktop becomes cleaner and faster, and is in your control, when you use Openbox. "

http://icculus.org/openbox/index.php/Main_Page

Sawfish
"Sawfish is an extensible window manager using a Lisp-based scripting language called Librep -- all window decorations are configurable and all user-interface policy is controlled through the extension language. This is no layer on top of twm, but a wholly new architecture.
Despite this extensibility its policy is very minimal compared to most window managers. Its aim is simply to manage windows in the most flexible and attractive manner possible. As such it does not implement desktop backgrounds, applications docks, or other things that may be achieved through separate applications.
All high-level wm functions are implemented in Lisp for future extensibility or redefinition. Currently this includes menus (using GTK+), interactive window moving and resizing, virtual workspaces, iconification, focus/transient window policies, frame theme definitions, and many more standard window-manager functions.
User-configuration is possible either by writing Lisp code in a personal .sawfishrc file, or through the integrated customization system (using GTK+, see the third and fourth screenshots on the screenshots page).
If you're wondering why there are many references to something called sawmill, that's because sawfish was originally known by that name, but had to change."

http://sawfish.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Window Maker
"Window Maker is an X11 window manager originally designed to provide integration support for the GNUstep Desktop Environment. In every way possible, it reproduces the elegant look and feel of the NEXTSTEP[tm] user interface. It is fast, feature rich, easy to configure, and easy to use. It is also free software, with contributions being made by programmers from around the world.
Window Maker includes compatibility options which allow it to work with other popular desktop environments, namely GNOME and KDE, and comes with a powerful GUI configuration editor, called WPrefs, which removes the need to edit text-based config files by hand. Please see the features section for more specifics on what Window Maker can do, and how it compares with other popular window managers."

http://www.windowmaker.info

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Window Managers