IceWM FAQ and Howto

IceWM FAQ and HowTo

Last modified: 2024/11/09.

What is IceWM?

IceWM is a window manager for the X11 window system. It is designed to be small, fast, lightweight, and to emulate the look and feel of Motif, OS/2 and Windows. It is very configurable: it provides a customizable look with a relatively consistent feel.

Now that you know what IceWM is and are still reading on you are obviously interested in using it. To use a program you will first need to have it. The obvious question is:

Where to get it?

See here.

Which operating systems?

IceWM runs under:

How to install from RPM?

See repology or pkgs.

Compile from source?

IceWM provides autoconf and CMake. See README or INSTALL-cmakebuild.

Default window manager?

Under GNOME you can run icewm-set-gnomewm to make IceWM your default window manager.

Some display managers examine ~/.dmrc:

    [Desktop]
    Session=icewm-session
    Language=en_US.utf8

Make sure that icewm-session.desktop can be found. Use locate icewm-session.desktop. It may need to be placed in /usr/share/xsessions/.

Check /var/lib/AccountsService/users/$USER for your default session. This may look like:

    [User]
    XSession=icewm-session
    SystemAccount=false

Another way to set this is:

   $ myid=$(id -u -r)
   $ gdbus call --system --dest org.freedesktop.Accounts \
        --object-path /org/freedesktop/Accounts/User${myid} \
        --method org.freedesktop.Accounts.User.SetXSession icewm-session

If you use startx to run X11 then create a ~/.xinitrc:

    #!/bin/bash
    icewm-session >~/.xinitrc.log 2>&1

Do chmod +x ~/.xinitrc. If you use Xdm then link: ln ~/.xinitrc ~/.xsession.

The WDM display manager examines ~/.wmrc. Do echo icewm-session >~/.wmrc.

Any startup commands for your IceWM session go into the icewm startup file.

Configuration

When you are runnign IceWM you can switch themes via the Start Menu button in the bottom left corner. Some options can be changed on the fly via the Preferences Menu. Don’t forget to select Save Modifications. Most options require a restart of icewm to be effective via Logout -> Restart IceWM.

Configuring IceWM usually requires editing text config files. See the icewm and preferences man pages.

You can customize IceWM by editing the following configuration files:

The menu file controls the contents in your Start menu. It has the following syntax:

    prog Program Icon app -with -options

prog is a keyword, telling IceWM that it’s a program entry. Other keywords are separator to draw a separator and

    menu Xyz folder_icon {
      prog ...
    }

to open a new sub menu called Xyz. Program is the name which will be shown in the menu. Enclose it in apostrophes if you need more than one word here. Icon will be used as the menu entry’s icon, if a corresponding image is found in IceWM’s IconSearchPath. And finally app -with -options is what’s going to be started if a user chooses this entry.

Note that the menu only shows entries which are found in your PATH, IceWM is clever enough to omit non-usable entries.

There are also two advanced options runonce and menuprogreload "title" icon_name timeout program_exec

runonce is used to start application only once - if its already running do not start it upon clicking. Runonce needs some other options - see manual. menuprogreload is used to created dynamic menus: timeout is integer value, it specifies minimum time interval (in seconds) between menu reloading. Zero value means updating menus every time when user click it.

What are focus models?

To answer this question it is a good idea to first take a look at the four general focus models that are implemented by IceWM:

A window is activated, is focused, gets the focus, … means that input (e. g. keystrokes) now are sent to that window.

IceWM implements these focus models:

  1. click : changing input focus requires to click a window with the left mouse button.

  2. sloppy : set input focus merely by moving the mouse pointer over a window.

  3. explicit : no focus change or window raise unless you force it.

  4. strict : similar to sloppy, but keep focus with last window even if new applications become mapped.

  5. quiet : like sloppy, but without flashing if something wants focus.

  6. custom : Is configured by the following ten options in the preferences file: “ClickToFocus”, “FocusOnAppRaise”, “RequestFocusOnAppRaise”, “RaiseOnFocus”, “RaiseOnClickClient”, “FocusChangesWorkspace”, “FocusOnMap”, “FocusOnMapTransient”, “FocusOnMapTransientActive”, “MapInactiveOnTop”

In short: The focus model controls what you have to do to make a window pop up and to have it listen to what you type.

Configure mouse buttons

UseRootButtons and ButtonRaiseMask are so called bitmask options.

This concept is e.g. used by chmod where 4 stands for read access, 2 for write access and 1 for execute (or change directory) access and you add up the relevant numbers to control the file access.

As far as UseRootButtons and ButtonRaiseMask are concerned, 1 stands for the first mouse button, 2 for the second one and 4 for the third one. The following list shows which number stands for which combination of mouse buttons:

    ---------------------------------
     Value   Stands for
    ---------------------------------
       0     No mouse button at all
       1     Button 1
       2     Button 2
       3     Buttons 1 and 2
       4     Buttons 3
       5     Buttons 1 and 3
       6     Buttons 2 and 3
       7     All three mouse buttons
    ---------------------------------

Any value greater than seven has the same effect as seven. UseRootButtons controls which buttons call up a menu when clicked on an unoccupied region of the desktop. ButtonRaiseMask determines which buttons will raise a window when clicked on that window’s title bar.

Bind menus to buttons

There is an option for each of the root menus which controls which button is bound to that menu.

    -----------------------------------------
     Option Name            Controls
    -----------------------------------------
     DesktopWinMenuButton   Window menu
     DesktopWinListButton   Window list
     DesktopMenuButton      Application menu
    -----------------------------------------

The value of each option determines the button to which the corresponding menu is bound according to the following scheme:

    -----------------------------
     Value   Stands for
    -----------------------------
       0     No mouse button
       1     Left mouse button
       2     Right mouse button
       3     Middle mouse button
      4-6    Other buttons
    -----------------------------

Monitor mailboxes?

No problem. See mailbox monitoring.

Disable the Alt keys?

To send all Alt key combinations to an application, you can use a window option

window_class.fullKeys: 1

The preference you are looking for is ClientWindowMouseActions=0. This disables Alt+mouse drag to move window for all IceWM handled windows.

Control Applications

This section is about how you can make windows appear on a certain workspace, have them displayed without a border or titlebar, or put them above or under other windows. This is accomplished using winoptions.

Assigning a particular option (icon, default layer, default workspace, etc.) to a given application or application window can be done as follows:

First, you should acquire the WM_CLASS descriptor using xprop:

    xprop | grep WM_CLASS

in a terminal. The output of xprop for Mozilla Firefox is

    WM_CLASS(STRING) = "Navigator", "Firefox"

The first double quoted name is the window name and the second is the window class. You can then add the desired options to your winoptions file. Entries in that file have one of the following formats:

    name.class.option: value
    class.option:      value
    name.option:       value

To assign the icons navigator_*.xpm to the Netscape Navigator window, use this option:

    Navigator.Netscape.icon: navigator

The other options work according to roughly the same pattern. The list of winoptions you can find in the man page about Window Options.

Keep window on top?

There are two slightly different ways to do this. Use whatever suits your need. Option one: the window always stays on top of any other windows. Set the following winoption name.class.layer: onTop. Option two: the window sits in a rectangular zone of the desktop where no other windows can be placed: Use the doNotCover winoption: name.class.doNotCover: 1. By the way, this is how the taskbar or the GNOME panel work. It’s a good idea to use this on gkrellm, your icq client, or other monitoring tools you’d always like to have in view.

Iconify or maximize?

There may be programs that you either want to start up iconified or maximized. For this there are winoptions: startMinimized, startMaximized, startFullscreen, etc.

Map to a workspace?

Either use winoptions and define

xmms.workspace: 7
Mozilla.workspace: 9

This allways starts xmms on workspace 7 and Mozilla on workspace 9, keep in mind, IceWM starts counting at 0. IceWM will switch to the nominated workspace on every start of these programs.

Or you can use icesh:

icesh -class xeyes setWorkspace 0

This move xeyes to workspace 0.

Basic keyboard shortcuts

It should be possible to control everything by keyboard. Here we show some of the not so obvious ways to achieve important window managing tasks only with keystrokes.

Alt+Tab = Switches between the open windows
Alt+F4 = Closes a window
Alt+F9 = Minimizes a window
Alt+F10 = Maximizes a window
Alt+F12 = Rolls the window up
Alt+Shift+F10 = Maximizes the window vertically
Ctrl+Alt+arrow left = Changes workspaces from 1-12
Ctrl+Alt+arrow right = Changes workspaces from 12-1
Ctrl+Alt+Esc = Opens the  window list
Ctrl+Esc = Opens the  menu

Switch Desktop by key

You are accustomed to a window manager that allows you to switch between virtual desktops using your keyboard? IceWM allows for this, too.

Before I describe how to switch between virtual desktops I want to describe how to control their number. Imagine that your ~/.icewm/preferences has a row reading

    WorkspaceNames="1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8","9","0"

This setting results in ten virtual desktops and ten buttons in your taskbar looking like this:

    +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
    | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 |
    +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

If you name less desktops, you obtain less. If you name more, you get more.

For understanding how switching virtual desktops works in IceWM you should imagine that the buttons represent your virtual desktops and that these desktops are arranged in one long row.

You can imagine two ways of switching between desktops:

IceWM has both ways:

If you are using Ctrl+Alt+Right on the rightmost desktop you switch to the leftmost desktop. From here, Ctrl+Alt+Left brings you back to the rightmost desktop.

What if you have more than ten virtual desktops? In this case Ctrl+Alt+n will only work for the first ten desktops while switching to the left or right still works for all desktops.

Note: To switch desktops when moving mouse on desktop edges use preference:

    EdgeSwitch=1

then you can change workspaces by moving your cursor to the left/right edges of your screen.

Move windows to desktops

In the previous section I explained how to switch between desktops. If you didn’t already read it you should do it now because moving the active window to another desktop works almost the same like switching to a certain desktop. All you have to do is press the Shift while switching to the desktop:

Command Line Interface

You could run IceWM with TaskBarDoubleHeigth=1, if you want to enable the Address Bar permanently. (see What is the blank bar in the task bar good for?).

If you enter man perl in the Address Bar and press Ctrl+Enter a terminal will pop up displaying the Perl man page. If you press q not only the man page no longer is displayed but the terminal will exit, too.

This is just one example of how to use the CLI in icewm. You can use it to issue any other command as well. A problem that might occur is that the terminal will exit before you had time to read the output of a command (it terminates as soon as the command is done). The terminal may support a hold resource or -hold option, which will keep the terminal open until it is closed by you.

Can I use Win(95) keys?

Sure you can. In .xinitrc

    clear mod4
    keycode 64 = Alt_L
    keycode 113 = Alt_R
    keycode 115 = Meta_L
    keycode 116 = Meta_R
    add Mod4 = Meta_L Meta_R

in .Xmodmap there is:

    add Mod1 = Alt_L
    add Mod2 = Mode_switch
    keycode 117 = Menu

and in ~/.icewm/preferences

    Win95Keys=1 # was 0

On a free workspace the right Win95 opens the list of Workspaces.

Now also in OpenOffice I can use the right menu key to open the menus in the OOo taskbar with the letters for the shortcut I can switch to the desired menu without needing to leave the keyboard, my preferred way of working on the pc.

How to install Themes

IceWM can be customized using a great variety of themes. You can download them from https://www.box-look.org/. To install themes simply unpack them into your ~/.icewm/themes/ directory.

Since 3.5.0 icewm can install themes from the extra package with the -i, --install option. Do icewm -i list for a list of 92 installable themes.

Which image formats?

IceWM supports JPEG, PNG and XPM. Support for SVG is optional.

Setting the background

If you provide the appropriate options in your preferences file and start icewmbg, IceWM will set the background color or the background image for you. You can use

    DesktopBackgroundColor="color"

to set a background color and

    DesktopBackgroundImage="image"

to set a background image. To keep IceWM from setting a background color/image you simply set both options to an empty string:

    DesktopBackgroundColor=""
    DesktopBackgroundImage=""

Hints:

1. Commenting out DesktopBackgroundColor="color" and DesktopBackgroundImage="image" does not have the intended effect. 2. IMHO using a background image (especially a huge one) isn’t that good an idea. It awfully slows down the X windowing system.

To distinguish between filling whole desktop with image or to place it self standing in the middle you can use

    DesktopBackgroundCenter=""

DesktopBackgroundCenter is used to tell IceWM how you want your wallpaper placed on the screen. If set to 1 your picture will be centered on screen. As a result of that, you will only have one picture in the middle of your desktop. If set to 0 your picture file will fill the whole screen. That is a good thing if you are using a pattern thing to cover the whole desktop.

Setting the clock format

Setting up the look of the task bar clock of IceWM as well as the format of the associated tooltip is rather easy. IceWM uses the same format as the Unix standard function strftime so when in doubt you can always refer to

    man 3 strftime

To set the clock format you use

    TimeFormat="<format string>"

and for the clock tooltip format you use

    DateFormat="<format string>"

Ordinary characters placed in the format string are printed without conversion (if possible, see below). Conversion specifiers are introduced by a percent character %, and are replaced by a corresponding string.

Important Note: While DateFormat and TimeFormat both support all the format descriptors the latter only has full support if used with

    TaskBarClockLeds=0

(which is set equal 1 by default).

The reason for this is that there are no icons to display the name of a month, day, or time zone. To be more precise there are only icons for

  1. digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
  2. colon, dot, slash, and space
  3. A, P, and M (for AM and PM)

Format descriptors which may only be in TimeFormat if TaskBarClockLeds=0 (in general or depending on the locale) are labeled as restricted in the following table. It shows the replacement for all format descriptors available.

The values in parentheses show what the different format specifiers display for

YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS TimeZone = 1999/09/04 19:09:22 UTC

on my machine with hardware clock and Linux running UTC, local being “C” (i.e. no internationalization at all):

How to add icons?

An icon for an application can be specified by a name, filename, full path or path prefix in winoptions. To locate an icon which is specified by name or filename, IceWM looks at the value of IconPath in preferences. This is colon-separated list of directories. A directory is subjected to tilde expansion and expansion of at most one leading environment variable like $HOME. If the icon is still not found sofar, then IceWM looks for icons in $ICEWM_PRIVCFG/icons/ (or ~/.config/icewm/icons/, or ~/.icewm/icons/), then at theme icons, then at CFGDIR/icons, then at LIBDIR/icons. Here CFGDIR and LIBDIR are defined at compile time and can be queried by icewm --directories.

How to make themes?

There is documentation on themes written by MJ Ray with updates from Adam Pribyl.

What is the Logout Command?

For most users, nothing. The Logout and Cancel commands were meant for GNOME integration as alternative commands that would be run when users initiated a logout or logout cancel. Since GNOME did not seem to incorporate this feature, they generally go unused.

A blank field in taskbar?

If you are running IceWM with the TaskBarDoubleHeight option set, a blank field in the task bar occurs. It is a command line interface.

In this field you can enter commands to start programs. If you click inside the field and enter xclock the X clock is started.

If you click on it and simply press Ctrl+Enter a terminal is started.

If you enter a non-X command and press Ctrl+Enter then that command is executed in a terminal.

Stop grabbing my keystrokes

What if you are running an application and need to use a keystroke that is grabbed by IceWM?

Marko suggests the following workaround:

  1. Activate scroll lock
  2. Do problematic key stroke
  3. Deactivate scroll lock

He advises that this will only work if ScrollLock is set up as a modifier.

Here is how to use the X11 xmodmap utility to setup ScrollLock as a modifier (from Marco Molteni):

    $ xmodmap -pm

    xmodmap:  up to 2 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses):

    shift       Shift_L (0x32),  Shift_R (0x3e)
    lock        Caps_Lock (0x42)
    control     Control_L (0x25),  Control_R (0x6d)
    mod1        Alt_L (0x40),  Alt_R (0x71)
    mod2        Num_Lock (0x4d)
    mod3
    mod4        Super_L (0x73),  Super_R (0x74)
    mod5

    $ xmodmap -e "add mod3 = Scroll_Lock"

This invocation of xmodmap could be put in the script that starts the window manager, ~/.xinit or ~/.xsession, or in startup

Setting the lock command

To set the lock command, add

    LockCommand="xlock -mode blank"

to your $HOME/.icewm/preferences and xlock will run in blank mode.

In case you prefer xscreensaver

    LockCommand="xscreensaver 2>/dev/null; sleep 1; xscreensaver-command -lock"

How to lock the screen

Screen locking is something you should do whenever you leave your machine (even at home and even for only a few seconds - just imagine a cat pushing the enter button at the wrong moment). It should be a habit like logging out root as soon as possible.

… by keyboard

With IceWM screen locking is very easy: If you press

    Ctrl+Alt+Del

a menu pops up offering you the following tasks:

The letters that are emphasized are underlined in the dialog. The meaning of this emphasis is that you may e. g. press k to lock your workstation.

Another possibility is to use the arrow keys to navigate and then press Enter to activate the task.

… by mouse

If you prefer to use your mouse to lock the screen you may add the following entry to your $HOME/.icewm/toolbar

    prog    xlock   xlock   xlock

You could as well add that line to ~/.icewm/menu or ~/.icewm/programs, but that’s not a good idea: Screen locking is often done in a hurry and if you have to scan through a menu this will increase the chance that you will not lock your machine at all.

… using a lock command

How to define a different lock command is described in section “Setting the lock command”

Support session management?

From 1.2.13 IceWM has some basic session management to manage all its parts. But this is where the more complicated desktop environments like GNOME, KDE or xfce join the game. IceWM still is mainly a window manager… but of course you can always start your favorite apps upon X start-up/login using the .xinitrc or .xsession files. Or use IceWM as the window manager instead of the default GNOME/KDE window manager.

Can I have icons on the desktop?

This is desktop environment work, but usually done by the respective file managers, since they already know about MIME types, file endings and such. IceWM users usually use idesk, dfm, rox, kfm or gmc. Set MinimizeToDesktop=1 for icons on the desktop from minimized applications.

My background is ignored?

Usually this is because it’s the wrong image format. It can happen when IceWM is compiled only with libXpm. With imlib, IceWM is able to read most of the often used image formats like png, gif, jpeg, instead of just xpm images with libXpm. Another reason can be, that the theme defines another image or color. An error message from icewmbg should tell you more.

Can I have bigger icons?

Since IceWM 1.2.14 it is possible to specify the size of icons in the IceWM preferences. There are four relevant options:

    MenuIconSize=16
    SmallIconSize=16
    LargeIconSize=32
    HugeIconSize=48

These values are the default. They should be between 8 and 128 included. MenuIconSize specifies size of icons in menu. Three other are used for any other icon in IceWM. E.g. SmallIconSize is used in taskbar, application frames and window list. LargeIconSize is used in quickswitch.

Consider that when you change size of SmallIconsSize, then all above described parts will have icons of different size, but taskbar and frames will not change their high accordingly! Also when you specify the size that is not available, icons will be resized. This can cause some artefacts mainly when you are using xpm icons.

There is a trick to increase size of taskbar, however. The taskbar height is set to SmallIconSize + 9 pixels. Only if the start.xpm icon is higher than this, will it be set to the height of start.xpm + 5 pixels.

To change the height of frames you have to make a theme with higher frame pixmaps.

How to translate IceWM?

The best option is to join openSUSE Weblate. First register an account either here or there then improve the translation for your language.

The other option is to create a copy of icewm.pot and rename it to cs.po or whatever is right for your language. Then you have to translate the file using any of the tools for gettext file translation, e.g. kbabel, or you can edit it by hand.

If you want to test file yourself you can add this file into po directory under IceWM sources and then configure IceWM (./configure) and type make in po directory. This creates .mo file, which you can either copy to locale locations (e.g. /usr/local/share/locale/cs/LC_MESSAGES) or you can do make install.

How to use Xrandr?

IceWM supports since a few versions the xrandr feature of X11. This can very easily be used to define a menu item on your toolbar to change the display resolution, provided that you run recent enough versions of both X11 and IceWM that supports xrandr. You can run xrandr -q to see the resolutions supported using your present X configuration (maximum resolution and color depth). You can edit this menu fragment when you have checked which resolutions work and then you can put it into your toolbar.

    # IceWM toolbar menu to change the display resolution.
    # This needs xrandr support from both X11 and Icewm.
    #
    # Xrandr is considered an experimental feature, so your screen may go
    # blank if you have a problem with some resolution setting.
    # It is a good idea to close your other windows before testing.
    #
    # Check your own resolutions with xrandr -q and modify accordingly.
    # This example assumes a default resolution of 1280x1024.
    #


    menu Resolution redhat-system-settings {
       prog 1280x1024 1280x1024 xrandr -s 0
       prog 1152x864  1152x864  xrandr -s 2
       prog 1024x768  1024x768  xrandr -s 3
       prog  800x600   800x600  xrandr -s 4
       prog  640x480   640x480  xrandr -s 5
    }

The redhat-system-settings is a bitmap I picked up from my Fedora Core 3 box, you can put there whatever you want of course.

Example: configuration A-Z

This is a sample of possible configurations you could do to have IceWM running with all you need. Following applies for RedHat(9). Placement of files can be bit different.

X window login

To have possibility to switch to IceWM in GDM greeter (after start to runlevel 5 = Xwindow), then you need to do following things:

    #!/bin/bash
    exec /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession icewm

    #!/bin/bash
    exec /usr/local/bin/icewm-session

IceWM configuration

To configure all of IceWM options go to sections about configuration. Generally all you need to customize IceWM globaly, is to edit /usr/local/share/icewm/preferences etc.

Icons on desktop

Usually people want to have icons on desktop. One of most simple applications that can satisfy this need is idesk (see Tools to find it). Configuration of idesk is almost as easy as configuration of IceWM, but has one disadvantage: idesk does not have in version 0.3.x global configuration file. Therefore each user needs to have proper configuration file in his/her home.

To configure idesk you need to:

    table Config
      FontName: Helvetica
      FontSize: 9
      FontColor: #ffffff
      PaddingX: 35
      PaddingY: 25
      Locked: true
      HighContrast: false
      Transparency: 50
      Shadow: true
      ShadowColor: #000000
      ShadowX: 1
      ShadowY: 1
      Bold: false
    end

    table Icon
      Caption: Mozilla
      Command: mozilla
      Icon: /usr/share/pixmaps/mozilla-icon.png
      X: 22
      Y: 13
    end

    idesk > /dev/null & # start idesk - desktop icon manager

IceWM ignores my colors

Some users wonder why the colors specified in their preference files seem to have no effect upon the actual appearance of things. The reason is that these settings may be overridden by settings in the theme file.

The theme file can control all of the options controlled by the preferences file, but usually theme authors are decent confine their meddling to superficial aspects of window manager behavior and leave control over most important behaviors to the user.

If this wasn’t the reason: If you are running X in 8-bit mode then it is possible that the specified color simply isn’t available.

You don’t know if X is running in 8-bit mode? Run

    xwininfo | grep Depth

in an XTerm and click on the root window (the desktop). If this command displays

    Depth: n

you are running X in n-bit mode (n typically is 8, 16, 24 or 32).

Programs are missing from menus

A very annoying problem are programs you added to the menu file but that are missing in the corresponding menus. That isn’t really a bug of IceWM. The point of view of IceWM is that it makes no sense to display a program that is not present.

The crucial point is the meaning of to be present. It does not mean to be installed, but to be found using the present path. Do echo $PATH or which program to find if a program is in PATH.

To fix the problem you have at least three possibilities:

  1. You give the full path and not only the program name itself.
  2. You set the PATH in your .xinitrc, .xsession or .Xclients.
  3. You set the PATH in env.

IceWM maximizes windows over the GNOME panel

This used to be a really annoying problem, but seems to be gone with newer versions of IceWM and GNOME. If it still happens on your machine try to set

    Panel.doNotCover: 1

in your winoptions file.

Screen locking doesn’t work

The reason for this is that the standard lock command (xscreensaver-command or xlock) could not be found by IceWM. See “Setting the lock command” for details on setting a different lock command.

Background does not show up

IceWM is divided in few separated parts. One of them is icewmbg. This part takes care of bacground setup. Therefore if you want IceWM to take care of desktop background you have to start icewmbg at IceWM startup. The proper way is to start “icewm-session” in your X startup instead of just icewm. See “Configuration”.

Font settings are ignored

IceWM uses two ways of font handling - corefonts OR fonts provided by xfreetype library.

These fonts can be specified in preferences or theme default.theme.

For X server provided fonts (configure –enable-corefonts option) the definition looks like this:

    ActiveButtonFontName = "-artwiz-snap-regular-r-normal-sans-10-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"

For Xft (xfreetype) library (used by default, disable using option –disable-xfreetype), then specification is like this:

    ActiveButtonFontNameXft = "Snap:size=10,sans-serif:size=12:bold"

To provide correct fonts to Xft you have to specify them in /etc/fonts/fonts.conf. X server font are either provided by X server itself e.g. /etc/X11/XF86Config - Section “Files”, or by XFS (X Font Server) defined in. /etc/X11/fs/config.

How can I make the title bar of an XTerm span the whole screen when maximized?

Set ConsiderSizeHintsMaximized=0.

How can I disable the Super keys, which open the WindowList or Menu?

Set Win95Keys=0.

How can IceWM load new keybindings from .icewm/keys without a restart?

Do icesh keys.

License

This document is released under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License.

Authors