AFTERSTEP(0.98a) MachTen Programmer’s Manual AFTERSTEP(0.98a)

NAME
afterstep - X11 window manager which emulates the look and
feel of NEXTSTEP(tm) while adding useful features of its
own.

SYNOPSIS
afterstep [-d dpy ] [-debug] [-f config_file ] [-s]

DESCRIPTION
AfterStep is a continuation of the BowMan window manager
which was originally put together by Bo Yang. BowMan was
based on the fvwm window manager, written by Robert
Nation. Fvwm was based on code from twm. And so on...
It is designed to emulate some of the look and feel of the
NEXTSTEP user interface, while adding useful, requested,
and neat features. The changes which comprise AfterStep’s
personality were originally part of BowMan development,
but due to a desire to move past simple emulation and into
a niche as its own valuable window manager, the current
designers decided to change the project name and move on.
BowMan development may continue, but we will no longer be
a part of it.

Some major changes from fvwm include:
1. NEXTSTEP(tm)-alike title bar, title buttons,
borders and corners.
2. AfterStep Wharf is a much worked-out version of
GoodStuff. To avoid copyright complications it is
not called a "dock."
3. NEXTSTEP(tm) style menu. However the menus are
not controlled by applications, they are more of
pop-up service lists on the root window.
4. NEXTSTEP(tm) style icons. These styles are hard-
coded in the program, which is good for the consis-
tent look of the NEXTSTEP(tm) interface.

However, the flexibility of fvwm was not traded off. The
initiation file, ~/.steprc , recognizes most of the
fvwm(1.24r) commands. Virtual screen and pagers are still
intact. Fvwm modules should work just fine. However, com-
patibility with fvwm-2 is not planned.

SPECIAL NOTE FOR XFREE86 USERS
XFree86 provides a virtual screen whose operation can be
confusing when used in conjunction with this virtual win-
dow manager. With XFree86, windows which appear on
the virtual screen actually get drawn into video mem-
ory, so the virtual screen size is limited by available
video memory.

With AfterStep’s virtual desktop, windows which do not
appear on the screen do not actually get drawn into
video RAM. The size of the virtual desktop is limited to
about 32,000 by 32,000 pixels. It is probably impractical
to use a virtual desktop more than about 5 times the visi-
ble screen in each direction. Note that memory usage with
the virtual desktop is a function of the number of
windows which exist. The size of the desktop makes no dif-
ference.

When becoming familiar with AfterStep , it is recommended
that you disable XFree86’s virtual screen, by setting the
virtual screen size to the physical screen size. When
familiar with AfterStep , you may want to re-enable
XFree86’s virtual screen.

COPYRIGHTS
AfterStep is based on BowMan and shares copyrights with
it. BowMan is derived from Fvwm code, which is in turn
derived from twm code, thus AfterStep shares copyrights
with Bowman, Fvwm, and twm.

AfterStep is copyright 1996 by Frank Fejes and Dan Weeks.
All other modifications are copyright to their respective
authors.

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this soft-
ware and its documentation for any purpose and with-
out fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copy-
right notice appear in all copies and that both that
copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
supporting documentation.

FRANK FEJES AND DAN WEEKS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES WITH
REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WAR-
RANTIES OF MERCHANT- ABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO
EVENT SHALL EVANS & SUTHERLAND OR M.I.T. BE LIABLE FOR
ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAM- AGES OR ANY
DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR
PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR
OTHER TORTUOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION
WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

ANATOMY OF A WINDOW
AfterStep puts a decorative border on the top and bottom
of most windows. This border consists of a bar on the bot-
tom that is divided into three sections. These sections
are refered to as "handles". There is also a top bar
called the title bar which is used to display the name of
the window and two title-bar buttons.

Unless the standard defaults files are modified, pressing
mouse button 1 in the title or side-bars will begin a move
operation on the window. Pressing button 1 in the handle
pieces will begin a resize operation. Pressing button 2
anywhere in the border brings up an extensive list of
window operations.

The default configuration has a title-bar button on each
side of the title-bar. The one on the left is used to
iconify the window, regardless of which mouse button is
used. The one on the right is used to close the window,
regardless of which mouse button is used. See the section
on "Mouse".

THE VIRTUAL DESKTOP
AfterStep provides multiple virtual desktops for users who
wish to use them. The screen is a viewport onto a desktop
which is larger than (or the same size as) the screen.
Several distinct desktops can be accessed. Concept: one
desktop for each project, or one desktop for each
application, when view applications are distinct. Since
each desktop can be larger than the physical screen, win-
dows which are larger than the screen, or large groups
of related windows, can easily be viewed.

The size of the each virtual desktop must be specified at
start-up (default: 2 times the physical size of the
screen). All virtual desktops must be the same size. The
total number of distinct desktops need not be specified,
but is limited to approximately 4 billion total. All win-
dows on the current desktop can be displayed in a Pager,
or miniature view or the current desktop. Windows which
are not on the current desktop can be listed, along with
their geometries, in a window list, accessible as a pop-up
menu.

"Sticky" windows are windows which transcend the virtual
desktop by "Sticking to the screen’s glass." They always
stay put on the screen. This is convenient for things
like clocks and xbiff’s, so you only need to run one such
gadget, and it always stays with you.

Window geometries are specified relative to the current
viewport. That is xterm -geometry +0+0 will always show up
in the upper-left hand corner of the visible portion of
the screen. It is permissible to specify geometries which
place windows on the virtual desktop, but off the screen.
For example, if the visible screen is 1000 by 1000 pixels,
and the desktop size is 3x3, and the current viewport is
at the upper left hand corner of the desktop, then invok-
ing xterm -geometry +1000+1000 will place the window just
off of the lower right hand corner of the screen. It can
be found by moving the mouse to the lower right hand cor-
ner of the screen, and waiting for it to scroll into view.
There is currently no way to cause a window to map onto a
desktop other than the currently active desk. A geometry
specified as something like xterm -geometry -5-5 will
generally place the windows lower right hand corner 5
pixels from the lower right hand corner of the visible
portion of the screen. Not all applications support window
geometries with negative offsets.

Some applications, like xterm and xfontsel, allow the user
to specify the start-up desk on the command line. xterm
-xrm "*Desk:1" will start an xterm on desk number 1. Other
applications do not understand this option.

INITIALIZATION
During initialization, afterstep will search for a con-
figuration file which describes key and button bindings,
and a few other things. The format of these files
will be described later. First, afterstep will search for
a file named .steprc in the users home directory. Fail-
ing that, it will look for
/usr/lib/X11/afterstep/system.steprc for system-wide
defaults. If that file is not found, afterstep will exit.

AfterStep will set two environment variables which
will be inherited by its children. These are $DIS-
PLAY which describes the display on which afterstep is
running. $DISPLAY may be unix:0.0 or :0.0, which doesn’t
work too well when passed through rsh to another
machine, so $HOSTDISPLAY will also be set, and will use a
network-ready description of the display. Unfortunately,
$HOSTDISPLAY will use the tcp/ip transoport protocol, even
for a local connection, so $DISPLAY should be used
for local connections, as it may use unix-domain sockets,
which are faster.

SHAPED WINDOWS
If you typically use shaped windows such as xeyes or
oclock you have several options. You can make them all
undecorated (Style "oclock" NoHandle,NoTitle , for exam-
ple), or you can use the default configuration, and leave
them decorated, in which case a decorative title and han-
dels are shown along with a solid color background.
Alternately, you can compile in the SHAPE extensions, by
changing a flag in the Makefile, in which case you get
the shaped window with no backdrop, and a title bar floats
above the window. The shaped window extensions
increase the window manager’s memory consumption by about
60Kbytes when no shaped windows are present, but have
little effect when shaped windows are present.

ICONS
The basic afterstep configuration uses monochrome bitmap
icons, similar to Twm. If XPM extensions are compiled
in, then color icons similar to NEXTSTEP(tm), ctwm, MS-DOS
windows, or the Macintosh icons can be used. In order to
use these options, you will need the XPM package, as
described in the Make-file.noImake and the Imakefile.

MODULES
A module is a separate program, which runs as a sepa-
rate unix process, but transmits commands to afterstep to
execute. Future releases are expected to provide a means
for these modules to extract window information from
afterstep. Users can write their own modules to do
any weird or bizarre manipulations, without affecting the
integrity of afterstep itself.

Modules MUST be spawned by afterstep, so that it can set
up two pipes for afterstep and the module to communicate
with. The pipes will already be open for the module when
it starts, and the file descriptors for the pipes are
provided as command line arguments.

Modules can be spawned during afterstep initialization via
the Module option, or at any time during the X session by
use of the Module built-in. Modules can exist for the
duration of the X session, or can perform as single task
and exit. If the module is still active when afterstep is
told to quit, then afterstep will close down the commu-
nication pipes, and wait to receive a SIGCHLD from the
module, indicating that it has detected the pipe closure,
and has exited. If modules fail to detect the pipe clo-
sure, afterstep will exit after approximately 30 seconds
anyway. The number of simultaneously executing modules is
limited by the operating system’s maximum number of simul-
taneously open files, usually between 60 and 256.

Modules simply transmit text commands to the afterstep
built-in command engine. Text commands are formatted just
as in the case of a mouse binding in the .aftersteprc set
up file. Certain auxiliary information is also transmit-
ted, as in the sample module Wharf. The Wharf module is
documented in its own man page.

ICCCM COMPLIANCE
AfterStep attempts to be ICCCM 1.1 compliant. As of
this (0.98a) colormap handling is not completely ICCCM
compliant. In addition, ICCCM states that it should be
possible for applications to receive ANY keystroke, which
is not consistent with the keyboard shortcut approach
used in afterstep and most other window managers.

OPTIONS
-d displayname
Manage the display called, "displayname", instead
of the name obtained from the environment variable
$DISPLAY.

-debug Puts X transactions in synchronous mode, which
dramatically slows things down, but guarantees that
afterstep’s internal error messages are correct.

-f config_file
Causes afterstep to use config_file instead of
~/.steprc as the window manager configuration file.

-s Run afterstep on only the specified screen of a
multi-screen display. Normally, afterstep will
attempt to start up on all screens of a multi-
screen display. The "specified screen" is the one
provided in the DISPLAY environment variable, or
provided through the -d option.

CONFIGURATION FILES
The configuration file, usually ~/.steprc , is used to
describe mouse and button bindings, colors, the virtual
display size, and related items. This section describes
the configuration options. Lines within the configuration
file beginning with ’#’ will be ignored by afterstep.
Lines starting with ’*’ are expected to contain module
configuration commands.

StdForeColor colorname
Sets the foreground color for menus and non-
selected window titles to colorname. When using
a monochrome screen, this option is ignored,
and black is used.

StdBackColor colorname
Sets the background color for menus, and non-
selected windows to colorname. When using a
monochrome screen, this option is ignored, and
white is used.

StickyForeColor colorname
Sets the foreground color for non-selected window
sticky (Sticks-to-glass) titles to colorname.
When using a monochrome screen, this option is
ignored, and black is used.

StickyBackColor colorname
Sets the background color for non-selected window
sticky (Sticks-to-glass) windows to colorname.
When using a monochrome screen, this option is
ignored, and white is used.

HiForeColor colorname
Sets the color for selected window’s title to col-
orname. When using a monochrome screen, this
option is ignored, and black is used.

HiBackColor colorname
Sets the background color for the selected window
to colorname. When using a monochrome screen, this
option is ignored, and white is used.

MenuForeColor colorname
Sets the menu foreground color. When using
monochrome, this option is ignored.

MenuBackColor colorname
Sets the menu background color. When using
monochrome, this option is ignored.

MenuStippleColor colorname
Sets the color for shaded out entries in menus (for
functions which are not allowed on the currently
selected window). When using monochrome, this
option is ignored, and a stipple pattern is used.

PagerBackColor colorname
Causes the pager background color to be colorname ,
instead of white. On a monochrome screen, this
option is ignored. If the NO_PAGER option is set
when building afterstep , this option is unavail-
able.

PagerForeColor colorname
Causes the pager foreground color to be colorname ,
instead of black. This is the color used to high-
light the current viewport in the pager window. On
a monochrome screen, this option is ignored. If the
NO_PAGER option is set when building afterstep ,
this option is unavailable.

Font fontname
Makes afterstep use the font fontname instead of
"fixed" for menus, the resize indicators, and icon
labels (if IconFont is not specified).

WindowFont fontname
Makes afterstep use the font fontname instead of
"fixed" for the window title bar.

NoTitle windowname
Keeps afterstep from putting a title-bar in the
decorations for windows named windowname. This is
handy for clocks and similar gadgets that you
don’t want to take up too much space. can be a
window’s name or its class.

Windowname can contain the wildcards "*" and "?"
which match window names in the normal unix file-
name matching manner. Actual "*", "?", and "
characters in a window name can be entered by pre-
ceding the character with a "

NoBorder windowname
Keeps afterstep from putting decorative borders on
windows named windowname. This command has no
effect on the title-bar. This is handy for
clocks and similar gadgets that you don’t want to
take up too much space. windowname can be a
window’s name or its class.

If you specify both NoBorder windowname and NoTitle
windowname for the same window in your
~/.aftersteprc file, the window will be completely
undecorated.

Sticky windowname
Sticky windows "stick to the screen’s glass." That
is, they don’t move the the viewport into the vir-
tual desktop changes. windowname can be a window’s
name or its class.

StaysOnTop windowname
These windows always try to stay on top of the
other windows. This might be handy for clocks or
mailboxes that you would always like to be visible.
If the window is explicitly lowered, it will not
try to force its way back to the top until it is
explicitly raised. windowname can be a window’s
name or its class.

StartsOnDesk windowname desk-number
This command causes windows whose name or class is
windowname to be initially placed on desktop number
desk-number. windowname should be enclosed in dou-
ble quotes. If the window requires interactive
placement, an outline will be displayed on the cur-
rent desk, but the window will appear on the speci-
fied desk.

CirculateSkip windowname
Causes windows with the indicated name to be
skipped over when the circulate-up or circulate-
down functions are invoked. windowname can be a
window’s name or its class.

CirculateSkipIcons
Causes circulate and warp operations to skip over
iconified windows.

WindowListSkip windowname
Causes windows with the indicated name to be left
out of the window list.

NoFocus windowname
Causes windows with the indicated name to not
take the focus when the pointer moves over them.
Currently this feature works only with SloppyFocus,
ClickToFocus support is in the works.

Style windowname options
This command is intended to replace the commands
NoFocus, NoBorder, NoTitle, StartsOnDesk, Sticky,
StaysOnTop, Icon, WindowListSkip, CirculateSkip,
SuppressIcons, BoundaryWidth, NoBoundaryWidth, Std-
ForeColor, and StdBackColor with a single flexible
and comprehensive command. This command is used to
set attributes of a window to values other than
the default, or to set the window-manager default
styles. windowname can be a window’s name,
class or resource string. It can contain the
wildcards "*" and/or "?", which are matched in the
usual unix filename manner. options is a comma
separated list containing all or some of the key-
words BorderWidth, HandleWidth, NoFocus,
Icon/NoIcon, NoTitle/Title, NoHandles/Handles, Win-
dowListSkip/WindowListHit, Circu-
lateSkip/CirculateHit, StaysOnTop/StaysPut,
Sticky/Slippery, StartIconic/StartNormal, Color,
ForeColor, BackColor, StartsOnDesk/StartsAnyWhere,
and IconTitle/NoIconTitle.

In the above list, some options are listed as
style-option/opposite-style-option. The opposite-
style-option for entries that have them describes
the default behavior, and can be used if you want
to change the default behavior.

Icon takes an (optional) unquoted string argument
which is the icon bitmap or pixmap to use. Start-
sOnDesk takes a numeric argument which is the desk-
top number on which the window should be initially
placed. BorderWidth takes a numeric argument which
is the width of the border to place the window if
it does not have resize-handles. HandleWidth takes
a numeric argument which is the width of the border
to place the window if it does have resize
handles.

Color takes two arguments. The first is the win-
dowlabel text color, and the second is the window
decoration’s normal background color. The two col-
ors are separated with a slash. If the use of a
slash causes problems, then the seperate ForeColor
and BackColor options can be used.

An example:

# Change default afterstep behavior to no titlebars on windows!
# Also, define a default icon.
Style "*" NoTitle,Icon unknown1.xpm,BorderWidth 4,HandleWidth 5

# now, window specific changes:
Style "Fvwm*" NoHandles,Sticky,WindowListSkip
Style "FvwmPager" StaysOnTop
# the above 2 are for those that use Fvwm
# moduels with AfterStep
Style "*clock" NoHandles,Sticky,StaysOnTop,WindowListSkip
Style "xbiff" Sticky,WindowListSkip
Style "Wharf" NoHandles,Sticky,WindowListSkip
Style "sxpm" NoHandles

# Put title-bars back on xterms only!
Style "xterm" Title, Color black/grey
Style "rxvt" Icon term.xpm
Style "xterm" Icon rterm.xpm
Style "xcalc" Icon xcalc.xpm
Style "xbiff" Icon mail1.xpm
Style "xmh" Icon mail1.xpm, StartsOnDesk 2
Style "xman" Icon xman.xpm
Style "matlab" Icon math4.xpm, StartsOnDesk 3
Style "xmag" Icon magnifying_glass2.xpm
Style "xgraph" Icon graphs.xpm
Style "Maker" StartsOnDesk 1
Style "signal" StartsOnDesk 3

Note that all properties for a window will be read
together. In the above example "Pager" gets the
property StaysOnTop via an exact window name match,
but also gets NoHandles,Sticky, and WindowListSkip
by a match to "AfterStep*". It will get NoTitle
by virtue of a match to "*". If conflicting styles
are specified for a window, then the last style
specified will be used.

If the NoIcon attribute is set, then the specified
window will simply disappear when it is iconified.
The window can be recovered throught the win-
dowlist. If Icon is set without an argument, then
the NoIcon attribute is cleared, but no icon is
specified. An example which allows only the
Pager module icon to exist:

Style "*" NoIcon
Style "Pager" Icon

CenterOnCirculate
When circulating, the desktop page containing the
window which the pointer is moving to is automati-
cally selected. If CenterOnCirculate is selected,
then afterstep will do its best to center the
target window in the desktop viewport, rather
than just lining up to the closest page.

DeskTopSize HorizontalxVertical
Defines the virtual desktop size in units of the
physical screen size.

DeskTopScale Scale
Defines the virtual desktop scale with respect to
the screen.

BoundaryWidth Width
Changes the boundary width on decorated windows to
the specified value. The default is 6.

NoBoundaryWidth Width
Changes the width of the decorations for windows
with no titles and no borders. The default is 1.
Any positive or zero value is acceptable. Decora-
tions for these undecorated windows have the same
context as the side-bars on normally decorated win-
dows.

XORvalue number
Changes the value with which bits are XOR’ed when
doing rubber-band window moving or resizing. Set-
ting this value is a trial-and-error process.

EdgeScroll horizontal vertical
Specifies the percentage of a page to scroll when
the cursor hits the edge of a page. If you don’t
want any paging or scrolling when you hit the edge
of a page, include EdgeScroll 0 0 in your .steprc
file. If you want whole pages, use EdgeScroll 100
100. Both horizontal and vertical should be posi-
tive numbers.

If the horizontal and vertical percentages are mul-
tiplied by 1000, then scrolling will wrap around at
the edge of the desktop. If "EdgeScroll 100000
100000" is used, afterstep will scroll by whole
pages, wrapping around at the edge of the desktop.

PagingDefault pagingdefaultvalue
Tells afterstep if it should start up with
paging enabled or disabled. "PagingDefault 0"
will start afterstep with paging disabled, "Pag-
ingDefault 1" will start afterstep with paging
enabled by default.

EdgeResistance scrolling moving
Tells how hard it should be to change the desktop
viewport by moving the mouse over the edge of the
screen, and how hard it should be to move a window
over the edge of the screen.

The first parameter tells how milliseconds the
pointer must spend on the screen edge before
afterstep will move the viewport. This is intended
for people who use EdgeScroll 100 100, but find
themselves accidentally flipping pages when they
don’t want to.

The second parameter tells how many pixels over the
edge of the screen a window’s edge must move before
it actually moves partially off the screen.

Note that, with EdgeScroll 0 0, it is still possi-
ble to move or resize windows across the edge of
the current screen. By making the first parameter
to EdgeResistance 10000, this type of motion is
impossible. With EdgeResistances less than 10000,
but greater than 0, moving over pages becomes dif-
ficult but not impossible.

OpaqueMove percentage
Tells afterstep the maximum size window with
which opaque window movement should be used. The
percentage is percent of the total screen
area. With OpaqueMove 0, all windows will be moved
using the traditional rubber-band outline. With
OpaqueMove 100, all windows will be move as solid
windows. The default is OpaqueMove 5 which allows
small windows to be moved in an opaque manner, but
large windows to be moved as rubber-bands.

ClickToFocus
Normally keyboard input goes to the window the
mouse pointer is in. If this option is set, the
keyboard input stays with one window until a new
window is clicked on.

SloppyFocus
This focusing mode is like focus-follows-mouse (the
AfterStep default), except that the focus will
not be removed from a window until your mouse
enters a new window. Exiting a window to enter
the root window will leave the focus unchanged.

OpaqueResize
Causes resize operations to be done with the window
itself, instead of an outline.

DontMoveOff
Prevents windows from being moved off or initially
placed off of the desktop. A few programs will not
work correctly if you use this option. This only
keeps windows from being completely lost off the
edge of the desktop. It insists on keeping 16 pix-
els on the desktop, but doesn’t care a bit about
keeping the whole window on the desk. See EdgeRe-
sistance if you don’t like having windows partially
off the screen.

AutoRaise
This built-in was replaced by the module Auto(1).

Pager X_Location Y_Location
NOTE, THIS IS STILL BUILT-IN TO AFTERSTEP, HOWEVER
THE MODULE FvwmPager(1) OR AN AFTERSTEP EQUIVALENT,
SHOULD BE USED. Enables a paging style of moving
across the desktop. A Pager window will
appear at ( X_Location, Y_Location ) (not a pop-
up). Miniature versions of all the windows on
the virtual desktop are shown in the pager. The
color of the miniature version is the same as the
color of the full-size window’s border.

In the Pager window, pressing mouse button 1 will
move the desktop viewport to the selected page (in
click-to-focus mode, it will also move the keyboard
focus to the window whose miniature you click on).
Pressing button 2 on a window in the pager will
begin a window move, using the miniature to quickly
move the window anywhere on the desktop. Pressing
button 3 will move the top-left corner of the view-
port to the location of the button press, even if
it does not line up with a page. Dragging button 3
will cause the selected viewport to scroll as you
move the pointer. The Pager is automatically
sticky, but does not automatically StayOnTop.

Mouse Button Context Modifiers Function
Defines a mouse binding. Button is the mouse but-
ton number. If Button is zero, then any button
will perform the specified function. Context
describes in what context the binding applies.
Valid contexts are R for the root window, W for
an application window, T for a window title
bar, S for a window side, top, or bottom bar, F for
a window frame (the corners), I for an Icon window,
or any combination of these letters. 1 is for the
left title-bar button and 2 is for the title-bar
button A is for any context except for title-bar
buttons. For instance, a context of FST will apply
when the mouse is anywhere in a window’s border,
except the title-bar buttons.

Modifiers is any combination of N for no modifiers,
C for control, S for shift, M for Meta, or A for
any modifier. For example, a modifier of CM will
apply when both the Meta and shift keys are down.
Function is one of the following: Afterstep’s built
in functions, a Pop-up menu, or a user-defined
function.

Key keyname Context Modifiers Function
Binds a keyboard key to a specified afterstep
built in function. Definition is the same as for
a mouse binding, except that the mouse button
number is replaced with a key name. The keyname is
one of the entries from
/usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h, with the leading XK_
omitted. The Context and Modifiers fields are
defined as in the mouse binding. Function is one
of the following: Afterstep’s built in functions, a
Pop-up menu, or an exec call to a program.

Binding a key to a title-bar button will not cause
that button to appear unless a mouse binding also
exists.

IconBox left top right bottom
Defines regions of the screen in which to place
icons. Up to four icon boxes can be defined. If an
IconBox line is provided, the icons will automati-
cally be placed in them, if possible. Each time a
window is iconified, a new place is found for
it. Icon boxes are searched for space going left
to right, then top to bottom. Icons will not be
automatically placed on top of other icons, but
they may be placed underneath application win-
dows. If left or right is negative, then afterstep
will add the screen width to it. If top or
bottom is negative, then afterstep will add the
screen height to it. NOTE: -0 is not parsed as
the right or bottom pixel on the screen. You have
to use -1 instead.

If no IconBox line is provided, or all icon boxes
are full, then afterstep will place icons near the
current pointer location.

StubbornIconPlacement
When used with IconBoxes, causes icons to avoid
placing themselves underneath existing windows.

StubbornIcons
Changes de-iconification behavior a bit. Instead of
having windows always de-Iconify themselves on the
current page, the de-iconify into their original
position.

SuppressIcons Prevents icon windows from being created or
drawn. When used with the window-list, this provides
a sort of icon manager.

StickyIcons
Causes icons to always stick to the screen’s glass.
That is, icons always follow you around the desk-
top. When a window is de-iconified, it gets
unstuck. Some people find this a useful way of
moving windows around.

IconPath path
Specifies the full path name of a directory where
bitmap (monochrome) icons can be found. The path
should start with a slash. Multiple directories may
be specified in a colon separated list, just like
the PATH environment variable.

PixmapPath path
Specifies the full path name of a directory where
pixmap (color) icons can be found. The path should
start with a slash. Multiple directories may be
specified in a colon separated list, just like the
PATH environment variable.

Icon windowname bitmap-file
Specifies the bitmap to be used for a window when
it is iconified. The windowname can be an applica-
tions window name or class name, and must be
enclosed in quotes. The bitmap-file is either the
full path name to a standard X11 bitmap file, or a
file in the IconPath or PixmapPath. The specified
bitmap/pixmap is used in preference to any icon
supplied by the window itself.

If afterstep is compiled with XPM support for
color icons, then can be an XPM pixmap file.

windowname should be enclosed in double quotes, but
bitmap-file should not. No environmental variables
should be used in the bitmap-file specification.

If windowname is an empty string, then the speci-
fied file is the default icon, and will be used if
no other icon bitmap or pixmap can be found:

Icon "" my-favorite-icon

DecorateTransients
Causes transient windows, which are normally left
undecorated, to be given the usual afterstep dec-
orations. Note that some pop-up windows, such as
the xterm menus, are not managed by the window man-
ager, and still do not receive decorations.

ClickAndHold
Causes afterstep to use old style menus that the
user must first "click" the mouse and then "hold"
it down for it to stay visible. Without this
option the menus use the "Click-and-Stick" method.

RandomPlacement
Causes windows which would normally require user
placement to be automatically placed in ever-so-
slightly random locations.

SmartPlacement
Causes windows which would normally require user
placement to be automatically placed in a smart
location - a location in which they do not overlap
any other windows on the screen. If no such posi-
tion can be found, user-placement or random place-
ment will be used as a fall-back method. For the
best of all possible worlds, use both random place-
ment and SmartPlacement.

StubbornPlacement
When using SmartPlacement, causes new windows to
avoid placing themselves over icons.

NoPPosition
Instructs afterstep to ignore the PPosition field
when adding new windows. Adherence to the PPo-
sition field is required for some applications, but
if you don’t have one of those, its a real
headache.

ClickTime
delay Specifies the maximum delay (in milli-
seconds) between a button press and a button
release for the Function builtin to consider the
action a mouse click. The default delay is 150
milli-seconds.

ModulePath
Specifies a path for afterstep to search when
looking for a module to load. The path is a
colon separated list, just like the usual unix
PATH environment variable. Individual directories
do not need trailing slashes.

Module ModuleName
Specifies a module which should be spawned during
initialization. At the current time, the only mod-
ules are Wharf, Auto, and Audio. Fvwm modules like
FvwmPager, FvwmBanner, FvwmWinList, FvwmClean,
FvwnIdent, FvwmSave, FvwmScroll, and FvwmDebug can
also be used by afterstep. These modules have
their own man pages. Module can also be used
as a builtin. Modules can be short lived tran-
sient programs, or, like Wharf, can be intended
to remain for the duration of the X session.
Modules called by Module will be terminated by the
window-manager prior to restarts and quits, if
possible. See the introductory section on modules.

Cursor cursor_num cursor_type
This provides a very awkward way of changing cursor
styles. Cursor num tells which cursor you are
changing, and is a number between 0 and 12, as fol-
lows:

0 POSITION - used when initially placing windows
1 TITLE - used in a window title-bar
2 DEFAULT - used in windows that don’t bother to set
their cursor
3 SYS - used in one of the title-bar buttons
4 MOVE - used when moving or resizing windows.
5 WAIT - used during an EXEC builtin command.
6 MENU - used in a menus.
7 SELECT - used for various builtin commands such as
iconify.
8 DESTROY - used for DESTROY and DELETE built-ins.
9 TOP - used in the top side-bar of a window
10 RIGHT - used in the right side-bar of a window
11 BOTTOM - used in the bottom side-bar of a window
12 LEFT - used in the left side-bar of a window.
13 TOP_LEFT - used in the top left corner
14 TOP_RIGHT - used in the top right corner
15 BOTTOM_LEFT - used in the bottom left corner
16 BOTTOM_RIGHT - used in the bottom right corner

The cursor_type argument is a number which tells
the cursor shape to use. The available numbers can
be found in /usr/include/X11/cursorfont.h, and are
currently even numbers between 0 and 152. At the
current time, the following cursor types are avail-
able.

0 X_cursor 2 arrow
4 based_arrow_down 6 based_arrow_up
8 boat 10 bogosity
12 bottom_left_corner 14 bottom_right_corner
16 bottom_side 18 bottom_tee
20 box_spiral 22 center_ptr
24 circle 26 clock
28 coffee_mug 30 cross
32 cross_reverse 34 crosshair
36 diamond_cross 38 dot
40 dotbox 42 double_arrow
44 draft_large 46 draft_small
48 draped_box 50 exchange
52 fleur 54 gobbler
56 gumby 58 hand1
60 hand2 62 heart
64 icon 66 iron_cross
68 left_ptr 70 left_side
72 left_tee 74 leftbutton
76 ll_angle 78 lr_angle
80 man 82 middlebutton
84 mouse 86 pencil
88 pirate 90 plus
92 question_arrow 94 right_ptr
96 right_side 98 right_tee
100 rightbutton 102 rtl_logo
104 sailboat 106 sb_down_arrow
108 sb_h_double_arrow 110 sb_left_arrow
112 sb_right_arrow 114 sb_up_arrow
116 sb_v_double_arrow 118 shuttle
120 sizing 122 spider
124 spraycan 126 star
128 target 130 tcross
132 top_left_arrow 134 top_left_corner
136 top_right_corner 138 top_side
140 top_tee 142 trek
144 ul_angle 146 umbrella
148 ur_angle 150 watch
152 xterm

AppsBackingStore
Causes application windows to request backing
store. Specifying this option causes the window
manager to fail to be ICCCM compliant. While this
option can speed things up in an X-terminal, where
re-draws of windows is expensive, it may not help
much on regular workstations.

SaveUnders
Causes the afterstep decoration frames to request
saveunders. This will cause afterstep to save
those portions of windows that are not visible to
memory (not video memory). This can significantly
improve the performance during opaque moves, but it
causes a significant increase in memory usage.

BackingStore
Causes afterstep decorations to request backing
store. See the discussion for AppsBackingStore.

Popup PopupName
Starts the definition of a pop-up menu which will
later be bound to a mouse button or key. Popup-
Name must be enclosed in quotes. Menu entries
are included on lines following the Popup keyword.
The menu definition ends with the key word End-
Popup. Menu entries are specified as shown in the
following example. The first word on each line
is the built-in function which will be performed,
followed by the caption (enclosed in quotes) which
will be shown in the menu, followed by any addi-
tional arguments needed by the built-in function.
Sub-menus can be specified by using the Popup
built-in, as long as the sub-menu was defined ear-
lier in the configuration file.

Popup "Window Ops"
Title "Window Ops"
Move "Move"
Resize "Resize"
Raise "Raise"
Lower "Lower"
Iconify "(De)Iconify"
Nop " "
Destroy "Destroy"
Title "HARDCOPY"
Exec "Hardcopy" exec xdpr &
Exec "Hardcopy RV" exec xdpr -rv &
EndPopup

Note that if a tab character is embedded in the
caption of a menu entry, then the text following
the tab will be entered into a second column in the
menu, and the entire menu will be left-adjusted.
This is intended for shortcut labeling. The tab
character must really be a tab. If it is expanded
into spaces it will not work! For example

Popup "Window Ops"
Title "Window Ops Alt-F1"

Is the start of a left adjusted menu. Alt-F1 will
be placed toward the right side of the menu.
Shortcut keys may be specified in the menu defini-
tion by preceding the character with an ampersand.
The ampersand will not be displayed, but the char-
acter after it will be displayed at the right side
of the same entry, and if the user presses the cor-
responding key, then that item will be acti-
vated as if the user had clicked on it with the
mouse. Only alphabetic and numeric characters may
be used as shortcut keys. The shift state of the
keyboard is ignored when testing shortcut char-
acters. For example:-

Popup "Window Ops"
Maximize "Ma&ximise" 100 100
EndMenu

When this menu is popped up, the entry will
appear as "Maximize x", and pressing the x key will
cause the current window to be maximized. Short-
cut keys are not operative unless MENU_HOTKEYS
was defined when building afterstep. If WIN-
DOWLIST_HOTKETS was also defined, then hot keys
are automatically added to the WindowList when it
is displayed.

Function FunctionName
Starts the definition of a complex function, com-
posed of the afterstep built-in functions, which
will later be bound to a mouse button or key.
FunctionName must be enclosed in quotes. Function
entries are included on lines following the Func-
tion keyword. The definition ends with the key
word EndFunction. Function entries are specified
as shown in the following example. The first word
on each line is the built-in function which
will be per- formed, followed the type of event
which should trigger the action (enclosed in
quotes), followed by any additional arguments
needed by the built-in function. Menus can be spec-
ified by using the Popup built-in, as long as the
menu was defined earlier in the configuration
file.

The trigger actions which are recognized are Imme-
diate, Motion, Click, DoubleClick and TripleClick.
Immediate actions are executed as soon as the
function is activated, even if a window has not
been selected. If there are actions other than
immediate ones, afterstep will wait to see if the
user is clicking, double-clicking, triple-clicking
or dragging the mouse. After the decision is made
afterstep will execute only the builtins from
the function definition whose trigger action
matches the action performed by the user. If the
following example were bound to button 1 in a win-
dow title-bar, then, when button 1 is pressed,
afterstep would wait 150 msec to see if the
button is released. If the button is not released,
afterstep will start a move operation. When the
move operation is complete, a raise operation will
be performed. If a button release is detected,
then afterstep will wait another 150 msec for a
second click. If only one click is detected,
then the window will be raised. If two clicks are
detected, the window will be alternately
raised and lowered. If three clicks are detected
the window will be Shaded or un-Shaded, depending
on the prior state of the window. The 150 msec wait
duration can be altered using the ClickTime option.

Function "Move-or-Raise"
Move "Motion"
Raise "Motion"
Raise "Click"
RaiseLower "DoubleClick"
Shade "TripleClick"
EndFunction

The clicking, double-clicking and triple-clicking
concepts do not carry through to using keyboard
shortcuts.

Two special functions exist: InitFunction and
RestartFunction. The InitFunction will be called
when afterstep is started for the first time in
any X session, and can be used to start mod-
ules, set background patterns, and begin pro-
grams. The restart function will be called
when afterstep is restarted. It can be used to
start modules and set background patterns, but
probably should not be used to start programs.

BUILT IN FUNCTIONS
AfterStep supports a small set of built in functions which
can be bound to keyboard or mouse buttons.

Nop Does nothing. This is used to insert a blank line
or separator in a menu. If the menu item specifica-
tion is Nop " ", then a blank line is inserted. If
it looks like Nop "", then nothing is inserted.

Title Does nothing. This is used to insert a title line
in a popup or menu.

Beep Makes the computer beep.

Quit Exits afterstep , generally causing X to exit too.

Restart
name WindowManagerName
Causes afterstep to re-read itself if WindowMan-
agerName = afterstep, or to switch to an alternate
window manager if WindowManagerName != afterstep.
If the window manager is not in your default
search path, then you should use the full path
name for WindowManagerName.

WindowManagerName is not quoted, but name is.
name is the name that appears in a menu, if that is
where the function is called from. name is
required even if the function is not called from a
menu, for ease of parsing.

This command should not have a trailing ampersand
or any command line arguments, and should not make
use of any environmental variables. Of the follow-
ing examples, the first three are sure losers, but
the fourth is OK:

Key F1 R N Restart " " afterstep &
Key F1 R N Restart " " $(HOME)/bin/afterstep
Key F1 R N Restart " " twm -f .mystartupfile
Key F1 R N Restart " " /usr/local/bin/afterstep

Refresh
Causes all windows on the screen to re-draw them-
selves.

Move Allows the user to move a window. If called from
somewhere in a window or its border, then that win-
dow will be moved. If called from the root win-
dow, then the user will be allowed to select the
target window

Resize Allows the user to resize a window.

Raise Allows the user to raise a window.

Lower Allows the user to lower a window.

RaiseLower
Alternately raises and lowers a window.

Shade Emulates the MacOS WindowShade feature. Once acti-
vated the window will become a title-bar, handles
(if any), and a one pixel thick window only.

Delete Sends a message to a window asking that it remove
itself, frequently causing the application to exit.

Destroy
Destroys a window. Guaranteed to get rid of the
window, but is a fairly violent way to terminate an
application.

Close If the window accepts the delete window protocol, a
message is sent to the window asking it to grace-
fully remove itself. If the window does not under-
stand the delete window protocol, then the window
is destroyed.

Iconify
[value]
Iconifies a window if it is not already iconified,
or de-iconifies it if it is already iconified. If
the optional argument value is positive, the only
iconification will be allowed, and de-iconification
will be inhibited. It the optional argument is neg-
ative, only de-iconification will be allowed.

Maximize [ horizontal vertical]
Without its optional arguments, Maximize causes the
window to alternately switch from a full-screen
size to its normal size.

With the optional arguments horizontal and verti-
cal, which are expressed as percentage of a full
screen, the user can control the new size of the
window. If horizontal >0, then the horizontal
dimension of the window will be set to horizon-
tal*screen_width/100. The vertical resizing is sim-
ilar. For example, the following will switch a
window to the full vertical size of the screen:
Maximize 0 100

The following causes windows to be stretched to the
full width: Maximize 100 0

This makes a window that is half the screen size in
each direction: Maximize 50 50

Values larger than 100 can be used with caution.

Stick Makes a window sticky if it is not already sticky,
or non-sticky if it is already sticky.

Scroll horizonal vertical
Scrolls the virtual desktop’s viewport by horizon-
tal pages in the x-direction, and vertical pages in
the y-direction. Either or both entries may be neg-
ative. Both horizontal and vertical values are
expressed in percent of pages, so Scroll 100 100
means to scroll down and left by one full page.
Scroll 50 25 means to scroll left half a page and
down a quarter of a page. The scroll function
should not be called from pop-up menus. Normally,
scrolling stops at the edge of the desktop.

If the horizontal and vertical percentages are mul-
tiplied by 1000, then scrolling will wrap around at
the edge of the desktop. If "Scroll 100000 0" is
executed over and over, afterstep will move to the
next desktop page on each execution, and will
wrap around at the edge of the desktop, so that
every page is hit in turn.

TogglePage
Temporarily disables edge scrolling. Edge scrolling
can be re-enabled by calling this again.

CursorMove
horizonal vertical
Moves the mouse pointer by horizontal pages in the
x-direction, and vertical pages in the y-direction.
Either or both entries may be negative. Both hori-
zontal and vertical values are expressed in percent
of pages, so CursorMove 100 100 means to move down
and left by one full page. CursorMove 50 25 means
to move left half a page and down a quarter of a
page. The CursorMove function should not be called
from pop-up menus.

CirculateUp [name window_name]
Causes the pointer to move to the previous window
in the list of windows for which CirculateSkip has
not not been specified as CirculateSkip.

If the optional arguments are supplied, then the
focus will move to the first window whose name (or
icon name or class) matches window_name. The
optional argument name is required if window_name
is supplied, and is enclosed in quotes. This argu-
ment is the name which appears in menus if the
function is called from a menu, but serves no pur-
pose if the function is not called from a menu

Here’s an example that move the focus to an xterm
window when Alt-F1 is pressed:

Key F1 A M CirculateUp "whatever" xterm

CirculateDown [name window_name]
Causes the pointer to move to the next window in
the list of windows for which CirculateSkip has not
not been specified as CirculateSkip.

Warp [name window_name]
Same as CirculateDown, but De-Iconifies any iconi-
fied windows as it focuses on them.

Wait name
This built-in is intended to be used in afterstep
functions only. It causes execution of a func-
tion to pause until a new window named name
appears. AfterStep remains fully functional
during a wait. This is particularly useful in the
InitFunction, if you are trying to start windows on
specific desktops:

Function "InitFunction"
Exec "I" exec xterm -geometry 80x64+0+0
Wait "I" xterm
Desk "I" 0 2
Exec "I" exec xmh -font fixed -geometry 507x750+0+0 &
Wait "I" xmh
Desk "I" 0 0
EndFunction

The above function starts an xterm on the current
desk, waits for it to map itself, then switches to
desk 2, and starts an xmh. After the xmh window
appears, control moves to desk 0.

Focus Moves the viewport or window as needed to make the
selected window visible. Sets the keyboard focus
to the selected window. Raises the window if
needed to make it visible. Warps the pointer into
the selected window in focus-follows-mouse mode.
Does not de-iconify. This function is primarily
handy when used with a module such as the
FvwmWinList.

Desk arg1 arg2
Changes to another desktop (workspace, room).

If arg1 is non zero, then the next desktop number
will be the current desktop number plus arg1. Desk-
top numbers, like arg1 can be negative.

If arg1 is zero, then the new desktop number will
be arg2.

The number of active desktops is determined
dynamically. Only desktops which contain windows
or are currently being displayed are active. Desk-
top numbers must be between 2147483647 and
-2147483648 (is that enough?).

WindowsDesk new_desk
Moves the selected window to the desktop specified
as new_desk.

GotoPage x y
Moves the desktop viewport to page (x,y). The upper
left page is (0,0), the upper right is (N,0), where
N is one less than the current number of horizontal
pages specified in the DeskTopSize command. The
lower left page is (0,M), and the lower right page
is (N,M), where M is the desktop’s vertical size as
specified in the DeskTopSize command. The GotoPage
function should not be used in a pop-up menu.

WindowList arg1 arg2
Generates a pop-up menu (and pops it up) in which
the title and geometry of each of the windows cur-
rently on the desk top are shown. The geometry of
iconified windows is shown in brackets. Selecting
an item from the window list pop-up menu will cause
that window to be moved onto the desktop if it is
currently not on it, will move the desktop viewport
to the page containing the upper left hand corner
of the window, will de-iconify the window if it is
iconified, and will raise the window.

If arg1 is an even number, then the windows will be
listed using the window name (the name that shows
up in the title-bar). If it is odd, then the win-
dow’s icon name is used.

If arg1 is less than 2, then all windows on all
desktops (except those listed in WindowListSkip
directives), will be show.

If arg1 is 2 or 3, then only windows on the current
desktop will be shown.

If arg1 is 4 or 5, then only windows on desktop
number arg2 will be shown.

Exec name command
Executes command. command is not quoted, but name
is. name is the name that appears in a menu, if
that is where the function is called from. name is
required even if the function is not called from a
menu, for ease of parsing.

The following example binds function key F1 in the
root window, with no modifiers, to the exec func-
tion. The program rxvt(1) will be started, with
an assortment of options.

Key F1 R N Exec "rxvt" exec rxvt -fg yellow -bg
blue -e /bin/tcsh &

Popup NOTE: This built-in takes a slightly different form
when used to bind a sub-menu into a menu than it
does when binding the main menu to a key or mouse
button. The form described here is for binding a
main menu to a key or mouse button. Used to bind
a previously defined pop-up menu to a key or mouse
button.

The following example binds mouse buttons 2 and 3
to a pop-up called "Window Ops", whose definition
was provided as an example earlier in this man
page. The menu will pop-up if the buttons 2 or 3
are pressed in the window frame, side-bar, or
title-bar, with no modifiers (none of shift, con-
trol, or meta).

Mouse 2 FST N Popup "Window Ops"
Mouse 3 FST N Popup "Window Ops"

Pop-ups can be bound to keys through the use of the
key modifier. Pop-ups can be operated without using
the mouse by binding to keys, and operating via the
up arrow, down arrow, and enter keys.

The following example defines a sub menu, "Quit-
Verify" and binds it into a main menu, called
"Utilities".

Popup "Quit-Verify"
Title "Really Quit AfterStep?"
Quit "Yes, Really Quit"
Restart "Restart AfterStep" afterstep
Nop "No, Don’t Quit"
EndPopup

Popup "Utilities"
Title "Utilities"
Exec "Xterm" exec xterm &
Exec "Rxvt" exec rxvt &
Exec "Top" exec rxvt -T Top -n Top -e top &
Exec "Calculator" exec xcalc &
Exec "Xman" exec xman &
Exec "Xmag" exec xmag &
Popup "Exit AfterStep" Quit-Verify
EndPopup

Sub-menus must be defined prior to the main menu in
which they are bound. Sub-menu nesting can be
arbitrarily deep.

Function
Used to bind a previously defined function to a key
or mouse button.

The following example binds mouse button 1 to a
function called "Move-or-Raise", whose definition
was provided as an example earlier in this man
page. After performing this binding, afterstep will
execute to move-or-raise function whenever button 1
is pressed in a window title-bar.

Mouse 1 T A Function "Move-or-Raise"

Module ModuleName
Specifies a module which should be spawned. At the
current time, the only included modules are Wharf
and Pager. Wharf will normally be spawned dur-
ing initialization instead of in response to a
mouse binding or menu action. Modules can be short
lived transient programs, or, like Wharf, can
be intended to remain for the duration of the X
session. Module will be terminated by the win-
dow manager prior to restarts and quits, if possi-
ble.

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
All window-manager operations can be performed from the
keyboard, so mouse-less operation should not be difficult.
In addition to scrolling around the virtual desktop
by binding the Scroll built-in to appropriate keys,
Pop-ups, move, resize and most other built-ins can be
bound to keys. Once a built-in function is started, the
pointer is moved by using the up, down, left, and right
arrows, and the action is terminated by pressing return.
Holding down the shift key will cause the pointer movement
to go in larger steps, and holding down the control key
will cause the cursor movement to go in smaller steps.
Standard emacs and vi cursor movement controls (^n, ^p,
^f, ^b, and ^j, ^k, ^h, ^l) can be used instead of the
arrow keys.

SUPPLIED CONFIGURATION
A sample configuration file, sample.steprc was supplied
with the AfterStep distribution. It is well commented and
can be used as a source of examples for afterstep configu-
ration.

USE ON MULTI-SCREEN DISPLAYS
AfterStep does work on multi-screen displays. If the -s
command line argument is not given to afterstep , it will
automatically start up on every screen on the specified
display. After afterstep starts, each screen is
treated independently. Re-starts of afterstep need to be
performed separately on each screen. The use of Edge-
Scroll 0 0 is strongly recommended for multi-screen
displays.

You may need to quit on each screen to quit from the X
session completely, I’m not sure.

Multi-screen support is only available if you use -DMULTI-
PLE_SCREENS

BUGS
NOTHING TOO SERIOUS, YET! Since AfterStep is still in
development bugs are continuously being removed and new
ones are introduced.