2003.11_Desktopia-Ion-a Window Manager that Tiles Applications.pdf

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Jumping Tasks

Many modern window managers are overloaded with features. Ion concen-

trates on the essentials and breaks new ground in doing so. This is a must for

keyboard fans. Rather than burying your screen under a mountain of different

window tasks, Ion cleverly tiles then onto the screen.

BY ANDREA MÜLLER

unmanageable with all of those over-

lapping windows? Ion provides a GUI

comprising of multiple Frames tiled

adjacently or vertically. Each frame can

contain multiple application windows,

so-called Clients. This takes the Ion win-

dow manager [2] a step further than

pwm [1], which was also authored by

Tuomo Valkonen, and also allows you to

run multiple applications in a single win-

dow frame.

version requires the Lua [3] program-

ming language (see Box 1 for details on

installing Lua ). Apart from that, Ion is

quite frugal in its use of resources, and

requires on the libltdl library from the

libtool package, version 1.4.3 or later.

After installing Lua, it’s time to install

Ion itself. To do so, unpack the source

code by typing tar -xzf ion-devel-

20030627.tar.gz and change to the new

ion-devel-20030627 subdirectory created

by this step. However, before you start

compiling the window manager, you will

need to edit system.mk to suit your

requirements. Listing 1 provides an

example that shows you how to modify

the installation path and disable Xin-

erama support. Typical alternatives to

the defaults are available in the file; you

just need to remove the hash sign (#) for

the required options and add them to the

appropriate standard lines.

Yo u can now type make depend and

make to compile Ion. Assuming that you

are root , make install will then install

your new window manager to /usr/

local/.

Unfortunately, there is no patent

recipe for launching Ion. As an example,

you would configure the kdm login man-

ager for your distribution using the KDE

control center, adding a new type called

Ion under System Administration /

If you do not use a GUI login manager,

you will need to edit the file appropriate

to your distribution – check the manual

to find out which file this is. For most

systems, an entry such as exec

/usr/local/bin/ion in ~/.xinitrc should

do the trick, and allow you to launch the

window manager of your choice when

you enter the startx command.

By default. Ion uses run-mailcap as an

editor and file viewer. Unfortunately, this

program is not available for many distri-

butions. To ensure that the view and edit

function keys actually provide the

expected functions, add the following

(you will need root privileges):

Installation – Special Request

Only

Unfortunately, of all the major distribu-

tions only Debian provides Ion packages;

this means working with a compiler on

most other systems. The latest developer

version of the Ion window manager

proved so stable in our lab tests that we

prefer to use it rather than the stable ver-

sion, which is fairly ancient by now,

dating from February 2002. There is a

downside, however, as the developer

Box 1: Installing Lua

The Lua programming language is mainly

used for configuring other programs. It is

typically embedded in another program that

will call Lua functions to perform specific

tasks. Ion leverages this capability when a

user calls a window action by pressing a key-

board shortcut. For example, [Alt-a] adds

another window to the active frame. You can

achieve the same effect by pressing [Alt-F3]

to open a Lua command line and type

QueryLib.query_attachclient(_) .

Lua does not come with a configure script, so

you will need to edit the config file in the

lua-5.0 directory, after launching tar -xzf lua-

5.0.tar.gz to unpack the tarball. The individ-

ual lines in the config file are well

documented.

Now go on to compile and install Lua using

the following commands:

make

make so

Enter your root password

make install

make soinstall

The make so and make soinstall are not typi-

cally required, but install the shared libraries.

deskTOPia

Only you can decide how your desktop

looks. With deskTOPia we regularly take you

with us on a journey into the land of win-

dow managers and desktop environments,

presenting the useful and the colorful view-

ers and pretty toys.

November 2003

www.linux-magazine.com

Ion

I s your desktop too cluttered or

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LINUX USER

#!/bin/sh

exec xterm -e vim "$1" > U

/dev/null

scale tiled windows that you have

created in this way; alternatively,

click on the border of the window

and, holding down the left mouse

key, drag the window to the

required size (see Figure 3). If

you want to move an application

to another frame, press down the

center mouse key, drag the appli-

cation tab to the target frame and

drop the tab.

You can navigate the frame

landscape by pressing [Alt-p]

(up) and [Alt-n] (down), and

press [Alt-Tab] to jump to adja-

cent frames. If things start to get

cluttered, you can press [Alt-

Enter] to expand a frame to full-screen

display on a new desktop. Pressing [Alt-

Enter] a second time reverts to the

normal display and packs the program

away in its original frame. [Alt-c] allows

you to remove applications and superflu-

ous frames.

to the /usr/local/share/ion-

devel/ion-edit file and the

following to /usr/local/share/ion-

devel/ion-view:

#!/bin/sh

exec xterm -e less "$1" > U

/dev/null

This example specifies vim as your

editor and less as your viewer, but

you can modify both commands as

required.

Figure 1: Use the tabs to toggle between the programs in a frame

A Special Kind of Desktop

After all that installation work, you

might be in for a disappointment when

you launch Ion for the first time: an

empty frame is all you get, and clicking

will get you nowhere. Ion will support

your mouse, but the easiest way of con-

trolling the window manager is to use

the keyboard (Table 1 contains a list of

major functions). The commands fol-

lowed by (CL) for command line, tell Ion

to open a command line for further inter-

action.

To get started, you might like to press

[Alt-F1] to open the Ion manpage that

provides a description of Ion’s naviga-

tional commands. [F2] opens an xterm

in a new tab (see Figure 1). Now the

frame has more than one tab, you can

actually do something useful with your

mouse, that is, click to switch tabs.

Alternatively, use the keyboard shortcut

[Alt-k] [n] to jump to the next window in

the current frame.

Press [F3] to launch a program, such

as the Mozilla Web browser for example.

This opens a command line at the bot-

tom of the screen, allowing you to type

the required command. A [Tab] based

auto-complete function just like in the

Shell will save you a lot of typing (see

Figure 2), and you can press [Ctrl-c] if

you change your mind. Prepend a colon

to launch text-based applications that

run in a terminal window, for example:

My Desktop Collection

You are bound to run out of space

sometime, no matter how big your

screen is. In this case, press [F9] to open

a command line that allows you to jump

to an existing desktop or create a new

one. Pressing [Tab] on the command line

displays a list of the current desktops. If

you specify a name that is not on the list,

Ion will create a desktop with that name.

You can also press [Alt-left arrow] and

[Alt-right arrow] instead of [F9] to

navigate the current desktops.

:mutt

Effective Diversity

A single large frame may make sense for

a browser, but there are situ-

ations where you need to

monitor multiple programs.

The keyboard shortcut [Alt-

s] splits the current frame

horizontally; to split verti-

cally press [Alt-k] [s]

instead. You can split frames

as many times as you like,

the only restriction being

your screen size.

Pressing [Alt-r] and then

the arrow keys allows you to

Listing 1: system.mk

#Installation path

PREFIX=/usr/local

[...]

#Disable Xinerama support. If you

intend to run Ion on a multiple

screen System,

#leave the default

#XINERAMA_LIBS=-lXinerama

DEFINES += -DCF_NO_XINERAMA

Figure 2: The Ion command line has an auto-complete function

GLOSSARY

Compiler: A program that translates source

code to binary object code. This step is neces-

sary before running a program written in a

language like C or C++.

Shared libraries :Program libraries that have

a similar function to Windows DLL files. Pro-

grams load the functions they need at

runtime, thus saving hard disk space and

memory.

Xinerama: A XFree86 extension that allows

you to create a desktop that spans multiple

screens.

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If you need an application from

another desktop, there is no need to

search for it: [Alt-a] opens a command

line where you can use the auto-com-

plete function to select and access the

required window.

Although a frame based approach is

practical, a desktop that allows you to

move windows arbitrarily is better suited

to some applications. The Gimp is one

example of this. When working with The

Gimp you typically want to have multi-

ple windows on view simultaneously

and at user-definable positions. The

good news is that Ion supports so-called

floating desktops with applications like

The Gimp in mind. Floating desktops

provide similar functionality to many

other window managers. However, this

mode is not accessible by shortcut in

contrast to the tiled desktop. Instead,

press [F9] and type the following in the

command line

WFloatWS:NAME

where NAME is the name of

the new desktop. Then press

[F2] to launch xterm and call

your programs. You can group

windows in this mode by

holding down the center

mouse key and dragging the

title bar of a window to

another active application

(see Figure 4).

You are in for a treat next

time you start Ion, as the win-

dow manager saves and

restores your desktops and

frame arrangements without launching

the programs that you were running

when you quit the previous session.

Figure 4: Two programs in a floating window

To modify the desktop to suit your own

personal requirements, copy the ion-

core.lua file from this directory to

~/.ion-devel/ and modify it to reflect

your requirements. If you want Ion to

display the frame contents while you are

resizing a frame, for example, replace

FALSE with TRUE in

Settings

Ion’s default configuration is stored in

the /usr/local/etc/ion-devel/ directory.

enable_opaque_resize(FALSE)

You do not need an editor to change

Ion’s color scheme, however. Ion pro-

vides a number of new outfits as look

files in the configuration directory. Sim-

ply create a symbolic link called

draw.lua for the required look in the

~/.ion-devel/ directory. To imitate the

style we used for our screenshots, enter

the following

ln -sf /usr/local/etc/ion-devel U

/look-greyviolet.lua U

~/.ion-devel/draw.lua

Ion should now sport a gray/violet color

scheme when next launched.

GLOSSARY

Figure 3: Use the tiling functions to create variable-sized frames

Symbolic link: An entry in a filesystem that

looks like a normal file or directory but actu-

ally points to a file or directory located at a

different position in the filesystem.

Table 1: Major Shortcuts

Key

Function

[Alt-Arrow right/left] One desktop right/left

[Alt-g]

[F1]

Display a manpage (CL)

Jump to another frame (CL)

INFO

[F2]

Launch xterm

[Alt-p/n/Tab]

One frame up/down/right

[F3]

Launch a program (CL)

[Alt-c]

Close active object

[1] Joachim Moskalewski:

“Cleverly Contrived”, Linux Magazine,

Issue 18: March 2002, p77-79, http://www.

linux-magazine.com/issue/18/PWM.pdf

[2] http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/

[3] http://www.lua.org/

[F4]

Open an SSH connection (CL)

[Alt-k] [c]

Kill active application

[F5]

Edit file (CL)

[Alt-k] [n/p]

Move to next/previous tab in a

frame

[F6]

View file (CL)

[F9]

Switch desktop or create a new

desktop (CL)

[Alt-a]

Add application to active frame

(CL)

[F12]

Quit Ion (CL)

[Alt-s]/[Alt-k] [s]

Tile frame horizontally/vertically

November 2003

www.linux-magazine.com

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