Phelerox / wwm

Windows window manager

wwm

Windows window manager is a tiling window manager for Windows 10 (like i3 for linux)

Terminal: Windows Terminal | Colourscheme: Nord

Demo

Demo with GUI

Table Of Contents

• Motivation
• Config
  • Gap
  • Bar
  • Toggles
  • Workspaces
  • Rules
    • Settings
    • Examples
  • Keybindings
    • ChangeWorkspace
    • Shell
    • CloseTile
    • Quit
    • ToggleFloatingMode
    • Focus
    • Swap
    • Split
  • Example Config
• Screenshots
• Development
  • Create installer
  • Create TOC

Motivation

In the beginning i always had a Virtual Machine with i3 for my development purposes. Because I am lazy I always dreaded having to start a Virtual Machine just for developing something and evolved my setup into running i3 in WSL and showing it on Windows using an X-Server. This didn't really feel right, so after some time I just decided to live without a TWM on Windows. After seeing FancyZones of Microsoft I saw the potential for a native TWM on Windows 10, but sadly FancyZones is not the Window Manager I want nore want to deal with. That's why decided to create my own TWM and here we are.

Config

The config lives in C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Roaming\wwm\config.yaml.

If you want to see my own config or just want to know what a config looks like: my config.

Gap

WWM supports two different types of gaps, the outer and the inner gap.

The inner gap gets defined by the padding setting and the outer gap is the sum of the margin and padding setting.

bar

The app_bar_height setting defines the height of the app bar

The app_bar_font setting defines the font for the appbar widgets.

The app_bar_font_size setting defines the font size for the appbar widgets.

A color has to be a valid hex value (e.g 0x27242c)

The app_bar_bg setting defines the background color of the appbar

Toggles

The launch_on_startup tells wwm whether to start automatically on startup.

The work_mode setting tells wwm whether to start in work mode.

The light_theme setting changes the way wwm generates the colors for the bar.

The display_app_bar setting creates a window at the top of the display that shows all currently used workspaces.

The remove_title_bar setting removes the windows styles responsible for giving a managed window the titlebar.

The remove_task_bar setting hides the taskbar on launch and shows it again when closing the program.

Workspaces

the workspaces setting has to be an array of objects. Each object must have an id and can have a monitor property. The id has to be between 1 and 10 (inclusive) and specifies which workspaces this applies to. The monitor property can be used to define the monitor on which the workspace initially lives.

Example

workspaces:
  - id: 4
    monitor: 1
  - id: 5
    monitor: 1

Rules

[WARNING]: Rules are still WIP so the name of a setting can change at any time

Because Windows can sometimes have some really annoying applications that introduce various edge cases I decided to implement a way to configure specific windows.

A rule basically just changes the way a window gets managed by wwm.

WWM knows whether to apply the rule based on a regex that has to be provided.

Settings

pattern

A regex that tells wwm which window this rule applies to.

has_custom_titlebar

A boolean that tells wwm whether the window need special handling

workspace

An integer between 1 and 10 that tells wwm in which workspace to put the window.

manage

A boolean that tells wwm whether to manage the matched window.
This overrides the logic that normally decides whether to manage the window.

firefox

A boolean that tells wwm whether the matched window is based on firefox
Firefox doesn't follow the windows 10 standard and kind of does it's own thing. (I know it is stupid) WWM will do some specific things for firefox when this is enabled. Firefox is one of two programs that I found while developing WWM, where the UI just did whatever it wanted.

chromium

A boolean that tells wwm whether the matched window is based on chromium
The same thing as with firefox.

Examples

Firefox

pattern: ^.*- Mozilla Firefox|Mozilla Firefox$
has_custom_titlebar: true
firefox: true

Google Chrome

pattern: ^.*- Google Chrome$
has_custom_titlebar: true
chromium: true

Microsoft Edge (Chromium version)

pattern: ^.*- Microsoft Edge$
has_custom_titlebar: true
chromium: true

Keybindings

Each keybinding has to have a type, key and maybe additional settings which can be looked up for each type specifically.

Keybindings can have the following keys:

• Enter
• Plus
• Minus
• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Y
• Z
• Left
• Up
• Right
• Down
• 0
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9

Keybindings can have the following modifiers:

• Alt
• Control
• Shift

Note: The windows modifier is reserved for windows itself so we can't use it in custom keybindings.

Keybindings can have the following types:

• Launch
• CloseTile
• Quit
• Focus
• Split
• Swap
• ToggleFloatingMode
• ToggleWorkMode
• ToggleFullscreen
• ChangeWorkspace
• MoveToWorkspace
• MoveWorkspaceToMonitor

ChangeWorkspace

example

type: ChangeWorkspace
key: Alt+1
id: 1

values

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10

A ChangeWorkspace keybinding takes an id, which is the id of the workspace to change to.

Workspaces have an upper limit of 10, so if you define a keybinding of type ChangeWorkspace that goes above 10 or below 1 the program currently just crashes.

MoveToWorkspace

example

type: MoveToWorkspace
key: Control+Alt+1
id: 1

values

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10

A MoveToWorkspace keybinding takes an id, which is the id of the workspace to move the focused tile to.

Workspaces have an upper limit of 10, so if you define a keybinding of type ChangeWorkspace that goes above 10 or below 1 the program currently just crashes.

MoveWorkspaceToMonitor

example

type: MoveWorkspaceToMonitor
key: Control+Alt+1
monitor: 1

The monitor property can be any valid number, but the range depends on the amount of monitors connected to the computer.

A MoveWorkspaceToMonitor keybinding moves the current workspace to a different monitor

Launch

example

type: Shell
key: Control+Alt+Enter
cmd: wt.exe

A Launch keybinding takes a cmd, which has to be a valid path to an exe file.

If the exe can be found in the path, then the name is enough (e.g. wt.exe).

CloseTile

example

type: CloseTile
key: Control+Alt+Q

A CloseTile keybinding closes the currently focused tile and its window.

Quit

example

type: Quit
key: Control+Alt+X

A Quit keybinding closes wwm and unmanages each window.

ToggleFloatingMode

example

type: ToggleFloatingMode
key: Control+Alt+F

A ToggleFloatingMode keybinding either manages the currently focused window if it is not already managed or unmanages it.

ToggleWorkMode

example

type: ToggleWorkMode
key: Control+Alt+W

A ToggleWorkMode keybinding can be seen as "starting" and "stopping" wwm. Wwm is not really stopped it just makes wwm take the least amout of resources while still listening only ToggleWorkMode keybindings.

ToggleFullscreen

example

type: ToggleWorkMode
key: Control+Alt+F

A ToggleFullscreen keybinding enables/disables fullscreen mode of the current workspace. A workspace in fullscreen mode only shows the focused tile, but you are still able to change the focused tile via Focus/Swap keybindings.

Focus

example

type: Focus
key: Alt+H
direction: Left

values

• Left
• Right
• Up
• Down

A Focus keybinding takes a direction, specifying which window gets the focus.

Swap

example

type: Swap
key: Control+Alt+H
direction: Left

values

• Left
• Right
• Up
• Down

A Swap keybinding takes a direction, specifying which window gets swapped with the current one.

Split

example

type: Split
key: Control+Alt+Minus
direction: Horizontal

values

• Horizontal
• Vertical

A Split keybinding takes a direction, the new SplitDirection of the currently focused window. The SplitDirection specifies how a new window gets placed in the grid.

Example Config

app_bar_font: Cascadia Mono
app_bar_font_size: 17

work_mode: true
multi_monitor: true
launch_on_startup: true
display_app_bar: true
remove_title_bar: false
remove_task_bar: true

workspaces:
  - id: 4
    monitor: 1
  - id: 5
    monitor: 1

rules:
  - pattern: ^(File Explorer|Task Manager)$
    manage: false
  - pattern: ^.*- Mozilla Firefox|Mozilla Firefox$
    workspace: 2
    has_custom_titlebar: true
    firefox: true
  - pattern: ^.*- Discord|Discord$
    workspace: 5
    has_custom_titlebar: true
  - pattern: ^Spotify Premium$
    workspace: 4
    has_custom_titlebar: true
  - pattern: ^.*- Google Chrome$
    has_custom_titlebar: true
    chromium: true
  - pattern: ^.*- Visual Studio Code$
    has_custom_titlebar: true

keybindings:
  - type: Launch
    key: Alt+Enter
    cmd: wt.exe
  - type: Launch
    key: Alt+B
    cmd: C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\firefox.exe

  - type: CloseTile
    key: Alt+Q

  - type: Quit
    key: Alt+X

  - type: Focus
    key: Alt+H
    direction: Left
  - type: Focus
    key: Alt+J
    direction: Down
  - type: Focus
    key: Alt+K
    direction: Up
  - type: Focus
    key: Alt+L
    direction: Right

  - type: Swap
    key: Alt+Control+H
    direction: Left
  - type: Swap
    key: Alt+Control+J
    direction: Down
  - type: Swap
    key: Alt+Control+K
    direction: Up
  - type: Swap
    key: Alt+Control+L
    direction: Right

  - type: Split
    key: Alt+Plus
    direction: Vertical
  - type: Split
    key: Alt+Minus
    direction: Horizontal

  - type: ToggleFloatingMode
    key: Alt+Control+F
  - type: ToggleFullscreen
    key: Alt+F
  - type: ToggleWorkMode
    key: Alt+Control+W

  - type: MoveToWorkspace
    key: Alt+Shift+1
    id: 1
  - type: MoveToWorkspace
    key: Alt+Shift+2
    id: 2
  - type: MoveToWorkspace
    key: Alt+Shift+3
    id: 3
  - type: MoveToWorkspace
    key: Alt+Shift+4
    id: 4

  - type: MoveWorkspaceToMonitor
    key: Alt+Control+1
    monitor: 1
  - type: MoveWorkspaceToMonitor
    key: Alt+Control+2
    monitor: 2

  - type: ChangeWorkspace
    key: Alt+1
    id: 1
  - type: ChangeWorkspace
    key: Alt+2
    id: 2
  - type: ChangeWorkspace
    key: Alt+3
    id: 3
  - type: ChangeWorkspace
    key: Alt+4
    id: 4
  - type: ChangeWorkspace
    key: Alt+5
    id: 5

Screenshots

default

display_app_bar

display_app_bar + remove_title_bar

display_app_bar + remove_title_bar + remove_task_bar

Development

Create installer

cargo build --release
./rcedit ./target/release/wwm.exe --set-icon ./logo.ico
cargo wix init --force
cargo wix --bin-path "C:\Program Files (x86)\WiX Toolset v3.11\bin" --no-build