 | |
 ratpoison with a number of applications open | |
| Developer(s) | Shawn Betts |
|---|---|
| Initial release | December 4, 2000 [1] |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C |
| Type | Window manager |
| License | GPL-2.0-or-later |
| Website | www |
ratpoison is a tiling window manager for the X Window System primarily developed by Shawn Betts. The user interface and much of their functionality are inspired by the GNU Screen terminal multiplexer. [2] While ratpoison is written in C, Betts' StumpWM re-implements a similar window manager in Common Lisp.
The name "ratpoison" reflects its major design goal: to let the user manage application windows without using a mouse. [3] Unlike other tiling window managers like Ion, ratpoison completely ignores the mouse (or "rat"), [4] [5] and avoids window decorations as much as possible. [6] The default keybindings are specifically designed to not conflict with Emacs. [7]
ratpoison relies on key chords similar to Emacs to control window management, with all window interactions being done through shortcuts. [3] Each window occupies an entire frame and cannot overlap. Windows can be split either horizontally or vertically. Multiple workspaces and session management are supported. [8] An application menu can be used for navigation to programs. Configuration is controlled via a config file. [9] [10]
Mark Pilgrim praised it for being "minimalist" and "configurable." [5] Jeff Covey, in 2002, found it was "lightning fast and perfectly stable." [2] Peter Seebach remarked that "the convenience and performance are impressive; the learning curve, however, daunts many users." [4] Similarly, Brian Proffitt observes that "the key commands are well explained in this window manager's man pages, and whatever you do, read these first. The keyboard commands do make sense after some use but initially the learning curve is pretty steep." [6] In the same vein, Bruce Byfield found it (and stumpwm) "virtually unusable until you read the documentation." [11] MakeTechEasier gave a positive review of ratpoison in 2013, although noting its steep learning curve. [12] Bryan Lunduke of NetworkWorld gave a negative review, criticizing the key bindings and the difficulty of working with multi-window programs such as GIMP. [13]
An X window manager is a window manager that runs on top of the X Window System, a windowing system mainly used on Unix-like systems.
IceWM is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, originally written by Marko Maček. It was written from scratch in C++ and is released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License. It is customizable, relatively lightweight in terms of memory and CPU usage, and comes with themes that allow it to imitate the GUI of Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows 7, OS/2, Motif, and other graphical user interfaces.
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A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They work in conjunction with the underlying graphical system that provides required functionality—support for graphics hardware, pointing devices, and a keyboard—and are often written and created using a widget toolkit.
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A compositing manager, or compositor, is software that provides applications with an off-screen buffer for each window. The compositing manager composites the window buffers into an image representing the screen and writes the result into the display memory.
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This article compares variety of different X window managers. For an introduction to the topic, see X Window System.
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i3 is a tiling window manager designed for X11, inspired by wmii and written in C. It supports tiling, stacking, and tabbing layouts, which are handled manually. Its configuration is achieved via a plain text file and extending i3 is possible using its Unix domain socket and JSON based IPC interface from many programming languages.
Deepin is a Linux distribution. It features the Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE), built on Qt and available for a variety of distributions. The Deepin userbase is predominantly Chinese, though DDE is in most prominent Linux distributions' repositories as an alternative desktop environment. The company behind the development, Deepin Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of UnionTech (统信软件), is based in Wuhan, China.
