3 Terminology

Before you actually start doing your first steps in wmii, first the terminology has to be clarified.

3.1 Clients

A client is a program, that provides you a graphical user interface for a special purpose, e.g. a web browser, or a terminal.

3.2 Focus

The (input) focus is the client, which currently receives your input. In X11 exactly one client can get your input at a time. If you input some command into your terminal, the terminal window has the input focus, whereas all the other windows do not receive the input you enter.

3.3 Events

An event is a message generated by X server to notify X clients about states. For instance, X generates a button press event, if you click into a window.

3.4 Tags

A tag is an alphanumeric string you can associate to clients, which allows you to group clients in a natural way.

In wmii, there are no workspaces anymore. Instead, all clients matching a particular tag are displayed at a time. For instance, if you tag your browser and a terminal window with the tag ``web-browser'', and you request to view all clients matching this tag, wmii will display your browser and the terminal on the screen. It is also possible to give clients multiple tags, which is described later.

3.5 View

A view is the set of displayed clients, which match a specific single tag. A view is pretty similar to the ``workspace'' metaphor in other window managers, though more powerful.

Only one view can be visible at a time.

Views are related to the tags, which are currently in use. You have exactly one view for each single tag, thus you can only view sets of clients which match an existing tag.

If you destroy the last client with a tag, the view of this tag is destroyed.

3.6 Column

A column is a distinct part of a view, where clients are arranged automatically in a vertical direction.

In wmii, you are able to divide each view into different columns. You should be aware, that every column holds at least one client. As soon as you close the last client of a column, the column is destroyed automatically.

3.7 Layout

A layout is the arrangement of clients in a column. There are three different ways to arrange clients in a column.

3.7.0.1 default

This layout arranges each client with equally vertical space fitting into the column's height.

3.7.0.2 maximum

This layout arranges all clients with the same geometry as the column, showing only one of them at a time.

3.7.0.3 stacking

This layout arranges all clients like a stack, where only the focused client is completely visible, and all other clients can be accessed through its title-bars. This is an alternative approach to tabbing.