Window Manager in Linux

The concept of Window Manager in X provides the place to put the windows on but does not control them, we need additional software that takes care of handling the windows. The piece of software dealing with the windows is the window manager. The window manager is just an X program itself and like the other graphical applications, it also needs the X Windows in order to work. It is just a special piece of X software because all it does is take care of the windows. The window manager controls the way our desktop works how the windows look and act.

Working on Window Manager in Linux

The window manager decides what kind of decorations to put around the windows It is the window manager’s job to provide ways of controlling the windows, like moving hiding, resizing, iconifying, or closing them. The window manager decides what window at the moment accepts input from us and what window is on the top. The window manager also controls the ways we do these tasks: what mouse buttons we click or what keys we press in order to accomplish these window management tasks.

“The window manager in X is just another client, it is not part of the X window system, although it enjoys special privileges and so there is no single window manager, many window managers support different ways for the user to interact with windows and different styles of window layout, decoration, keyboard, and color map focus.”

The X architecture provides ways for a window manager to perform all those actions on the windows, but it does not actually provide a window manager. A window manager is a”meta-client”, whose most basic mission is to manage other clients. Most window managers provide a few additional facilities. However, one piece of functionality that seems to be present in most window managers is a way to launch applications. Some of them provide a command box, where we can type standard commands.

But most window managers today provide a menu or menus for launching applications. Many window managers provide virtual desktops and multiple screens we can switch between windows, but instead of switching between applications, only we switch between whole desktops. Some window managers may also provide graphical configuration programs in order to make configuring them easy. Since there are dozens of different window managers, we can change our desktop’s look and feel completely by changing the window manager. MS Windows have different desktop themes, but in Linux, we can change everything.

The window managers may focus on different things like configurable, keyboard shortcuts for many different tasks, and essential features for handling the windows, one is graphically pleasing with stunning window decorations and menus. There are many different window managers which are all designed to run on X11R6. This is because X11R6 is standard and uniform.