1) The Basics - Desktop Scrolling
VTWM uses a virtual desktop. What this means is that your desktop is larger than the screen, and so not all of your desktop is displayed on the screen at one time.
In the bottom right corner of the screen, you may notice a rectangular window. This is a display of your virtual desktop. The black box represents the current location of your screen, and the grey boxes represent the locations of windows that you have open. Both the black box and the grey boxes can be dragged around using the left mouse button, letting you quickly change the positions of windows and the screen. Try it out, then come back. In your .vtwmrc, the customization file for vtwm, you can uncomment the option AutoPan. This will allow you to move to different screens in your desktop by moving your cursor off the edge of the screen.
The above image depicts your VTWM desktop as it looks when you log into the
system. You can click this image to expand it. The white window in the upper
right is a clock display. Under the clock is the icon manager, which
maintains a tab for each window that you have open. Finally, on the far left is
a shell window, which provides your interface to much of the Unix
operating system.
The icon manager probably contains three entries right now: "Big Shell",
"Little Shell", and a third for this tutorial. The "Big Shell" tab probably has
an 'X' to the left of the words "Big Shell". This indicates that the
"Big Shell" window is iconified (Windows users: that's the X equivalent
of a minimized window). To de-iconify the "Big Shell" window, left-click its
tab in the icon manager. A large shell window should appear to the right of the
smaller one. To re-iconify the window, left-click the tab a second time, and
the "Big Shell" window will vanish, although its icon manager entry will
remain. You can also use the icon manager to quickly locate a window on another
part of your desktop. If you right-click the tab of a de-iconified window, the
screen will jump to that window. Try panning away from this tutorial, then
right-click its tab in the icon manager to jump back.
Now shift your attention to the "Little Shell" window on the left. If it is
obscured by this tutorial, try moving things around a bit (you can use the
virtual desktop to do this, as discussed above, or you can move a window by
dragging its title-bar). Move the mouse pointer in and out of the shell window
a few times. You may notice that when the mouse is inside the window, the
window's borders brighten visibly. When the mouse is over the shell window, the
shell window has focus. In order to interact with a window, you must
first give that window focus, by moving the mouse on top of it. As an example,
move the mouse over the shell window and enter a Unix command (if you don't
know anything about Unix commands, try entering "fortune" to receive a fortune
cookie). Now move the mouse outside the window and try entering another
command. This time, nothing will happen because the shell window no longer has
focus.
Window focus is another feature of VTWM that can be very frustrating to
newcomers who are accustomed to Windows-style focusing. Bear with it, though,
because VTWM's style can be very useful. For example, you may want to type
something in window A, which is partially covered by window B, but you may not
want to obscure window B. Moving the mouse over window A will give it focus,
but it won't actually raise window A over window B (if this doesn't make sense
right now, it will).
Like many X programs, the "Little Shell" window also uses a different
scrollbar than you may be accustomed to. To see this, enter a few commands in
the shell (or just hold down Enter) to scroll the text a bit to the point where
it's disappearing from the top side of the window. If you try dragging or
clicking the scrollbar like a typical Windows or Mac scrollbar, nothing will
happen. Instead, to scroll up, position the mouse anywhere on the scrollbar and
right-click. To scroll back down, left click. Positioning the mouse closer to
the bottom of the window will result in scrolling farther, whereas positioning
the mouse closer to the top will only scroll a couple of lines. To scroll to an
arbitrary point, place the mouse pointer on the part of the scrollbar you want
to scroll to and middle-click (that is, click using the middle button; if you
are using a two-button mouse, you can simulate a middle click by pressing the
mouse wheel or by pressing the left and right buttons simultaneously). You
should experiment with this a bit until you get used to it, as many X programs
work this way.
We encountered a nominal introduction to VTWM window management when we
discussed iconifying with the icon manager in the last section. Now we will go
into more depth in opening, closing, moving, resizing, and iconifying
windows.
Try moving your cursor over the desktop and clicking. This will bring up a
menu which we'll talk about in the next section. Select the option "New Shell
(xterm)". A window frame will appear, which you can drag around using the
mouse. Decide where you want the window, then left-click to place the window
there. When you want to close the window, click the "X" icon in the upper-left
corner and choose "Close Window" from the resulting menu. When placing the
window, you may find that it extends beyond the right and/or bottom edges of
the screen. To prevent this, you can right-click to place the window, and VTWM
will terminate the window at the edge of the screen. Alternatively, you can
hold the middle button and drag the mouse to resize the window as you are
placing it. Create a few new windows and try out each of these methods until
you are comfortable with each of them.
There are several ways to move a window. First, you can use the left mouse
button to drag the window's title bar to its new location. You can also grab
the frame of the window using the middle mouse button, and drag it that way.
Finally, you can move windows using the virtual desktop in the lower right, as
described above. Try out each of these methods and make sure you're comfortable
with one of them.
To resize a window, you can either grab the frame with the left mouse button
and drag it to its new position, or you can grab the "Resize" button at the
right end of the title bar with the left mouse button and drag the mouse.
Again, try both of these out and make sure you're comfortable with them.
The button on the title bar just to the left of the "Resize" button is the
"Iconify" button. Press it to iconify the window. To de-iconify the window, go
to the icon manager and left click, as described above.
Left-clicking on the title-bar of a window will raise that window, so
that it appears in front of any other windows in the same space. Similarly,
right-clicking on the title-bar will lower the window, moving it behind
all the other windows.
Clicking the "X" logo button on the left side of the title bar will give you
the "Arrange" menu, from which you can perform any of the above actions, plus a
few others. "Iconify", "Move", "Size", "Raise", and "Lower" will iconify, move,
resize, raise, and lower the window, respectively. "Autoraise" is a toggle that
will cause the window to be raised whenever it receives focus. "Nail" is a
toggle that will nail the window to the screen; whenever you pan the
screen, nailed windows will move with it. The clock, manual browser, icon
manager, and virtual desktop on the right side of the screen are all examples
of windows that are nailed down (try un-nailing them!). The "Zoom" options will
expand the window so that it covers the entire screen in one or both
directions. The "Title" options will adjust the location of the window's
title bar. "Identify Window" displays a pop-up containing some fundamental
information about the window. "Close Window" closes the window, and, for those
stubborn windows that won't go away, "Kill Window" really closes the
window. You should play around with these options until you are familiar with
them all.
2) The Basics - Your Desktop
3) Window Management
