Window manager
A window manager program controls the placement and appearance of application windows under the X Window System.
Modern computer systems generally offer a graphical user interface that enables a user to interact with a number of application programs simultaneously; each one typically has its own independent window.
The Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms have historically provided a vendor-controlled, fixed set of ways to control how windows and panes display on a screen, and how the user may interact with them. However, the X Window System, popular under Unix systems, allows the user to choose between various window managers to achieve different behavior from the program windows. Window managers differ from one another in several ways, including:
- appearance (menus, docks, pagers, etc.)
- memory consumption
- customizability
- support for multiple and virtual desktops (desktops larger than the physical monitor size)
- degree of integration with a desktop environment.
Alternative shells for Microsoft Windows have also emerged. For example, LiteStep can replace the user interface on Windows 95, 98, or NT with an Afterstep style. OS/2 ships with Presentation Manager as the default shell, but third party sources can supply alternatives.
Compare desktop environment.
Popular window managers:
- Afterstep
- Blackbox
- Enlightenment
- Fluxbox
- FVWM (a virtual window manager, derived from twm)
- FWM (Finder Window Manager)
- IceWM
- Kwin (originally called Kwm, default window manager for KDE)
- Metacity (default window manager for some versions of GNOME version 2) [1]
- MWM
- Sawfish (originally called Sawmill)
- TWM (Tab Window Manager)
- WindowMaker
