NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
INITIALIZATION
INVOCATION
CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
SAMPLE CONFIGURATION
CAVEATS
COPYRIGHT
AUTHOR

NAME

PerlTkWL - A window-list utility in Perl, using the Tk extension

SYNOPSIS

PerlTkWL can only be spawned by fvwm. No command-line invocation is possible.

DESCRIPTION

PerlTkWL is a sample application distributed with the X11::Fvwm extension to Perl 5. It mimics the well-known FvwmWinList module, adding some notable new features.

In addition to the typical behavior supported by FvwmWinList, this application offers the following:

Choice of traditional ``text'' display or a graphics-based display that uses a small image to indicate which windows are currently iconified.
Optional use of mini-icons in the graphics mode, to further identify various windows.
Configurable sorting style for ordering the windows within the list.
Selectable anchor for the application with respect to the desktop.

Almost all of the options offered by FvwmWinList are supported, with the exception of selecting left or right name truncation, and a difference in that window maximum width is controlled by number of printable characters in the name, rather than an explicit window width.

INITIALIZATION

When run, PerlTkWL reads the configuration lines specified in the configuration file fvwm itself used. It specifically looks for options whose names begin with the name of the application. You can link PerlTkWL under additional names to specify different sets of options.

INVOCATION

PerlTkWL can be invoked by fvwm during initialization by inserting the line 'Module PerlTkWL' in the .fvwmrc (or .fvwm2rc) file.

PerlTkWL can also be bound to any event specifier option to be invoked later, in this case using 'Transient' as an argument will cause PerlTkWL to resemble the built-in window list.

PerlTkWL must reside in a directory that is listed in the ModulePath option of Fvwm for it to be executed by Fvwm.

CONFIGURATION OPTIONS

PerlTkWL recognizes the following list of options. Note that the leading part of the name is based on the application name. Were the user to make a link to PerlTkWL under the name TransientWL (for calling as a transient application), then you would replace PerlTkWL with TransientWL in all the names below:

PerlTkWLFont Define the font to use for text in the button for each window.
PerlTkWLForeground
PerlTkWLBackground General foreground and background colors for windows.
PerlTkWLActiveForeground
PerlTkWLActiveBackground Foreground and background colors used only in ``text'' mode, to indicate which button the mouse is currently over. Not used in graphic mode because of the additional color use in the icons.
PerlTkWLFocusForeground
PerlTkWLFocusBackground Foreground and background colors given to a button when the window associated with that button has the focus.
PerlTkWLIconForeground
PerlTkWLIconBackground Foreground and background colors given to a button when the window associated with that button is iconified. Used in both text and graphic styles.
PerlTkWLAction Associates an action (or list of actions) to be executed when a mouse event occurs on the button. The currently supported list of action are Click1, Click2 and Click3. The defaults are ``Focus,Iconify -1,Focus'' for Click1, ``Iconify 1'' for Click2 and ``Nop'' for Click3. The actions are taken from the various commands available from fvwm, documented in that manual page (see fvwm). Multiple commands can be specified as a comma-separated list.
PerlTkWLSortStyle Define the criteria by which the list is sorted. This may include any subset of alpha, iconfirst, iconlast and reverse. iconfirst and iconlast are mutually-exclusive; using both may give unpredictable results. If alpha is specified, the list is sorted alphabetically by window name (windows that are iconified are still sorted by their window name, so may appear to be out of the alphabetic ordering). If either of iconfirst or iconlast are specified, then icons are grouped separately from non-iconified windows, each group is separately sorted, then the two group are displayed one following the other, depending on whether first or last was specified. Lastly, if the qualifier reverse is given, then the sorts are done in descending order (though this does not invert the functionality of iconfirst or iconlast). The default is alpha.
PerlTkWLStyle Choose the display style. May be one of text or graphic. The text style is the familiar one, in which the window name and its geometry are centered within the button, and iconified windows are indicated by enclosing that string within parentheses. The graphic style places the window name left-justified and the geometry right-justified. It indicates iconified windows by a cloverleaf icon to the right of the geometry. If the user enables mini-icons, then if a specified mini-icon matches for the window it is displayed to the left of the name. The default is text.
PerlTkWLUseSkipList Whether or not to honor the SkipWindowList property of windows that have it set. The default is to do so, and windows with that property set do not appear in the listing. The specification for this can be any of yes, no, true, false, 1 or .
PerlTkWLUseMiniIcons Whether or not to use mini-icons to the left of windows. Uses the same format as above, and defaults to no.
PerlTkWLMiniIcon Specify a mapping of an icon image file to an application by name, resource name or resource class. Each mapping is of the form ``Name file'', and multiple mappings may be on the same line if separated by commas. As many lines of this form as needed may be specified. The icon files are searched for in the same paths as others are, the values of IconPath and PixmapPath. Specifying any number of these lines does not atuomatically set PerlTkWLUseMiniIcons to true. It must still be explicitly set for mini-icons to be used at all.

SAMPLE CONFIGURATION

Here is a sample configuration, used by the author and annotated here for clarity:

    # Options to PerlTkWL module
    # Set up the font to use and the colors
    *PerlTkWLFont                   6x10
    *PerlTkWLForeground             gray30
    *PerlTkWLBackground             AntiqueWhite
    *PerlTkWLActiveForeground       AntiqueWhite
    *PerlTkWLActiveBackground       gray30
    *PerlTkWLFocusForeground        Gold1
    *PerlTkWLFocusBackground        NavyBlue
    *PerlTkWLIconForeground         black
    *PerlTkWLIconBackground         #e2beaf
    # Actions to be taken by the buttons
    *PerlTkWLAction                 Click1 Focus,Iconify -1,Focus
    *PerlTkWLAction                 Click2 Iconify 1
    *PerlTkWLAction                 Click3 Module "FvwmIdent" FvwmIdent
    # Where the anchor point should be
    *PerlTkWLAnchor                 se
    # Old-style 'text' mode or use graphics?
    *PerlTkWLStyle                  graphic
    # How should the list be sorted?
    *PerlTkWLSortStyle              alpha
    # Abuse graphics even further with mini-icons?
    *PerlTkWLUseMiniIcons           yes
    # Define the specifier-icon mappings for any apps we wish highlighted
    *PerlTkWLMiniIcon               tkInfo jbook1.xpm,TkMan mini.xman.xpm
    *PerlTkWLMiniIcon               Netscape mini.netscape.xpm
    *PerlTkWLMiniIcon               lrom mini.lrom.xpm
    *PerlTkWLMiniIcon               xmag jmag.xpm,xpaint jpaint.xpm
    *PerlTkWLMiniIcon               TkMail jmail.xpm,elm jmail.xpm
    *PerlTkWLMiniIcon               FvwmPager mini.fvwm.xpm
    *PerlTkWLMiniIcon               xload jgraph.xpm
    *PerlTkWLMiniIcon               XTerm mini.xterm.xpm,wabi win.xpm
    *PerlTkWLMiniIcon               hpcalc jcalc.xpm,Canvas jpaint.xpm
    *PerlTkWLMiniIcon               ptkmines mine.xpm

CAVEATS

PerlTkWL is meant primary as an example of coding with the X11::Fvwm (see X11) module and the Tk module. While it can be useful, it is not supported to the degree that the Fvwm module itself is.

It is also coded for clarity at the expense of efficiency.

COPYRIGHT

PerlTkWL is copyright (c) 1997 by the author, all rights reserved. It may be copied and distributed under the same terms as the X11::Fvwm module itself. See the README file that was packaged with the distribution.

AUTHOR

Randy J. Ray