jdwm

jdwm is a window manager based on dwm, rebuilt from the ground up for ease of use, customizability, and hackability. It incorporates over 30 community patches alongside extensive custom additions to turn the originally spartan dwm into a much more modern and compelling alternative to other mainstream window managers.

Note: jdwm is still in development and will sometimes have breaking changes or bugs. If you run into any issues, please let me know through GitHub's issue or discussion threads.

Dependencies

• git (assuming you are cloning the repository)
• C Compiler, like gcc or clang
• meson
• Dependency finder like pkgconf, pkg-config, or cmake (more info)
• libx11
• libxft
• imlib2
• libconfig
• libxinerama (optional, highly recommended)
• xterm (Default terminal emulator, adjustable in jdwm.conf)
• JetBrains Mono font (Default font, adjustable in jdwm.conf)

Below are some ready-to-go commands to install all the above programs for a few distributions. If you would like another distribution or package managers added, I am happy to, just let me know. Also note that the below commands may not be 100% foolproof across distribution versions or available repositories.

Arch

pacman -S sudo git gcc meson pkgconf libx11 libxft imlib2 libconfig libxinerama xterm ttf-jetbrains-mono

or

yay -S sudo git gcc meson pkgconf libx11 libxft imlib2 libconfig libxinerama xterm ttf-jetbrains-mono

Debian/Ubuntu

apt install sudo git gcc meson pkgconf libc-dev libx11-dev libxft-dev libimlib2-dev libconfig-dev libxinerama-dev xterm fonts-jetbrains-mono

Fedora

dnf install sudo git gcc meson pkgconf libX11-devel libXft-devel imlib2-devel libconfig-devel libXinerama-devel xterm jetbrains-mono-fonts

FreeBSD

pkg install sudo git meson pkgconf libX11 libXft imlib2 libconfig libXinerama xterm jetbrains-mono

openSUSE

zypper install sudo git gcc pkgconf-pkg-config libc-devel libX11-devel libXft-devel imlib2-devel libconfig-devel libXinerama-devel jetbrains-mono-fonts

Install: Quickstart

Notes before you install:

• It is recommended to create a custom configuration to your liking. The default configuration file can be found at resources/jdwm.conf or in /etc/jdwm/ after install. Your custom configuration file (named jdwm.conf) should be placed in either ~/.config/ or ~/.config/jdwm/ for jdwm to automatically find it at runtime, or use -C cli option.
• To edit what programs automatically start alongside jdwm, create a file called .jdwmrc in either ~, ~/.config/, or ~/.config/jdwm/. This file will be treated like a standard shell script. Make sure it is executable and has a specified interpreter, ex #!/bin/sh.

git clone https://github.com/JeffofBread/jdwm.git
cd jdwm
meson setup --buildtype=release ./build/
meson install -C ./build/

Future & TODO

I have quite a few things I still want to do before I consider jdwm to be at a 1.0 or release ready build. Here are some of the more major things that I know I want to do:

• Full documentation. I have a lot of the systems already build and fleshed out for this using doxygen, but simply need to sit down and document the remaining ~70% of the source code.
• Rewrite the scratchpad patch. See "Known Issues".

I am also have a few other plans, but I am not sure if they will be before a stable 1.x release:

• Variable substitution in the libconfig configuration file.
• Handle status text internally. Currently, jdwm relies on other programs (like dwmblocks) to perform nice, formatted, custom status text.
• Re-write and re-implement IPC. I had previously used dwm-ipc, but with the level of customization and changes I have made to this program, it did not integrate well and had issues. It also has portability issues I would like to overcome.

Known Issues

• Clients reset to their default state when jdwm restarts. Not sure how/if I will deal with this.
• Notifications from certain more invasive programs are not handled well (ex. Zoom, Steam). Will need to look into methods to detect these notifications to handle them properly.
• Scratchpad sometimes incorrectly modifies visibility of other currently open clients. I intend to re-write the patch.
• Fullscreen windows incorrectly effect the state of a fullscreen window when move into the same layout as the fullscreen window. The fake fullscreen patch that controls this is a bit of a mess of logic, it needs work.
• When swapping themes during runtime, program tray icons do not update to the new theme. I have not come up with a way to force these to re-render yet, as X11 does not offer a way to do this natively. May need to re-think how the systray is themed instead, or use something like the alpha patch to make it completely clear.

Reaching Out

If you would like to get in contact with me, please either message me on Discord @jeffofbread, or through email at jeffofbreadcoding@gmail.com.

Credits

I just wanted to put a few special thanks here for a few key people that have helped more directly with jdwm:

• bakkeby for tons of help directly through DMs to solve issues and answer my questions. He also has a ton of great dwm and suckless related projects that I relied on throughout the project for inspiration and code.
• FT-Labs for help answering many of my questions and for inspiring me to make jdwm with his amazing pdwm (which I also shamelessly copied ideas and code from).
• Ddubs for help beta testing and providing a ton of great ideas and feedback.