Config Files
~/.icewm/keys
, ~/.icewm/menu
, and ~/.icewm/preferences
, and ~/.icewm/toolbar
, and ~/.icewm/winoptions
. The default versions are
installed in /usr/share/icewm/
and
will be used if you have not copied them to ~/.icewm
.
Configuration Information
If IceWM is the only Window
Manager you want to use, you can start it with an .xinitrc
file in your home folder. Be sure to
backup your current .xinitrc
before
proceeding.
echo icewm-session > ~/.xinitrc
Now create the IceWM
configuration files:
mkdir -v ~/.icewm &&
cp -v /usr/share/icewm/keys ~/.icewm/keys &&
cp -v /usr/share/icewm/menu ~/.icewm/menu &&
cp -v /usr/share/icewm/preferences ~/.icewm/preferences &&
cp -v /usr/share/icewm/toolbar ~/.icewm/toolbar &&
cp -v /usr/share/icewm/winoptions ~/.icewm/winoptions
You can now edit these files to meet your requirements. In
particular, review the preferences
file. You can use Logout ->
Restart-IceWM on the main menu to load your
changed preferences, but changes to the background only take
effect when IceWM is started.
The syntax of the menus is explained in the help files, which you
can access by running help from the menu, but some of
the detail is out of date and the default selections in the menus
(a few old applications on the main menu, everything else on the
Programs menu) will
benefit from being updated to meet your needs. The following
examples are provided to encourage you to think about how you
wish to organise your menus. Please note the following:
-
If a program listed in the menu has not been installed, it
will not appear when the menu is displayed. Similarly, if
the program exists but the specified icon does not, no icon
will be displayed in the menu.
-
The icons can be either .xpm
or .png
files, and there is
no need to specify the extension. If the icon is located in
the "library" (/usr/share/icewm/icons
) there is no need
to specifiy the path.
-
Most programs are in sub-menus, and the main menu will
always append entries for windows,
help, settings, logout
at the bottom.
-
An icon for firefox was
copied to the library directory and given a meaningful
name. The icon for xine is
xine.xpm
which was installed
to a pixmap directory.
-
The default toolbar is not altered.
It is unlikely that these examples meet your desires, but if you
wish to use them run the following commands:
cat > ~/.icewm/menu << "EOF"
prog Urxvt xterm urxvt
prog GVolWheel /usr/share/pixmaps/gvolwheel/audio-volume-medium gvolwheel
separator
menufile General folder general
menufile Multimedia folder multimedia
menufile Tool_bar folder toolbar
EOF &&
>cat > ~/.icewm/general << "EOF"
prog Firefox firefox firefox
prog Epiphany /usr/share/icons/gnome/16x16/apps/web-browser epiphany
prog Midori /usr/share/icons/hicolor/24x24/apps/midori midori
separator
prog Gimp /usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps/gimp gimp
separator
prog Evince /usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps/evince evince
prog Epdfview /usr/share/epdfview/pixmaps/icon_epdfview-48 epdfview
EOF &&
>cat > ~/.icewm/multimedia << "EOF"
prog Audacious /usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/audacious audacious
separator
prog Parole /usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps/parole parole
prog Totem /usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps/totem totem
prog Vlc /usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps/vlc vlc
prog Xine /usr/share/pixmaps/xine xine
EOF &&
If you wish to put icons on your desktop, you will need to
install a program such as Rox-Filer-2.11 which provides a pinboard. If
you do that you will no longer be able to access the menu by
right-clicking on the desktop, you will have to use the
IceWM button. To ensure that the
rox pinboard is running, the
following commands will put it in the startup file:
cat > ~/.icewm/startup << "EOF"
rox -p Default &
EOF &&
chmod +x ~/.icewm/startup
Tip
There are a number of keyboard shortcuts in IceWM:
-
Ctrl + Alt + FN
: go to ttyN
.
-
Ctrl + Alt + N
: go to desktop number N
-
Ctrl + Alt + Space : open a box on the taskbar where you
can key in the name of an application and run it.