NAME

       wmanager-loop — loop running window managers chosen with wmanager

SYNOPSIS

       wmanager-loop [OPTIONS ...]

DESCRIPTION

       The  wmanager-loop  program  starts  either  the window manager specified by the WM variable or the first
       window manager listed in ~/.wmanagerrc (or an X terminal emulator if  none),  and  when  it  exits,  runs
       wmanager(1)  to  prompt the user for the next window manager.  It loops doing this until the user chooses
       “Exit this session” in wmanager(1).  Any options given to wmanager-loop will be passed on to wmanager(1).

       If the WM environment variable is set, the wmanager-loop program  tries  to  interpret  it  as  a  window
       manager specification in the following ways in the specified order:

       •   a full path to an executable file to run as the window manager;

       •   the  name  of  a  window  manager  listed  in  the /.wmanagerrc file; e.g.  “fluxbox” would match the
           following line:

                 fluxbox=/usr/bin/startfluxbox

       •   the program name of a window manager listed in the  /.wmanagerrc  file;  e.g.   “startfluxbox”  would
           match the above example.

       •   the start of such a program name; e.g.  “start” would match the above example.

       •   the end of such a program name; e.g.  “box” would match the above example.

       If  the  WM  variable  is  set  and  there  is  more  than  one  line  in  ~/.wmanagerrc that matches the
       specification, wmanager-loop will exit with an error message.

       As mentioned above, if no window manager is specified in the WM environment  variable  or  found  in  the
       ~/.wmanagerrc  file,  the  wmanager-loop program attempts to start an X terminal emulator.  If the WMTERM
       environment variable is set, the wmanager-loop program uses it as the path to the emulator.  Otherwise it
       searches the user's path for a program named “x-terminal-emulator”, “urxvt”, “rxvt”, or “xterm”  in  this
       order,  and  starts the first one found using its full path.  If none of the common terminal emulators on
       the above list is found, the wmanager-loop program just runs “xterm” in the hope that something will come
       up on the user's display.

ENVIRONMENT

       The wmanager-loop program uses the following environment variables:

       WM      The name, path, or partial path to the first window manager to execute.

       WMTERM  The name of the X terminal emulator to execute if  no  window  manager  could  be  found  in  the
               ~/.wmanagerrc  file.   If  not  specified,  the wmanager-loop program searches the user's path as
               described above.

EXAMPLE

       To start using wmanager-loop, create a ~/.wmanagerrc file - generally with wmanagerrc-update(1) - and add
       something like the following at the end of your ~/.xsession file:

             exec wmanager-loop -geometry +570+585

SEE ALSO

       wmanager(1), wmanagerrc-update(1)

HISTORY

       The wmanager-loop program was written by Tommi Virtanen in 2000 and later  modified  by  Peter  Pentchev.
       This  manual  page  was  originally written in perldoc format by Tommi Virtanen in 2000, and converted to
       mdoc format and updated by Peter Pentchev in 2008.

AUTHORS

       Tommi Virtanen ⟨tv@debian.org⟩
       Peter Pentchev ⟨roam@ringlet.net⟩

Debian                                          September 8, 2009                               WMANAGER-LOOP(1)