bspwm is a tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning.

The windows are represented as the leaves of a binary tree.

bspwm have only two sources of informations: the X events it receives and the messages it reads on a dedicated socket.

Those messages are sent via bspc.

If the BSPWM_SOCKET environment variable is defined, it will be used as the socket path, otherwise /tmp/bspwm-socket is used.

The recommended way of defining keyboard shortcuts is to use sxhkd.

The only way to configure bspwm is by sending set messages via the client, hence bspwm's configuration file is an executable called autostart which lives in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bspwm/.

Example configurations: autostart and sxhkdrc.

There is only two splitting modes: automatic and manual.

The default mode is automatic. The manual mode is entered by sending a presel message.

Example: insertion of a new node (number 4) into the given tree in automatic mode:

                 b                                   c
                / \                                 / \
               3   a              -->              4   b
               ^  / \                              ^  / \
                 2   1                               3   a
                                                        / \
                                                       2   1
    +-------------------------+         +-------------------------+
    |            |            |         |            |            |
    |            |     2      |         |            |     3      |
    |            |            |         |            |            |
    |     3      |------------|   -->   |     4      |------------|
    |     ^      |            |         |     ^      |     |      |
    |            |     1      |         |            |  1  |  2   |
    |            |            |         |            |     |      |
    +-------------------------+         +-------------------------+

Same departure, but the mode is manual, and a presel up message was sent beforehand:

                 b                                   b
                / \                                 / \
               3   a              -->              c   a
               ^  / \                             / \ / \
                 2   1                           4  3 2  1
                                                 ^
    +-------------------------+         +-------------------------+
    |            |            |         |            |            |
    |            |     2      |         |     4      |     2      |
    |            |            |         |     ^      |            |
    |     3      |------------|   -->   |------------|------------|
    |     ^      |            |         |            |            |
    |            |     1      |         |     3      |     1      |
    |            |            |         |            |            |
    +-------------------------+         +-------------------------+

bspwm [-v|-s STATUS_FIFO]

bspc MESSAGE [ARGUMENTS] [OPTIONS]

The syntax for the client is bspc MESSAGE [ARGUMENTS ...].

The following messages are handled:

• get SETTING — Return the value of the given setting.

• set SETTING VALUE — Set the value of the given setting.

• list [DESKTOP_NAME] — Output the internal representation of the window tree.

• list_desktops [--quiet] — Perform a dump of each desktop for the current monitor.

• list_monitors [--quiet] — Perform a dump of each monitor.

• list_windows — Return the list of managed windows (i.e. their identifiers).

• list_rules — Return the list of rules.

• presel left|right|up|down [SPLIT_RATIO] — Switch to manual mode and select the splitting direction.

• cancel — Switch to automatic mode.

• ratio VALUE — Set the splitting ratio of the focused window.

• pad MONITOR_NAME [TOP_PADDING [RIGHT_PADDING [BOTTOM_PADDING [LEFT_PADDING]]]] — Set the padding of the given monitor.

• focus left|right|up|down — Focus the neighbor window situated in the given direction.

• shift left|right|up|down — Exchange the current window with the given neighbor.

• swap — Swap the focused window with the last focused window.

• push left|right|up|down — Push the fence located in the given direction.

• pull left|right|up|down — Pull the fence located in the given direction.

• cycle next|prev [--skip-floating|--skip-tiled|--skip-class-equal|--skip-class-differ] — Focus the next or previous window matching the given constraints.

• nearest older|newer [--skip-floating|--skip-tiled|--skip-class-equal|--skip-class-differ] — Focus the nearest window matching the given constraints.

• circulate forward|backward — Circulate the leaves in the given direction.

• grab_pointer focus|move|resize_side|resize_corner — Begin the specified pointer action.

• track_pointer ROOT_X ROOT_Y — Pass the pointer root coordinates for the current pointer action.

• ungrab_pointer — End the current pointer action.

• toggle_fullscreen — Toggle the fullscreen state of the current window.

• toggle_floating — Toggle the floating state of the current window.

• toggle_locked — Toggle the locked state of the current window (locked windows will not respond to the close message).

• toggle_visibility — Toggle the visibility of all the managed windows.

• close — Close the focused window.

• kill — Kill the focused window.

• send_to DESKTOP_NAME [--follow] — Send the focused window to the given desktop.

• drop_to next|prev [--follow] — Send the focused window to the next or previous desktop.

• send_to_monitor MONITOR_NAME [--follow] — Send the focused window to the given monitor.

• drop_to_monitor next|prev [--follow] — Send the focused window to the next or previous monitor.

• use DESKTOP_NAME — Select the given desktop.

• use_monitor MONITOR_NAME — Select the given monitor.

• alternate — Alternate between the current and the last focused window.

• alternate_desktop — Alternate between the current and the last focused desktop.

• alternate_monitor — Alternate between the current and the last focused monitor.

• add DESKTOP_NAME ... — Make new desktops with the given names.

• add_in MONITOR_NAME DESKTOP_NAME ... — Make new desktops with the given names in the given monitor.

• rename_monitor CURRENT_NAME NEW_NAME — Rename the monitor named CURRENT_NAME to NEW_NAME.

• rename CURRENT_NAME NEW_NAME — Rename the desktop named CURRENT_NAME to NEW_NAME.

• cycle_monitor next|prev — Select the next or previous monitor.

• cycle_desktop next|prev [--skip-free|--skip-occupied] — Select the next or previous desktop.

• layout monocle|tiled [DESKTOP_NAME ...] — Set the layout of the given desktops (current if none given).

• cycle_layout — Cycle the layout of the current desktop.

• rotate clockwise|counter_clockwise|full_cycle — Rotate the window tree.

• flip horizontal|vertical — Flip the window tree.

• rule PATTERN [DESKTOP_NAME] [floating] — Create a new rule (PATTERN must match the class or instance name).

• remove_rule UID ... — Remove the rules with the given UIDs.

• adopt_orphans — Manage all the unmanaged windows remaining from a previous session.

• reload_autostart — Reload the autostart file.

• reload_settings — Reload the default settings.

• restore FILE_PATH — Restore the layout of each desktop from the content of FILE_PATH.

• quit [EXIT_STATUS] — Quit.

Colors are either X color names or #RRGGBB, booleans are true or false.

• focused_border_color — Color of the border of a focused window of a focused monitor.

• active_border_color — Color of the border of a focused window of an unfocused monitor.

• normal_border_color — Color of the border of an unfocused window.

• presel_border_color — Color of the presel message feedback.

• focused_locked_border_color — Color of the border of a focused locked window of a focused monitor.

• active_locked_border_color — Color of the border of a focused locked window of an unfocused monitor.

• normal_locked_border_color — Color of the border of an unfocused locked window.

• urgent_border_color — Color of the border of an urgent window.

• border_width — Window border width.

• window_gap — Value of the gap that separates windows.

• {top,right,bottom,left}_padding — Padding space added at the sides of the current monitor.

• wm_name — The value that shall be used for the _NET_WM_NAME property of the root window.

• borderless_monocle — Whether to remove borders for tiled windows in monocle mode.

• gapless_monocle — Whether to remove gaps for tiled windows in monocle mode.

• focus_follows_pointer — Wether to focus the window under the pointer.

• adaptative_raise — Prevent floating windows from being raised when they might cover other floating windows.

• apply_shadow_property — Enable shadows for floating windows via the _COMPTON_SHADOW property.

• Configured and controlled through messages
• Multiple monitors support (via Xinerama)
• EWMH support (tint2 works)
• Automatic and manual modes

Multiple choices:

• dzen2 fed with the output of ewmhstatus. Example: launchpanel.
• A custom panel if the -s flag is used (have a look at the files in examples/).
• Any EWMH compliant panel (e.g. tint2, bmpanel2, etc.).

• libxcb
• xcb-util
• xcb-util-wm

make
make install

• Ivan Kanakarakis

bspwm at librelist dot com.

BSD.