                 tvtwm - Tom's Virtual Tab Window Manager
                               patchlevel 10
                               Chris P. Ross
                             cross@eng.umd.edu
                                6 June, 1994

INTRODUCTION:

  Hi.  This is tvtwm.  I'll assume that most of you know what tvtwm is
already, but, for those of you who don't, let me explain.  No, there is
too much.  Let me sum up.

  tvtwm is a superset of the X11R5 release of twm (Tom's Window Manager),
written by Tom LaStrange.  Much of the early functionality, which is
described in more detail in README.old, was added by Tom LaStrange
himself.  Since then, tvtwm has fallen under my control, and I've
added some things myself.

  Why doesn't tvtwm have version numbers, and only has patchlevels?  I
don't know.  History, I suppose.  But, for information's sake, that is
effectually the version number.  In this case, pl10.

  The major benefit of tvtwm over twm is the "Virtual Desktop".  This
allows you do define a substitute root window that is larger than your
display area.  This new virtual root window is the parent for all of
your X clients.  tvtwm provides a "Panner" which will let you see a
scaled down representation of the whole virtual desktop.  Using this
panner, and keys bound to functions added to tvtwm, you can move
around this desktop to have your physical display showing only part of
the whole desktop.  Thus, you can have sections of your desktop
assigned to particular tasks, or just use it to keep from having 20
million layers of windows.  :-)

  Many other things are discussed in README.old.  Please look there
for further information.

QUICK NOTES:

  This version (pl10) of tvtwm is based on the X11R5 twm code.  The
X11R6 version of twm implements a few new features, but other than
that, no significant changes.  So, these features will be added to
tvtwm before the next release, but I was not able to get them included
for the X11R6 contrib deadline.

  This version of tvtwm is dependent on the Xpm library.  This library can
be obtained from the normal X contrib sites.  I have tested it with the
version current as of this date, 3.4b.

BUILD INSTRUCTIONS:

  1) If you would like to do so, configure the Imakefile for your
specific sites.  The only things that are designed to be configurable
are whether m4 will be run on the twmrc file by default, and whether
or not your machine has a (working) waitpid() call.
     If you wish to have m4 used by default, and do have a working
waitpid() call, then you can skip configuring the Imakefile.
     Also, if you wish to configure the installation procedure so that
tvtwm installs a link to itself as twm, uncomment the appropriate
section of the Imakefile...

  2) Type 'xmkmf' to build yourself a Makefile.

  3) Type 'make depend' to build dependencies in the Makefile.

  4) Type 'make' to build tvtwm and ssetroot.

  5) 'make install' should install the binaries.

  If you have any problems, please contact me at cross@eng.umd.edu and
I will try to help you with the problem...

OTHER INFORMATION:

  Where do I get the newest version of tvtwm?

    I will try to keep the copy on ftp.x.org up to date, but the
primary place where new version will be available is ftp.eng.umd.edu
in /pub/tvtwm.  Please, however, try the standard ftp.x.org mirrors
near your site first.

  What machines does tvtwm work on?

    I, unfortunately, have had very little opportunity to test tvtwm
against an X11R6 installation on many machines.  But, I have tested it
under X11R5 under machines including:

    Sun 3 and 4, SunOS 4.1.1 and 4.1.3
    Sun Sparc, SunOS 2.1
    DECstation 3100 and 5000,  Ultrix 4.2b
    DEC Alpha, OSF/1 v1.2 & v1.3
    HP9000s700, HP/UX A09.01

    In general, it should work on many systems, but I have not yet had
the opportunity to test problems reported for NetBSD (and other 386 BSD
type OS's) and AIX.  If anyone has a box with MIT X11 install on it
that I can use for testing, I would be very appreciative.

BUGS:

  In a rewrite of the window move code, ConstrainedMove was
desupported.  I'm not going to change any of the documentation, as I
do wish to re-support this.  But, for the moment, it's a known bug.
(I only got one report of it in the year and a half it's been missing.
So, it can't hurt too much)

                                   - Chris

--
Chris P. Ross                         University Of Maryland
cross@eng.umd.edu                     Engineering Computer Facility
Work#: (301)/405-3689                 Project GLUE
  "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research."
