FvwmTabs Tutorial

Creating a tabber

If the FvwmTabs module is correctly installed/configured, press Ctrl-Alt-t and a little window that looks something like this should appear:

A new tabber is created every time Ctrl-Alt-t is pressed.

Adding windows to a tabber

There are a number of ways to add windows to a tabber:

• To add a single window to a tabber, click the orange icon (or press Ctrl-Alt-a when the tabber is focussed). The mouse cursor will change to a crosshair. The next window selected (clicked on) will be swallowed by the tabber.
  To cancel an add-window operation, press Esc.
• To add multiple windows to a tabber, click the orange icon with the right mouse button (or press Ctrl-Alt-m when the tabber is focussed). All windows that are selected (clicked on) until Esc is pressed, will be swallowed by the tabber.
• Use the tab command from a shell to swallow the next window that pops up. For example:

  	tab.zsh xterm -bg blue -fg white tab.zsh gnome-calculator

  The xterm & calculator window will automatically be swallowed into the tabber that last had the focus.

  TODO: convert tab.zsh to a bash script.
  TODO: tab.sh - allow user to specify which tabber to use.

• Invoke the FVWM SwallowNew function. Syntax is:

  	Function SwallowNew tabberId fvwmCommand

  For example:

  	Function SwallowNew any Function StartupBrowser Function SwallowNew lastFocus Exec exec rxvt Function SwallowNew 2 Exec exec gvim header.hh

  The FVWM command is executed when the tabber is ready to swallow the next window that is created.

Releasing windows from a tabber

There are a number of ways to release windows from a tabber.

To release a single window from a tabber:

• Click the green icon with the left mouse button.
• Press Ctrl-Alt-r when the tabber is focussed.
• Click the tab button for the window with the middle mouse button.
• To release & iconify a window, click the tab button for the window with the right mouse button.

To release all windows from a tabber:

• Click the green icon with the middle mouse button.
• To release & iconify all windows, click the green icon with the right mouse button.

Menu Options

Release All will release all tabbed windows back to the window manager as standalone windows.
Release All (Iconify) will release all tabbed windows back to the window manager as iconised standalone windows.
Add will add the next mouse-clicked window to FvwmTabs.
Multi Add keeps adding mouse-clicked windows to FvwmTabs until the escape key is pressed. Useful for adding multiple windows to FvwmTabs at once.
Resize All To Current Resize all windows in the tabber to the same size as the selected window.
Font shows a sub-menu to dynamically configure the button/title/menu fonts, using the external program identified by the fontSelector option.
Options - Show Titlebar toggle the visibility of the titlebar below the tab-buttons.
Options - Use Main Titlebar display the window name of the selected window in the tabber titlebar.
Options - Auto Resize keep all windows in the tabber the same size.
Options - Swallow Overlapping (D&D) swallow any windows that are moved to overlap with the tabber window.
Window Tabizer Dialog will popup a dialog box for specifying windows to swallow. Windows can be specified explicitly (by name) or by using a (Perl) regular expression matcher.
About pops up a dialog with version/developer information.
Close will close the FvwmTabs window, invoking Release All in the process.

Key Bindings

Key bindings are available for all operations. (ie. selecting another tab, adding a new window/tab, etc.)
Key bindings are configurable - the default key-bindings are set in the FvwmTabs-DefaultSetup file.

The default key bindings are:

Key Binding	Action
Ctrl-Alt-number	Select tab number.
Ctrl-Alt-a	Add single window to tabber.
Ctrl-Alt-c	Close tabber.
Ctrl-Alt-d	Disable drag-&-drop.
Ctrl-Alt-e	Enable drag-&-drop.
Ctrl-Alt-i	Release & iconify selected tab.
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-i	Release & iconify all tabs.
Ctrl-Alt-l	Select last selected tab.
Ctrl-Alt-m	Add multiple windows to tabber.
Ctrl-Alt-tab	Select next tab.
Ctrl-Alt-n	Select next tab.
Ctrl-Alt-p	Select previous tab.
Ctrl-Alt-r	Release selected tab from tabber.
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-r	Release all tabs from tabber.
Ctrl-Alt-t	Create new tabber.
Ctrl-Alt-x	Create new terminal. Swallow into tabber if tabber has focus.
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-x	Create new terminal & swallow into tabber that last had the focus.
Ctrl-Alt-Left	Reorder tabs - swap selected tab with tab at left.
Ctrl-Alt-Right	Reorder tabs - swap selected tab with tab at right.

TODO: how to reorder tabs.