rwm

A minimal, dwm-inspired tiling window manager written in Rust using x11rb.

Screenshot

Features

• Master-stack tiling — first window gets left half, rest stack on the right
• Resizable master — Super+h/l shrinks/grows the master area (like dwm's mfact)
• Focus follows mouse — EnterNotify driven, no click-to-focus
• Focus cycling — Super+j/k cycles focus without rearranging windows
• Window swapping — Super+Shift+j/k swaps window positions in the layout
• Kill focused window — graceful WM_DELETE_WINDOW, falls back to XKillClient
• Gaps — configurable pixel gaps between windows and screen edges
• 9 workspaces — switch with Super+1..9, move windows with Super+Shift+1..9, or click the bar
• Clickable status bar — workspace indicators + focused window title
• Fullscreen toggle — Super+f, covers entire screen including bar
• Wallpaper — auto-set via xwallpaper on startup (configurable path)
• Compositor — picom launched on startup for transparency
• App launchers — dmenu, browser, file manager, htop, ncmpcpp, etc.
• Media keys — volume, brightness, mpc playback, mute, screenshots
• Last workspace — Super+Tab toggles between current and previous workspace
• Crash-resistant — X11 errors are handled gracefully, no panics on dead windows

Keybindings

Core

Binding	Action
Super + Return	Spawn terminal (alacritty)
Super + d	dmenu_run
Super + q	Kill focused window
Super + Shift + q	Quit rwm
Super + j	Focus next window
Super + k	Focus previous window
Super + Shift + j	Swap focused window with next
Super + Shift + k	Swap focused window with previous
Super + h	Shrink master area
Super + l	Grow master area
Super + f	Toggle fullscreen
Super + Tab	Switch to last workspace
Super + Backspace	sysact
Super + 1..9	Switch to workspace 1–9
Super + Shift + 1..9	Move focused window to workspace 1–9
Click bar number	Switch to that workspace

App Launchers

Binding	Action
Super + w	librewolf
Super + Shift + w	nmtui (network manager)
Super + r	lfub (file manager)
Super + Shift + r	htop
Super + n	nvim VimwikiIndex
Super + m	ncmpcpp
Super + p	mpc toggle
Super + Shift + p	mpc pause + pauseallmpv

Volume & Media

Binding	Action
Super + -	Volume -5%
Super + Shift + -	Volume -15%
Super + =	Volume +5%
Super + Shift + =	Volume +15%
Super + Shift + m	Mute toggle
XF86 AudioMute	Mute toggle
XF86 AudioLower/Raise	Volume ±3%
XF86 AudioPlay/Prev/Next/Stop	mpc controls
XF86 BrightnessUp/Down	xbacklight ±15
XF86 AudioMicMute	Mic mute toggle

Screenshot

Binding	Action
Print	Full screenshot (maim)
Shift + Print	maimpick (selection)

Build

cargo build --release

Usage

Xephyr (test inside existing session)

Xephyr :1 -screen 1280x720 &
DISPLAY=:1 ./target/release/rwm

As your actual WM (LightDM)

Install the session file:

sudo cp rwm.desktop /usr/share/xsessions/rwm.desktop

Then select rwm from LightDM's session dropdown at login.

xinitrc

Add to ~/.xinitrc:

exec /path/to/rwm

Then startx from a TTY.

Configuration

Edit constants in src/config.rs:

pub const TERMINAL: &str    = "alacritty";
pub const LAUNCHER: &str    = "dmenu_run";
pub const BROWSER: &str     = "librewolf";
pub const WALLPAPER: &str   = "/path/to/wallpaper.png";
pub const GAP: u32          = 8;
pub const BAR_HEIGHT: u16   = 20;
pub const NUM_WORKSPACES: usize = 9;
pub const BAR_BG: u32      = 0x222222;
pub const BAR_FG: u32      = 0xbbbbbb;
pub const BAR_SEL_BG: u32  = 0x005577;

The master area defaults to 55% width and can be adjusted at runtime with Super+h/Super+l.

Project Structure

src/
├── main.rs      entry point, event loop, keybinding dispatch, startup (wallpaper, picom)
├── config.rs    all user-tunable constants (like dwm's config.h)
├── keys.rs      keysym constants, XF86 media keys, keycode translation
├── client.rs    per-window state: geometry, fullscreen, workspace
├── layout.rs    pure-geometry tiling math with adjustable mfact (no X11 calls)
├── bar.rs       status bar: clickable workspace indicators + window title
└── wm.rs        core WM: manage, focus, kill, workspaces, fullscreen, mfact, window swapping

Dependencies

• Rust 2024 edition
• x11rb 0.13 — pure Rust X11 bindings (no C deps)
• xwallpaper — wallpaper (runtime)
• picom — compositor (runtime)
• maim — screenshots (runtime)

Future Updates

I maybe switching dmenu to a dynamic user-defined menu written by me.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 — see LICENSE for details.