Open Source Ratpoison: The Minimalistic Window Manager

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Ratpoison: The Minimalistic Window Manager
Ratpoison is such a minimalistic window manager, that it does not even have windows. Ratpoison is such a minimalistic window manager, that it tries to provide enough functionality...

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Ratpoison is such a minimalistic window manager, that it does not even have windows. Ratpoison is such a minimalistic window manager, that it tries to provide enough functionality so you don’t have to use the mouse. These radical ideas strip two of the most basic characteristics of a window manager (windows & mouse). Of course Ratpoison excels in speed, simplicity, and minimal resource consumption — that’s why it’s interesting and we are covering it on Faster, Smaller, Cheaper.

At the Ratpoison website (http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/) my favorite part is the screenshot. Since Ratpoison does not have window borders, decorations, minimize buttons or any of the such, it shows JUST a terminal window with what it looks like Ratpoison’s source code.

I don’t know what it is about Window Managers, but people complain if they don’t get a screenshot. I’ve told them again and again that ratpoison doesn’t have anything to take a screenshot of, but still they insist.
So if you absolutely MUST have a screenshot, here you go:

Simply put Ratpoison will maximize the application you are using on the screen. If you open a new application the new application will take over the screen hiding the previous application. There are some basic commands to split the screen among different applications, but that is as far as you’ll get in terms of looking like a traditional window manager. For most programs these concept looks fine, but with some applications that open multiple windows at the same time (think GIMP) the result can be “awkward”.

The other key feature, and where Ratpoison gets its name, is the goal of not having to use the mouse for anything. “No Rodent Dependence” is how the website puts it. You can open, close, switch an application simply by using keyboard combinations. This functionality speeds up your productivity. It minimizes the time you have to leave your hands from the keyboard.

Ratpoison has no “fat library” dependencies and the programmers strive to have a lean and mean source tree. Overall Ratpoison definitely fills the need of many people and it is more than just a “see if we can do this” project.

If you want to find out more connect to IRC on irc.freenode.net channel #ratpoison.
Ratpoison Window Manager - http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/

What is Ratpoison?
Ratpoison is a simple Window Manager with no fat library dependencies, no fancy graphics, no window decorations, and no rodent dependence. It is largely modelled after GNU Screen which has done wonders in the virtual terminal market.The screen can be split into non-overlapping frames. All windows are kept maximized inside their frames to take full advantage of your precious screen real estate.

All interaction with the window manager is done through keystrokes. ratpoison has a prefix map to minimize the key clobbering that cripples Emacs and other quality pieces of software. If you're wondering how we came up with the name ratpoison, here is the usenet post that started it all.

ratpoison uses the concept of panes to place and size windows. Instead of allowing windows to have arbitary shapes at arbitary locations on the screen, the display is divided into panes, the same way a physical window might contain several pieces of glass seperated by wood. In ratpoison, the panes are called frames, and windows are placed in them, maximised. ratpoison starts with one frame, which can be split into an arbitary number of smaller ones. Each frame can be split in half either horizontally or vertically. You can move among them, making different ones the current. For more information, see Splitting Frames.

Each frame has at most one window associated with it, which is visible in that frame. If you select a window that is associated with a frame, the focus will move to its associated frame, rather than moving the window to the current frame. If you select a window that is not associated with a frame, that window will be opened in the current frame and resized to fit that frame.