echinus

Warning: echinus is not maintained anymore. See the README in the repository.

echinus is a simple and lightweight tiling and floating window manager for X11. Started as a dwm fork with easier configuration, echinus became a full-featured reparenting window manager with EWMH support.

Unlike dwm, echinus does not need to be re-compiled after changes have been made to the config. It supports Xft (freetype) out of the box and has the option of configurable titlebars.

Installing

Install echinus^AUR. You might also want to install ourico^AUR, a lightweight EWMH taskbar, originally designed for echinus (also in AUR), and dmenu.

After successfully installing, copy all files from /etc/xdg/echinus to ~/.echinus(for user).

Configuring

echinus is configured in one simple text file, in Xresources format: ~/.echinus/echinusrc. Details for all of the configuration options are in /usr/share/doc/echinus/README. A section of a sample configuration file looks like:

Echinus*selected.border: #404040
Echinus*selected.button: #d3d7cf
Echinus*selected.bg: #262626
Echinus*selected.fg: #d3d7cf

Rules

Rules can be set up to spawn applications in specific tags. The following rule, for example, would open firefox in the "web" tag:

Echinus*rule0: firefox.* web 0 1

Opening applications in a terminal requires that you explicitly set the -title tag when spawning them so that echinus can manage them:

Echinus*spawn0: CA + m = urxvtc -title mutt -e mutt

Similarly, when spawning dmenu, you will need to declare the requisite properties, like so:

Echinus*spawn1: Menu = dmenu_run -fn "-*-dina-medium-r-*-*-*-100-*-*-*-*-*-*" -nb "#1A1A1A" -nf "#696969" -sb "#1A1A1A" -sf "#D3D7Cf"

Starting echinus

To start echinus with startx or the SLiM login manager, simply append the following to ~/.xinitrc:

exec echinus

Using echinus

After making changes to echinusrc, you can reload the configuration without recompiling by restarting echinus, with Alt + Shift + q. This keybinding, and any other, can be customized to suit your preference or muscle-memory.

Further details for manipulating windows are in the manpage and the README.

Panels & Pagers

echinus supports some parts of EWMH - the following are known to work:

Resources

Screenshots