Aster Window Manager (Advanced System Tiling Environment Runtime)

A lightweight X11 window manager written in C, featuring workspace management, window focusing, and keyboard shortcuts.

Features

• Workspace Management: 9 virtual workspaces to organize your windows
• Window Management: Automatic window tracking, focusing, and stacking
• Keyboard Shortcuts: Convenient shortcuts for common tasks
• Minimal Resource Usage: Lightweight C implementation

Building from Source

Prerequisites

• X11 development libraries (libx11-dev, libxcb, libxrandr, libxinerama, libxft)
• CMake
• C compiler (gcc/clang)
• make

Building

mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake ..
make

Installation

sudo make install

Testing

The easiest way to test Aster WM is using the included test script, which launches a Xephyr nested X server:

# Make sure the script is executable
chmod +x run_test.sh

# Run the test script
./run_test.sh

This will open a Xephyr window where you can test Aster WM without affecting your main desktop session.

Usage

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Alt+Enter	Launch terminal
Alt+Tab	Cycle through windows
Alt+1 to Alt+9	Switch to workspace 1-9
Alt+Shift+Q	Quit window manager

Window Management

• Windows are automatically managed when created
• Each window gets a colored border (blue for focused, gray for unfocused)
• Windows are automatically positioned to avoid stacking directly on top of each other
• Windows can be organized into 9 separate workspaces

Starting Aster WM in your X session

To use Aster WM as your primary window manager with startx, add the following to your ~/.xinitrc:

exec aster-wm

Project Structure

• src/: Source code
  • main.c: Main window manager setup and event loop
  • client.c: Window/client management functions
  • window.c: X window event handling functions
  • keyboard.c: Keyboard shortcuts handling
• include/: Header files
  • aster.h: Main header with data structures and function declarations
• build/: Build artifacts

Future Enhancements

Potential features for future development:

• Mouse-based window moving and resizing
• Window tiling capabilities
• Configuration file support
• System tray support
• Multiple monitor support
• Application launcher

License

MIT License