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A minimal floating window manager for X11, written in C++.

Features

• Maps new windows as soon as they are created
• Move a window: Alt + left mouse button + drag
• Resize a window: Alt + right mouse button + drag
• Quit the window manager: Alt + Shift + Q
• Close a window: Super + Q
• Open the application launcher: Super + D
• Open a terminal: Super + Space

Project layout

ace/
├── include/           header files
│   └── window_manager.h
├── src/                source files
│   ├── main.cpp
│   └── window_manager.cpp
├── Makefile
├── README.md
└── CONTRIBUTING.md

Apps Dependencies

ace itself doesn't launch anything on its own — it relies on external programs configured by you:

• a terminal emulator, defaulting to alacritty
• an application launcher, defaulting to rofi

On first run, ace creates a config file at ~/.config/ace/config (if it doesn't already exist)

You can change alacritty (or any other program) to any terminal emulator installed on your system (e.g. xterm, kitty, foot) — ace will launch whatever you put there when you press Super + Space.

Dependencies

• g++ with C++17 support
• libX11 (headers and library)

On Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S libx11

Building

make

The ace binary will be produced in the project root.

Running

For testing without leaving your current session, use Xephyr:

sudo pacman -S xorg-server-xephyr
Xephyr :1 -screen 1280x800 &
DISPLAY=:1 ./ace

Alternatively, the included run.sh script does this for you: it checks that Xephyr is installed and that ace has been built, then starts Xephyr and launches ace on DISPLAY=:1.

chmod +x run.sh
./run.sh

Then, in that same DISPLAY=:1, you can launch any X11 application, e.g.:

DISPLAY=:1 xterm

To use ace as your main window manager, add this to ~/.xinitrc:

exec /path/to/ace

and start your session with startx.

Screenshots

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPLv3). See the LICENSE file for the full text.