dvtm — dynamic virtual terminal manager
Contents
Description
dvtm is a dynamic tiling window manager for the console.
As a console window manager it tries to make it easy to work with multiple console based applications.
-v
Print version information to standard output and exit.
-M
Toggle default mouse grabbing upon startup. Use this to allow normal mouse operation under X.
-mmodifier
Set command modifier at runtime.
-ddelay
Set the delay ncurses waits before deciding if a character that might be part of an escape sequence is
actually part of an escape sequence.
-hlines
Set the scrollback history buffer size at runtime.
-ttitle
Set a static terminal title and don't change it to the one of the currently focused window.
-sstatus-fifo
Open or create the named pipe status-fifo read its content and display it in the statusbar. See the
dvtm-status(1) script for an usage example.
-ccmd-fifo
Open or create the named pipe cmd-fifo and look for commands to execute which were defined in config.h.
command...
Execute command (s), each in a separate window.
Environment Variables
DVTM
Each process spawned by dvtm will have this variable set to the dvtm version it is running under.
DVTM_WINDOW_ID
Each process also has access to its constant and unique window id.
DVTM_CMD_FIFO
If the -c command line argument was specified upon dvtm startup, this variable will be set to the file
name of the named pipe. Thus allowing the process to send commands back to dvtm.
DVTM_TERM
By default dvtm uses its own terminfo file and therefore sets TERM=dvtm within the client windows. This
can be overridden by setting the DVTM_TERM environment variable to a valid terminal name before
launching dvtm.
DVTM_EDITOR
When entering the copymode dvtm pipes the whole scroll back buffer to dvtm-editor(1) which opens the
content in DVTM_EDITOR, with fallbacks to VISUAL, EDITOR and vi(1) config.h is used instead.
Example
See the dvtm-status(1) script as an example of how to display text in the status bar.
Files
dvtm is customized by creating a custom config.h and (re)compiling the source code. This keeps it fast,
secure and simple.
Name
dvtm — dynamic virtual terminal manager
See Also
abduco(1), dvtm-status(1)
Synopsis
dvtm [-v] [-M] [-mmodifier] [-ddelay] [-hlines] [-ttitle] [-sstatus-fifo] [-ccmd-fifo]
[command...]
Usage
Keyboardcommands
Each keybinding begins with Mod which defaults to ^g but can be changed in config.h or with the -m
command line option.
Mod-c
Create a new shell window.
Mod-C
Create a new shell window using the current working directory of the focused window.
Mod-x-x
Close focused window.
Mod-l
Increases the master area width about 5% (all except grid and fullscreen layout).
Mod-h
Decreases the master area width about 5% (all except grid and fullscreen layout).
Mod-i
Increase number of windows displayed in the master area.
Mod-d
Decrease number of windows displayed in the master area.
Mod-j
Focus next window.
Mod-k
Focus previous window.
Mod-J
Focus window below.
Mod-K
Focus window above.
Mod-H
Focus window to the left.
Mod-L
Focus window to the right.
Mod-[0..9]
Focus the [0..9]-th window.
Mod-Tab
Focus previously selected window.
Mod-.
Toggle minimization of current window.
Mod-m
Maximize current window (change to fullscreen layout).
Shift-PageUpMod-PageUp
Scroll up.
Shift-PageDownMod-PageDown
Scroll down.
Mod-Space
Toggle between defined layouts (affects all windows).
Mod-Enter
Zooms/cycles current window to/from master area.
Mod-f
Change to vertical stack tiling layout.
Mod-b
Change to bottom stack tiling layout.
Mod-g
Change to grid layout.
Mod-s
Show/hide the status bar.
Mod-S
Toggle position of the status bar between top and bottom.
Mod-rMod-^L
Redraw whole screen.
Mod-a
Toggle keyboard multiplexing mode, if activated keypresses are sent to all visible windows.
Mod-M
Toggle dvtm mouse grabbing.
Mod-e
Enter copy mode (see section below for further information).
Mod-/
Enter copy mode and start searching forward (assumes a vi-like editor).
Mod-p
Paste last copied text from copy mode at current cursor position.
Mod-?
Show this manual page.
Mod-Mod
Send the Mod key.
Mod-F[1..n]Mod-v-[1..n]
View all windows with n-th tag.
Mod-0
View all windows with any tag.
Mod-v-Tab
Toggles to the previously selected tags.
Mod-V-[1..n]
Add/remove all windows with nth tag to/from the view.
Mod-t-[1..n]
Apply nth tag to focused window.
Mod-T-[1..n]
Add/remove nth tag to/from focused window.
Mod-q-q
Quit dvtm.
Mousecommands
By default dvtm captures mouse events to provide the actions listed below. Unfortunately this interferes
with the standard X copy and paste mechanism. To work around this you need to hold down Shift while
selecting or pasting text. Alternatively you can disable mouse support at compile time, start dvtm with
the -M flag or toggle mouse support during runtime with Mod-M.
Button1click
Focus window.
Button1doubleclick
Focus window and toggle maximization.
Button2click
Zoom/cycle current window to/from master area.
Button3click
Toggle minimization of current window.
Copymode
Copy mode gives easy access to past output by piping it to dvtm-editor(1), opening an editor. What the
editor writes will be stored in an internal register and can be pasted into other clients (via Mod-p).