FVWM-Crystal
http://fvwm-crystal.berlios.de/
-------------------------------

FVWM-Crystal aims to create an easy to use, powerful desktop environment for
Linux or other Unix-like operating systems with lots of eye-candy.

It uses following programs: FVWM as a window manager and "main core", ROX-Filer
or Nautilus as desktop manager (manages icons on the desktop), gnome-terminal,
xterm, aterm, mrxvt or urxvt as terminal emulators, MPD, QuodLibet or XMMS as
music players (there's built-in support for controlling these programs), and
several other tools for different functions, like setting a wallpaper or making
screenshots.


Key features
------------

- Transparent elements of the interface: panels, menus, dialogs
  (pseudo-transparency, doesn't show windows underneath).

- Window decorations, panel/menu color-sets and desktop wallpaper changeable
  from the main menu; choice saved for next X sessions.

- Flexible window decorations: can have different title-bar buttons layout,
  pixmaps and button functions.

- Different "recipes" (panel placement and functions, desktop
  functions, window icons/thumbnails), changeable from the menu.

- Advanced keyboard support: key-bindings for controlling the desktop
  switching, window management (moving, resizing, focusing, basic operations
  like minimization or closing) - in total there are nearly 90 different
  key-bindings.

- Support for controlling music players by using the keyboard or panel buttons
  and menus; currently AlsaPlayer, audacious. cdcd, cmus, mocp, mpd, mplayer (you
  can also play movies with it), Quodlibet, XMMS and XMMS2 are supported.

- Advanced support of the terminal windows: special "Quake Console" terminal
  accessible by an Alt+` (grave) keystroke similar to the console found in FPP
  games; terminals can be opened using RMB on the desktop; terminal windows
  don't release focus for newly opened windows (by default).

- A Python script for generating different panels and menus with installed
  applications - automatically finds programs in $PATH and creates specified
  menus and panels.

- Support for nearly 400 different applications - icons, menu/panel database
  entries and window styles.

- Localization support using gettext.


Advanced features
-----------------

- All FVWM configuration is divided into small files in a simple directory
  structure.

- Special functions for loading configuration files – allows for FVWM
  configuration files placed in different directories (for example system-wide
  and user-wide); user files are searched before system-wide files (directory
  structure must be preserved), the first found file is loaded.

- Simple and easy to use system of "user preferences" which adds to the
  configuration files' ability to remember different user choices and recall
  them at any moment, usually at the startup of X session.

- Support for system-wide configuration in /etc/X11/fvwm/fvwm-crystal directory
  as well as user configuration in ~/.fvwm directory - changes in configuration
  files can be preserved between package updates.

- Special files called "recipes" - similar to "standard" FVWM configuration
  model (one configuration - one file), allows for different configurations in
  the same package (for example different music players changeable during
  runtime).

- Support for different icon themes and sizes (similar to /usr/share/icons
  directory), included are many icons in 22x22, 32x32 and 48x48 sizes.

- Special script that will generate the application menu entries by searching for
  application type desktop files and applications icons.
  
Requirements
------------

- FVWM - version 2.5.13 or higher.
- Python - for some scripts.
- ImageMagick - import and convert are used for screenshots.
- ROX-Filer or Nautilus - for icons on the desktop and wallpaper.
- XScreenSaver - a screen saver and/or screen locking.
- Systray: at least one of Trayer or Stalonetray.
- Sudo and optionally gksudo configured for running text/graphical
  applications as superuser and reboot/shutdown computer options in the menu.
- Terminal Emulator: at least one of gnome-terminal, konsole, xfce4-terminal,
  xterm, aterm, Eterm, mrxvt or urxvt. Be aware that the Quake console need one
  of mrxvt, urxwt, aterm or xterm.
- A program for setting a wallpaper such as Esetroot, hsetroot or habak (only
  needed if ROX-Filer or Nautilus are not used as suggested above.
- A music player - At least one of Music Player Daemon (+ mpc), X MultiMedia
  System (+ xmms-shell and XMMSFind) (orphaned now on most distribution, you 
  will be better with another one), AlsaPlayer, cmus, mocp, mplayer, XMMS2,
  Quod Libet or cdcd.


Contacting author
-----------------

The author and current maintainer of FVWM-Crystal project is Maciej
Delmanowski. You can contact with him using:

Jabber (preferred):	harnir@jabberek.net
Email:			harnir@berlios.de
IRC:			#fvwm-crystal@irc.freenode.net (also on #fvwm)

There is also a low-traffic mailing list, where you can talk with other
FVWM-Crystal users. More information and subscription instructions can be
found on: http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/fvwm-crystal-users
You can also look at the archives located here:
http://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/fvwm-crystal-users/


Thanks
------

I would like to thank all these people for help with this project (in random
order): Aragorn_Vime, Lucass, Taviso, Hoppke, Ravbc, Myles Green, Esack,
theBlackDragon, Thomas_Adam, Liorithiel, MadCow, LiNiO, fEnIo, KHorne, QsoRiX,
niv, stR4y and all others which I can't recollect now - thanks, guys :)


Donations
---------
FVWM-Crystal is and always will be a free software, however if you want, you
can make a donation - I probably will spent it on my electricity & telephone
bills... Anyway, below is the neccesary info to do that.

Account:	PL 90 1140 2004 0000 3102 3664 7363
Name:		Maciej Delmanowski
Bank:		mBank
Address:	90-050 Lodz, Al. Mickiewicza 1, Poland

