whaw - window manager independent window layout tool
    whaw is a program for X11 that can use advanced tiling algorithms and an
    intuitive user interface to quickly lay out windows without having to
    replace or modify the set up of your window manager of choice. whaw is
    meant to augment the capabilities of your current window manager, not
    supplant them.

using whaw
    whaw responds to the mouse moving into one of its control corners in
    order to not waste screen space yet always be accessible. A window
    placement operation consists of three steps.

    choosing a layout algorithm
    choosing the windows to move/resize
    choosing where to place the windows

    choosing a layout algorithm
        Choosing the layout algorithm is combined with activating whaw. In
        order to activate whaw, move the cursor into one of its activation
        corners, the upper-left corner of the screen by default. You will
        see the cursor change to a cross to let you know whaw has been
        activated. The two layout algorithms are horizontal and vertical. to
        choose horizontal layout, move the mouse cursor away from the corner
        horizontally, to choose vertical layout, move the cursor away
        vertically. the cursor will change into a horizontal or vertical
        arrow to indicate your choice. you can always change the layout
        algorithm by going back into the corner. any whaw operation can be
        canceled at any point by pressing the middle mouse button. The
        corner that activates whaw can be controlled with the --corner
        option.

        You can also pass the --htile or --vtile options on the command line
        to force whaw to perform a single layout in the given direction and
        then exit.

    choosing the windows to move/resize
        Use the mouse to left click on each window you want to add to your
        layout group. as you click on each window, it should be moved off
        screen to let you select windows underneath it.

    choosing where to place the windows
        The windows may be placed via a number of operations, to have the
        windows tiled across the current screen, press the right mouse
        button. to have them placed in a specific area with a specific size,
        use the left mouse button to drag out a box. the windows will be
        placed inside this box.

    virtual screens
        To avoid spanning windows accross multiple monitors, whaw will
        examine the monitor configuration and only tile accross the single
        monitor on a right click. You can also force whaw to treat a single
        monitor as if it were two via the --virtual option. This is useful
        if you have a very large monitor and don't want to maximize a window
        completely via whaw.

caveats
    Some window managers fight whaw, although most can be made to work. let
    me know if you are experiencing trouble with any particular window
    manager and what type of thing you are seeing. the most common issues
    involve focus or window stacking order not being set properly, there are
    many techniques to fix these sort of issues specified by X11, ICCCM and
    freedesktop, sometimes it takes some care in finding the combination
    that works properly for a given manager. Other window managers with
    their own tiling algorithms (such as ion and ratpoison) cannot work with
    whaw at all since their own algorithms take precedence.

testing
    Whaw has been tested with the following systems: metacity (the default
    fedora and gnome window manager), twm (the X11 classic) and no window
    manager at all. whaw should degrade gracefully by modifying its
    algorithms from using a EWMH complaint window manager, to a ICCCM
    compliant one, all the way to a nonexistent one.

author
    Whaw was written by John Meacham who can be contacted at
    john@repetae.net

getting it
    the homepage for whaw is http://repetae.net/john/computer/whaw
    you can download it at http://repetae.net/john/computer/whaw/drop
    the darcs repository is at http://repetae.net/john/repos/whaw
    the changelog is at http://repetae.net/john/computer/whaw/Changelog.txt

