What is "wmii"

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wmii (window manager improved²) is a tiling window manager for X11. It supports stacking and tiling window management with extended keyboard, mouse, and filesystem based remote control. It replaces the workspace paradigm with a new tagging approach.

In its default configuration, wmii's interface is similar to that of the vi text editor; the windows are controlled with the Alt key and the HJKL keys (Alt+H,J,K,L) and can be combined with Alt+Shift+H,J,K,L. This enables one to build dynamic layouts easily in contrast to other window managers with fixed layouts such as Ion. However, the window manager offers extensive configuration through a virtual filesystem similar to that offered by Plan 9 from Bell Labs. Every window, tag, and column is represented in the virtual filesystem, and windows are controlled by manipulating their file objects (in fact, the configuration file is just a script interfacing the virtual files). This RPC system allows many different configuration styles, including those provided in the base distribution in plan9port and bourne shell. The latest release 3.9 also includes configurations in Python and Ruby.

In its latest release, wmii supports Xinerama and ships its own keyboard-based menu program called wimenu, featuring history and programmable completion.