Edit: Unfortunately, the images originally included in this post are gone, because of hosting problems in late 2009. My apologies.

From the “nifty things you can do with exceedingly lightweight window managers” department, comes this color scheme for JWM 2.01, all done over in Tango and with window behavior more to my liking.

It looks a bit Clearlooks-ish, perhaps because I used the rezlooks engine and the Rezlooks-clear GTK2 theme off gnome-look.org. (I changed the GTK theme only slightly, to avoid that funny hashed effect in the menubar style.) Wallpaper is the quasi-official dance-step image from a few years back, which is neither here nor there for me, but does seem appropriate for the screenshot.

That’s Ubuntu 7.10 by the way, stripped down to nothing and tweaked as best I could to keep it usable. Same 450Mhz K6-2 as always. It shouldn’t matter what distro you use though, but don’t expect this configuration file to work perfectly with earlier versions of JWM. If it misbehaves, try recompiling the new version from source. (It’s easy to do.)

< ?xml version="1.0"?>

<jwm>

   <!-- The root menu, if this is undefined you will not get a menu. -->
   <!-- Additional RootMenu attributes: onroot, labeled, label -->
   <rootmenu height="16" onroot="123">
      <program label="Terminal">urxvt</program>
	<separator />
      <menu label="Applications">
      	</menu><menu label="Multimedia">
      		<program label="Audacious">audacious</program>
      	</menu>
      	<menu label="Network">
      		<program label="Kazehakase">kazehakase</program>
	         <program label="Sylpheed">sylpheed</program>
      	</menu>
      	<menu label="Graphics">
	         <program label="Mirage">mirage</program>
	</menu>
      
      <menu label="Utilities">
      	 <program label="emelFM2">emelfm2</program>
         <program label="Galculator">galculator</program>
         <program label="Leafpad">leafpad</program>
         <program label="ePDFView">epdfview</program>
	 <separator />
         <program label="GTK2.0 Change Theme">gtk-chtheme</program>
      </menu>
      <separator />
      <restart label="Restart" />
      <exit label="Exit" confirm="true" />
   </rootmenu>

   <!-- Additional tray attributes: autohide, width, border, layer, layout -->
   <tray x="0" y="-1" height="24">

      <!-- Additional TrayButton attribute: label -->
      <traybutton label="JWM">root:1</traybutton>

      <traybutton label="_">showdesktop</traybutton>

      <!-- Additional Pager attributes; width, height -->
      <pager />

      <!-- Additional TaskList attribute: maxwidth -->
      <tasklist />

      <dock />

      <!-- Additional Swallow attribute: height -->
      <swallow name="xload" width="48">
         xload -nolabel -bg "#888a85" -fg "#cc0000" -hl "#eeeeec" -update 1
      </swallow>

      <clock>xclock</clock>

   </tray>

   <!-- Visual Styles -->

   <windowstyle>

      <font>FreeSans-8:bold</font>
      <width>3</width>
      <height>18</height>

      <active>
         <text>#eeeeec</text>
	<title>#729fcf:#3465a4</title>
         <corner>#eeeeec</corner>
         <outline>#2e3436</outline>
      </active>

      <inactive>
         <text>#555753</text>
         <title>#babdb6:#d3d7cf</title>
         <corner>#eeeeec</corner>
         <outline>#2e3436</outline>
      </inactive>

   </windowstyle>

   <taskliststyle>
      <font>FreeSans-8</font>
      <activeforeground>black</activeforeground>
      <activebackground>#d3d7cf:#babdb6</activebackground>
      <foreground>black</foreground>
      <background>#babdb6:#d3d7cf</background>
   </taskliststyle>

   <!-- Additional TrayStyle attribute: insert -->
   <traystyle>
      <font>FreeSans-8:bold</font>
      <background>#d3d7cf</background>
      <foreground>#2e3436</foreground>
   </traystyle>

   <pagerstyle>
      <outline>#2e3436</outline>
      <foreground>#888a85</foreground>
      <background>#555753</background>
      <activeforeground>#d3d7cf</activeforeground>
      <activebackground>#3465a4</activebackground>
   </pagerstyle>

   <menustyle>
      <font>FreeSans-8</font>
      <foreground>#2e3436</foreground>
      <background>#d3d7cf</background>
      <activeforeground>#eeeeec</activeforeground>
      <activebackground>#729fcf:#3465a4</activebackground>
   </menustyle>

   <popupstyle>
      <font>FreeSans-8</font>
      <outline>#2e3436</outline>
      <foreground>#2e3436</foreground>
      <background>#fce94f</background>
   </popupstyle>

   <iconpath>
      $HOME/.icons
   </iconpath>

   <!-- Virtual Desktops -->
   <!-- Desktop tags can be contained within Desktops for desktop names. -->
   <desktops count="4">

      <!-- Default background. Note that a Background tag can be
           contained within a Desktop tag to give a specific background
           for that desktop.
       -->
      <background type="tile">$HOME/downloads/31055-1.png</background>

   </desktops>

   <!-- Double click speed (in milliseconds) -->
   <doubleclickspeed>400</doubleclickspeed>

   <!-- Double click delta (in pixels) -->
   <doubleclickdelta>2</doubleclickdelta>

   <!-- The focus model (sloppy or click) -->
   <focusmodel>click</focusmodel>

   <!-- The snap mode (none, screen, or border) -->
   <snapmode distance="10">border</snapmode>

   <!-- The move mode (outline or opaque) -->
   <movemode>outline</movemode>

   <!-- The resize mode (outline or opaque) -->
   <resizemode>outline</resizemode>

   <!-- Key bindings -->
   <key key="Up">up</key>
   <key key="Down">down</key>
   <key key="Right">right</key>
   <key key="Left">left</key>
   <key key="h">left</key>
   <key key="j">down</key>
   <key key="k">up</key>
   <key key="l">right</key>
   <key key="Return">select</key>
   <key key="Escape">escape</key>

   <key mask="A" key="Tab">nextstacked</key>
   <key mask="A" key="F4">close</key>
   <key mask="A" key="#">desktop#</key>
   <key mask="A" key="F1">root:1</key>
   <key mask="A" key="F2">window</key>

</jwm>

Remember to adjust the applications list according to what you have on your machine. And the link to the wallpaper needs to be changed, as is appropriate. I used 8-point text because I run this laptop at 1024x768x16, and anything bigger seems like it’s being magnified. Window focus is click, resize and move are both outline. Better for my video card, you know? 😉

If I’m enthused by this for much longer, I might lose the boxed effect off the taskbar, or maybe just de-gradient everything. I’m not much of a fan for glossy, knobular themes.