THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM School of Computer Science CTWM - THE DEFAULT WINDOW MANAGER FOR NEW USERS CONTENTS -- Introduction: using machines on our Unix network -- Desktop computing vs "remote" computing -- How to log in -- The Chooser panel -- The Login panel -- What you see when you log in -- Manipulating windows -- 1. Moving a window. -- 2. Raising or lowering a window -- 3. Resizing a window -- 4. Destroying or closing a window -- Invoking menus -- 1. CTWM Menu -- 2. Main Menu -- 3. Tool manu -- 4. The WinOps Menu -- 5. The "Zoom" menu -- Exercises -- Further information -- WARNING Introduction: using machines on our Unix network ------------------------------------------------ The School of computer science has an elaborate network of computers including a number of PCs (mostly running NT), a large collection of Unix workstations (including Sun UltraSparc workstations and Digital Alpha Unix workstations), NCD Xterminals, Apricot PCs configured as Xterminals, "compute servers", a large communal file server, and other machines providing computing and networking facilities. This document explains what to expect when you log in to one of the Unix machines. This could be either: 1. A Sun workstation (usually either Sun Ultra 5 or Sun Ultra 10) 2. A Digital Alpha Unix workstation 3. An NCD Xterminal 4. A PC configured as an Xterminal 5. A PC running NT, which allows you to access our Unix network by running the eXceed program. This document gives no information on the use of other PC software. When you are connecting to a Unix machine in one of the above ways, please do NOT assume that things you have previously learnt to do on a PC will work here. Instead, follow the instructions provided and take the trouble to learn how to use our systems. Desktop computing vs "remote" computing --------------------------------------- When you use one of the Sun or Alpha workstations you will typically run programs on the machine you are using. When you log in to one of the NCD Xterminals or PCs configured as Xterminals, you will have a keyboard and screen which behave as if you are using a workstation, but your programs will be running remotely on one of the school's compute servers. For undergraduates and MSc students there are four compute servers which are Sun Sparc computers in the computer room on the lower ground floor. They are called Tinky-winky (dual processor ultrasparc), Dipsy (dual processor ultrasparc), Laa-laa (dual processor ultrasparc), Po (twin processor hypersparc) and Noo-Noo (quad processor hypersparc). Each can support many simultaneous remote users. There are also compute servers provided for staff and research students, which undergraduates and MSc students are not allowed to use. It is possible when using a workstation to access the remote servers and run programs on them. E.g. if you are using a Digital workstation you may need to run Sun software, which you can do by logging in to one of the Suns, from the workstation. Sometimes while you are using a Sun or Digital workstation someone else will be using it as a remote compute server. For that reason you must NEVER switch off our workstations when you leave them. (You can switch of monitors however. If you don't know the difference, please don't switch off anything.) Whichever machine you log into you will be able to access the same file system on a large Sun file server called "casper". Your login directory is stored on that machine, and will be associated with your user name. When your "account" on our network is created you are given a user name and a login password, your directory is set up, and some initial files and subdirectories created which control what happens when you log in. Later you may wish to change the login scripts, but beware of doing so without consulting your course tutors. Often students take advice from well-meaning "expert" friends, and end up being unable to log in because they have corrupted their startup files. The setup for new users arriving in or after September 1998 is different from that used previously, so do not take advice on login scripts from students who arrived earlier. How to log in ------------- When you come to a terminal or workstation press the "SHIFT" key or move the mouse slightly to wake up the terminal, if the screen is dark. Some monitors have a "power saving" facility which turns off the monitor power if the keyboard is not used for some time. It can take a few seconds for the power to return and the screen to light up after you wake it up. The Chooser panel ----------------- If you sit at an Xterminal or PC configured as an Xterminal you may find that you are confronted with a "chooser" panel offering you the option to log in to one of the compute servers (e.g. po, laa-laa or dipsy). Choose one of them. If you vary your choice randomly the distribution of users on the servers will be evened out in the long run. When you have chosen your server you can click (with left mouse button) on "OK" and you will be connected to the server. After that you will see a login panel. If you come to a Sun or Digital workstation, you will simply see the login panel, not a chooser panel. The Login panel --------------- When confronted with a login panel move the mouse cursor onto the panel then type your user name and press the RETURN key. This is usually a big key to the right of the central collection of alphabetic keys. It may have the word "Return" on it, or possibly a big bent arrow pointing left. A flashing text cursor will move to the "password" prompt. Type in your password (which will not be echoed onto the screen) then press the Return key again. What you see when you log in ---------------------------- The login panel will disappear and the window manager (ctwm) will start up, with a number of windows and panels displayed on your screen. The defaults may be different for different students. 1. Normally there will be a small "console" panel near the bottom of the screen, where error messages may appear. You can also type unix commands in there. 2. There will also be a panel marked "quit" or "Exit". You should click on that when you are ready to log out. However before logging out you should FIRST make sure you exit from all applications, including especially Netscape, Emacs or Xved. Otherwise you may leave "runaway" processes on the machine after you log out. 3. There may be a window labelled "MOTD" containing the "message of the day" from the system manager. Read it then click on the "Okay" button to make it go away. 4. You will have an "xbiff" window showing a mailbox, which indicates when you have new mail waiting to be read (the flag goes up and the box changes colour when there is mail for you.) 5. An "icon manager" will appear on the right edge of the screen below the top. For each "manageable" window it will show the name of the window in a horizontal box. By clicking on that box you can cause the corresponding window to switch between being "open" and being "iconified". When it is "iconified" there is a little rectangular box with the name of the window near the bottom of the screen (though it may be covered). That's the "icon" for the window. If you click on the icon it will "open" the window and the icon will then disappear. You can also close a window by clicking on its title bar (if it has one) using the right mouse button, or by clicking on the little square with a dot in the middle at the top left of a window. Try all those ways of iconifying and de-iconifying various windows. See where the iconified versions go. 6. A Workspace manager window will be found in the bottom right corner of the screen. This window has four panels. Each panel corresponds to a "virtual desktop", i.e. a workspace in which you can locate windows. There is always a current workspace. You can move to a new workspace either by clicking in one with the left mouse button or by holding down the Control key, and pressing the left arrow or right arrow on the central arrow keypad. Some users have the workspace manager configured as a two by two array of panels and some as a horizontal row of panels. Initially you will probably need only one workspace. Later you may find it convenient to locate different windows in different workspaces, so that they don't get in one another's way. There are mechanisms for making some windows appear in several different workspaces. The CTWM window manager offers a large collection of options, which would be too confusing to describe here. Manipulating windows -------------------- The window manager (ctwm) provides many operations which can be performed on individual windows. Most of these are usually performed using the mouse, though some can make use of the keyboard, using so-called "accelerators". This section describes some of the most common operations. Additional information is available from the sources listed at the end. 1. Moving a window. ------------------- You can move a window by clicking and holding down the left mouse button while the mouse cursor is on the title bar or the frame surrounding the window. However if it is an iconified window, using the left button will de-iconify it, so to move an icon use the MIDDLE mouse button. On a mouse with only two buttons, click or hold down both buttons simultaneously to achieve the effect of using the middle button (or button 2). If you find it too fiddly to locate the frame or title bar when moving a window you can hold down the "META" key (usually to the left or right of the space bar, often marked with a diamond), then use mouse button 1 anywhere in the window. When you attempt to move a window you may find that what actually moves is a "wire frame" representing the new location. When you release the mouse button the window will jump to where the frame was. Try moving some of the windows on your screen using both the above methods. 2. Raising or lowering a window ------------------------------- Sometimes one window will partly or wholly obscure another. If a window is partly obscured you can bring it to the top (or "raise" it) by any of the following means, though if it is already at the top it will be moved to the bottom of the pile ("lowered"). (i) Click on title bar or frame with middle mouse button (ii) While holding down the Meta key click anywhere in the window with middle mouse button. (iii) Hold down the Meta key and press function key F1. The window containing the current input focus will be affected. (iv) Use the "window ops" button second from the right on the window's title bar. If you simply use the left mouse button on the title bar or frame that will raise the window but not lower it. 3. Resizing a window -------------------- The most common way to do this is to use the "resize" button at the right of the title bar of the window. The button has a number of nested squares, to indicate its role in changing size. If you put the the mouse cursor on that window button then hold down mouse button 1, the mouse cursor will switch to a cross in a circle, and a "wire-frame" will appear giving the window's current outline. By moving the mouse cursor across the top, bottom, left or right boundary of the window and back again if necessary you can vary the size of the window. If you wish to change only the height move across the top or bottm edge. If you wish to change only the width, move across the left or right edge. If you wish to change both by moving a corner of the window, move the cursor past the corner to "capture" it so that you can move it with the mouse. When you release the mouse button the window will have the new size. While you are changing the size a little panel will appear in the top left of the screen telling you the current size of the window. If it is an xterm window or a text editing window it may tell you the size in text rows and columns. Otherwise it will tell you the size in pixels. Another way to resize a window is to use the "zoom" options associated with some of the menus described elsewhere. 4. Destroying or closing a window --------------------------------- There are two cases to consider. 4.a. Removing a window because you wish to destroy the whole process of which that is a part. To do this you can select the "destroy" option on the "window ops" menu attached to the little icon next to the resize icon on the title bar of each window, or you can invoke the main CTMW menu as described below under "invoking menus"m, and select the "destroy" option. 4.b. Remove one of several windows all produced by the same process, e.g. one of the file buffers produced by a multi-window editor. If you select the "destroy" options as described in 4.a you will kill the whole process, not just the unwanted window. So instead you should select the option marked "close" or "delete". This is "weaker" than destroy: it allows the process managing the window to decide what to do. Invoking menus -------------- The ctwm window manager provides a number of menu facilities, which can be changed by altering your .ctwmrc file. However the default setup provides the following menus which can be invoked by using the mouse buttons in the screen "root" area, i.e. outside any of the windows on the screen, and sometimes in other areas with extra keyboard buttons pressed, e.g. Shift, Control or Meta. 1. CTWM Menu ------------ This menu is invoked in the root window by button 1, and if the Meta and Shift keys are both held down, it can be involved by button 1 in any context. This menu provides a number of operations on windows. Some of them will require you to specify a window. It will show this by replacing the normal mouse cursor with a black ball or perhaps a cross in a circle, or in the case of destroy or delete options a "deaths head". Move it to the window you wish the operation to be applied to and click there. 2. Main Menu ------------ This menu is invoked in the root window by button 2 (the middle button), and if the Meta and Shift keys are both held down, it can be involved by button 2 in any context. This menu provides a number of options to open new xterm windows on the current machine or to open new xterm windows logged in to one of the Sun compute servers (e.g. Po, Laa-Laa or Dipsy). For some groups of users this menu may also include options to start up Xved or Pop-11 demonstration programs. (Note: if your mouse contains only two buttons, you should use both of them together to simulate button 2 (the middle button on a three button mouse.) 3. Tool menu ------------ This menu is invoked in the root window by button 3 (the right button), and if the Meta and Shift keys are both held down, it can be involved by button 3 in any context. This menu provides a number of options to start up various utility programs. One of the options in the tool menu is labelled "Xlock". If you select that it will lock your screen. The screen will go blank and to restart work you will have to hit the "Return" key and then when requested type in your login password. This can be useful if you need to leave your terminal for a minute or two, e.g. to pick up something from a printer. However you should *never* leave a terminal in one of the laboratories locked while you are away for more than about 15 minutes. Instead log out and then log in again when you come back. Students found leaving terminals locked in order to reserve them will be reported, and will be subject to disciplinary action, e.g. having their computer account blocked for a period of time. 4. The WinOps Menu ------------------ This menu brings together a number of the most useful operations that can be applied to a window. The menu can be invoked only via the icon on the title bar of a file to the left of the "resize" icon. 5. The "Zoom" menu ------------------ This menu gives the opportunity to do various kinds of rapid change of size of the window, including stretching vertically to fill the height of the screen or stretching horizontally. Repeating an option will reverse its effect. The menu is found mainly as one item within other menus. However it can always be invoked by holding down the Meta and Control keys and pressing button 1 (left button). Exercises --------- 1. Practise logging in and out. 2. Practise bringing up the main menus either in the root window space or in other contexts. 3. Practise moving windows about, resizing them, and iconifying and deiconifying them. 4. Practise moving to a new workspace and creating a new xterm window there. 5. Practice startup up an xterm window on another machine, e.g. Po, and then killing it using one of the menus. Further information ------------------- Expert users who wish to configure the window manager or discover more about how to use it should look in two places. (a) The unix "man file": man ctwm (b) Your own .ctwmrc file in your login directory. The latter is the file you will need to edit to change your window manager configuration. However you MUST make sure you can log in after changing the file. To do that, write the file then go to another terminal and see if you are able to log in. If you cannot you will either have to restore the file to its original state or investigate further to discover what went wrong. You may find some clues in the file /var/adm/xdm-errors You may also find it helpful to look at the information in the School's system documentation Web page: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/system/documentation/login.html WARNING ------- Some books on unix and some online user guides give information that is either out of date or irrelevant to our system. For instance if you read that the way to log out is to type "logout" ignore that. We have set things up so that you log out by clicking on the exit window. ======================================================================= This file maintained by Aaron Sloman Last updated: 23 Jul 1999 Please report faults and omissions by email to A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk --- $poplocal/local/teach/ctwm --- Copyright University of Birmingham 2000. All rights reserved. ------