Stacking window manager

Short description: Window manager that draws all windows in a specific order, allowing them to overlap

A screenshot of Ultrix Window Manager, which uses a stacking window manager. Note how the stacked windows overlap each other.

A stacking window manager (also called floating window manager) is a window manager that draws and allows windows to overlap, without using a compositing algorithm. All window managers that allow the overlapping of windows but are not compositing window managers are considered stacking window managers, although it is possible that not all use exactly the same methods. Other window managers that are not considered stacking window managers are those that do not allow the overlapping of windows, which are called tiling window managers.[1]

Stacking window managers allow windows to overlap using clipping to allow applications to write only to the visible parts of the windows they present.

The order in which windows are to be stacked is called their z-order.

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Microsoft Windows
* 3 X Window System
* 3.1 Notes
* 4 Hybrid window managers
* 5 References
* 6 External links

## History

Main article: History of the graphical user interface

* 1970s: The Xerox Alto which contained the first working commercial GUI used a stacking window manager.[2]
* Early 1980s: The Xerox Star, successor to the Alto, used tiling for most main application windows, and used overlapping only for dialogue windows removing the need for full stacking.[3]
* The Classic Mac OS was one of the earliest commercially successful examples of a GUI which used stacking windows.
* GEM predated Microsoft Windows and used stacking, allowing all windows to overlap.
* Amiga OS contains an early example of a highly advanced stacking window manager.

## Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows 1.0 displayed windows using a tiling window manager. In Windows 2.0, it was replaced with a stacking window manager, which allowed windows to overlap. Microsoft kept the stacking window manager up through Windows XP, which presented severe limitations to its ability to display 3D-accelerated content inside normal windows. Although it was technically possible to produce some visual effects using third-party software.[4] From Windows Vista onward, a new compositing window manager is the default on compatible systems.[5]

## X Window System

Main article: X window manager

Many windows managers under the X Window System provide stacking window functionality, including following window managers.

* 2bwm[6]
* 4Dwm
* AfterStep
* amiwm
* awesome
* berry
* Blackbox
* CTWM
* cwm
* dwm
* qpwm
* eggwm
* Enlightenment
* Fluxbox
* FLWM
* FrankenWM[7]
* FVWM
* FVWM95
* Goomwwm
* Hackedbox
* IceWM
* Iwm
* JBWM (Just a Barely-functional Window Manager)
* JWM[8]
* Karmen
* KWin[note 1]
* MLVWM
* MWM
* Mutter
* Muffin
* olwm
* Openbox
* pawm
* PLWM
* Sawfish
* Scwm
* swm
* TinyWM
* tvtwm
* twm
* vwm
* vtwm
* Window Maker
* WindowLab
* wm2
* wmx
* Xfwm[note 1]

### Notes

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 With compositing turned off

## Hybrid window managers

Some window managers may be able to treat the foreground window in an entirely different way, by rendering it indirectly, and sending its output to the video card to be added to the outgoing raster. While this technique may be possible to accomplish within some stacking window managers, it is technically compositing, with the foreground window and the screen raster being treated the same way two windows would be in a compositing window manager.

Interacting with objects outside the original area of the foreground window might also be impossible, since the window manager would not be able to determine what the user is seeing, and would pass such mouse clicks to whatever programs occupied those areas of the screen during the last stacking event.

## References

1. ↑ "How-to: Picking a Window Manager in Linux". 30 October 2012. https://www.engadget.com/2012/10/30/how-to-picking-a-window-manager-linux/.
2. ↑ "The Xerox Alto". http://toastytech.com/guis/alto3.html.
3. ↑ "The Xerox Star". http://toastytech.com/guis/star.html.
4. ↑ "TweakGuides.com - Nvidia GeForce Tweak Guide". https://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_8.html.
5. ↑ "Desktop Window Manager - Windows applications". 23 August 2019. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/dwm/dwm-overview.
6. ↑ "Venam/2bwm". https://github.com/venam/2bwm.
7. ↑ "Sulami/FrankenWM". https://github.com/sulami/FrankenWM.
8. ↑ "Joewing.net". https://joewing.net/projects/jwm/.

## External links

* Graphical User Interface Gallery

* v
* t
* e

Desktop environments and window managers based on X11 or Wayland

Desktop
environments
(comparison)|

| GTK-based|

* Budgie
* Cinnamon
* GNOME
* GPE
* LXDE
* MATE
* ROX Desktop
* Sugar
* Xfce

|

Qt-based|

* KDE Plasma
* Lumina
* LXQt (Razor-qt perpetuated)
* OPIE
* Trinity

Motif-based|

* CDE
* DECwindows
* IRIX Interactive Desktop
* VUE

Other|

* EDE (FLTK-based)
* Étoilé (GNUstep-based)
* Mezzo
* OpenWindows (OLIT-based)
* UDE (Xlib/XCB-based)
* Enlightenment (EFL-based)

Graphical
shells|

* GNOME Shell
* KDE Plasma 4
* KDE Plasma 5
* Maynard
* Unity

X window
managers
(comparison)|

| Compositing|

* Compiz
* KWin
* Metacity
* Muffin
* Mutter
* Xfwm
* Enlightenment

|

Stacking|

* 4Dwm
* 9wm
* AfterStep
* amiwm
* Blackbox
* CTWM
* cwm
* Fluxbox
* FLWM
* FVWM
* IceWM
* JWM
* Matchbox
* Motif Window Manager
* olwm
* Openbox
* Qvwm
* Sawfish
* swm
* twm
* tvtwm
* vtwm
* Window Maker
* WindowLab
* wm2

Tiling|

* awesome
* dwm
* i3
* Ion
* larswm
* ratpoison
* StumpWM
* wmii
* xmonad

Wayland
compositors|

* Enlightenment
* Gala
* KWin
* Mir
* Mutter
* Muffin
* Budgie-wm
* sway
* Weston

Related|

* Display server
* GUI
* GUI widget
* Painter's algorithm
* Resolution independence
* Shell
* Virtual desktop
* Widget toolkit
* WIMP
* Windowing system

* v
* t
* e

X Window System

Architecture|

* Core protocol
* X Window selection
* X Window authorization
* X11 color names
* X Input Method
* Wayland

Extensions|

* X Image Extension
* X keyboard extension
* RandR
* X Rendering Extension
* Shape extension
* Shared memory extension
* X Display Manager Control Protocol
* X video extension
* X-Video Motion Compensation
* AIGLX
* GLX
* Multi-Pointer X
* Display PostScript
* Composite
* Xinerama

Components
and notable
implementations|

| display servers|

* X.Org Server
* Cygwin/X
* X-Win32
* X386
* XFree86
* XDarwin
* Xming
* Xsgi
* Xsun
* Xgl
* Xephyr
* XQuartz
* XWayland

|

client libraries|

* Xlib
* XCB
* X Toolkit Intrinsics

display managers
session managers|

* GDM
* KDM
* SDDM
* XDM
* LightDM
* LXDM
* SLiM
* Entrance
* WDM

window managers
(comparison)|

| Compositing|

* Compiz
* KWin
* Metacity
* Mutter
* Xfwm
* Enlightenment

|

Stacking|

* AfterStep
* amiwm
* Blackbox
* cwm
* Fluxbox
* FVWM
* IceWM
* JWM
* Matchbox
* mwm
* Openbox
* Sawfish
* twm
* Window Maker

Tiling|

* awesome
* dwm
* i3
* Ion
* ratpoison
* wmii
* xmonad
* StumpWM
* larswm

Standards|

* ICCCM
* EWMH
* XDS
* freedesktop.org

Applications|

* xcalc
* xclock
* xedit
* xload
* xterm
* xeyes
* desktop environments

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