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conformal
spectrwm
C2021–2026
conformal / spectrwm

spectrwm

A small dynamic tiling window manager for X11.

ProductivityMobile & Desktop
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
4Distinct people
7Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
1.4KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

A small dynamic tiling window manager for X11.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

Maybe 12 yrs ago, I developed some scripting in FVWM to simulate tiling. My thinking was, why do I need background and overlapping windows? It worked kind of, then I came very…

yonrg used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year7 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2021-01-17 23:02:21 UTC to 2026-09-24 20:06:03 UTC.

01232021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 1 submissions, 2 comments20212022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20232024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC312
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

7 sources
somat·Sep 24, 2026
Spectrwm(rather obscure, but I like it) has a free window mode for things like this. where free windows are in all workspaces. Define some hotkeys for the special app invocation and perhaps add a protected region to keep normal windows out. https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm And a rendered manual https://manpages.debian.org/trixie/spectrwm/spectrwm.1.en.ht... I had fun figuring it out one day, but the way I use the computer it did not provide much utility. so my config stays rather stock.
In Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop
somat·May 16, 2025
Does not help you but the question nerd sniped me to try it as an exercise in my preferred tiling WM spectrwm. https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm This lets it act as a sort of toolbar, present on all workspaces. in .spectrwmrc add #shrink the region by 112 to allow space for the widget region = screen[1]:2448x1440+0+0 #add quirk to remove from normal workspaces quirk[Gkrellm] = WS[-1] then start on right side of screen gkrellm -geometry -0+0 I normally would probably just put that in my .xsession but there is an option to auto start it with spectrwm, untested autorun = ws[-1]:gkrellm -geometry -0+0
In GTK Krell Monitors
somat·Jun 18, 2023
I use the tiling WM spectrwm. It lets me pull windows out of tiling mode and into window mode. I think a common operation on most tiling window managers. Most of the time I don't want overlapping windows(thus the tiling WM) but every once in a while I do, so the best of both worlds. It is a bit obscure but I quite like spectrwm, it fills this sweet spot where it is much simpler than I3 but more feature complete than DWM. https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm
In Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
liveprogramming·Nov 3, 2021
This is a great article and I remember reading it numerous times while I was implementing my own window manager. For someone interested in working on a really fun and rewarding hobby project a WM is a great one to look into since there are so many resources starting from really small implementations: - https://github.com/mackstann/tinywm - https://github.com/venam/2bwm - https://github.com/dylanaraps/sowm - https://github.com/dcat/swm - https://github.com/JLErvin/berry Which are great at introducing the concepts and allowing you to grok the required libraries. To larger more full featured packed window managers which will introduce you to more advanced topics: - https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm - https://github.com/herbstluftwm/herbstluftwm - https://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/ - https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm Gradually as you ge
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t more familiar with the ecosystem a few questions will come up: Should I use X11 or XCB? - I personally used XCB and didn't find it too difficult to interface with, and there are a large number of implementations which use it (2bwm, bspwm, ratpoison, etc) so you shouldn't have an issue with learning more about it. But the documentation is pretty limited. If you are just wanting to write a toy WM than X11 is perfectly fine. X or Wayland? - If you're wanting to write your first WM as a hobby project than I would recommend X over wayland just due to the much larger amount of reference material and documentation. You will have a much easier time getting your feet wet. Ignore the comments about X dying as it doesn't really matter for a hobby project, since the whole point is to have fun. Feel free to check out my window manager which is an example of what just reading this blog post and getting inspired can result in: https://github.com/cfrank/natwm
In How X Window Managers Work, and How to Write One (2014)
yonrg·Oct 8, 2021Recommendation phrase
Maybe 12 yrs ago, I developed some scripting in FVWM to simulate tiling. My thinking was, why do I need background and overlapping windows? It worked kind of, then I came very quickly to xmonad, but abandoned it (I do not understand haskell; maybe I should) So then came i3 for some time, but I never became a big fan of the tree layout. Eventually, I found my way with qtile [0], written and configured in python (which I do speak sort of). It is extensible, simple and just works. I use it daily for nearly a decade now. What I like, qtile has modules to manage the window layouts. My favorite is the xmonad-clone which mimcs basic features. But efficient enough for me 0: http://www.qtile.org/ Another tilingwm I like to mention is spectrwm [1] which I use as a backup. I cannot say that qtile never had issues. But it is also a long time ago I
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used my backup. qitle is now in my OS repo, so I don't need to build and install my self anymore. 1: https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm That said, many thanks to xmonad for opening a path and inspiring other projects
In XMonad – The Automated Tiling WM

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