FvwmBacker

The FvwmBacker module provides functionality to change the background when changing desktops. Any command can be executed to change the backgrounds. Actually, any arbitrary command can be sent to fvwm to execute, so you could also do things such as changing window border colors, etc.

Between the desktops you can personalize them by giving them individual background colors. This can be done by either using X11 color names or fvwm Colorsets, as illustrated below.

*FvwmBacker: Command (Desk 0) -solid white
*FvwmBacker: Command (Desk 1) Colorset 5

Instead of colors, use external applications to set background images. This example uses fvwm-root, which only supports .xpm, .png, and .svg and cannot scale images. A tool like feh would support more image formats, allow image scaling, and allow setting wallpapers per monitor.

*FvwmBacker: Command (Desk 0) Exec exec fvwm-root $[HOME]/background-mono.png
*FvwmBacker: Command (Desk 1) Exec exec fvwm-root $[HOME]/wallpaper-nature.png

The background can also be set for each page within each desktop:

*FvwmBacker: Command (Desk 1, Page 0 0) -solid green
*FvwmBacker: Command (Desk 1, Page 1 0) Colorset 10

FvwmBacker must be running in order to change the background. It is best to start FvwmBacker from the StartFunction:

AddToFunc StartFunction I Module FvwmBacker

Example

This example shows how to use FvwmBacker with FvwmPager to show the background image used on each desktop. In this example four desktops are used, each divided into two pages. Here is a screenshot of FvwmPager showing the four desktops and background image for each desktop. The first desktop is shown with a grey background.

First configure the Colorsets used by FvwmPager. The first sets the grey background, the next three set the Pixmap that FvwmPager will use for the background of each desktop. The final colorset sets the color of the active page.

Colorset 22 #92a8d5
Colorset 23 Pixmap $[FVWM_USERDIR]/images/email-thumb.png
Colorset 24 Pixmap $[FVWM_USERDIR]/images/work-thumb.png
Colorset 25 Pixmap $[FVWM_USERDIR]/images/misc-thumb.png
Colorset 30 fg #ffffff, bg #028383

Next configure the desktops and FvwmPager to use the previous colorsets.

DesktopSize 2x1

DesktopName 0 Web
DesktopName 1 Email
DesktopName 2 Work
DesktopName 3 Misc

DestroyModuleConfig FvwmPager: *
*FvwmPager: HilightColorset * 30
*FvwmPager: Rows 1
*FvwmPager: Colorset 0 22
*FvwmPager: Colorset 1 23
*FvwmPager: Colorset 2 24
*FvwmPager: Colorset 3 25

AddToFunc StartFunction I Module FvwmPager 0 3

Finally, configure FvwmBacker to set background images for each desktop. In addition the first desktop (Desk 0) will use a different image on each page.

DestroyModuleConfig FvwmBacker: *
*FvwmBacker: Command (Desk 0, Page 0 0) Exec exec fvwm-root $[FVWM_USERDIR]/images/web.png
*FvwmBacker: Command (Desk 0, Page 1 0) Exec exec fvwm-root $[FVWM_USERDIR]/images/media.png

*FvwmBacker: Command (Desk 1) Exec exec fvwm-root $[FVWM_USERDIR]/images/email.png
*FvwmBacker: Command (Desk 2) Exec exec fvwm-root $[FVWM_USERDIR]/images/work.png
*FvwmBacker: Command (Desk 3) Exec exec fvwm-root $[FVWM_USERDIR]/images/misc.png

AddToFunc StartFunction I Module FvwmBacker