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Christoph Kappel, 01/04/2026 01:02 PM

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h1. What is subtle?
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subtle is a manual tiling window manager with a rather uncommon approach of tiling: Instead of relying on predefined layouts, subtle divides the screen into a grid with customizeable slots (called gravities). For better understanding, the default config uses a 3x3 grid and maps each gravity to one key of the numpad. With those keys, windows can be moved directly to the desired gravity - the same can be done with tagging rules in the config.
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Another unique concept is the strict tagging: Unlike other tiling window managers, subtle doesn't allow weak tagging and always maps windows to virtual desktops (called views) with matching tags, regardless of the current active view.
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h2. Features
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- Builtin system tray
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- Extendable builtin panel (see sublets)
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- Customizeable key/mouse actions (see grabs)
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- Focus on scripting (Ruby - see rdoc and subtlext)
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- Commandline client (see subtler)
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- Extended window tagging
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- Compliance (EWMH / ICCCM / MWM / XDG Base Directory)
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- Multihead support (Xinerama / XRandR)
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h2. Where to start?
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Basics
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Installing subtle
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First steps
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Using multihead
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Themes
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Blamelist
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In depth
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Understanding clients
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Understanding views
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Understanding tagging
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Understanding gravity
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h2. Customizing
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Configuring subtle
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Setting up styles
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Configuring keys
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Customizing panel
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Installing sublets
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h2. Hacking
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Hacking subtle
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Writing sublets
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Hooking events
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Snippets
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h2. Contribute
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In case you want to help but don't know how, please help with some documentation and improve the wiki or make a donation. Patches, suggestions and open discussions are always welcome.
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h2. License
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This code can be distributed under the terms of the GNU GPLv3. See the file COPYING for details.