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 manager A compositing window manager, or compositor, is a window manager that provides applications with an off-screen data buffer, buffer for each window. The window manager Compositing, composites the window buffers into an image representing the screen ...

s 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. 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.

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 Raster may refer to: * Raster graphics, graphical techniques using arrays of pixel values * Raster graphics editor, a computer program * Raster scan, the pattern of image readout, transmission, storage, and reconstruction in television and compu ...

. 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

. Unfortunately 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.

X Window System

Many windows managers under the X Window System provide stacking window functionality: *

4Dwm 4Dwm is the window manager component of the IRIX Interactive Desktop normally used on Silicon Graphics workstations running IRIX. 4Dwm is derived from the older Motif Window Manager and uses the Motif widget toolkit on top of the X Window System ...

* 9wm * AfterStep * amiwm *

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* Blackbox * ctwm * cwm * dwm * qpwm *

Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

* Fluxbox * FLWM * FVWM * FVWM95 * Goomwwm * Hackedbox * IceWM *

JWM JWM (Joe's Window Manager) is a lightweight stacking window manager for the X Window System written by Joe Wingbermuehle. JWM is written in C and uses only Xlib at a minimum. Configuration is done by editing an XML file; no graphical configu ...

* KWin (with compositing turned off) * MWM * Mutter *

olwm olwm (OPEN LOOK Window Manager) was the default stacking window manager for OpenWindows, the original X11 desktop environment included with SunOS and Solaris. Its unique characteristic is its implementation of the OPEN LOOK look and feel. Sco ...

* Openbox * PekWM * PLWM * Sawfish *

swm swm (the Solbourne window manager) is an X Window System window manager developed by Tom LaStrange at Solbourne Computer in 1990. The most important innovation of swm was the introduction of the virtual desktop In computing, a virtual ...

tvtwm tvtwm is an X window manager derived from twm to which it adds the virtual desktop feature from swm. All of these window managers were originally written by Tom LaStrange. The current maintainer of tvtwm is Chris Ross. James Tanis believes he ma ...

* twm * Window Maker * WindowLab * wm2 * wmx

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows 1.0 displayed windows using a tiling window manager. In

Windows 2.0 Windows 2.0 is a major release of Microsoft Windows, a family of graphical operating systems for personal computers developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on December 9, 1987, as a successor to Windows 1.0. The product includ ...

, it was replaced with a stacking window manager, which allowed windows to overlap. Microsoft kept the stacking window manager up through

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...

, 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. From

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

onward, a new

is the default on compatible systems.

History

* 1970s: The

Xerox Alto The Xerox Alto is a computer designed from its inception to support an operating system based on a graphical user interface (GUI), later using the desktop metaphor. The first machines were introduced on 1 March 1973, a decade before mass-market G ...

which contained the first working commercial GUI used a stacking window manager. * 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. * The

Classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. Th ...

was one of the earliest commercially successful examples of a GUI which used stacking windows. *

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predated Microsoft Windows and used stacking, allowing all windows to overlap. *

Amiga OS AmigaOS is a family of proprietary native operating systems of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early versio ...

contains an early example of a highly advanced stacking window manager.

References

External links

Graphical User Interface Gallery
{{XWinSys Window managers X window managers