Sawmill is an extensible window manager using a Lisp-based scripting language --all window decorations are configurable and all user-interface policy is controlled through the extension language. This is no layer on top of twm, but a wholly new architecture.

Despite this extensibility its policy is very minimal compared to most window managers. Its aim is simply to manage windows in the most flexible and attractive manner possible. As such it does not implement desktop backgrounds, applications docks, or other things that may be achieved through separate applications.

All high-level wm functions are implemented in Lisp for future extensibility or redefinition. Currently this includes menus (using GTK+), interactive window moving and resizing, virtual workspaces, iconification, focus/transient window policies, frame theme definitions, and many more standard window-manager functions.

User-configuration is possible either by writing Lisp code in a personal .sawmillrc file, or through the integrated customization system (using GTK+, see the third and fourth screenshots below).

Note that the last screenshot is not a composite -- it's very easy to give different themes to different windows.

The most recent version of sawmill is available from:

• ftp://sawmill.sourceforge.net/pub/sawmill/

And also from the following mirrors:

• ftp://mirror.capital-internet.net/pub/sawmill (thanks to Brian Beaulieu)
• ftp://eprom.dhs.org/pub/mirrors/sawmill/ (thanks to Brian Connelly)
• http://ftp.fi.muni.cz/pub/linux/sawmill/ (problems to ftp-admin@fi.muni.cz)
• ftp://ftp.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/people/John.Harper/ (in the UK; also has nightly CVS snapshots)

To compile this you'll need GNU make, Imlib, my librep Lisp interpreter (0.9+), and the rep-gtk binding (0.7+) installed. Sources for some of these are:

• http://librep.sourceforge.net/
• http://rep-gtk.sourceforge.net/
• ftp://ftp.enlightenment.org/e/enlightenment/libs/

RPMs for Linux/i386 should be available in the same locations.

Here are some links to packages contributed by other people:

• [debian] http://www.rcpt.to/debian.html
• [deb/i386] http://www.devin.com/sawmill/
• [rpm/PPC] http://www.grad.math.uwaterloo.ca/~jrmacpha/Sawmill.html, http://ftp.linuxppc.org/ftp/contrib/linuxppc-1999/software/
• [rpm/Alpha] http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/conrad/sawmill/
• [rpm-rh5.2/i386] http://www.bluetree.ie/~kenn/sawmill/
• [rpm-mandrake7/i386] http://www.freezer-burn.org/rpm.php3

Alternatively you may use anonymous CVS to access the latest development sources (with no guarantees that they will work correctly, or even compile).

    cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sawmill.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/sawmill login
    cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sawmill.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/sawmill co sawmill

When prompted for a password for anonymous, simply press the Enter key. Updates from within the module's directory do not need the -d parameter. You can also browse the repository.

For more information see the included README and TODO files. All changes are listed in the NEWS file. The FAQ answers some of the most frequent questions people have asked.

There's also an HTML copy of the programming manual online.

There's now sawmill.themes.org which should include most available themes; thanks to everyone there for setting it up.

All themes that I've created are listed here.

There's now a sawmill mailing list available. To subscribe send a message to majordomo@aarg.net with "subscribe sawmill" in the body.

The list is archived at http://inanna.starseed.com/sawmill/.

Thanks to Erik Arneson for setting this up.

Thanks to Glyph Lefkowitz for the sawmill logo.

The permanent location for this page is http://sawmill.sourceforge.net/.

The sourceforge project page is http://sourceforge.net/project/?form_grp=32