When most window managers choose a place to put a window on the screen, the size and the position of the window is determined procedurally. This window will be put here because this is the best place, its size will be this, and the focus of the window will be that, unless this, this, or this has occurred, in which case the window will look like the other thing. Now, let it be known throughout the land that SCWM can handle things procedurally as well. In fact, most users will use SCWM in this manner, happily using all of the different window commands to shove windows willy-nilly all over the screen. Schemes Constraint Window Manager.
Constraints are mathematical specifications of a desired relationship.
In this case, the relationship is between the size, shape, and position of windows to similar aspects of other windows, and to the desktop itself. Such was the description I got when I spoke with Greg Badros, lead developer of SCWM, last week. Badros, who is now the Chief Technical Architect at Seattle-based InfoSpace, originally came up with the idea for SCWM as a project for his doctoral dissertation, as he wanted to create a graphical interface using just constraints, and not procedures. SCWM is an off-shoot of FVWM, which at the time was the most popular interface for X. Because of this, many of the procedural aspects for SCWM have their roots in FVWM practices. But, Badros emphasized, right now SCWM's closest cousin procedurally is actually Sawfish.