Ragnar

Ragnar is a feature-rich, straight-to-the-point dynamic window manager for X11.

Ragnar is designed to work as both a foundation for full desktop environments and as a minimal daily-driver window manager. The project stays compact at roughly 5,000 lines of code while still providing core window manager features such as:

• IPC support
• External configuration
• Tiling layouts
• EWMH and ICCCM support
• Reparenting-based window decoration
• Runtime configuration reloads

Since version 2.0, Ragnar uses the XCB API to communicate with the X server. XCB provides a lower-level alternative to Xlib and gives Ragnar more direct control over X11 interactions.

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Installation

Installing Ragnar involves two steps.

1. Install build dependencies

Install the following dependencies:

libxcb \
libx11 \
xcb-util-keysyms \
xcb-util-cursor \
xcb-util-wm \
xorg-server \
xorg-xinit \
libconfig

2. Install Ragnar

Run the installation script from the project root:

./install.sh

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Technical Overview

Window Management

Ragnar uses reparenting to manage client windows. This allows the window manager to create and control decorations around client windows.

Client windows are stored in a doubly linked list. For tiling, Ragnar does not use a tree-based layout system. Instead, it provides preset layouts with predictable structure. This keeps window placement simple and avoids requiring the user to manually decide where each new window should appear.

Layouts can still be adjusted at runtime by changing the size of master and slave areas through keybindings.

IPC

Ragnar includes an abstracted IPC API for plugin development and external control.

The IPC system communicates through a socket using binary data. This allows external programs to interact with the window manager in a structured way.

Configuration

Ragnar uses libconfig to load an external configuration file:

# by default, system-wide:
/etc/ragnarwm/ragnar.cfg
# or mkdir -p and cp the default per user.
~/.config/ragnarwm/ragnar.cfg

The configuration is loaded on startup and can be reloaded while the window manager is running, typically through a keybinding (Super+C).

Example contents of .xinitrc:

feh --bg-fill ~/Downloads/nerd.jpg;
xset s off -dpms;
picom -b; polybar &
exec ragnar

Then simply; startx (and pkill xinit to stop it.)

By default it uses alacritty (Super+Return) and dmenu (Super+S), if you haven't edited these yet. Both of these need fonts file; for instance ttf-dejavu

Other optional deps can be seen in: PKGBUILD, might differ per distro/configuration.

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Code Structure

funcs.h

Contains documented function declarations used throughout the window manager.

This file does not contain callback functions triggered by keybindings.

keycallbacks.h

Contains documented definitions of callback functions that can be assigned to keybindings in the configuration file.

ragnar.c

The main translation unit of the window manager.

It contains the core implementation, including:

• The application loop
• Event handling
• Window management logic
• Layout calculations
• System-level window manager behavior

structs.h

Contains shared structures and function declarations used across the codebase.

config.h / config.c

Handles loading and parsing the Ragnar configuration file through libconfig.

ipc/socket.h / ipc/socket.c

Implements socket handling for IPC clients.

realtime.c

Infrastructure for faster response time of keybinds.