November 2007 - xmonad

Remote Controlling XMonad: Cases and Materials
by Andrea Rossato 24 Feb '08

24 Feb '08

Hi, this is a follow up of the thread started by Zed Lopez[1] on controlling XMonad remotely. Stefan O'Rear proposed a solution[2] and I implemented it[3]. We briefly discussed this solution on the #xmonad channel[4] and I thought some more documentation was needed on the methodology to use to achieve the goal. allbery_b reported that such an approach has been used by Mozilla, so I wanted to find more examples to study. Zed said that it was missing this feature from Ratpoison.[5] BTW, the successor of Ratpoison, Stumpwm is developed in Common Lisp...;-) So I went to have a look at how ratpoison deals with the subject and this is what I discovered[7,8]. This is what happens in Ratpoison: a. the Client (that sends the command): 1. creates w simple window 1 pixel width 2. sets an atom (RP_COMMAND) with a command to that window 3. sets an atom (RP_COMMAND_REQUEST) in the root window with XChangeProperty: this atom carries the first window id 4. waits for a propertyNotify to be sent to this window b. Ratpoison: 1. gets the property of the root window (which will return the id of the window containing the command string) 2. searches the window with the command string and executes the command 3. writes an atom (RP_COMMAND_RESULT) to the window with the command result. This will send the propertyNotify the will unblock the client. A similar approach is also used by Enlightment (see src/comms.c) and its remote shell Eesh (see Eesh.xs). WMII, instead, uses libipx and a Plan9 approach (I must confess I don't know much about P9), while DWM has no remote control capability. Now, attached you'll find two archives. The first one is a simple way of running commands from an external program, without a two way communication. It is basically a refactoring of the patch I've already sent[3]. It is simple and effective. I had no problem running it here. The second archive (xrcRatpoisonWay.tar.gz) instead is the ratpoison implementation: I literally copied the algorithm. And there's is a problem. This code produces an X server crash every now and then. I cannot reproduce it and, no matter how many times I read it, I cannot find a bug in my code. I believe there's something wrong with Xlib.Extras.rawGetWindowProperty (a null pointer?). Indeed if you change in ServerMode.hs: let c' = Just [118,105,101,119,49] --c' <- io $ getWindowProperty8 dpy c win no more crashes. You may also see that the command execution sometimes fails. Is that something that used to happen in Ratpoison too? Anyway it is something I think it is worth to investigate a bit more. And I think I will. BTW, these patches require a vary small modification to XMonad itself. XMonad has just to wait for a propertyNotify event sent to the root window. If that happens a hook is called (I named that hook serverHook). I do not want you to equivocate: I'm not pushing for this patch to be included, but I thought to report here some of the information I was able to gather on the subject. Moreover, as far as I can understand, there's is not so much interest in this feature. But here this stuff proved to be quite addictive...;-) Thanks for your kind attention. Andrea [1] see http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/xmonad/2007-July/001502.html [2] see http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/xmonad/2007-July/001509.html [3] see http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/xmonad/2007-July/001533.html [4] see http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/irc/xmonad/2007-07-26.txt [5] http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/ [6] http://www.nongnu.org/stumpwm/ [7] see also http://cvs.savannah.nongnu.org/viewvc/ratpoison/src/communications.c?root=r… [8] see also receive_command() and execute_remote_command() and related comments here: http://cvs.savannah.nongnu.org/viewvc/ratpoison/src/events.c?root=ratpoison… [9] http://search.cpan.org/~rbs/Eesh-0.3/

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darcs patch: reword comment (previous version didn't make sense to me)
by Lukas Mai 07 Jan '08

07 Jan '08

Thu Nov 22 17:59:25 CET 2007 Lukas Mai <l.mai(a)web.de> * reword comment (previous version didn't make sense to me)

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Component-Contrib: patch LayoutScreens.hs
by Jacula Modyun 07 Dec '07

07 Dec '07

Hello haskellers, Configuring my first xmonad start, I ran into a little misspelling mistake in the LayoutScreens.hs usage notes. The patch is, I think, self explanatory. Thank you -- Start Patch -- --- XMonadContrib/LayoutScreens.hs.orig 2007-11-30 09:40:48.000000000 +0000 +++ XMonadContrib/LayoutScreens.hs 2007-11-30 09:41:42.000000000 +0000 @@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ -- > import XMonadContrib.LayoutScreens -- -- > , ((modMask .|. shiftMask, xK_space), --- > layoutScreens 1 (fixedLayout $ Rectangle 0 0 1024 768)) +-- > layoutScreens 1 (fixedLayout $ [Rectangle 0 0 1024 768])) -- > , ((controlMask .|. modMask .|. shiftMask, xK_space), rescreen) -- %import XMonadContrib.LayoutScreens

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xmonad 0.4 now in debian
by Joachim Breitner 07 Dec '07

07 Dec '07

Hi, this weekend, my xmonad 0.4 packages (including X11-extras and XMonadContrib) have been accepted to Debian unstable, and should be apt-get’able for anyone using that distribution. From there, they will probably migrate to Ubuntu as well somehow. Interesting links: Package pages: http://packages.debian.org/sid/xmonad http://packages.debian.org/sid/xmonad-rebuild http://packages.debian.org/sid/xmonadcontrib Bug page (not much yet :-)): http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?pkg=xmonad;dist=unstable I hope that this will give xmonad a wider audience. Greetings, Joachim -- Joachim "nomeata" Breitner mail: mail(a)joachim-breitner.de | ICQ# 74513189 | GPG-Key: 4743206C JID: joachimbreitner(a)amessage.de | http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ Debian Developer: nomeata(a)debian.org

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Prompt: Keys not working
by Dominik Bruhn 02 Dec '07

02 Dec '07

Hy, as mentioned before I use xmonad and xmonad-contrib from darcs. The Prompt-Plugin (the problem occurs both in ssh-prompt and append to file) got a bug imho: By looking into the code I found out that you can exit the prompt with a CTRL+c and move in the prompt like on Bash using CTRL+a and CTRL+e. All these command dont work at all, alle command which use a CTRL Modifier generate strange characters in the Commandprompt but dont do anything. For example the CTRL+c generates a strange chineese looking charakter, the CTRL+a produces a black dot. Perhaps its a problem with my setup: The whole system is UTF-8, but in all other applications (bash, urxvt for example) these shortcuts work so I think its a problem with xmonad. Can anybody help me with this? -- Dominik Bruhn mailto: dominik(a)dbruhn.de

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darcs patch: update XSelection.hs; apparently the utf8-string libra...
by gwern0＠gmail.com 01 Dec '07

01 Dec '07

Fri Nov 30 11:14:29 EST 2007 gwern0(a)gmail.com * update XSelection.hs; apparently the utf8-string library has updated Note that this does not fix the apparent problems with actually using getSelection, even though it works fine from a GHCi prompt...

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darcs patch: make Query a MonadIO
by Lukas Mai 01 Dec '07

01 Dec '07

Wed Nov 28 20:51:26 CET 2007 Lukas Mai <l.mai(a)web.de> * make Query a MonadIO

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Issue 96 in xmonad: certain dialogs get dropped in gnucash
by codesite-noreply＠google.com 01 Dec '07

01 Dec '07

Issue 96: certain dialogs get dropped in gnucash http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=96 New issue report by and...@farwestbilliards.com: What steps will reproduce the problem? 1. open gnucash in xmonad 0.4 or later (bug confirmed in darcs as of 11/30/07 by byorgey on #xmonad). 2. select Edit->Find 3. Find dialog spawns and then dies. Not up long enough to finish drawing What is the expected output? What do you see instead? To spawn the dialog and allow it to persist. Instead it just vanishes immediately. What version of the product are you using? On what operating system? 0.4 on debian sid, up-to-date Please provide any additional information below. Interesting corner-case symptom: 1. open gnucash 2. select Business -> Vendor -> New Bill... -> Select button. It fails on the first click, but succeeds on the second. This makes me think it could *possibly* be a gnucash issue, because why would the dialog appear differently the second time? but that's a vague guess on my part. The other "find" dialogs exhibit this behavior as well: Business -> Vendor|Customer -> Find Bill|Job I'm not prepared to call this just a WM error, but the devs at gnucash are of the idea that it is. Note that this behavior only shows up in xmonad and E17 (of all things). GNOME, KDE, IceWM, XFCE, wmii2, dwm all work properly. thanks Issue attributes: Status: New Owner: ---- Labels: Type-Defect Priority-Medium -- You received this message because you are listed in the owner or CC fields of this issue, or because you starred this issue. You may adjust your issue notification preferences at: http://code.google.com/hosting/settings

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can't configure xmonad with the latest GHC
by Valery V. Vorotyntsev 01 Dec '07

01 Dec '07

Houston, I've got a problem. Having the latest GHC from darcs installed, I cannot configure xmonad any more. vvv@fun:~/src/xmonad$ runhaskell Setup.lhs clean cleaning... vvv@fun:~/src/xmonad$ runhaskell Setup.lhs configure --user --prefix=$HOME Configuring xmonad-0.4... Setup.lhs: At least the following dependencies are missing: base <3, unix -any vvv@fun:~/src/xmonad$ runhaskell Setup.lhs configure --prefix=$HOME Configuring xmonad-0.4... Setup.lhs: At least the following dependencies are missing: X11 ==1.4.0, mtl -any The dependencies are actually there, AFAIU: vvv@fun:~/src/xmonad$ ghc-pkg list /home/vvv/lib/ghc-6.9.20071125/package.conf: Cabal-1.3, array-0.1, base-3.0, bytestring-0.9, containers-0.1, directory-1.0, filepath-1.1, (ghc-6.9.20071125), haskell98-1.0.1, hpc-0.5, old-locale-1.0, old-time-1.0, packedstring-0.1, pretty-1.0, process-1.0, random-1.0, readline-1.0.1, rts-1.0, template-haskell-2.2, unix-2.2 /home/vvv/.ghc/i386-linux-6.9.20071125/package.conf: X11-1.4.0, mtl-1.1.0.0 A hint is highly welcome. ;) -- vvv

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Component-Contrib: patch LayoutScreens.hs
by Jacula Modyun 01 Dec '07

01 Dec '07

Hello haskellers, Configuring my first xmonad start, I ran into a little misspelling mistake in the LayoutScreens.hs usage notes. The patch is, I think, self explanatory. Thank you -- I've finally learned what "upward compatible" means. It means we get to keep all our old mistakes. -- Dennie van Tassel

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Ssh-Prompt: Completion
by Dominik Bruhn 30 Nov '07

30 Nov '07

Hy, im currently using XMonad and XMonadContrib from darcs. There seems one problem: The completion for the ssh-prompt is not working at all. Although I have no knowledge of haskell at all I think the code includes this completion but tries to read the ~/.ssh/known_hosts. This file exists but does not contain the ssh-hosts I connected to in cleartext so they get skipped. On the otherside the file ~/.xmonad_history contains all the hosts I conntected to but this file is not taken into account uppon completion. Is this a bug or a feature? Is it possible to fix? Thanks a lot -- Dominik Bruhn mailto: dominik(a)dbruhn.de

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Trouble configuring xmonad on gentoo
by Nathan Huesken 30 Nov '07

30 Nov '07

Hello together, I am new to xmonad. I installed it on my gentoo system using the haskell overlay and "emerge xmonad". No I want to change the configuration: I tried uncommenting the following lines in /etc/portage/savedconfig/x11-wm/xmonad-0.4.1: (Line 69) import qualified XMonadContrib.HintedTile (Line 248) , XMonadContrib.HintedTile.tall nmaster delta ratio and did emerge -av xmonad: Calculating dependencies... done! [ebuild R ] x11-wm/xmonad-0.4.1 USE="extensions savedconfig" 0 kB (...) Building xmonad-0.4.1... [1 of 7] Compiling StackSet ( StackSet.hs, dist/build/xmonad/xmonad-tmp/StackSet.o ) [2 of 7] Compiling XMonad ( XMonad.hs, dist/build/xmonad/xmonad-tmp/XMonad.o ) [3 of 7] Compiling Config[boot] ( Config.hs-boot, nothing ) [4 of 7] Compiling Operations ( Operations.hs, dist/build/xmonad/xmonad-tmp/Operations.o ) [5 of 7] Compiling XMonadContrib.HintedTile ( XMonadContrib/HintedTile.hs, dist/build/xmonad/xmonad-tmp/XMonadContrib/HintedTile.o ) XMonadContrib/HintedTile.hs:55:13: Not in scope: `modifyLayout' What am I doing wrong? Thanks! nathan

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new contrib modules in XMonad.Prompt
by Brent Yorgey 29 Nov '07

29 Nov '07

Hi all, I just pushed a few new contrib modules and wanted to highlight them here in case anyone might find them useful, or think of something interesting to do with them. Basically, I just discovered the excellent XMonad.Promptframework and have been playing around with it. * The first is XMonad.Prompt.AppendFile, which simply provides a prompt for you to type a single line of text which should be appended to a file. I use it for quickly writing down notes/reminders/todos that pop into my head into a special file, when I don't want to interrupt whatever else I'm doing. You could also use it for, say, writing a new xmonad contrib module line-by-line, although I don't recommend it. =) * The next is (IMO) the most interesting, XMonad.Prompt.Input. It provides a nice, modular way to build actions which require user input, using the existing prompt system to get the user input. I also refactored XMonad.Prompt a bit to make this possible. * XMonad.Prompt.Email is a simple example of the sort of thing that's possible with XMonad.Prompt.Input; it prompts the user for a recipient, a subject, and a short (one-line) body, and sends an e-mail via the GNU 'mail' utility. Comments, suggestions, and (especially) patches welcome! -Brent

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Issue 4 in xmonad: Separate focus for tiled and floating layers
by codesite-noreply＠google.com 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Issue 4: Separate focus for tiled and floating layers http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=4 Comment #8 by daveroundy: This doesn't only affect fullscreen mode: it effects any mode that uses the focus to determine layout, which includes tabbed, magnifier, accordion, etc. -- You received this message because you are listed in the owner or CC fields of this issue, or because you starred this issue. You may adjust your issue notification preferences at: http://code.google.com/hosting/settings

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Issue 95 in xmonad: Improve floating layer usability
by codesite-noreply＠google.com 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Issue 95: Improve floating layer usability http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=95 Comment #3 by daveroundy: See also issue 4. -- You received this message because you are listed in the owner or CC fields of this issue, or because you starred this issue. You may adjust your issue notification preferences at: http://code.google.com/hosting/settings

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Issue 95 in xmonad: Improve floating layer usability
by codesite-noreply＠google.com 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Issue 95: Improve floating layer usability http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=95 Comment #2 by daveroundy: I'd just like to suggest that you could experiment with an alternate floating mode by writing a floating layout (which would make everything be floating) and then combining it with a tiling layout using combineTwo. You could then define JumpToLayout keybindings to float and sink windows between the two layouts. It's slightly hacky, but would mean that your code could be put into contrib before it's complete, so others could easily help out. -- You received this message because you are listed in the owner or CC fields of this issue, or because you starred this issue. You may adjust your issue notification preferences at: http://code.google.com/hosting/settings

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Issue 95 in xmonad: Improve floating layer usability
by codesite-noreply＠google.com 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Issue 95: Improve floating layer usability http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=95 Comment #1 by m...@christian-thiemann.de: This issue was bugging me a lot last week while preparing images for a presentation with gimp... so I already started looking into the code on how to fix this. As far as I understood, floating windows are simply tagged to be floating while the (visual) window stacking order is determined by the stacking order in the StackSet. In my opinion and as you said, the only defect of the floating layer is the lack of a raise function that can be triggered either by mouse (raise-on-click) or by keyboard (just to be consistent with the "keyboardless window manager" approach... although most people would probably use the mouse in the floating mode...). This could be done either by simply rearranging the windows in the StackSet or by maintaining an additional ordered list of floating windows (which are not present in the tiling stack). The former approach has the side effect that a floating window will not sink back into the same position where it was when set to floatig while the latter solution is just... er... I don't know... I actually like the first one better for conceptual reasons... Unless somebody immediately know how to code this, I would be happy to implement... but currently I am quite busy so I won't get on it before the weekend, I guess. Cheers, Christian -- You received this message because you are listed in the owner or CC fields of this issue, or because you starred this issue. You may adjust your issue notification preferences at: http://code.google.com/hosting/settings

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Issue 95 in xmonad: Improve floating layer usability
by codesite-noreply＠google.com 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Issue 95: Improve floating layer usability http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=95 New issue report by dons00: Now that we float things like gimp by default, the floating layer needs some thought as to usability. The currently raise, and stacking, behaviour can be annoying or confusing. I suggest we try to just emulate a simple wm like fluxbox, in the floating layer (raise on click, no reshuffling). likely needs stackset changes. Issue attributes: Status: Accepted Owner: dons00 Labels: Type-Enhancement Priority-Medium Milestone-Release0.6 -- You received this message because you are listed in the owner or CC fields of this issue, or because you starred this issue. You may adjust your issue notification preferences at: http://code.google.com/hosting/settings

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Issue 94 in xmonad: Reduce required imports in xmonad.hs configuration files
by codesite-noreply＠google.com 27 Nov '07

27 Nov '07

Issue 94: Reduce required imports in xmonad.hs configuration files http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=94 New issue report by SpencerJanssen: Users must import XMonad.StackSet and Data.Map explicitly in many typical config files, they should not have to do this. Issue attributes: Status: Accepted Owner: SpencerJanssen Labels: Type-Defect Priority-Medium Milestone-Release0.5 -- You received this message because you are listed in the owner or CC fields of this issue, or because you starred this issue. You may adjust your issue notification preferences at: http://code.google.com/hosting/settings

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Window headers - as in Tabbed Layout - for Tall Layout
by Nicola Paolucci 26 Nov '07

26 Nov '07

Hi All, I've been using xmonad with great joy for the past months. It is wonderful, compact and elegant. Love it. Thank you all. I like the Tabbed Layout and I was wondering if a similar extension already exists that allows to put window headers on the Tall Layout. I mean something to add a small title bar with the name of the program on top of each window in Tall mode. I have gone through the contrib modules but could not find it. If it does not exist yet I'd love to experiment a bit and try to write it myself. Am I on the right track if I use a LayoutModifier to be applied to the Tall Layout? Thanks, Regards, Nick -- The universe is a giant Rorschach ink-blot - Alan Watts

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] emacs haskellers: r-stripping files becomes popular
by Brent Yorgey 25 Nov '07

25 Nov '07

On Nov 24, 2007 10:55 PM, Conal Elliott <conal(a)conal.net> wrote: > why care about trailing whitespace? > Probably because it looks bad in darcs patch summaries (trailing whitespace --> little red dollar signs). Unless there's another reason I don't know about. -Brent

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darcs patch: Move XMonad.Layouts to XMonad.Layout for... (and 1 more)
by Andrea Rossato 24 Nov '07

24 Nov '07

Hi this patch is to be applied together with the one that follows. andrea Sat Nov 24 15:30:00 CET 2007 Andrea Rossato <andrea.rossato(a)unibz.it> * Move XMonad.Layouts to XMonad.Layout for uniformity with xmc Sat Nov 24 15:32:21 CET 2007 Andrea Rossato <andrea.rossato(a)unibz.it> * Typos and formatting

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darcs patch: Move XMonad.Layouts to XMonad.Layout
by Andrea Rossato 24 Nov '07

24 Nov '07

hi this is to be applied with the one I've just sent. andrea Sat Nov 24 15:33:01 CET 2007 Andrea Rossato <andrea.rossato(a)unibz.it> * Move XMonad.Layouts to XMonad.Layout

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the new documentation system
by Andrea Rossato 24 Nov '07

24 Nov '07

hi, as you know I'm working to a new documentation system. Now the documentation of the xmonad-contrib library is generated with haddock and store in the XMonad.Doc name space. I created four files: XMonad.Doc.hs XMonad.Doc.Configuring.hs XMonad.Doc.Extending.hs XMonad.Doc.Developing.hs The first is a brief overview of xmonad, and links to the other files. The second, almost done, is a brief tutorial on how configuring xmonad. The third (Extending.hs) is a description of the library content and a more detailed guide to configuring xmonad. The manageHook and the logHook are still to be documented, also because I'm waiting for the new interface with the monoid instance. The forth is a brief commentary to the core code to be used as an introduction to writing new extensions. I also started to port each module to the new documentation system. This is what I'm doing: - libraries for other modules: a brief documentation and a couple of links to modules using the library. - actions to be linked to some key binding: an example of the key binding (it must be possible to paste the example in the .xmonad/xmonad.hs file) with a link to XMonad.Doc.Extending#Editing_key_bindings - layouts: an example of layoutHook and a link to XMonad.Doc.Extending#Editing_the_layout_hook - hooks: this should link to the appropriate section of XMonad.Doc.Extending (still to be done). The XMonad.Util, XMonad.Prompt are almost done. I'm almost done with XMonad.Layout. The documentation is linked to the colorized (with hscolour) source. Here the results: http://gorgias.mine.nu/xmonad/xmonad-contrib/index.html You can use it as an example for documenting modules without updated docs. If you want to help you can: - start fixing modules starting from the XMonad.Action name space (not to interfere with me); - check for typos; - rephrase and modify when you think my English is not clear (it is not my mother tongue); - correct mistakes. Thanks for your help. Andrea

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] emacs haskellers: r-stripping files becomes popular
by Valery V. Vorotyntsev 23 Nov '07

23 Nov '07

On 11/23/07, Greg Heartsfield <scsibug(a)imap.cc> wrote: > Additionally, I find this to be helpful for keeping out trailing > whitespace: > > ;; Highlight trailing whitespace in haskell files > (add-hook 'haskell-mode-hook > '(lambda () > (setq show-trailing-whitespace t))) Indeed. :)

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