January 2009 - xmonad

Re: [xmonad] workspace switching and Xinerama
by Brent Yorgey 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 12:54:00PM +0100, Karl Hasselström wrote: > On 2009-01-26 11:32:25 -0500, Brent Yorgey wrote: > > Hmm, that's a tricky one. It should be possible in theory, but you > > would need to implement something pretty low-level to make it work, > > maybe even a brand new layout modifier based on the WindowNavigation > > one. This could make a nice project for someone. > > > > The problem is that there's no way (currently) for the > > WindowNavigation layout modifier to report what it did (whether it > > actually moved the focus to a different window or not), so no way to > > take another action conditioned on that result. > > Yeah, I thought that might be the case. A bit over my head at this > point, though -- I still haven't understood how the typing works with > sendMessage, for example. :-/ And I guess what has to be done is > provide a way for sendMessage to return stuff? Hmm, I guess that could > be faked with side effects in the X monad, but that doesn't seem > pretty. Actually, I was wrong! Check out the new XMonad.Actions.MessageFeedback, which was just applied in darcs. It lets you send a message and find out whether the message was handled---which, if WindowNavigation works at all in a sane manner, should tell you whether the movement command actually had any effect. You should be able to use this to pretty easily construct an action that first sends a motion command for WindowNavigation, and then conditionally does a nextScreen action or whatever, based on whether WindowNavigation responded to the message. -Brent

1 0

New User Impressions
by Kathryn Andersen 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

I am a new user of xmonad, but I've been poking around the mailing list, and noticed a rather old but interesting thread here: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.xmonad/3803/focus=3823 I know that was a long time ago, but I'd like to give my feedback anyway. I am using the version of xmonad which is available on Ubunti 8.10, xmonad version 0.8. Previous window managers I've used before xmonad: - Mwm and Twm were my first window managers, back in ancient history. - I think I moved to Vtwm next. - Fvwm (I keep coming back to this again and again and again; it's so wonderfully configurable) - CDE (but only because I was forced to for work) - back to Fvwm; there might have been a few others too - KDE (very pretty, but bloated and slow, limited configuration) - GNOME (not as pretty, just as bloated and limited) - back to Fvwm - wmi/wmii-2 (some great ideas, but a moving target; also the developers were unfriendly) - ion2/ion3 (some good ideas, very lacking in others) - back to Fvwm - Fvwm-crystal (basically a layer on top of Fvwm, very pretty) - Xfce (rather nice, middleweight, pretty; if it hadn't been for some resizing problems with small screens I might still have been using it on my eeePC) - wmii-3 (continued with the great ideas, but still not stable, and the developers are still unfriendly) I haven't tried Compiz because my video card isn't supported. About xmonad: 1) What things annoy you? a) The way the mouse behaves on focus-change. The normal behaviour has meant that sometimes I have clicked to paste a selection, and it went into the wrong window. However, when I had the UpdatePointer plugin installed, it was lovely, until I tried to use GIMP, and then the pointer moved when I didn't want it to. I can't win. b) The lack of screenshots of the different layouts; the only way of figuring out what they do is to enable them and see what happens. c) Documentation of layouts and plugins is varied; some are good, with examples, others are just cryptic. 2) What things do you like? a) Lots of plugins, so one doesn't have to learn Haskell before one can configure xmonad. b) Support of EWMH struts in two ways; I like being able to have a status bar and system monitor on every workspace. On one system I use the ManageDocks, and on another system I use the Gaps layout (because I use conky there, and it doesn't support partial struts) c) The flexibility of what one can use for status bars (on the other hand, this has a downside, because there is a learning curve for configuring said status bars) d) Reloading the config on the fly. e) If you pick a certain layout, it behaves the same way every time. f) It is blindingly fast. g) It is stable. h) The Lambda-in-X logo (Well, I do like it! I like the allusion to the Lamda Calculus) 3) What things can be done better? a) Theming. It's a bit clunky at this point. Some things are defined in xmonad.hs, some things are defined in the xmobar/dzen config, some things are defined in the script I use to call dmenu. One can't really change the theme on the fly. 4) What things are missing? a) xmonad appears to support fewer keybindings than other window managers; however, I got around this by installing xbindkeys and using those keys-which-xmonad-does-not-support to spawn programs rather than control the window manager. See also (1) and (5). 5) What things do you miss from ion/wmii/dwm/compiz? a) From ion, the way the tabbing worked; specifically that any frame could be tabbed, and that one could drag-and-drop tabs from one frame to another. Sure, the Tabbed layout supports some of this, but not all of it. b) From wmii, I miss the way one can click on the status bar labels to change workspaces. It's no good running an external pager, because they are *graphical*, they don't show the workspace labels, and it's the workspace labels that I like. And while xmobar and dzen2 can display the current workspace information, one can't click on them to change workspaces. c) I really miss the eyecandy of Xfce and Fvwm. Yes, we don't *need* things to be pretty, but I like being able to have a choice between 3D and flat borders, I like being able to make really cool semi-translucent themes, I miss gradients and pixmaps, I liked being able to make an Xfce theme where the titlebar looked like frosted glass framed in silver and gold. d) I do miss being able to close a window by clicking on a "close" button in the titlebar. Modkey-Shift-c is a bit clunky, though I do understand that it needs to be so, in order to prevent accidental closure of windows. However, sometimes one gets a situation where an application has locked up the keyboard, and the only thing working is the mouse, and one needs to be able to use the mouse to kill the offending application. e) I miss being able to drag floating windows by the titlebar; having to hold down the mod key before I can move them is annoying, because it requires two hands rather than one. 6) What things do you not miss from ion/wmii/dwm/compiz? a) I don't miss the failure of wmii to support EWMH struts. b) I don't miss having to readjust columns in wmii every time one added or deleted a window. c) I don't miss the having-to-move-stuff-around of non-tiling window managers. d) I don't miss the constant switching between mouse and keyboard which happens with non-tiling window managers. Kathryn Andersen -- _--_|\ | Kathryn Andersen <http://www.katspace.com> / \ | \_.--.*/ | GenFicCrit mailing list <http://www.katspace.com/gen_fic_crit/> v | ------------| Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia -> Southern Hemisphere Maranatha! | -> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy -> Universe

2 1

how do I get a layout like this?
by Karl Hasselström 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

[ Apologies if this is a duplicate -- I haven't seen it show up on the list, so I'm resending from the address that I subscribed with. ] Hi all. I just started using xmonad, and there's a layout I want to have but can't quite figure out how to get. I'm sure it's just a matter of gluing the right pieces from the contrib library together, but I haven't gotten it right yet. I want the workspace to be divided vertically into two areas. Each area should show just one window at a time. Pressing Alt-Tab (or something) should cycle through, in the currently focused half of the screen, all windows except the one that's visible in the other area. The idea being that visible but non-focused windows should stay visible and non-focused. For example, assume the workspace has five windows, A through E, with C and E currently visible. Alt-Tabbing when the focus is on the left half of the workspace should cycle through A, B, C, and D; if the right half is focused, we should cycle through A, B, D, and E. XMonad.Actions.CycleWS lets me do exactly this with workspaces and two Xinerama screens, by binding (moveTo Next HiddenNonEmptyWS) to a key. -- Karl Hasselström, kha(a)treskal.com www.treskal.com/kalle

4 5

submapDefault patch - default action for submaps
by Anders Engström 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

Hi. I made some small changes to XMonad.Actions.Submap to add support for a default action to take when the key doesn't match. My reason for creating this patch is to be able to use sticky submaps that only exit on a specific key, but I am sure it can be used for a lot of other things, for example a multi-level on-screen-display menu. Example: entersub = submapDefault entersub sublist sublist = M.fromList $ [ ((0, xK_Escape), return ()) , ((0, xK_u), spawn "mpc toggle" >> entersub) ] And then bind a key to entersub. Well, this is the first patch I am commiting, so I hope everything is to your liking. Very good development tutorial for modules by the way. Regards, Anders Engström.

2 1

Issue 199 in xmonad: Prompt.AppendFile crashes when file is not writable
by codesite-noreply＠google.com 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

Updates: Status: Invalid Comment #8 on issue 199 by byorgey: Prompt.AppendFile crashes when file is not writable http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=199 Seems no one can reproduce this, so I'm closing it. -- 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

1 0

Issue 266 in xmonad: Bug in documentation for CycleWS
by codesite-noreply＠google.com 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

Updates: Status: Fixed Comment #1 on issue 266 by roma(a)ro-che.info: Bug in documentation for CycleWS http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=266 Fixed in darcs, thanks. (BTW it works fine with more recent haddock) -- 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

1 0

darcs patch: A mosaic layout based on MosaicAlt
by Adam Vogt 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

Fri Jan 23 21:20:58 EST 2009 Adam Vogt <vogt.adam(a)gmail.com> * A mosaic layout based on MosaicAlt The position of a window in the stack determines its position and layout. And the overall tendency to make wide or tall windows can be changed, though not all of the options presented by MosaicAlt can be reached, the layout changes with each aspect ratio message.

2 7

darcs patch: intelligent searches in XMonad.Action.Search
by Michał Trybus 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

Hi, Here's a patch for something I've been missing in the Search action. It makes it possible to create your own search engine which uses a function to transform a search query into a URL instead of joining two strings. You can also easily connect many search engines into one that takes a query with a prefix to identify which of the engine to use. There's also a modifier which will take a search engine and wrap it so that if the search term is a URL it will go directly to the address (useful with selectSearch) Sorry for my code. I'm new to haskell. -- Michal Trybus

2 2

Issue 266 in xmonad: Bug in documentation for CycleWS
by codesite-noreply＠google.com 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

Status: New Owner: ---- New issue 266 by ankaan: Bug in documentation for CycleWS http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=266 What steps will reproduce the problem? 1. Read documentation for XMonad.Actions.CycleWS What is the expected output? What do you see instead? Notice the omission of the constructor HiddenWS for WSType. What version of the product are you using? On what operating system? Latest from darcs (last patch from Sun Jan 25 05:12:29 CET 2009), also visible in the version on the web (0.8). Please provide any additional information below. Fix the indentation of the line containing the constructor. If this error is due to a module from XMonadContrib, please tag this issue with 'Component-Contrib' below. Component-Contrib -- 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

1 0

Issue 265 in xmonad: Scrambled Firefox windows with CSS background image
by codesite-noreply＠google.com 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

Comment #1 on issue 265 by gnu.lu0: Scrambled Firefox windows with CSS background image http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=265 If you aren't sure that it is xmonads fault, try it with a different window manager. Here, under Linux and xmonad 0.8, I can't reproduce this but had problems with the output of firefox when a composite manager was enabled. Maybe this info could help you. -- 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

1 0