Re: [xmonad] auto start apps on login, but not reloads

24 Mar 2017

      Thanks Brandon!

I've updated my config

  https://github.com/fommil/dotfiles/blob/master/xmonad/xmonad.hs  

and now my three apps startup on the correct workspaces! No apparent
issues with chromium.

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to have fixed the --reload problem, so
I guess args is always coming up non-null?

Brandon Allbery  writes:
...
On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 6:19 AM, Sam Halliday 
wrote:
...
Following http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10976044/ I have added the
following to my `startupHook`
startup :: X ()
    startup = do
              setWMName "LG3D"
              spawnOn "workspace1" "urxvt"
              spawnOn "workspace2" "emacs"
              spawnOn "workspace3" "chromium"
but there are three problems:
1. I am duplicating the definition of my terminal. It seems like I
   should be using
   [`shellPromptOn`](http://xmonad.org/xmonad-docs/xmonad-
contrib/XMonad-Actions-SpawnOn.html)
   but it takes an extra parameter and I don't know where to get it
   from.
No, that's an interactive prompt at a screen edge that asks for a command,
with built-in completion, and passes it to a shell. There is no terminal
involved, unless that is what you tell it to launch. (The `XPConfig` is the
configuration for an XMonad.Prompt screen edge popup window.)
2. this is putting everything on my current workspace. How can I find
...
out what my workspaces are called? I don't believe I've customised
   the names, you can see [my .xmonad/xmonad.hs on github to
   confirm](https://github.com/fommil/dotfiles/blob/master/.
xmonad/xmonad.hs)
You indeed haven't, so your workspaces are "1", "2", ... "9".
You're also missing manageSpawn in the manageHook, so nothing ever gets
moved anyway.
3. This will start the apps again on a `xmonad --restart`. How can we
...
guard against that? It is very useful to be able to restart xmonad
   without quitting and I don't want to lose that ability.
There isn't anything that combines the functionality of spawnOnce and
spawnOn currently. I replace the spawnOnce with a bit of a hack that checks
whether xmonad was launched with parameters (which it normally isn't, but a
restart passes the old state). Using your config as a template:
import Control.Monad
    import System.Environment
main = do
      args <- getArgs
      xmonad $ ewmh $ withUrgencyHook dzenUrgencyHook { args = ["-bg",
"darkgreen", "-xs", "1"] }
             $ defaultConfig {
               terminal = "urxvt"
             , startupHook = startup (null args)
             *-- and the rest here...*
        }
startup :: Bool -> X ()
    startup initial = do
                      setWMName "LG3D"
                      when initial $ do
                        spawnOn "1" "urxvt"
                        spawnOn "2" "emacs"
                        spawnOn "3" "chromium"
Note also that chromium can misbehave with spawnOn because we have to rely
on the window registering the same associated process ID as the one we get
back from running it, and it often isn't. See
https://wiki.haskell.org/Xmonad/General_xmonad.hs_config_tips#Terminal_emula...
for more information. (chromium is a bit worse in that many versions of its
wrapper script fork, so the pid will *never* match.)
-- 
brandon s allbery kf8nh                               sine nomine associates
allbery.b@gmail.com                                  ballbery@sinenomine.net
unix, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure, xmonad        http://sinenomine.net
-- 
Best regards,
Sam