Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

von_Wanderlust · 2009-06-18 18:15:15

For anyone that wants to try it, it's in [community] so you can install via pacman and run straight from dmenu. You'll prob want to add the -C switch (ie enter 'superswitcher -C' as the command in dmenu) to enable the Caps lock since most(?) of us probably rely on the super/mod4 key for musca commands. There's no man page but it's pretty intuitive, just hit the Caps key and find your way around with the arrows. Also, Caps+Insert = add group, Caps+Delete = delete group (provided no windows), Caps+Esc = kill window. More info here http://code.google.com/p/superswitcher/

aerosuidae · 2009-06-18 22:15:36

@SpeedVin: http://aerosuidae.net/musca/Settings ... see border_width.

Barghest · 2009-06-19 19:54:15

Thanks for the hint on superswitcher.

Is there a way to use "scroll lock" for launching (caps is used for ö, ü, etc.)?

Oh...and I'm a bit confused about vertical and horizontal split. In my understanding, splitting something horizontally goes like
| |
|--------|
| |

But when I use Mod4+h the split goes vertically

| | |
| | |
| | |

Am I missing something?

Last edited by Barghest (2009-06-19 20:59:06)

von_Wanderlust · 2009-06-20 04:00:01

Barghest wrote:

Am I missing something?

Yeah, I had that feeling too. I think what it is doing is splitting it on the horizontal axis, so it splits the 'x' axis into two, the result of which is 2 windows vertically aligned. I guess it depends on how our brain looks at things. At least you can swap the keys around easily in .musca_start.

To get around my brain issues, I swapped mine to the minus key for vertical, and the pipe key for horizontal. The keys give the visual representation of what it will look like once the split has been made.

bind off  Mod4+h               
bind off  Mod4+v   
bind on   Mod4+Shift+backslash hsplit 1/2
bind on   Mod4+minus           vsplit 1/2

I also set up Mod4+Delete as the remove key, essentially moving the creation/deletion of windows solely to that right-hand corner of the keyboard. I just realised it also matches the superscreen delete group action, but with a different mod key.

Sh!t, I probably spend more time on trying to set up productive key bindings (in vW''s eyes anway) than actually being productive!

Re setting a different key in superswitcher, I have found the place to do it, you need to amend popup.c in the source code. I did it by adding a line to the build section in PKGBUILD that substitutes the key. I changed the delete window action from Esc to x, and did it like this.

sed -i -e 's/XK_Escape/XK_x/' src/popup.c

Last edited by von_Wanderlust (2009-06-20 05:35:10)

Peasantoid · 2009-06-20 04:03:30

Here's how I see it:
vsplit -> two windows in a row vertically
hsplit -> two windows in a row horizontally

Barghest · 2009-06-20 08:49:03

von_Wanderlust wrote:

At least you can swap the keys around easily in .musca_start.

Yes, this is what I did: I just swapped Mod4+v and Mod4+h

Sh!t, I probably spend more time on trying to set up productive key bindings (in vW''s eyes anway) than actually being productive!

I feel with you ;b But it's so much fun and for me setting up my system has a huge learning effect.

Re setting a different key in superswitcher, I have found the place to do it, you need to amend popup.c in the source code. I did it by adding a line to the build section in PKGBUILD that substitutes the key. I changed the delete window action from Esc to x, and did it like this.
sed -i -e 's/XK_Escape/XK_x/' src/popup.c

Yes, this works but not for changing the initial popup key. I think this is defined in src/superswitcher.c (line 209?) but I don't know if this can be easily changed via PKGBUILD.

/edit: Ok, it is that easy

sed -i -e 's/XK_Super_L/XK_Scroll_Lock/'    src/superswitcher.c

changes the key for popup. Unfortunately Scroll_Lock isn't a very good shortcut... I need to think again on how I like to invoke superswitcher.

Last edited by Barghest (2009-06-20 08:54:11)

Barghest · 2009-06-20 13:21:08

It's me again

I have some feature requests for this awesome wm (and a few issues):

1. I love the feature, that you can have more than one app in a single frame and cycle through them. This would be even better (for me :b ) if I could "fix" the current apps to the current frame. Scenario: My screen is divided and in one is OpenOffice in the other a terminal. When I now open a new document it shares the frame with the former one. When I now split the frame with the terminal, say to open another terminal, one of the OO documents automatically goes in the new and smaller frame. Here is my idea/wish: A function that new frames aren't automatically used. I don't know if this is possible or if I'm the only one who think that this was useful ;b

2. Is it possible to add the possibility to manually move dialogue boxes around? When I perform a search in geany I can't move the search window around (AFAIK in awesome this is possible).

3. When I use VirtualBox, I cant use any musca commands anymore (e.g. calling dmenu, switching groups). The only way is to click in the padding area from where I can call the commands.

4. GuildWars started via wine doesn't get keyboard focus. When I have thunar in the background and I want to type in my password the thunar search pops up. When I'm in stacked mode, the windows "flows" to the left corner on the bottom.

Best wishes

barghest

Runiq · 2009-06-20 14:33:34

von_Wanderlust wrote:

To get around my brain issues, I swapped mine to the minus key for vertical, and the pipe key for horizontal. The keys give the visual representation of what it will look like once the split has been made.

Haha, that's exactly what I did. It's like having two katanas at your fingertips!

Barghest wrote:

I love the feature, that you can have more than one app in a single frame and cycle through them. This would be even better (for me :b ) if I could "fix" the current apps to the current frame. Scenario: My screen is divided and in one is OpenOffice in the other a terminal. When I now open a new document it shares the frame with the former one. When I now split the frame with the terminal, say to open another terminal, one of the OO documents automatically goes in the new and smaller frame. Here is my idea/wish: A function that new frames aren't automatically used. I don't know if this is possible or if I'm the only one who think that this was useful ;b

This would be extraordinarily awesome with uzbl. Might involve a new set of commands, like putting apps onto frames while leaving the frame where they came from empty (something like "put onto stack u/d/l/r", if you get my drift).

aerosuidae · 2009-06-20 15:24:38

Barghest wrote:

It's me again
1. I love the feature, that you can have more than one app in a single frame and cycle through them. This would be even better (for me :b ) if I could "fix" the current apps to the current frame. Scenario: My screen is divided and in one is OpenOffice in the other a terminal. When I now open a new document it shares the frame with the former one. When I now split the frame with the terminal, say to open another terminal, one of the OO documents automatically goes in the new and smaller frame. Here is my idea/wish: A function that new frames aren't automatically used. I don't know if this is possible or if I'm the only one who think that this was useful ;b

http://aerosuidae.net/musca/Settings .. see frame_display_hidden.

Barghest wrote:

2. Is it possible to add the possibility to manually move dialogue boxes around? When I perform a search in geany I can't move the search window around (AFAIK in awesome this is possible).

No, it is not possible yet. But, others have suggested it and it seems like a nice feature, so it is on the todo list.

Barghest wrote:

3. When I use VirtualBox, I cant use any musca commands anymore (e.g. calling dmenu, switching groups). The only way is to click in the padding area from where I can call the commands.

Sure this isn't this VirtualBox grabbing the keyboard?

Barghest wrote:

4. GuildWars started via wine doesn't get keyboard focus. When I have thunar in the background and I want to type in my password the thunar search pops up. When I'm in stacked mode, the windows "flows" to the left corner on the bottom.

Mind describing "flows"? A screenshot perhaps...

Procyon · 2009-06-20 22:19:51

Wine doesn't work here anymore either. When I launch it another window will have keyboard focus and everything seems to be invisible with wine overlapping everything. Splitting works but only in the right group and only for new windows. I tried both .22 and .23.

Edit:
And it continues until musca is killed and restarted. If wine was running then it will become unmanaged/unreachable.

Last edited by Procyon (2009-06-20 22:20:47)

aerosuidae · 2009-06-21 03:18:35

@Procyon - specifically, what apps are you running in wine? And in fullscreen or in a window?

I test musca and wine with MS Office and Civ4, without any issues, though they are always in a window. Perhaps something specific to the app or wine setup is triggering musca problems...

Last edited by aerosuidae (2009-06-21 03:19:02)

von_Wanderlust · 2009-06-21 04:13:54

aerosuidae wrote:

Barghest wrote:
3. When I use VirtualBox, I cant use any musca commands anymore (e.g. calling dmenu, switching groups). The only way is to click in the padding area from where I can call the commands.
Sure this isn't this VirtualBox grabbing the keyboard?

Barghest, I am pretty sure you can swap the mod key that is used by vbox in vbox itself, as I had to swap mine since I do not have the full complement of mod keys on my thinkpad, ie no windows key. Look for the setting in preferences.

von_Wanderlust · 2009-06-21 04:17:45

Runiq wrote:

Haha, that's exactly what I did. It's like having two katanas at your fingertips!

What a great way of thinking about it - I'm going to forever be making the sound of swords slicing the air in my head now!

Procyon · 2009-06-21 08:14:08

aerosuidae wrote:

@Procyon - specifically, what apps are you running in wine? And in fullscreen or in a window?
I test musca and wine with MS Office and Civ4, without any issues, though they are always in a window. Perhaps something specific to the app or wine setup is triggering musca problems...

Well the weird thing is that I've been using musca .22 since it came out and it only started happening yesterday. (I'm not entirely sure what I did, at first I thought X had a sticky key so I started pressing all keys). It is in virtual desktop mode (1280x1024) with a windowed P2P application, Perfect Dark.

I'm now running it in Xephyr with ratpoison, which seems to work and doesn't seem to cause overhead. It's OK if it responds slower.

Barghest · 2009-06-21 09:08:51

aerosuidae wrote:

http://aerosuidae.net/musca/Settings .. see frame_display_hidden.

Perfect, that is what I was looking for. But it doesn't work as expected.
Shouldn't prevent "window_open_frame current" that new apps fill an empty frame?

EDIT: Now, I can't cycle through apps in frame anymore. I always have to switch to another frame and perfom "cycle" there. My conky from where I see on what window I am now says I switched the app but it doesn't come to the foreground. I then have to go to another frame and "cycle" there. <--- this was solved by restarting musca

Sure this isn't this VirtualBox grabbing the keyboard?

Yes, it was the grabbing thing. von_Wandelust, I didn't found the option to change the mod key but it's ok now (curiously this wasn't an issue in awesome).

Mind describing "flows"? A screenshot perhaps...

"Flows" wasn't the correct word. Exactly the window moves around without being dragged by me. I'll play around about with winecfg.

Last edited by Barghest (2009-06-21 12:17:38)

von_Wanderlust · 2009-06-21 11:14:47

Hey Barghest, if you go into the 'File' dropdown menu after you've started vbox, but before you start the virtual machine, you should have an entry for 'Preferences'. Choose the 'Input' tab and you can press the mod key you want to control vbox, it should show your choice in the gui.

aerosuidae · 2009-06-21 11:27:57

re frame_display_hidden

Barghest wrote:

Perfect, that is what I was looking for. But it doesn't work as expected.
Shouldn't prevent "window_open_frame current" that new apps fill an empty frame?
Now, I can't cycle through apps in frame anymore. I always have to switch to another frame and perfom "cycle" there. My conky from where I see on what window I am now says I switched the app but it doesn't come to the foreground. I then have to go to another frame and "cycle" there.

Sorry, I don't understand your question. What does -- Shouldn't prevent "window_open_frame current" that new apps fill an empty frame? -- mean?

Are you using 0.9.23?

Barghest · 2009-06-21 11:46:32

The description for "window_open_frame" is: "When set to current, new windows always open in the currently focused frame. When set to empty, new windows will try to find an empty frame to use."

This is set to "current" by default and I didn't change it in .musca_start. When I now have an empty frame and a frame with an app and I start an app while focusing the "filled" frame this new application goes to the empty one.

Yes, I'm using 0.9.23.

von_Wanderlust: ok, thanks..but isn't this the key for catching the keyboard? I deactivated this auto catching and everything is fine.

Last edited by Barghest (2009-06-21 11:46:43)

von_Wanderlust · 2009-06-21 11:55:57

Barghest wrote:

von_Wanderlust: ok, thanks..but isn't this the key for catching the keyboard? I deactivated this auto catching and everything is fine.

Yeah, it's the key used for vbox keybindings right? Like change to fullscreen etc. It sounded like your musca keybindings weren't working because the vbox and musca mod key were set the same. Anyway, good news it is fixed.

aerosuidae · 2009-06-21 15:31:13

@Barghest: that window_open_frame behavior certainly sounds wrong. Oddly, the setting works as expected for me (ie, when window_open_frame is set to 'current', new apps open in the focussed frame), so perhaps some other combination of factors is triggering it on your system.

Are you using dedicated or catch-all frames at all? Would you mind supplying the output from:

musca -c 'show settings'
musca -c 'show frames'

Barghest · 2009-06-21 17:52:58

with "set frame_display_hidden 0" windows are open in the current frame. Do you want me to test it with "set frame_display_hidden 1"?

Another problem that could already be solved in openbox and awesome: Java apps only show grey windows. I tried different things to solve this under musca (as suggested in the forum for other wm).
Put AWT_TOOLKIT=MToolkit in /etc/environment
add wmname LG3D in the startup script

Both didn't work on my x86_64.

/edit: ok...in musca I need wmname compiz instead of wmname LG3D as mentioned in your wiki

BTW: Is it possible to prevent new windows in stack mode from overlapping with a padding area at the top?

Last edited by Barghest (2009-06-21 18:17:35)

aerosuidae · 2009-06-21 22:20:07

Barghest wrote:

with "set frame_display_hidden 0" windows are open in the current frame. Do you want me to test it with "set frame_display_hidden 1"?

Please test with whatever combination of settings you use that cause the problem Then, use https://bugs.launchpad.net/musca if possible, with the output from the "musca -c ..." commands I listed previously. I'd very much like to track this bug since nobody else has reported it.

Barghest wrote:

/edit: ok...in musca I need wmname compiz instead of wmname LG3D as mentioned in your wiki

We had better update the wiki then. Where does it mention LG3D? http://aerosuidae.net/musca/Not_Our_Bugs does not...

Barghest wrote:

BTW: Is it possible to prevent new windows in stack mode from overlapping with a padding area at the top?

No. Padding only affects tiling mode.

skottish · 2009-06-28 21:38:15

First off, aerosuidae, this is pretty sweet. Openbox isn't a good fit for my soon to be usually mouse-less netbook. Musca seems to be the perfect fit between simplicity and funtionality.

banshee28 wrote:

For some reason it seems like my scrolling with the center mouse wheel is slower than normal. When i use the scroll bar I can move it faster. Is there a setting that I can tweak the timing for this?

I'm also seeing slow scrolling with Musca, mainly in full screen applications. Is there a solution to this?

aerosuidae · 2009-06-29 00:41:47

skottish wrote:

I'm also seeing slow scrolling with Musca, mainly in full screen applications. Is there a solution to this?

Which apps? (so I can test with the same setup)

Is it a slower scroll but still smooth, or jerky as though there are many small freezes?

The scroll wheel triggers ButtonPress events, same as the normal mouse buttons. Possibly we need to use event compression with ButtonPress as we do with MotionNotify to make window dragging smoother. Eg, 0.9.23 musca.c:3217, at the beginning of buttonpress(), something like this:

while (XCheckTypedEvent(display, ButtonPress, ev));

skottish · 2009-06-29 01:10:38

The most pronounced are webkit browsers with Firefox coming in a close second. vim sort of seems like it's doing it, but then again, I've never tried to use it full screen before. Currently I have uzbl open full screen.

What I'm seeing is that there are a lot of "trailers" or echoes, and it's somewhat jerky. Full screen in Openbox with the same apps isn't having the problem as pronounced. I am seeing this a bit with Openbox too. The fact that I'm running in a frame buffer probably isn't helpful. One thing to note is that scrolling is a bit slow in urxvt, but the echoes aren't there.

Arch Linux

#376 2009-06-18 18:15:15

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#377 2009-06-18 22:15:36

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#378 2009-06-19 19:54:15

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#379 2009-06-20 04:00:01

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#380 2009-06-20 04:03:30

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#381 2009-06-20 08:49:03

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#382 2009-06-20 13:21:08

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#383 2009-06-20 14:33:34

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

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Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#385 2009-06-20 22:19:51

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#386 2009-06-21 03:18:35

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#387 2009-06-21 04:13:54

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#388 2009-06-21 04:17:45

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#389 2009-06-21 08:14:08

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#390 2009-06-21 09:08:51

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

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Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

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Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#393 2009-06-21 11:46:32

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#394 2009-06-21 11:55:57

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#395 2009-06-21 15:31:13

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#396 2009-06-21 17:52:58

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#397 2009-06-21 22:20:07

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#398 2009-06-28 21:38:15

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#399 2009-06-29 00:41:47

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

#400 2009-06-29 01:10:38

Re: Musca (Tiling Window Manager)

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