bspwm — A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-12 21:54:10

bslackr wrote:

Would it be possible to use something like i3status or conky with bspwm and bar?

Yeah, I am using conky, as it was just super simple and quick to set up. I will probably change it to use some of bloom's other tools when I have time (I figure I might as well go all the way if I'm making this switch), which will also make it easy to individually colorize the elements of my taskbar.

bslackr · 2013-09-12 22:02:53

WonderWoofy wrote:

Yeah, I am using conky, as it was just super simple and quick to set up. I will probably change it to use some of bloom's other tools when I have time (I figure I might as well go all the way if I'm making this switch), which will also make it easy to individually colorize the elements of my taskbar.

Could you possibly share your configs? I haven't been able to figure it out.

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-12 22:19:17

Above here, there is a tutorial about how to get things going with bspwm for beginners. I referenced that, and decided that bar was the better choice. In the scripts panel and panel_bar is where all that magic happens.

So you will see that the panel script feeds the default clock to the $BSPWM_SOCKET using the 'clock' command from bloom's sutils package (sutils-git) from the AUR. The line looks like this:

clock -sf 'S%a %H:%M' > "$PANEL_FIFO" &

It uses the format of strftime(3), where the %* equal a certain time/date value.

But you will notice that in the string 'S%a %H:%M' there is a preceding 'S'. This is because in panel_bar, it searches for things that start with an 'S', things that start with a 'T' and things that start with a 'W'. These are to distinguish between system info, title of the X window, and window manager stuff, respectively. So it takes what is given to it through the socket as a variable ${line#?}, where the full content can be expressed as ${line}, and the included '#?' simply strips off the first letter. Therefore, what would have been 'SThur 15:16' would end up as just 'Thur 15:16'.

So if you simply replace the line shown above with a conky status piped to that socket, and make sure to include an 'S' in front of the conky output, then it should work as intended.

I don't know if you can read or write bash at all, but these scripts are not terribly hard to comprehend if you know a little. I have chosen not to give you my config directly for two reasons. First, the change I made is incredibly trivial. Second, if you simply copy my config blindly without any attempt to comprehend, then you will gain nothing in the long run.

Good luck!

bslackr · 2013-09-13 02:18:50

Oh ok, that makes sense. I had tried to replace clock earlier with something but it wasn't showing up, now I know why. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Last edited by bslackr (2013-09-13 02:28:42)

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-13 02:20:27

Neat, I'm glad my long winded post made sense! I pains me when I try to give someone a thorough explanation only to reread it and be utterly confused by my own response… or worse, having it make sense and being ignored.

bslackr · 2013-09-13 02:33:06

WonderWoofy wrote:

Neat, I'm glad my long winded post made sense! I pains me when I try to give someone a thorough explanation only to reread it and be utterly confused by my own response… or worse, having it make sense and being ignored.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I do know some bash, and I saw where the clock was being called, I was just befuddled when nothing was showing up when I edited it. The special characters don't seem to be documented anywhere obvious. Thanks again.

Neuromatic · 2013-09-13 08:38:47

Write a conky Script with the color format from bar like

\f7 ${some_information} \f5 ${more_information}

And pipe it into bar.

bloom · 2013-09-13 12:12:27

WonderWoofy wrote:

I have chosen not to give you my config directly for two reasons. First, the change I made is incredibly trivial. Second, if you simply copy my config blindly without any attempt to comprehend, then you will gain nothing in the long run.

That's very wise.

If you wish to contribute to the manual (or write a quick start guide), you are more than welcome to.

Supplantr · 2013-09-14 01:11:54

I've encountered another issue with restoring a window tree. If a window is preselected when bspwm is restarted, the window remains preselected but a newly spawned window always appears to the right, regardless of the presel direction.
Also, I'm not sure if st is at fault here, but this:

happens when bspwm is restarted while the st window is preselected.

Again, I'm not sure if this actually an issue with bspwm, but since commit a0b9199, NotificaThor windows (which are of type _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_NOTIFICATION) appear below all other windows. I tried adding an --unmanage rule, which doesn't change anything.

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-14 04:10:56

bloom wrote:

WonderWoofy wrote:
I have chosen not to give you my config directly for two reasons. First, the change I made is incredibly trivial. Second, if you simply copy my config blindly without any attempt to comprehend, then you will gain nothing in the long run.
That's very wise.
If you wish to contribute to the manual (or write a quick start guide), you are more than welcome to.

I have only just started using bspwm, so ATM, I don't really feel like I fully know my way around. So maybe after a couple weeks of playing with things I would be comfortable contributing. But for now, I think I just need to fully get a grasp of things here.

BTW, the quick start guide posted above I thought was actually quite good. I will admit that without that it would have taken me a lot longer to understand what I needed to get a "default" setup. But after it pointed me to the panel, panel_bar, etc. scripts it became pretty clear pretty quickly how the WM info/sockets were to be used.

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-14 04:12:21

Neuromatic wrote:

Write a conky Script with the color format from bar like
\f7 ${some_information} \f5 ${more_information}
And pipe it into bar.

I actually tried this, and it doesn't work. It seems to treat the whole conky output as a single variable. I haven't really dug into it at all, but I just slapped the color codes in there to see, and no success…

Nevermind… it did work. Typo the first time.

Last edited by WonderWoofy (2013-09-14 04:14:06)

cippaciong · 2013-09-14 06:40:51

[OT] Few days ago I came across this interesting article: How to Turn Your Pile of Code into an Open Source Project
and I thought that some suggestions the author is making there, could be useful also to bspwm and would help it becoming more popular, as this is what it deserves to me! Now that we have a wiki I could say that the most important points are covered but we can still do something about a project website, changelogs and a better release "system".
Let me know what you thing about it Bloom!
Again, great WM!
[/OT]

ict · 2013-09-14 14:41:53

Thanks for the conky-support! Works great.

Is there a possibility to "presel" something as floating, i.e. "make the next window to appear floating". I sometimes need a quick terminal that should not destroy the layout, so a hotkey to just start a floating terminal would be great.

bloom · 2013-09-14 14:59:00

ict wrote:

I sometimes need a quick terminal that should not destroy the layout, so a hotkey to just start a floating terminal would be great.

If you add the following to your bspwmrc:

bspc rule -a foo --floating

Then the following command will have the expected effect:

urxvt -name foo

Last edited by bloom (2013-09-14 14:59:14)

Ploppz · 2013-09-14 16:53:32

Following this guide, I don't find any config file for sxhkd here!

BUR · 2013-09-14 17:08:51

Ploppz wrote:

Following this guide, I don't find any config file for sxhkd here!

https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm/bl … es/sxhkdrc

Ploppz · 2013-09-14 19:48:04

Thanks.

Now, I have a major problem. Before installing bspwm, I had no problem running startx. But when I run it now, it just swiftly turns black, then comes back to the the bash. Here's the log file: http://sprunge.us/ZYiL
I'm running Arch in VirtualBox in Windows 7.

Please help me, thanks!

Last edited by Ploppz (2013-09-15 18:33:38)

bloom · 2013-09-14 21:20:54

Supplantr wrote:

I've encountered another issue with restoring a window tree. If a window is preselected when bspwm is restarted, the window remains preselected but a newly spawned window always appears to the right, regardless of the presel direction.

Fixed.

Supplantr wrote:

Also, I'm not sure if st is at fault here, but this:
http://i.imgur.com/UuYnGdJ.png
happens when bspwm is restarted while the st window is preselected.

It seems like an st bug.

Supplantr wrote:

Again, I'm not sure if this actually an issue with bspwm, but since commit a0b9199, NotificaThor windows (which are of type _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_NOTIFICATION) appear below all other windows. I tried adding an --unmanage rule, which doesn't change anything.

Notification windows are already not managed and I can't reproduce.

BUR · 2013-09-14 21:44:56

Ploppz wrote:

Thanks.
Now, I have a major problem. Before installing bspwm, I had no problem running startx. But when I run it now, it just swiftly turns back, then comes black the the bash. Here's the log file: http://sprunge.us/ZYiL
I'm running Arch in VirtualBox in Windows 7.
Please help me, thanks!

Have you installed virtualbox-guest-modules?

Ploppz · 2013-09-14 23:18:22

Yes.

F34R · 2013-09-15 08:28:54

why heavy load bar in cpu ? about 100% in one core and the clients (terminal , browser ) not align to panel.

Last edited by F34R (2013-09-15 08:30:04)

bloom · 2013-09-15 10:28:58

Supplantr wrote:

And I think you agreed that it would be beneficial to allow padding of each edge to be specified (and retrieved) independently.

Yes and it's now possible.

Supplantr wrote:

Are you planning to make any other settings per-desktop/monitor?

What would be the candidates?

agahnim · 2013-09-15 15:26:59

Alright guys, I have a really dumb question. How would one go about using conky as a panel in bspwm. I am loving this window manager so far, and would like to make the switch from openbox completely, but from reading through the examples I can not quite grasp how one would use tint2 or conky or some other program as a panel. I can run conky as a panel but the windows do not align to it and they overlap it. I would also want to know if it were possible to use a conky on the desktop like one would in a floating window manager.

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-15 16:18:46

There are panel examples supplied by bloom in his git repo. Another user has created a beginners guide for setting up bspwm with lemonboy's bar as well. Though bloom's examples also provide the necessities for using dzen2.

Above I have indicated how the particular section that involves the date works. It would be in that area that you would pipe conky into the FIFO. Read though all that stuff and come back here if you have some really specific questions. As it stands now, you have basically asked how to set it up entirely, and a few of your questions have already been answered in this thread (and recently too).

I have no idea about tint2, nor do I feel that a bar that allows for window minimization is necessary in a tiling window manager. So in that regard you would just have to try and see what happens. Tint2 is apparently an EWMH complaint bar though, and bspwm does send proper hints to whatever. So in theory, this should work fine.

Supplantr · 2013-09-15 16:28:31

bloom wrote:

Notification windows are already not managed and I can't reproduce.

If I start NotificaThor from a terminal once bspwm is running, its notification windows appear above the aforementioned terminal until the terminal is closed, in which case it again appears beneath any new terminals. However, if it's started this way, it does appear above Chromium windows. Does this sound like a problem with NotificaThor?

bloom wrote:

Yes and it's now possible.

Is the monitor --pad option going to remain?

bloom wrote:

What would be the candidates?

Since window_gap is now per-desktop, it would make sense for other aesthetic settings to be as well. Mostly border_width, but perhaps also both *_monocle settings since they affect window gaps and borders. And I think it would be useful to allow split_ratio to be defined per-desktop.

This might be far-fetched, but regarding what @ict and @Mindstormscreator asked about "preselecting window actions," could a new (or something similar) primary selector be added to achieve this? For example, using bspc window new -t floating would tell bspwm to make the next new window floating.

---

Also, a note to everyone: the ^ character must be escaped in the context of the ^<n> primary selector if using zsh unless NO_EXTENDED_GLOB is set.

Arch Linux

#551 2013-09-12 21:54:10

Re: bspwm — A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

#552 2013-09-12 22:02:53

Re: bspwm — A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

#553 2013-09-12 22:19:17

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#554 2013-09-13 02:18:50

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#555 2013-09-13 02:20:27

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#556 2013-09-13 02:33:06

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#557 2013-09-13 08:38:47

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#558 2013-09-13 12:12:27

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#559 2013-09-14 01:11:54

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#560 2013-09-14 04:10:56

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#561 2013-09-14 04:12:21

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#562 2013-09-14 06:40:51

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#563 2013-09-14 14:41:53

Re: bspwm — A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

#564 2013-09-14 14:59:00

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#565 2013-09-14 16:53:32

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#566 2013-09-14 17:08:51

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#567 2013-09-14 19:48:04

Re: bspwm — A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

#568 2013-09-14 21:20:54

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#569 2013-09-14 21:44:56

Re: bspwm — A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

#570 2013-09-14 23:18:22

Re: bspwm — A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

#571 2013-09-15 08:28:54

Re: bspwm — A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

#572 2013-09-15 10:28:58

Re: bspwm — A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

#573 2013-09-15 15:26:59

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#574 2013-09-15 16:18:46

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#575 2013-09-15 16:28:31

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