bspwm — A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

bloom · 2014-01-11 10:24:17

I started a draft regarding the generalization of the window command.

Last edited by bloom (2014-01-11 14:27:33)

GE · 2014-01-11 17:07:22

I am trying to set up bar and stopped at not knowing how to get the active/selected windows title. Is there any way at all?

Also, why are the windows (terminal) covering my bar? It seems that they simply ignore it is there.

Last edited by GE (2014-01-11 17:07:56)

robstwd · 2014-01-13 11:19:27

GE wrote:

I am trying to set up bar and stopped at not knowing how to get the active/selected windows title. Is there any way at all?

Have a look at the provided panel examples, in particular this line which calls the xtitle companion application (found here). Clone and compile xtitle, then the aforementioned line in the panel script will print the active/selected window title in the bar.

GE wrote:

Also, why are the windows (terminal) covering my bar? It seems that they simply ignore it is there.

In bspwmrc, you need to add a value for the top_padding setting.

Last edited by robstwd (2014-01-13 12:36:33)

rudylorren · 2014-01-14 21:05:10

First off I'm loving bspwm. I do have two questions though, and please excuse me if they've already been answered. Sometimes when opening a new window (i've only seen it in firefox as far as I can recall) only half the window is shown. Maximising the window/ opening another one for example a terminal and then closing the terminal will fix it. Second the space between the top of the window and the panel is larger than the sides/bottom but only when using the LemonBoy bar. I'm working on trying out dzen(for the xft fonts) I wasn't able to get the Raedwulf xft version to work.

heres a screenshot. http://imgur.com/4vVxgve

Thanks in advance!

ict · 2014-01-15 14:29:58

rudylorren wrote:

Second the space between the top of the window and the panel is larger than the sides/bottom but only when using the LemonBoy bar.

bspwm does not do any margin-computations, just play with the margin values in your config-script until you like it.

enr1x · 2014-01-15 23:53:17

Hello everyone! I installed bspwm a couple days ago, configured it to my liking, made my own menu, etc. I really like it. However, I can't get it to do something I had in Awesome WM, which is marking inactive windows so that compton can make them translucent. It's just eyecandy, but I like the effect. I have tried several compton switches (such as "detect inactive windows" to no avail. Googling doesn't help either, so I hope you can shed some light to this small issue. Cheers.

bloom · 2014-01-16 10:35:48

enr1x wrote:

I can't get it to do something I had in Awesome WM, which is marking inactive windows so that compton can make them translucent.

The following:

compton -i 0.5

works for me.

milesrout · 2014-01-16 10:46:41

Question to developers: Why, in your opinion, should someone pick this over dwm with a patch to add BSP?

Indeed why is this a separate project instead of just a patch to add BSP to dwm (or another twm).

enr1x · 2014-01-16 12:42:22

bloom wrote:

The following:
compton -i 0.5
works for me.

Thanks. Apparently the same settings wouldn't work on both Awesome and bspwm, for some strange reason, and I assumed that reading the configuration file had to be explicitly told.

By the way, is there any setting to disable changing the mouse cursor to that hideous 'X'? It just appears randomly, for example when switching desktops or when moving the mouse pointer to the edge of the screen, or even to the panel.

Last edited by enr1x (2014-01-16 12:43:20)

FSX · 2014-01-16 12:57:36

I don't know if that has been reported before, but Spotify doesn't really work in tiling mode.
Parts of the UI are white and/or flickering. When I put in floating mode everything works.

Forget what I said. Suddenly it works.

Last edited by FSX (2014-01-16 13:04:23)

Supplantr · 2014-01-16 18:10:51

milesrout wrote:

Question to developers: Why, in your opinion, should someone pick this over dwm with a patch to add BSP?
Indeed why is this a separate project instead of just a patch to add BSP to dwm (or another twm).

Disclaimer: I'm not a developer.
Firstly, have you used bspwm? It shares almost nothing in common with dwm other than being a tiling X window manager written in C. It does not draw a status bar, handle keybindings, or use tags. It is controlled over a socket, in much the same vein as herbtluftwm. Windows are not automatically tiled based on a given layout, i.e. there is no equivalent to applying the "bottom stack" layout in bspwm; one would manually arrange windows to achieve a similar configuration. Furthermore, dwm has no concept of "splitting" windows, which is central to the functionality and flexibility of bspwm. Patching dwm to parallel bspwm's features would likely be needlessly complicated or downright impossible without rendering it unrecognizable. And if you want to get technical, bspwm uses xcb.

bspwm is more comparable to i3 or herbstluftwm (being manual tiling WMs), but I've used both in the past and can attest to the significant differences (and the superiority of bspwm .

rudylorren · 2014-01-17 14:44:17

Ok new problems
It started yesterday while I was playing with the panel, which I had made very good progress on. After a reboot, only 'Desktop 1' had shown up as an available desktop. Tried changeing them from the 'I II III..." to '123...' still no dice. Then I disabled everything in xinitrc still same issue. I thought maybe it was due to all the different git versions of things I DLed panels and what not so I went for a fresh install. Things were really messy anyway. DLed the bspwm-git and shxkd-git from the AUR.

#!/bin/sh

#
# ~/.xinitrc
#
# Executed by startx (run your window manager from here)


#numlockx
#nitrogen --restore

sxhkd
exec bspwm

And now no windows are managed... I can get a terminal to show up with the default keybindings, so I know sxhkd is at least partially active. But there are no decorations. Can't move the terminal around, it's just stuck in the top left corner. But if I activate nitrogen& numlockx those work.

Thought maybe it was an issue with the git versions and got the regular bspwm and sxhkd pkgs (non-git) but the issue persists..

Any ideas? Please let me know if theres anything I can post to help resolve this Thank you

PS. I do have all the packages outlined in 'bspwm-for-dummies'

Last edited by rudylorren (2014-01-17 14:47:24)

ict · 2014-01-17 15:43:33

sxhkd &

Without the &, the script will wait for sxhkd to finish (which it won't unless you kill it), so bspwm is never started.

rudylorren · 2014-01-17 16:33:18

Doh!! thanks man

*it works

Last edited by rudylorren (2014-01-17 16:33:42)

angelic_sedition · 2014-01-20 03:29:25

I registered here so that I could chime into to give my thanks for this wonderful window manager. I decided to check out bspwm the day before yesterday and switched completely yesterday. I think that there are very few window managers in existence that could have made the switch so simple, easy, and delightful. I've used xbindkeys in the past and it hasn't been pleasant.

Sxhdk + bspwm has made most of my window management dreams come true. I've found that not only can you set up a prefix key for bspc commands with sxhdk, but you can also set up a persistent mode that must be escaped out of for truly modal window management when needed. When comparing this to the difficulty of implementing a prefix key in xmonad, for example, there is no contest.

Furthermore, I've also find that it's possible to set it up so that if you double tap your prefix key, you'll enter this sort of modal state where all of the bindings will work without hitting the prefix key again for about five seconds before it stops working. I don't know if this is a glitch, but it's pretty cool.

Last edited by angelic_sedition (2014-01-20 07:17:28)

bloom · 2014-01-20 12:37:13

angelic_sedition wrote:

I registered here so that I could chime into to give my thanks for this wonderful window manager.

Welcome aboard!

3xOSC · 2014-01-21 04:58:49

I'm interested in having a terminal that is running 'weechat' to autostart on desktop ^ 3 with a specific size and have it private so that all the other subsequent windows i open will tile around it?

How does it detect that it is 'weechat' in the first?

Any help would be appreciated, I am really horrible at writing rules

Stebalien · 2014-01-21 05:28:38

3xOSC wrote:

I'm interested in having a terminal that is running 'weechat' to autostart on desktop ^ 3 with a specific size and have it private so that all the other subsequent windows i open will tile around it?
How does it detect that it is 'weechat' in the first?
Any help would be appreciated, I am really horrible at writing rules

That depends on your terminal. Basically, give it an instance name (--name='xyz' for gtk based terminals) and then add a rule that matches that name.

shmibs · 2014-01-21 05:29:22

terminals typically update the instance name to match whatever they are currently showing. urxvt running weechat, for example, has the instance name

WM_NAME(STRING) = "weechat 0.4.2"

looking at the readme, it appears you should use something like this:

bspc rule -a "weechat 0.4.2" desktop=^3 private=true

(disclaimer: i don't actually use bspwm)

th3voic3 · 2014-01-21 09:49:28

you can use

urxvt -name somename

and then your commands. You can then make a rule with the given name.
That's what I do.

Last edited by th3voic3 (2014-01-21 09:49:44)

3xOSC · 2014-01-21 18:59:53

at the moment i am using termite. will termite's "TITLE" suffice?

@shmibs how can I get the WM_NAME?

th3voic3 · 2014-01-21 20:14:26

3xOSC wrote:

at the moment i am using termite. will termite's "TITLE" suffice?
@shmibs how can I get the WM_NAME?

Could be. I'm not using termite, but try it out.
To answer your other question: if you type

xprop

Your cursor changes, clicking on the termite window will give you a bunch of information about it, including it's WM_NAME.

egroeg · 2014-01-22 02:08:50

all of a sudden cannot change the focused border color of windows.

$bspc config focused_border_color 
#7E7F89
$bspc config focused_border_color #303030
#7E7F89

the same command in my bspwmrc also does not change the border color? what am i doing wrong?

Last edited by egroeg (2014-01-22 02:28:19)

rudylorren · 2014-01-22 03:37:45

$bspc config focused_border_color
"#7E7F89"

maybe the quotes?

ict · 2014-01-22 08:36:20

rudylorren wrote:

maybe the quotes?

Yes, # starts a comment in bash. Stumbled over this myself.

Arch Linux

#1026 2014-01-11 10:24:17

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

#1027 2014-01-11 17:07:22

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

#1028 2014-01-13 11:19:27

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

#1029 2014-01-14 21:05:10

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

#1030 2014-01-15 14:29:58

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

#1031 2014-01-15 23:53:17

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

#1032 2014-01-16 10:35:48

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

#1033 2014-01-16 10:46:41

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

#1034 2014-01-16 12:42:22

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

#1035 2014-01-16 12:57:36

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

#1036 2014-01-16 18:10:51

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

#1037 2014-01-17 14:44:17

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

#1038 2014-01-17 15:43:33

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

#1039 2014-01-17 16:33:18

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

#1040 2014-01-20 03:29:25

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

#1041 2014-01-20 12:37:13

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

#1042 2014-01-21 04:58:49

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

#1043 2014-01-21 05:28:38

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

#1044 2014-01-21 05:29:22

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

#1045 2014-01-21 09:49:28

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

#1046 2014-01-21 18:59:53

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

#1047 2014-01-21 20:14:26

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

#1048 2014-01-22 02:08:50

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

#1049 2014-01-22 03:37:45

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

#1050 2014-01-22 08:36:20

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

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