FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

sulami · 2014-10-28 13:34:34

I am mainly posting this here so I have a place to discuss the future of FrankenWM somewhere else than in the Github issues or in private emails.

TL;DR FrankenWM is a monsterwm-xcb fork, thus coming from monsterwm, thus coming from dminiwm, thus coming from catwm. It is a dymanic tiler, much like monsterwm or dwm, with many layouts and features stolen from other wms (or suggested by users). The focus lies on clean, readable code and functionality rather than a low sloc-count.

A small list of features currently implemented or in progress:

a grand total of 13 layouts
dynamically adjustable borders and gaps
basic keyboard control over floating windows
regex-based window rules
desktop-specific minimize stack
no bar but configurable space for one and output that can be used in one (I already have a few scripts for different bars, but feel free to contribute your own)
a scratchpad terminal (think guake) (currently in development)
lots of smaller bugfixes and tweaks over monsterwm-xcb

There is an AUR Package that I try to update when major changes happen as well as the source on GitHub.

sekret · 2014-10-28 14:12:29

Why such a highly outdated PKGBUILD?! Please look into the current packaging standards and update the PKGBUILD! If I find the mood I'll help you.

sulami · 2014-10-28 14:29:05

sekret wrote:

Why such a highly outdated PKGBUILD?! Please look into the current packaging standards and update the PKGBUILD! If I find the mood I'll help you.

The PKGBUILD is just a slightly modified version of monsterwm-xcb's one (iirc). I am not really into PKGBUILDs, and it worked so far, but I am always up for improvement of course. Any help would be appreciated.

hobarrera · 2014-10-29 06:08:47

A PKGBUILD updated to current guidelines: http://git.barrera.io/snippets/1.

Cheers.

sulami · 2014-10-29 09:38:47

hobarrera wrote:

A PKGBUILD updated to current guidelines: http://git.barrera.io/snippets/1.
Cheers.

Many thanks for this quick fix!

theGunslinger · 2014-10-30 12:43:47

Hey, just wanted to say keep up the great work! FrankenWM is almost feature complete as far as I'm concerned but if it's not much hassle to implement, remembering floating window size would be great. e.g. If i tile the floating window and then revert it, it keeps the dimensions it had while tiled so I have to resize it manually.

Just a little pet peeve of mine.

sulami · 2014-10-30 13:02:06

theGunslinger wrote:

Hey, just wanted to say keep up the great work! FrankenWM is almost feature complete as far as I'm concerned but if it's not much hassle to implement, remembering floating window size would be great. e.g. If i tile the floating window and then revert it, it keeps the dimensions it had while tiled so I have to resize it manually.
Just a little pet peeve of mine.

Hmm, this might be possible. I'm currently about 80% done with the scratchpad feature if no major problems arise. I will see what I can do after that, but I already have a few ideas how to do this well.

EDIT plan change: floating window size should get memorized now as desired, seems to work so far without hiccups

Last edited by sulami (2014-10-30 19:08:40)

theGunslinger · 2014-10-30 15:40:34

Great! I'll keep following this thread for announcements.

bstaletic · 2014-10-30 19:49:37

I got black screen after running frankenwm. Installed it using default config, edited .xinitrc and started xorg, but only blackscreen.

I also tried installing it without an AUR helper, and using "startx /bin/frankenwm".

sulami · 2014-10-30 20:16:55

bstaletic wrote:

I got black screen after running frankenwm. Installed it using default config, edited .xinitrc and started xorg, but only blackscreen.
I also tried installing it without an AUR helper, and using "startx /bin/frankenwm".

Because you do not mention it crashing, I am going to assume it does not.

The black screen is probably the absence of anything to display, FrankenWM on its own does not supply a wallpaper, bars or anything else by default. If you are able to open windows (shift-enter for xterm by default, to change it, have a look at the config, I documented everything you should need, and no real knowledge of C is needed), everything should be fine. There is a link in the readme concerning the addition of bars using FrankenWM's output as information source (but you can also use, say tint2 or even conky like I do), and feh is a nifty little tool to set a wallpaper (but xsetroot can do this as well in a more limited fashion).

If you are actually experiencing crashes, I would kindly ask you to be a bit more specific, so I can track this issue down.

bstaletic · 2014-10-30 21:08:36

It did not crash. I just expected something to be visible by default. Thanks, it works as intended.

EDIT:
Interesting wm and fun to play with, but I guess I'm too used to i3wm. Good job nonetheless.

Last edited by bstaletic (2014-10-30 21:18:27)

chickenPie4tea · 2014-11-29 09:14:33

Hi, Just installed it and well done with the bar scripts however I am trying the simple bar script first(Franken2bar.sh) just a little thing but when I start up apps like, spacefm,geany text editor etc they cover most of the bar. I will try the other scripts that use dzen to see if I get the same. Just letting you know my experience.
EDIT: Nevermind just needed to edit config.h ans set SHOW_PANEL True
I didn't realize it would be off by default.

Last edited by chickenPie4tea (2014-11-29 11:42:34)

theGunslinger · 2014-12-05 03:27:55

sulami wrote:

theGunslinger wrote:
Hey, just wanted to say keep up the great work! FrankenWM is almost feature complete as far as I'm concerned but if it's not much hassle to implement, remembering floating window size would be great. e.g. If i tile the floating window and then revert it, it keeps the dimensions it had while tiled so I have to resize it manually.
Just a little pet peeve of mine.
Hmm, this might be possible. I'm currently about 80% done with the scratchpad feature if no major problems arise. I will see what I can do after that, but I already have a few ideas how to do this well.
EDIT plan change: floating window size should get memorized now as desired, seems to work so far without hiccups

Just restarted the wm after a long time and realized you implemented my request. Works great, thank you!

firecat53 · 2014-12-18 23:54:01

Just wondering if multiple monitor support is on your radar? It would be nice to plug in a 2nd screen (such as a TV) and be able to have another set of desktops available on that screen. Monsterwm had the support...it required a window manager/X restart to detect the plugged in screen, though.

Thanks!
Scott

sulami · 2014-12-19 10:25:53

firecat53 wrote:

Just wondering if multiple monitor support is on your radar? It would be nice to plug in a 2nd screen (such as a TV) and be able to have another set of desktops available on that screen. Monsterwm had the support...it required a window manager/X restart to detect the plugged in screen, though.
Thanks!
Scott

It is currently in development, but I cannot say how long it takes until I am satisfied enough with the quality to release it, maybe this year, but more likely in January if I am away over christmas.

ideasman42 · 2015-04-11 13:22:29

Hi, I've been experimenting with FrankenWM, some feedback...

- changing screen layouts sometimes flickers a lot.
- changing the active window (sloppy focus), often makes other windows flicker.
- windows with size increment hints wont fullscreen (gvim, roxterm).
- quitting and starting again looses any windows that were minimized (they are left in some inaccessible state).

I could open some issues - this is just some list of noticeable issues I ran into testing.

Last edited by ideasman42 (2015-04-11 13:22:51)

Shinryuu · 2015-06-15 13:17:10

Hey! I left monsterwm years ago because I didn't find the floating behaviour really pleasant. Now I got a new laptop and I don't need anything fancy and I'm trying to settle with monsterwm but I still can't settle myself with the floating behaviour so I tried this window manager out. I was able to configure it well just like I did before with monsterwm. There's a one thing I can't seem to understand because when I launch this window manager up, there's a blank space.. I can fix it by spawning terminals around and by killing them with a keybinding. Here's an animation to show what's going on: http://i.imgur.com/ladd2Op.gif

Last edited by Shinryuu (2015-06-15 17:07:10)

sulami · 2015-06-15 19:19:13

Shinryuu wrote:

Hey! I left monsterwm years ago because I didn't find the floating behaviour really pleasant. Now I got a new laptop and I don't need anything fancy and I'm trying to settle with monsterwm but I still can't settle myself with the floating behaviour so I tried this window manager out. I was able to configure it well just like I did before with monsterwm. There's a one thing I can't seem to understand because when I launch this window manager up, there's a blank space.. I can fix it by spawning terminals around and by killing them with a keybinding. Here's an animation to show what's going on: http://i.imgur.com/ladd2Op.gif

This definitely looks like a bug, this space is the one an additional window would occupy. So either there is a window that does not draw, which might be your fault (sorry...), or this is a bug in FrankenWM. If you can reproduce this, please feel free to open an issue on GitHub with a list of actions to do so and I will fix this. Alternatively, if you don't have a GitHub account, you can of course post here, or send me an email or something. Just let me know how to reproduce this, if possible.

theGunslinger · 2015-06-15 20:52:51

I can't reproduce this. Can you change the focus to the invisible window?

Last edited by theGunslinger (2015-06-16 09:23:32)

sulami · 2015-06-15 21:35:40

theGunslinger wrote:

I can't reprodoce this. Can you change the focus to the invisible window?

If this is a FrankenWM bug, the invisible window has an internal client representation which also takes focus, so when cycling through the windows you should get to a point where the invisible window (or none) has focus.

Shinryuu · 2015-06-20 00:26:16

I still haven't traced the issue yet, it seems to happen randomly when I open this thing up. I can't seem to focus that area neither. I'll begin to check my things I launch during X startup and post my findings in here As a side note, you can't focus on that blank area at all.

EDIT1. doesn't seem to happen anymore when I arranged 'autostart' section differently, god knows why.

#!/bin/sh

# set rules
if [ -d /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d ]; then
  for f in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/*; do
    [ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
  done
  unset f
fi

# magic
setxkbmap fi
xset s off
xset -dpms
xset r rate 350 45
xset +fp /usr/share/fonts/TTF
xset +fp /usr/share/fonts/local
xset +fp /usr/share/fonts/artwiz-fonts
xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr
setxkbmap -option terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp

# autostart
autostart() {
   nitrogen --restore
   unclutter -grab -root &
   xmodmap .xmodmap
   xcmenu -d
   dunst &
   sxhkd &
   redshift -l 64:25 -b 0.8:0.8 &> /dev/null &
}

autostart &
exec frankenwm

Last edited by Shinryuu (2015-06-20 01:09:47)

jangler · 2015-07-06 06:56:54

I encountered the same issue as Shinryuu and made a pull request that fixes it for me.

I have a few more PRs lined up after this one for various other fixes. Nice job, though; I'm liking this WM so far despite the various little quirks and issues.

Last edited by jangler (2015-07-06 07:02:08)

renodesper · 2015-09-04 15:27:18

I experience the same issue as Shinryuu and jangler, is there anyone who still experience this issue?

PS: I install frankenwm for the first time yesterday

renodesper · 2015-09-09 13:35:52

Changing the order of autostart works, just like Shinryuu said.

Shinryuu · 2015-11-12 14:46:53

Any users with qutebrowser here? I can't seem to follow what's going on. When I launch FrankenWM up I can't seem to focus correctly/change layout with qutebrowser at all but when I manually resize it (or open and close it) I get the focus and it draws borders for it and I can control it just fine. I've tried to add a line for 'qutebrowser' in config.def.h so it's not floating and I also tried with a plain .xinitrc file to check that I haven't messed anything up

EDIT1. It seems I got it 'fixed' somehow and it survives a reboot now. I'll add my findings in this line.

Last edited by Shinryuu (2015-11-12 14:49:37)

Arch Linux

#1 2014-10-28 13:34:34

FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#2 2014-10-28 14:12:29

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#3 2014-10-28 14:29:05

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#4 2014-10-29 06:08:47

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#5 2014-10-29 09:38:47

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#6 2014-10-30 12:43:47

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#7 2014-10-30 13:02:06

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#8 2014-10-30 15:40:34

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#9 2014-10-30 19:49:37

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#10 2014-10-30 20:16:55

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#11 2014-10-30 21:08:36

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#12 2014-11-29 09:14:33

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#13 2014-12-05 03:27:55

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#14 2014-12-18 23:54:01

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#15 2014-12-19 10:25:53

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#16 2015-04-11 13:22:29

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#17 2015-06-15 13:17:10

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#18 2015-06-15 19:19:13

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#19 2015-06-15 20:52:51

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#20 2015-06-15 21:35:40

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#21 2015-06-20 00:26:16

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#22 2015-07-06 06:56:54

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#23 2015-09-04 15:27:18

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#24 2015-09-09 13:35:52

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

#25 2015-11-12 14:46:53

Re: FrankenWM - Yet another tiling wm

Board footer