Arch Linux

eyeball

Member

From: Vienna

Registered: 2009-06-24

Posts: 5

substitute window names X11

Hey,

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for my question; hopefully it is

I'm running arch with ratpoison. My IM is pidgin. My problem is that I wan to set windows spawn by pidgin unmanged in the middle oft the screen. The problem is that the ratpoison unmange command requires the name of the window which should not be managed. Pidgin does not create windows containing pidgin in their name but rather: "Buddy List"; chat windows own the name of the user you chat with.

I'm just starting my research, but:

a) it does not seam that pidgin provides a plugin to rename the windows
b) ratpoison can not unmange windows span by a specific process

Before I talk to the guys of ratpoison/pidgin if there's a workaround I think of a more general solution. Is there a possibility to directly provide a hook anywere (x11, anywhere else) to give windows, spawn by a specific process, a specific name? e.g. every windows created by pidgin should be named pidgin?

does any one have any hints how to solve my problem?

thanks in advance and kind regards,
andreas

JohannesSM64

Member

From: Norway

Registered: 2009-10-11

Posts: 623

Website

Re: substitute window names X11

I don't know the answer to your question, but you're honestly better off either changing IM client or changing WM. RP's "unmanage" doesn't work as you think - unmanaged windows can not be moved, resized or even focused.

eyeball

Member

From: Vienna

Registered: 2009-06-24

Posts: 5

Re: substitute window names X11

mhm... i dont want to move, resize or switch focus i want the chat windows of pidgin to appear centered in the screen; write some text, send them and close them again. Similar to dmenu-vertical I use to switch between applications.

My problem with switching is that both (ratpoison and pidgin) have very handy features I simply get used to and dont want to miss

JohannesSM64

Member

From: Norway

Registered: 2009-10-11

Posts: 623

Website

Re: substitute window names X11

Unmanaged windows can not be focused, so you can't type anything into pidgin chat windows if you unmanage it.
You may want to look at musca, it's similar to RP but it has a floating mode, so you can have a floating workspace for  pidgin.