Questions about AwesomeWM (and couple on twm's in general)

choogi · 2010-07-13 14:18:13

I've used Openbox for ages now, but after reading everything on this forum about tiling window managers I decided to give AwesomeWM a try, mostly because I heard it's the easiest to dive right into, although I'd like to learn Haskell and try Xmonad eventually too. The experience has been fairly pleasant thus far but I just had a couple of questions that I couldn't figure out on my own.

1) Is it possible for AwesomeWM to remember the size and position of floating windows when I switch back to the floating layout? Furthermore, if I'm currently focused on a tab with a tiling layout and I add a tag with a floating layout, all the floating windows get resized to fit the tiling layout. Is there a way to restore the original size/position of the floating windows after I stop viewing the tag with the floating layout? I found this post but it didn't quite answer my question.

2) How do I enable urgent window notifications in rc.lua? It doesn't seem to be working for me. For example when I receive a new IM in pidgin, the icon on the system tray changes so I know that I have a new message, but I'd like for the tag in the status bar for the workspace in which the application is running to be highlighted as well. On a side note, is there a way to enable these urgent window notifications for new IM's inside of gmail or facebook?

3) Do people generally find tiling window managers more useful if running all terminal applications? I absolutely LOVE quodlibet. I also have mpd+ncmcpp installed but for better or for worse I currently still prefer quodlibet. However, I can switch to my quodlibet window using the keyboard, but once I get there, I still have to pick up the mouse in order to perform whatever operation I want, which kind of defeats the point of being able to navigate there via keyboard...but then again I could've just Alt+Tabbed there on a floating manager too.

4) I have a 24" monitor and I think I'm using the floating layout more often than I should, but sometimes I only have 1 or 2 windows open on a particular workspace at once, and sometimes I like to read with just a web browser open but I don't want it to maximize it across the entire screen. Is there a way to float windows when I have <=3 windows open and then automatically start tiling once I have around 4 windows open? Or am I supposed to change the way I work?

Thanks all!

Inxsible · 2010-07-13 14:30:01

1 & 2) Never used Awesome, so you will have to wait on someone else to answer those.

3) tiling window managers do seem to favor the keyboard and therefore by extension, cli. But I still use a few gui apps as well. I use deadbeef as my music player - the good thing is that it supports global shortcuts, so I dont have to use the mouse. But I find myself using the mouse a lot in my browsers. I started with uzbl and jumanji, but most times I couldn;t remember the commands and ended up using the mouse.

Eventually I got rid of uzbl and stuck to jumanji...now I browser mostly using hints . but I will still occasionally use the mouse. So if there is an app that you like and must have, and it needs the mouse.....well use the mouse. Its all about how you want to work with your system. Not how others promote something.

4) Since you just started out with tilers....try not to use the floating mode too often. It feels different in the beginning, but eventually you get used to tiles and then you won't be able to do without them. .
As for the <3 windows etc, you would have to create some sort of script/daemon which would keep checking how many windows you have open and accordingly toggle the layout for the wm. Note that you would also need to change this script for every tiling wm you try. Personally, I wouldn't go through all that trouble because tiling wms almost always have keybindings to switch between tiling mode and floating mode.

I would much rather just hit that key binding instead of writing a daemon script. Much easier that way and more importantly, you are in control. with the script, you will have no way of going into tiling mode with < 3 windows even if you wanted to.

Last edited by Inxsible (2010-07-13 14:33:44)

nomilieu · 2010-07-13 14:36:02

1. I haven't used awesomewm.
2. I haven't used awesomewm.
3. It's not the terminal aspect that makes tiling useful; it's the resizable aspect. Any window which doesn't care how you size it (uzbl-browser, for example) will work wonderfully.
4. I'm currently (after having used dwm for quite a while) using openbox along with pytyle. I'll float a window or two on my massive monitor so that I can still see all my conky output, but when I've got more windows open and am trying to work, I'll hit Alt-A to tile them all. If you're used to openbox but haven't tried pytyle, give it a try.

karol · 2010-07-13 14:46:09

> I have a 24" monitor
> I like to read with just a web browser open
I always thought you can paint the map of Texas in 1:1 scale on a 24" monitor ...
http://assets.gearlive.com/blogimages/a … isplay.jpg (yeah, it's not 24", I just wanted to show the many wasted pixels)

Tiling window managers make efficient use of your precious screen real estate. If you have a post-stamp-sized screen there may be no other way to work but monocle (full screen), but on a 24" screen? Try to use less floating - in a week or two you should need it less and have no real urge to go back to your old ways but some withdrawal pains may occur.

> 3) Do people generally find tiling window managers more useful if running all terminal applications?
Not really, running multiple apps in general is easier if you want to monitor them w/o switching back and forth.

choogi · 2010-07-13 14:46:53

@Inxsible I actually gave i3 a try just because of you I still have it installed but I think I prefer automatic tiling managers

I've read a lot about pytyle too--I suppose it wouldn't hurt just to see if it works better.

Does anyone know how to make the urgent windows notifications work for dzen? Do dzen and the awesomewm status bar pick up the same notifications?

choogi · 2010-07-13 14:56:04

karol wrote:

> I have a 24" monitor
> I like to read with just a web browser open
I always thought you can paint the map of Texas in 1:1 scale on a 24" monitor ...
http://assets.gearlive.com/blogimages/a … isplay.jpg (yeah, it's not 24", I just wanted to show the many wasted pixels)
Tiling window managers make efficient use of your precious screen real estate. If you have a post-stamp-sized screen there may be no other way to work but monocle (full screen), but on a 24" screen? Try to use less floating - in a week or two you should need it less and have no real urge to go back to your old ways but some withdrawal pains may occur.

Sometimes I like to read with only one browser so as not to get distracted by the other windows on my desktop. I usually have it maximized vertically to make maximal use of the vertical pixels, but I prefer not to maximize it horizontally because then the lines get too long.

Inxsible · 2010-07-13 15:30:01

choogi wrote:

Sometimes I like to read with only one browser so as not to get distracted by the other windows on my desktop. I usually have it maximized vertically to make maximal use of the vertical pixels, but I prefer not to maximize it horizontally because then the lines get too long.

i3 handles this extremely well with having two vertical cells. So your browser will take all of the left cell, but the right cell will stay as is...even if there is no window/app in it

karol · 2010-07-13 18:37:45

> but I prefer not to maximize it horizontally because then the lines get too long.
You can always zoom in ;-)

JackH79 · 2010-07-14 08:12:08

1): Not exactly sure what you mean here. Usually, if you switch to tiling and then back to floating, you'll lose the window's position and size as they have been altered. However, you can tell awesome to have certain program windows floating, even when you're in tiling mode.
If you're using 'normal' awesome, you can specify that in your rules section. Eg:

 { rule = { class = "MPlayer" },
properties = { floating = true } },

If you're using shifty (which I have switched to only recently, but can only recommend, as it gives you more control):

{ match = { "MPlayer" }, float = true }

If you want to set it to a certain size at startup you can also add a geometry rule. This for example turns gimp (almost) into a single window application on my 1280x800 screen:

{ match = { "gimp%-image%-window" }, geometry = {175,15,930,770}, border_width = 0 },
{ match = { "^gimp%-toolbox$" }, geometry = {0,15,175,770}, slave = true, border_width = 0 },
{ match = { "^gimp%-dock$" }, geometry = {1105,15,175,770}, slave = true, border_width = 0 },

where {x-position,y-position,x-size,y-size}. If you want for a window to be placed but to honour (e.g.) original size, you could use {0,15,nil,nil}. (My taskbar is 14 pxl, hence the 15.)

2) I do remember having had an urgent window a few weeks back, so I know it works on my machine, but as I hardly ever have anything open that uses 'urgency' to grab my attention, I can't really help you there. Maybe check what colour your theme uses for urgent windows in 'theme.lua'?

3) I'm still using a few gui apps. Apart from gimp, I also have thunar as a backup (mostly for the great renaming tool), and even medit, when I'm doing a lengthy cut and paste operation, which would be tedious in vim. Also, similar to inxsible's experience, I've come back to vimperator from uzbl and jumanji, mostly because of mouse gestures, that make the browsing incredibly fast - when I'm browsing. When I'm not browsing, but only occasionally change a page, I'm happily using hints. It's all a matter of preference.
However, for most things, i'm using terminal apps, as they are easier to use (once you got used to them) and a hell of a lot faster (once you got used to them).

4) I think it's mostly up to you how often you want to use floating. That's one of the defining design features of awesome. It's up to you. You can use it as a 100% tiler, or you can use it like *box with an underlying tiling feature when you want it. Personally, I came from Openbox myself and it took me some time to 'really' get the advantages of tiling. Now, the only app that I have floating is mplayer. everything else is getting tiled.

choogi wrote:

sometimes I like to read with just a web browser open but I don't want it to maximize it across the entire screen

Not quite sure why you wouldn't want that, but that's up to you. If you don't want it maximised horizontally, either run it as a floating app and resize it to your needs, run it in tiling layout (not in fair), so that your browser remains vertically maximised and other windows are grouped along the other side. If half the screens width is too narrow, you can still resize the tiled windows or (at least in shifty), tell awesome that you always want a 75% wide coloumn on the tab where you open your browser.
So many options ...

choogi wrote:

Is there a way to float windows when I have <=3 windows open and then automatically start tiling once I have around 4 windows open?

As far as I know: no. And as mentioned above, the hassle to implement it would be too great for such a 'small' problem.

choogi wrote:

Or am I supposed to change the way I work?

You're not 'supposed' to do anything. Question is are you willing? I think the best advise is to just give it some time. If tiling is anything at all for you, you'll soon appreciate the advantages (and constraints) of tiling and alter your workflow accordingly.

Last edited by JackH79 (2010-07-14 08:47:11)

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#1 2010-07-13 14:18:13

Questions about AwesomeWM (and couple on twm's in general)

#2 2010-07-13 14:30:01

Re: Questions about AwesomeWM (and couple on twm's in general)

#3 2010-07-13 14:36:02

Re: Questions about AwesomeWM (and couple on twm's in general)

#4 2010-07-13 14:46:09

Re: Questions about AwesomeWM (and couple on twm's in general)

#5 2010-07-13 14:46:53

Re: Questions about AwesomeWM (and couple on twm's in general)

#6 2010-07-13 14:56:04

Re: Questions about AwesomeWM (and couple on twm's in general)

#7 2010-07-13 15:30:01

Re: Questions about AwesomeWM (and couple on twm's in general)

#8 2010-07-13 18:37:45

Re: Questions about AwesomeWM (and couple on twm's in general)

#9 2010-07-14 08:12:08

Re: Questions about AwesomeWM (and couple on twm's in general)

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