[xmonad] xmonad user survey!

lithis xmonad at s001.hethrael.com
Sun Dec 23 18:46:47 EST 2007


On Sat, 2007/12/22 21:47:34 -0800, Don Stewart wrote:
>     * What things annoy you?

Transient window popups on multi-screen setups. They
oftentimes pop up on the other screen; I would like for the
transient to stay close to its parent window. This is
especially annoying with splash screens, because I will
launch (for example) OpenOffice on screen 1, the splash
screen will appear on screen 0, and then OpenOffice will
appear on screen 0 because that is the currently focused
screen.

>     * What things do you like?

Automatic layouts.

Haskell, even though I don’t know it.

Non-bloat.

>     * What things are missing?

An easier, more dynamic way to switch and combine layouts at
runtime. Putting every layout I might want in my xmonad.hs
and then hitting Mod+Space many times makes me tend to stick
to a single layout or a list of only a few layouts.

Somebody mentioned recently the ability to zoom the contents
of a window. When I first saw the spiral layout in action, I
thought how cool it would be if the windows kept their
virtual size, but the contents were scaled down. Recently-
used windows would be larger and usable while old windows
would be mere thumbnails, kind of like an automatic aging
Exposé.

Window decorations: just the titles, mostly, although
I occationally wish there were a close buttons.

>     * What things do you     miss from ion/wmii/dwm/compiz

Manual control of layouts. I usually use Tall, and sometimes
I want a particular window in the right pane to be taller.
Also, tabs inside any frame. As with Lee (aylwarlt), I’ve
heard this is possible but haven’t tried it yet.

I forget what it’s called, but the Mod+Space window popup
feature in Ion3 would be nice. I think it is similar to the
Konfabulator/
Mac OS widget thing that was already mentioned: hit a
keystroke, and a window or windows pop up in front of the
current workspace. Sometimes I don't want all my windows to
rearrange just so I can use a calculator. For my purposes,
an XShell prompt that runs an application in the floating
layer might do. For example, press Mod+Shift+X to pop up a
prompt that floats whatever it runs, or modify the existing
XShell to float what it runs if you press Shift+Enter.

Ion2 tiled all windows, including transients. It used to
bother me, but when Ion3 started floating transients, I
missed the tiled transient feature. xmonad has better
control of window navigation with floats, though, so it’s
easy to press Mod+T to tile a transient (I had to perform
very strange keystroke incantations to navigate with
floating transients in Ion3). However, can xmonad be easily
configured to tile all transients?

>     * What things do you not miss from ion/wmii/dwm/compiz
>     ... :)

Multi-keystroke commands (such as Mod+K N).

> If you've any suggestions for things we can change to make
> xmonad better 
> fit your workflow or whatever, please shout out!

Likewise, I’m interested in how my workflow can be changed
to better fit xmonad. It’s quite different than Ion and it’s
very configurable, so figuring out the best way to use it
takes a lot of thought. More examples of what is possible
and how xmonad is used would be helpful.



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