[Xmonad] Show windows in status bar?

[Alexandre Buisse]

On Mon, Jun 11, 2007 at 11:45:49 +0200, Kai Grossjohann wrote:

> What I like about dwm is that it shows me the title of the currently
> focussed window in the status bar.  Has anyone done this for xmonad?
> 
> Furthermore, it would be cool to get some indication of other windows on
> the current workspace: One could display a list of titles and highlight
> the currently focussed window.  The difficult part is that the list of
> titles is likely long, so one would have to shorten it somehow.
> 
> List of titles:
> 
> Emacs / xterm 1 / [xterm 2] / Gaim / xload
> 
> Here, xterm 2 would be the current window.
> 
> Shortening the list of titles:
> 
>   - Truncate title of current window to 20 (configurable)
>   - Truncate titles of other windows to 10 each (configurable)
>   - Only print windows around the currently focussed one.
>   - Use ellipsis to show truncations
> 
>     ... / xt... / [xter...] / Ga... / ...
>     ^^^   ^^^^^    ^^^^^^^    ^^^^^   ^^^
>      |      |         |         |     Windows omitted from rear
>      |      |                   | 
>      |      Truncated titles of nonactive windows
>      |
>      Windows omitted from front
>                       
>                       |
>                       Truncated title of active window

It's supposed to be easy to gather the window name from the state dump
since there's the window id in it, and then use xprop or xwininfo to get
the name.

Your proposition sounds fine, but even if truncating most names, I fear
it would be too much for the available space (seeing mine, I currently
have slightly more than the workspace information width still
available). Plus on many windows, the interesting bit is at the end
(e.g. "Konqueror - Website title").

So if you still go ahead with your idea (and I hope you will), please
ensure that it works well with 0 friends on each side (and then without
ellipsis).

Thanks,
/Alexandre
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