[Xmonad] darcs patch: use a Layout to set the Screen rectangles.

[Spencer Janssen]

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007 06:54:58 -0700
David Roundy <droundy at darcs.net> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Here's a moderate-sized change that might be controversial.  I've
> replaced xineScreens with a screenLayout that calls into Xinerama to
> get the screen rectangles.  This has a couple of potential advantages.
> 
> One is that we could use this to move the gap treatment into
> XMonadContrib, or at least out of XState, as we no longer require a
> special data structure to store the gaps: it could just be a very
> simple Layout modifier.  I believe this would simplify the core even
> if we don't move it entirely into XMonadContrib (which is what I'd
> do, figuring that core should be only things that either everyone
> needs or are both trivially small and something that everyone needs
> *one* of.
> 
> It also (and this is why I wrote this) allows (with a separately sent
> XMonadContrib module) those of us who only have one screen to pretend
> we've got more than one screen.  So all developers can test and see
> how things will behave (e.g. sticky-window code) under Xinerama.  And
> it also gives users the ability to get something like a version of
> Combo that works with tabs, and sort of emulates sticky windows.  I
> don't think it'd really a long-term solution to either of those UI
> goals, but in the interim, it's better than nothing.  It might even
> be enough to get me to upgrade at work to the latest xmonad (I've
> been sticking with the one where Combo worked).
> 
> Anyhow, this is the first application of the more general Layout
> type.  It expands the code a little bit, but if we use it to simplify
> gap handling, that might be enough to compensate.
> 
> David
> 
> P.S. To reiterate, I think that the ability to test Xinerama behavior
> easily is enough to make this patch worthwhile, particularly since
> that seems to be a primary goal of xmonad, and it makes it tricky for
> those of us who don't have that possibility to make changes to xmonad
> core that will be acceptable.  e.g. many of us want sticky windows,
> but we hear that it'll be hard with Xinerama, but folks with multiple
> screens don't seem to care, presumably because they've already got
> sticky workspaces.
> 
> Wed Jun 20 06:36:03 PDT 2007  David Roundy <droundy at darcs.net>
>   * use a Layout to set the Screen rectangles.
>   An accompanying patch will allow those of us with only one physical
> screen to divide it into virtual screens at runtime.
> 

How about a simple contrib extension that modifies 'xineScreens' and
windowSet to fit some user specified geometry?  It's considerably
simpler and requires no changes to xmonad itself.


Spencer Janssen