[Xmonad] darcs patch: first shot at a floating layer

[Donald Bruce Stewart]

xmonad:
> David Roundy <droundy at darcs.net> writes:
> 
> > On Thu, May 31, 2007 at 09:37:34PM +0100, Bruce Stephens wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> >> Maybe there's a place for a per-screen decoration layer, always
> >> visible, in which I can stick clocks, status bars, GNOME panels, etc.?
> >> Hmm, maybe just things that just display information (rather than
> >> interact)?  (And then maybe I could use xcompmgr or something to make
> >> them translucent?)
> >
> > Let's keep the number of layers down, and just allow windows to be present
> > in multiple workspaces.
> 
> Ah, but that's tricky for xinerama, as I understand it.  Anyway, I was
> just suggesting one new layer per screen, so that doesn't feel huge.
> Admittedly, presumably it's conceptually a new kind of layer, which is
> bad.  And maybe it's not worth it.
> 
> My hunch is the right way to do this is to have some windows always
> present on a screen.  I'm thinking of that in terms of something like
> the new floating layers, but maybe there's a cleaner way to do it.
> 
> (I should confess to being attracted by the tagging approach of wmii,
> dwm.  That would presumably be a good way to allow windows to be in
> multiple workspaces.  However, I'm not sure whether that's the best
> way.  It feels like it would be a radical change for xmonad.)
> 

The main issue with tagging seems to be how to support Xinerama with it
-- given its very easy to move a window to a new `group'
(mod-shift-1..n), the power-to-weight ratio doesn't seem to justify
complicating/losing xinerama. 

We are keeping it in mind though.

-- Don