[Xmonad] xinerama and statusbar

[David Roundy]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2007 at 12:44:09PM -0500, Spencer Janssen wrote:
> On Friday 14 September 2007 12:29:59 David Roundy wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 14, 2007 at 10:24:29AM -0700, Don Stewart wrote:
> > > lobzang:
> > > > Hi
> > > >
> > > > I'm using a custom statusbar with dzen, in a xinerama environment (
> > > > defaultGaps = [(15,0,0,0)] in config file)
> > > > This starts well, however when I open a new window (term) on the second
> > > > screen, the statusbar is overlapped by the terminal window.
> > >
> > > the status bar gap field is a list of geometries for each physical
> > > screen. to have a gap on the second screen, you'd use something like:
> > >
> > >       = [(15,0,0,0), (15,0,0,0)]
> > >
> > > we might default to running the same gap on all screens -- perhaps that
> > > is what most people expect?
> >
> > Is there any way we can detect when a program appears to be a status bar?
> > Then we could simply adjust the gaps to compensate, which I suspect is what
> > people would really expect...
> 
> There are some ways, there are a few properties in EWMH, STRUT and DOCK IIRC.
> We'd need to patch dzen/xmobar to actually use these properties.

That sounds like a good plan.  And if we make this behavior configurable,
perhaps users could set their config files to dynamically identify "struts"
(which seems like a good name).  i.e. start with code that only works with
a few "supported" status bars that claim to be struts, and allow users to
extend the strut identification code.
-- 
David Roundy
Department of Physics
Oregon State University