[Xmonad] ideas for new layouts and layout modifiers

[David Roundy]

On Fri, Sep 28, 2007 at 01:53:57PM -0500, Spencer Janssen wrote:
> On Friday 28 September 2007 12:33:26 David Roundy wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 27, 2007 at 04:09:38PM -0300, Isaac Dupree wrote:
> > > David Roundy wrote:
> > > >1. WindowNavigator
> > > >
> > > >  A layout modifier that keeps track of the rectangles of visible
> > > > windows and a "cursor" point, to allow keybindings for "shift focus
> > > >  up/down/left/right" in a real geometric manner.  It's independent of
> > > > the tiling algorithm used.  A key point is that moving left followed by
> > > > right will always return focus to its original position (except
> > > > sometimes if the layout of the screen changes when you move focus
> > > > left).
> > >
> > > Please display somehow (a *faint* red border?) the trail of windows that
> > > you'll go to with left or right.  It annoys me in word processors that I
> > > can't see where up or down is going to take me to.  Modal badness...
> > > (Although with xmonad, I don't put more than a few windows on a
> > > workspace and usually use full-screen, so it doesn't actually make much
> > > of a difference to me)
> >
> > I've implemented this module, and even wrote the code for your special
> > border (which I made bright blue so I'd be sure to know if it worked), but
> > my border-setting code apparently didn't work as it ought, so I commented
> > it out.  Suggestions would be appreciated.  I don't like X color stuff, it
> > looks scary.
> 
> We set window border colors after executing the layouts, I bet this is the
> problem.

Sounds like it.  Do you see an easy workaround? It seems like we only need
to change borders when we change the focus, and in that case we should only
need to change the border on two windows (the previously focussed window
and the new focus window).  Am I correct that making this (border-coloring)
more efficient would also make the WindowNavigation coloring code work?
-- 
David Roundy
Department of Physics
Oregon State University