[xmonad] DynamicLog improvements and new contrib module, XMonad.Util.Loggers

[Brent Yorgey]

Hi everyone!

Just a quick description of a patch I just pushed to the xmonad-contrib
darcs repo. First, I cleaned up DynamicLog and added a bunch of
documentation and examples -- getting a working status bar seems like one of
the more difficult aspects of a typical xmonad setup, so hopefully this will
go some ways towards fixing that.

In another step to make setting up a useful status bar easier, I also added
a new field to the PP record, ppExtras.  This is a list of 'loggers', i.e.
(X (Maybe String)) actions, which will be run each time the status is
generated, and their output added to the normal window title + layout +
workspace information.  As an example of the sorts of things you can put
there, and as a repository for useful loggers that people might create, I
also added a new module, XMonad.Util.Loggers.  The upshot of all this is
that I used to have a separate script to get the time and date, battery
information, and load averages, into which I would pipe the output of
xmonad, and then pipe the output of that script into dzen.  Now, I no longer
have a separate script, I can just throw a few loggers in the ppExtras field
of my PP format, and hey presto!  Simpler, easier to maintain, and easier
for newcomers to figure out.

If you find the new ppExtras feature useful, I hope you'll create some new
Loggers and put them in the Loggers module.  And feel free to improve
upon/generalize the ones that are already there.  Ideally there should be a
wide array of useful, configurable loggers that new users can choose from
when constructing their preferred status bar.

happy xmonading,
-Brent
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