[xmonad] Re: Default settings: Prompt.hs's defaultXPConfig

[Gwern Branwen]

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On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 11:21 PM,   wrote:
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...
> 10 seems perfect for me on a 1440x900 display with a font resolution of
> about 100dpi. 14 or 16 are way too big here. Font size is tricky,
> because it depends so much on resolution. OTOH, I use an xft font
> anyway, which wouldn't be a good default, so I'm not too concerned with
> what the default is.

I don't suppose we could compromise at 12? (I'll note that in my
xmonad.hs archive, only Oxymoron sets a font 10 and below; I don't
have one for you I guess.)

>> 2) The color scheme is currently a sort of white-on-grey. It lacks
>> contrast, IMO. Here I have 2 suggestions:
>> 2.1) The current color values are pretty opaque. Unless you have
>> color-values memorized, ', bgColor           = "#333333"' is
>> absolutely meaningless to you. Intrigeri's xmonad.hs has a XPConfig
>> which looks like:
>>      fgColor     = "grey80"
>>     , bgColor     = "grey22"
>>     , borderColor = "grey22"
>>
>> The prompt appears much the same, but the values are far more
>> comprehensible. Even if we don't change the color scheme, this would
>> constitute a code cleanup IMO.
>> 2.2) I would like to switch to either green text on black (which gets
>> us bonus hacker points :) and better contrast), or white text on black
>> - as opposed to white text on gray. Thoughts on either color scheme?
>> (Green-on-black would be , bgColor     = "black"\n, fgColor     =
>> "green" obviously.)
>
> I happen to like these colors (they're surprisingly close to the ones I
> use for xterms, where I like a low contrast white on black), though I
> think simply having white on black is probably a saner default.

I'm a little confused here. I take it you don't like green-on-black,
but you do like the current grey-on-grey? (With a weak vote for
white-on-black.)

>> 3) Do people actually like the border? 5 xmonad.hss specifically
>> disable it by setting 'promptBorderWidth = 0'. I confess it just seems
>> like wasted space to me. It's not like a dark-gray/green/black
>> background make it hard to make out the prompt against the application
>> window.
>
> I leave the border on, otherwise it's difficult to read when I'm on a
> workspace with mostly terminals.
>
>> 4) Positioning: top, or bottom? I myself am weakly in favor of top.
>> The configs are odd here - there are ~4 which set to Top, and 5 or so
>> which set it to Bottom. Even though Bottom is the default.
>> 4 configurations override the config to put the box at the top of the
>> screen. ???
>
> I expect this is close to fifty-fifty in practice, so either default is
> just as good as the other. Personally, I like top.

So I'll focus on font and colors; border and positioning seem to be
accepted as they currently are.

--
gwern