[xmonad] OO.o won't open, Dialogs and GIMP won't float/tile right

[Wirt Wolff]

Sorry for the long wait for a reply, Dayo.

Excerpts from Dayo Adewunmi's message of Wed Apr 22 09:49:07 -0600 2009:
> Hi guys.
> 
> I love Xmonad. Installed it on my Ubuntu 8.10 laptop a couple of days 
> ago for the first time, so I'm still a newbie. I managed to add Xmobar, 
> by following the installation instructions from here: 
> http://code.haskell.org/~arossato/xmobar/#installation and using the 
> config example from here: 
> http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Config_archive/John_Goerzen's_Configuratio
> n#Configuring_xmonad_to_use_xmobar
> 
> My modifier is Alt, so I press Alt+p to start apps from the grey menu 
> bar that appears at the top of the screen, and so far the only one that 
> won't start is OpenOffice3.

I don't use dmenu, so ymmv, but hopefully the ff. would work for you
too, in case you don't happen to be selecting the intended oo___ app
from dmenu: in shell at least 'oowriter' starts document editor and
'ooffice' the generic oo gateway. (I use XMonad.Util.Scratchpad or a
shell to start apps, so can just type 'oo<tab>' to see the available
openoffice commands to choose from.)

> Also, I have to start GIMP 2.6 in a dedicated workspace, because it just 
> won't tile correctly with other open apps. Dialog prompts like "SaveAs"
> and "Open" of various apps don't float right either, leaving the "Save",
> "Open", "Cancel" buttons hanging out of sight below the visible line
> of the screen.

Hmm, with the xmonad.hs you attached I'd expect all Gimp things to
float, and dialogs to be in the upper left corner. Maybe your Gimp has
different X properties than the expected class name of "Gimp". This link
[1] has a bunch of info about xprop, hooks, and Gimp,

#xmonad  on irc.freenode.net is another place to get help with the
dialog window locations.

> Also pressing Alt+Enter is said to switch the active frame with the 
> frame in the Master pane, but this stopped working after some editing of 
> xmonad.hs (or .xmobarrc?). Unfortunately, I can't remember what changes 
> I made that caused Alt+Enter to stop working.

The xmonad.hs you pasted should use the default keys, including Alt-Enter,
so maybe try #xmonad for help troubleshooting what's going wrong.
(.xmobarrc only affects xmobar, so long as it's working and displaying
workspaces xmonad is writing to it -- nothing to do with Alt-Enter)

Welcome, hope you continue to like xmonad and customizing it to your
needs.

[1] http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/General_xmonad.hs_config_tips#Gimp

> Here are my specs and configs:
> 
> ~/.xmonad/xmonad.hs: http://pastebin.com/f5e107f70
> ~/.xmobarrc: http://pastebin.com/febe32b4
> 
> Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex
> Linux 2.6.27-11-generic #1 SMP Wed Apr 1 20:57:48 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
> 
> Regards
> 
> Dayo

-- 
wmw