[xmonad] Making utility windows "dock like"

[Daniel Schoepe]

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> I've been using xmonad with great success with my thinkpad x61 tablet.
> Although xmonad is so keyboard focused it still works quite well
> without one— so long as the compromise of a panel desktop switcher is
> used (I'm using gnome-panel).
> 
> One issue I haven't solved yet is cellwriter
> (http://risujin.org/cellwriter/).  According to xprop cellwriter is a
> "utility window", not a dock, and doesn't provide the struts field,
> even when it is set to dock mode.  As a result, when I unhide it using
> the notification icon it pops up as a float in the middle of my
> screen.
> 
> What I'd like to do is treat it as a dock: Accept the size it assumes,
> force it to bottom of the screen (just above my existing panel), and
> prevent anything from overlapping it or it from overlapping anything
> (shrinking the tiled area as a result). I expect that other people
> might find the same kind of behavior useful for things like
> calculators, but perhaps not— since it wouldn't be important to have a
> calculator on all workspaces. :)
> 

Another possibility would be Layout.Gaps in combination with a manage
hook: in the manage hook you could determine the size of the window and
send it to the bottom of the screen and use sendMessage to signal the
gapped layout about the size of the gaps.