[xmonad] HintedGrid + gimp

[Wirt Wolff]

Excerpts from Nathan Huesken's message of Sun Oct 18 14:06:54 -0600 2009:
>
> If I start gimp in float layout, it puts its windows very nicely. When I
> start in in HintedGrid layout, it is tiled like any other application
> ...
>
> Is this due gimp not setting hints? Or is HintedGrid not able to
> accomendate gimps hints and therefor does nothing?

Hi Nathan,

What effect are you looking for? HintedGrid as far as I know attempts
to make a grid of similar rectangles as close as possible to a given
aspect ratio while resizing by increments asked for by the windows.
This might work well for the main image windows, since they are usable
in squarish windows, but likely wouldn't work so well for most of the
other gimp windows. And yes, the image windows don't seem to set resize
hints, so the hinted part wouldn't make any difference.

The toolbox and dock, (which do set resize hints) are probably
better handled differently, though, e.g. with Layout.IM or one of the
other combining layouts. They work best in tall skinny windows, which
wouldn't make much sense for *Grid unless you mainly work on vertical
banner ads.

For some tips, sample configs, and further discussion, see the
Gimp section on:

http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/General_xmonad.hs_config_tips

Like image windows, dialog (tool settings) windows don't appear to set
resize hints. So even if you tile them, hinted or not won't
make a difference. Most of the dialogs don't set properties to
automatically float, either, so if you're not using the default
manageHook to float /all/ gimp windows, and you do want floating
dialogs, you'd need to add them to manageHook as in the tips page
(or easier, with isDialog from Hooks.ManageHelpers if you are using
darcs xmonad/contrib.)

So as far as I can tell, the only windows which would be slightly
different in hinted layouts would be the toolbox and dock. But
the default floating setup or one of the configs from the tips page
will probably work better for you than a single tiling layout,
whether hinted or no.

Hope that's helpful,

regards,
-- 
wmw