[xmonad] Ditching Gnome

[Eyal Erez]

Hi,

I've been using xmonad on top of gnome for some time now. I would really like
to drop gnome, and use xmonad straight up. However, gnome has a number of small
but significant features that I need to find replacements for:

Must Have:
1. System tray: This is where many apps I use (e.g. Pidgin, Skype, Aqualung,
   Dropbox, etc.) place icons so I can see some status about them, and sometimes
   interact with them (though mostly just status).
2. Network: This also exists in the system tray but I separated it out because
   it's really important.  This is the ability to see if I am connected or not,
   and to be able to choose wifi networks to connect to.
3. gnome-do: I use this as an easy way to launch applications.  I don't use most
   of the more complicated features like combining objects and verbs.

Nice to Have:
4. High-level view of all desktops and which apps are running on each.
5. Date, time, and whether.
6. System statistics.

I have tried both xmonbar and dzen2, but had a hard time getting all the
features I needed to work.  I was hoping someone can point out what I can use to
replace each of these, and throw in some good documentation to boot.

I would love to ditch Gnome.  Thanks for your help.