[xmonad] Patch: changes in Prompt and new module

[Carsten Mattner]

On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 12:58 AM, Carlos López Camey <c.lopez at kmels.net> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> please find attached the following patch.
>
> I have a question in case it gets applied. I'd like to improve the
> mode to search for files (locate isn't fast/good enough). So far I
> thought of tracker [0] and recollq [1] but as noted none seemed 100%
> right. I thought of loading the db written by 'updatedb' in the memory
> [2] but I don't know if that's acceptable as xmonad tries to stay
> lightweight.

I strongly suggest to keep it simple and not add dependencies.
You might add optional runtime dependencies for special bits
where it makes sense but not the general case and not the default
cabal install xmonad-contrib step.

I don't know if Launcher caches but it has always been fast for
me on a slow machine. dmenu_run has a cache file.

Said that I'd also suggest to weigh the benefits vs higher space use.
Xmonad alreads uses around 6MiB on x86 32-bit with the Prompt enabled
and that's quite a lot more than spectrwm or dwm (naturally).
Being lightweight is 1) responsiveness, 2) memory use, 3) and easy to
install without many dependencies.

> [0] it would be fast, but it needs to add dbus as a dependency
> http://projects.gnome.org/tracker/
> [1] the query language doesn't apply to file *names* only (it works to
> search for terms *in* files) http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/
> [2] my mlocate.db is 37M for a 1.5TB disk
>
> Comments on the patch:
> -------------
> 2 patches for repository http://code.haskell.org/XMonadContrib:
>
> Thu Jun 28 12:17:49 CEST 2012  c.lopez at kmels.net
>  * Changes on XPrompt:
>
>      * Adds mkPromptWithModes, creates a prompt given a list of modes
> (list of XPType).
>
>      * Adds Setting `alwaysHighlight` to defaultXPConfig. When set to
> true, autocompletion always highlight the first result if it is not
> highlighted.
>
>  Adds module XMonad.Actions.Launcher. This module allows to combine
> and switch between instances of XPrompt. It includes a default set of
> modes which require the programs `hoogle`, `locate` and `calc` to be
> installed to work properly.
>
>
> Thu Jun 28 13:45:33 CEST 2012  c.lopez at kmels.net
>  * Removes warnings, adds a browser value for LauncherConfig in
> haddock comments

Thanks Carlos. I'll report once I've tested this.
Does it require a darcs build of xmonad or just xmonad-contrib?