Technology/LXDE/WMs, (sdf.org), 03/13/2019
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For the past year or so, it feels like, I've been using
tiling window managers. They're so clean and neat and easy,
I'm ruined for anything else. If absolute perfection did in
fact exist, I could stay in dwm or spectrwm all the time and
never have a care in the world.
But this is the Real World(TM), and nothing is perfect.
There are times where the tiling breaks down, the quirks
handling isn't sufficient, and the whole thing turns into a
mess. I've tried to work around the problems, but that is
not always possible and/or worth the time investment.
This is not a complaint against tiling window managers, it's
just an admission that they're not perfect, and they don't
always allow me to get my work done.
When these times come, I find myself firing up one of the
other 15-20 window managers I have installed, usually just
for a session while I use the offensive program. I've
decided, for a few reasons, that lxde/openbox is my go-to
setup for such occassions.
Today, I spent some time setting up lxde/openbox to behave
properly for a guy who now prefers tiling. I setup shortcuts
that let me quickly launch my uxterms, and automatically
resize and move them into the tiling configuration that I
enjoy. There is a nice GUI for doing this, or the even nicer
XML file.
My keyboard has a number pad built-in, and I use the super
(mod4) button for my mod key, so I setup shortcuts as
follows:
<super>+keypad_home move to the top-left, resize half
width/height
<super>+keypad_left move to left edge, resize full
height, 1/2 width
<super>+keypad_end move to bottom-left, resize half
width/height
and so on for the keys on the right. I also created:
So... put this all together, and I can quickly start up
three uxterms, remove their decorations, and place them in a
tiling setup, all without leaving my keyboard.
While I was there, I modified some shortcuts to work the
same way I have them in dwm and spectrwm, including
shortcuts for moving between workspaces, and a shortcut for
using dmenu_run. I also setup my theme to be non-intrusive,
and I setup my focus to match what I use in dmw/spectrwm.
Does it replace dwm/spectrwm? No. Does it let me use
lxde/openbox efficiently when I need to use lxde/openbox?
Yes. I see no reason to suffer when neccessity dictates that
I use this setup. I can have my cake and eat it too. I can
have most of my keyboard shortcuts and workflow match. I can
visually enjoy myself. I checked the man pages, and no where
does it state that I can't have a good time in both
configurations!
