Alexander Kojevnikov | Blog

I've just released a new version of xmonad-log-applet. Thanks to Ari Croock it now works with the MATE desktop environment, just include --with-panel=mate when configuring the applet.

Because GitHub recently disabled new downloads, the tarballs are now hosted on Google Code.

I also added a new tag for the applet in case you want to follow just x-l-a related posts.

xmonad-log-applet is a handy panel applet/plugin for GNOME (and now Xfce) users who use Xmonad as an alternative window manager. The applet will show the visible workspace(s), active window's title or anything you send its way from your xmonad.hs.

I recently took over xmonad-log-applet maintainership from Adam Wick, and today I'm happy to announce the release of version 2.0.0.

Changes since the previous release:

• Migrated the GNOME 2 applet from deprecated libbonobo API to the new D-Bus based API.
• GNOME 3 panel support (in fallback mode).
• Xfce 4 panel support.
• Revamped the build system.
• Dropped GConf dependency which was used to specify the applet width; instead fill all available space (like the window list applet) and ellipsise when necessary.
• Simplified background transparency handling.
• Fixed install locations.
• Updated sample xmonad.hs.

To install get and unpack the tarball or clone the repo, then run:

% ./configure --with-panel=gnome2
% make
% sudo make install

Substitute gnome2 with gnome3 or xfce4 if that's what you use. If you cloned the git repo, use ./autogen.sh instead of ./configure. After restarting the panel you should be able to add the applet.

Use the provided sample xmonad.hs file to bind it to Xmonad. It depends on the DBus package, which currently doesn't compile with GHC 7.x, but it's easy to work around:

% cabal update
% cabal unpack DBus
% cd DBus-0.4
% $EDITOR DBus/Internal.hsc

Replace import Control.Exception with import Control.OldException, then:

% cabal configure
% cabal build
% cabal install

After this, your xmonad.hs should compile.

EDIT: With GHC 7.4, you also need to edit DBus/Message.hsc and prepend Foreign. to unsafePerformIO.

Happy Xmonading!

xmonad is an elegantly minimalist and lightning fast window manager for X written in Haskell. I wanted to play with it for a long time: I'm using two 24" monitors and so have to spend a fair bit of time re-sizing windows and moving them around. A tiling window manager like xmonad takes care of this; in addition you can control all aspects of window placement with the keyboard alone.

The good news is: xmonad plays really well with GNOME. You can keep your GNOME panels, themes, desktop backgrounds, etc – xmonad just replaces Metacity leaving everything else intact.

The bad news is: I should have tried it earlier.

A few notes about xmonad set up and usage:

• Recommended way to set up xmonad with GNOME is to export WINDOW_MANAGER=xmonad before starting gnome-session, but it didn't work for me. I tried every suggested place: ~/.gnomerc, ~/.xsession, ~/.profile, ~/.xinitrc; but none of them worked – GNOME always started with Metacity.

  What worked though is this:

• Create a file in /usr/share/applications called xmonad.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Xmonad
Exec=/usr/bin/xmonad
NoDisplay=true
X-GNOME-WMName=Xmonad
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Bugzilla=XMonad
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Product=xmonad
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Component=general
X-GNOME-Autostart-Phase=WindowManager
X-GNOME-Provides=windowmanager
X-GNOME-Autostart-Notify=true

• Change this GConf key from 'metacity' to 'xmonad':

/desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager

• On startup, xmonad doesn't set the usual left-arrow cursor but inherits an ugly X cursor which looks like it was created in the eighties. To change it, add this line to your ~/.xinitrc file just before you start gnome-session:

xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr

• You need to create a config file in ~/.xmonad called xmonad.hs and add this:

import XMonadimport XMonad.Config.Gnome main = xmonad gnomeConfig

• That's right, the config file is a Haskell program that starts xmonad, which means it's extremely customisable.

  All keyboard short-cuts in xmonad are in the form Mod-X or Mod-Shift-X, where Mod is by default the Alt key. Line 7 tells xmonad to use the Win key – Alt is heavily used by GNOME applications:

import XMonad
import XMonad.Config.Gnome

main = do
  xmonad $ gnomeConfig
    { terminal    = "gnome-terminal"
    , modMask     = mod4Mask
    , focusFollowsMouse = False
    , borderWidth = 2
    }

• When touch-typing, some shortcuts are painful to use, Win-Shift-6 probably being the worst. What I wanted is to replace the Mod part with another shortcut, a bit in the Emacs fashion, so that instead of Win-Shift-6 I would have for example a sequence of Ctrl-m and Shift-6.

  mauke on #xmonad was extremely helpful, he came up with this code which worked as advertised:

import XMonad
import XMonad.Config.Gnome
import XMonad.Actions.Submap

import Control.Arrow
import Data.Bits
import qualified Data.Map as M

main :: IO ()
main = do
    xmonad $ gnomeConfig
         { terminal = "gnome-terminal"
         , focusFollowsMouse = False
         , borderWidth = 2
         , keys = addPrefix (controlMask, xK_m) (keys gnomeConfig)
         }

addPrefix p ms conf =
    M.singleton p . submap $ M.mapKeys (first chopMod) (ms conf)
    where
    mod = modMask conf
    chopMod = (.&. complement mod)

• To re-load xmonad after you changed the config file just press Mod-q. It takes just a second to re-compile and leaves all open windows intact.

After using xmonad for 2 days I must say I'm a convert. The keyboard short-cuts feel very natural, it's not difficult to see the influence of vi. Moving a window to another screen or to another workspace (did I mention workspaces are per screen, which is a really neat feature), switching between workspaces, switching windows, changing layouts, etc... is just a short-cut away.

And as a bonus point, I now have a good reason to become more familiar with Haskell – it's a very nice language.