herbstluftwm is a window manager. The following is my configuration, which is based on the default one (with tweaks to avoid depending on bash)
#!/bin/sh
herbstclient is quite long to write, so abbreviate it
alias hc=herbstclient hc emit_hook reload
remove all existing keybindings before adding the new ones
hc keyunbind --all
I prefer using mod4 (the super/windows/... key) to manage the window manger, with only few exceptions
#Mod=Mod1 # Use alt as the main modifier Mod=Mod4 # Use the super key as the main modifier hc keybind $Mod-Tab use_previous hc keybind $Mod-Shift-q quit hc keybind $Mod-Shift-r reload hc keybind $Mod-Shift-c close hc keybind $Mod-slash spawn menu hc keybind $Mod-Control-Return spawn emacsclient -c hc keybind Control-Mod1-Return spawn xterm
control amused (my music player)
hc keybind XF86AudioNext spawn amused next hc keybind XF86AudioPlay spawn amused toggle hc keybind XF86AudioPrev spawn amused prev hc keybind XF86AudioStop spawn amused stop
I don't have a dedicated key for screenshot, but Scroll_Lock is not too awkward to press
hc keybind $Mod-Scroll_Lock spawn sshot -c hc keybind $Mod-Shift-Scroll_Lock spawn sshot -cs
basic movement in tiling and floating mode focusing clients
hc keybind $Mod-Left focus left hc keybind $Mod-Down focus down hc keybind $Mod-Up focus up hc keybind $Mod-Right focus right hc keybind $Mod-h focus left hc keybind $Mod-j focus down hc keybind $Mod-k focus up hc keybind $Mod-l focus right
moving clients in tiling and floating mode
hc keybind $Mod-Shift-Left shift left hc keybind $Mod-Shift-Down shift down hc keybind $Mod-Shift-Up shift up hc keybind $Mod-Shift-Right shift right hc keybind $Mod-Shift-h shift left hc keybind $Mod-Shift-j shift down hc keybind $Mod-Shift-k shift up hc keybind $Mod-Shift-l shift right
splitting frames creates an empty frame at the specified direction
hc keybind $Mod-u split bottom 0.5 hc keybind $Mod-o split right 0.5
let the current frame explode into subframes
hc keybind $Mod-Control-space split explode
resizing frames and floating clients
resizestep=0.02 hc keybind $Mod-Control-h resize left +$resizestep hc keybind $Mod-Control-j resize down +$resizestep hc keybind $Mod-Control-k resize up +$resizestep hc keybind $Mod-Control-l resize right +$resizestep hc keybind $Mod-Control-Left resize left +$resizestep hc keybind $Mod-Control-Down resize down +$resizestep hc keybind $Mod-Control-Up resize up +$resizestep hc keybind $Mod-Control-Right resize right +$resizestep
add the tags
hc rename default "1" || true
addtag() {
hc add $1
if [ ! -z "$2" ]; then
hc keybind "$Mod-$2" use $1
hc keybind "$Mod-Shift-$2" move $1
fi
}
addtag 1 ampersand
addtag 2 braceleft
addtag 3 bracketleft
addtag 4 parenleft
addtag 5 equal
addtag 6 plus
addtag 7 parenright
addtag 8 bracketright
addtag 9 braceright
addtag 0 exclam
cycle through tags
hc keybind $Mod-period use_index +1 --skip-visible hc keybind $Mod-comma use_index -1 --skip-visible
manage the layout
hc keybind $Mod-r remove hc keybind $Mod-s floating toggle hc keybind $Mod-f fullscreen toggle hc keybind $Mod-Shift-f set_attr clients.focus.floating toggle hc keybind $Mod-Shift-m set_attr clients.focus.minimized true hc keybind $Mod-Control-m jumpto last-minimized hc keybind $Mod-p pseudotile toggle
I prefer for the default layout to be `max' (only one window visible)
hc set default_frame_layout max
The following cycles through the available layouts within a frame, but skips layouts, if the layout change wouldn't affect the actual window positions. I.e. if there are two windows within a frame, the grid layout is skipped.
hc keybind $Mod-space \ or , and . compare tags.focus.curframe_wcount = 2 \ . cycle_layout +1 \ vertical horizontal max vertical grid \ , cycle_layout +1
mouse bindings
hc mouseunbind --all hc mousebind $Mod-Button1 move hc mousebind $Mod-Button2 zoom hc mousebind $Mod-Button3 resize
focus
hc keybind Mod1-Tab cycle_all +1 hc keybind Mod1-Shift-Tab cycle_all -1 hc keybind $Mod-BackSpace cycle_monitor hc keybind $Mod-c cycle hc keybind $Mod-i jumpto urgent
theme
hc attr theme.tiling.reset 1
hc attr theme.floating.reset 1
hc set frame_border_active_color '#222222cc'
hc set frame_border_normal_color '#ffffff'
hc set frame_bg_normal_color '#565656aa'
hc set frame_bg_active_color '#345F0Caa'
hc set frame_border_width 1
hc set always_show_frame on
hc set frame_bg_transparent on
hc set frame_transparent_width 5
hc set frame_gap 4
hc attr theme.title_height 0
#hc attr theme.title_font 'Dejavu Sans:pixelsize=12' # example using Xft
hc attr theme.title_font '-*-fixed-medium-r-*-*-13-*-*-*-*-*-*-*'
hc attr theme.padding_top 2 # space below the title's baseline (i.e. text depth)
hc attr theme.active.color '#9AFAFF'
hc attr theme.title_color '#222222'
hc attr theme.normal.color '#ffffef'
hc attr theme.urgent.color '#7811A1dd'
hc attr theme.normal.title_color '#898989'
hc attr theme.inner_width 1
hc attr theme.inner_color black
hc attr theme.border_width 2
hc attr theme.floating.border_width 4
hc attr theme.floating.outer_width 1
hc attr theme.floating.outer_color black
hc attr theme.active.inner_color '#789161'
hc attr theme.urgent.inner_color '#9A65B0'
hc attr theme.normal.inner_color '#606060'
# copy inner color to outer_color
for state in active urgent normal ; do
hc substitute C theme.${state}.inner_color \
attr theme.${state}.outer_color C
done
hc attr theme.active.outer_width 1
hc attr theme.background_color '#141414'
hc set window_gap 0
hc set frame_padding 0
hc set smart_window_surroundings off
hc set smart_frame_surroundings on
hc set mouse_recenter_gap 0
hc set focus_follows_mouse 1
hc set raise_on_click false
hc set snap_gap 5
rules
hc unrule -F #hc rule class=XTerm tag=3 # move all xterms to tag 3 hc rule focus=on # normally focus new clients hc rule floatplacement=smart #hc rule focus=off # normally do not focus new clients # give focus to most common terminals #hc rule class~'(.*[Rr]xvt.*|.*[Tt]erm|Konsole)' focus=on hc rule windowtype~'_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_(DIALOG|UTILITY|SPLASH)' floating=on hc rule windowtype='_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_DIALOG' focus=on hc rule windowtype~'_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_(NOTIFICATION|DOCK|DESKTOP)' manage=off hc set tree_style '╾│ ├└╼─┐'
A cool thing about herbstluftwm is that I can "dump" the layout and later reload it:
load_layout() {
if [ -f "$2" ]; then
hc load $1 "$(cat $2)"
fi
}
load_layout 2 ~/herbst.ws.2
load_layout 3 ~/herbst.ws.3
unlock, just to be sure
hc unlock
I'd like to have some gaps around my only monitor, herbstluftwm makes it incredibly easy
herbstclient set_monitors $((1920-100))x$((1080-100))+50+50 # hc detect_monitors
Finally launche the panel on each screen. I rewrote the original script for the monitor in a mix of rc (the plan9 shell) and awk.
cd ~/.config/herbstluftwm for monitor in $(hc list_monitors | cut -d: -f1) ; do ./panel "$monitor" & done