xmonad-custom/README.md

xmonad-custom: Custom modules for my xmonad configuration

Usage

Install via stack similar as xmonad and xmonad-contrib, see e.g. this guide. Write xmonad.hs as glue code to import modules.

Goals of this setup

Design

• Keybindings optimized for neo keyboard layout:
  • positional keybindings taken from default XMonad config, e.g. now n and d are used to rotate through workspaces, as they match the positions of j and ö in the standard qwertz layout.
  • mnemonic keybindings (partially) remapped to avoid conflicts, e.g. r for running programs, x for killing windows
• Super and Alt_L as main and secondary modifier.
• 20 numbered workspaces, reachable by <Super>-1, ..., <Super>-0 and <Alt_L>-1, ..., <Alt_L>-0. Moving to these workspaces with additional <Shift>.
• Workspaces associated to programs, reachably my <Alt> and mnemonic keys for the programs:
  • launching programs automatically when opening workspace Prevent launching with <Control>
  • binding programs to these workspaces (to be implemented)
• Many keybindings for custom menus lanuching (custom) scripts, e.g. u for stuff associated to my University Setup or <Esc> for reboot, hibernate, suspend etc. (still many missing)
• Use PolyBar as status bar

Implementational

• Use EZConfig for all bindings to simplify code.
• Use Submap for menus.
• separation into multiple modules to clean up the main xmonad.hs config file and increase modularization/reusability. E.g., it is now trivial to remove university setup keys or bind the submenu to another key.
• Deduplication as strong as reasonably possible. This means a single place where all modifier keys are defined etc. Also ensures that changing modifier layout is as easy as possible
• Reasonably separate code from real configuration
• Reduce xmonad.hs to gluing code / selection of loaded modules. In particular, no configuration (read: key definitions) should be present there
• Pack modules into .cabal package. This ensures that xmonad-custom can be installed just as xmonad or xmonad-contrib (e.g. via Stack) and xmonad.hs can conveniently import all my stuff. In particular, no [custom build script][build-script] is needed to build xmonad.
• Use xmonad-dbus for communication with PolyBar.

Non-goals

• Write a library that is directly usable for others. This is for personal use, although you are of course invited to reuse/adapt/fork this
• Complete separation of code and configuration. This means that the modules do directly contain my keybindings. This also means that the source code of this package itself must me modified for customization (in contrast to xmonad itself, e.g.) I went with this option since complete separation is just too ugly to implement and somewhat defies the purpose of xmonad not using configuration files but Haskell code. Also I believe that users of xmonad will want to customize more than just my keybindings, so more code has to be written anyways.