Window Manager Augmentation Tools

[Member manyroads]

Because most folks here use window managers of one flavor or another, I thought it would be interesting to hear from the community regarding tools you use (rely upon) to improve and reinforce your window manager environment. I’ll kick off by offering a list of tools I use (in no particular sequence, it’s probably not complete):
— sxhkd (keybindings)
— rofi
— conky
— st (suckless simple terminal)
— xfce4-power-manager
— feh (for wallpaper changer)
— pulseaudio
— xcompmgr (eye candy) not compton/picom
— acpi tools including: thermald, tlp, powertop
— xautolock
— i3lock-fancy (screen locker)
— fluxgui (night-day backlight)
— dunst (notification)
— udiskie
— xdotool
— xdo
— lxpolkit (policykit)
— touchpad-indicator (to toggle my touchpad)
— caffeine
— yad & zenity (as launchers, pop-up messages & for help)
— tint2 (panel) for non-dwm window managers

Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - http://many-roads.com
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
dwm & i3wm ~Reg. Linux User #449130
20 Jan 2021 ~ "End of an Error"

[Moderator christophe]

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On my antiX base/full (fluxbox), I add tint2. functional & very nice-looking.

When playing at building something for antiX core:
— rofi — new thing I’m trying…
— conky
— acpi
— yad
— tint2
— feh

A question, if it’s not too off-topic from what you intended: How to get rofi to launch anything in “run” mode? For example, say I want to launch “df -h”. Rofi silently exits with no terminal launched. Maybe I’m being thick-headed, but I can’t make any sense out of the man page regarding this.

EDIT: playing around a bit, I launched rofi from terminal emulator, and then it does run the command as expected. So now I’ll amend my question to: How to launch from run mode, from the fluxbox rootmenu entry? (Again, disregard if considered off-topic. I’ll live though it.) 😉

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by christophe.

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member manyroads]

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@christophe Here are a couple of examples showing what I do/ use as keybindings defined for my wm(s) in sxhkd:

# rofi menu   (alt+left-mouse-click)
alt + @button1
	 rofi -modi drun,window,run -show drun -show-icons -sidebar-mode -location 0  -width 360

# rofi Active Tasks 
super + F12
	rofi -modi window -show window -show-icons -sidebar-mode

These commands will work from command line just paste them in… one at a time.

Number 1:
rofi -modi drun,window,run -show drun -show-icons -sidebar-mode -location 0 -width 360

Number 2:
rofi -modi window -show window -show-icons -sidebar-mode

Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - http://many-roads.com
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
dwm & i3wm ~Reg. Linux User #449130
20 Jan 2021 ~ "End of an Error"

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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I use herbstluftwm. Out of your list I use:

— sxhkd (keybindings) -No
— rofi -No
— conky -No
— st (suckless simple terminal) -No
— xfce4-power-manager -No
— feh (for wallpaper changer) -Yes
— pulseaudio – big no!!!
— xcompmgr (eye candy) not compton/picom -No
— acpi tools including: thermald, tlp, powertop -Some
— xautolock -No
— i3lock-fancy (screen locker) -No
— fluxgui (night-day backlight) -No
— dunst (notification) -No
— udiskie -No
— xdotool -No
— xdo -No
— lxpolkit (policykit) -No
— touchpad-indicator (to toggle my touchpad) -No
— caffeine -No
— yad & zenity (as launchers, pop-up messages & for help) -yad -Yes
— tint2 (panel) for non-dwm window managers -No

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member manyroads]

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@anticapitalista… now you can see why my dwm install is so bloated. 😉 I even forgot:

nnn- file manager
ranger- file manager
cmus- music player
mocp- music player
nemo- file manager (used most often)

I do love all the toys.

Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - http://many-roads.com
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
dwm & i3wm ~Reg. Linux User #449130
20 Jan 2021 ~ "End of an Error"

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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@manyroads –

nnn- file manager – No (but it is a great file-manager) – I prefer vifm
ranger- file manager – No
cmus- music player –No
mocp- music player – YES ALL THE TIME!
nemo- file manager (used most often) – No

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by anticapitalista.

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member PPC]

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In my case I use:
– rofi (both in drun mode to launch files and in a “locate script” to find files)
– feh
– dunst
– yad (extensively on my scripts)
– tint2 (in min-fluxbox)
– skippy-xd (now a lot less, because of tint2 window previews)
– spacefm, coupled with my “recicle bin” and my “mount cloud drives” script, to access Google drive/Onedrive
– a toolbar icon to launch wttr.in as a light “weather applet”… (idea borrowed from our friend over at MX-fluxbox)

P.

[Member Xecure]

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Sorry to go off topic here, people.

anticapitalista wrote:

— yad & zenity (as launchers, pop-up messages & for help) -yad -Yes

I was testing dialogbox on herbstluftwm and it correctly acts as a dialog, popping up on the screen as a floating window. But yad dialogs open up as frame/subframe. How do you get yad to open as a dialog?

About the main topic, I am not much of a heavy user.
– A terminal is almost always open.
– geany must be my most used program, for editing text or code, running and testing scripts, etc.
– SpaceFM as file manager, also open most of the time.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Moderator BobC]

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After working with modified systems for a long time now (mostly non-linux), I’ve learned that what is easy to use and maintain over time, is a minimally modified system, and the best way to get there is to configure mine the way I like and put the same time and effort I would have devoted to modifying and testing and remodifying and retesting, and instead put that into improving the base system so it works better out of the box. If adding new features is done well, it’s better for all.

I won’t go into the messes I’ve seen of modified systems or trying to keep them up to date. I learn from those mistakes every time I try it.

So, if its already installed by the distro, I have it, if it runs as part of what I use, I might be running it underneath. Yes, I’ve added some applications, but of the ones you listed, if I’m using them they were included by the distro.

Ps. I did need to install acpitools on one laptop to get the battery info.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by BobC.

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