https://github.com/xiaq/mindock

A minimal, programmable dock for herbstluftwm (and possibly other tiling WMs)
https://github.com/xiaq/mindock

Last synced: about 1 month ago
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A minimal, programmable dock for herbstluftwm (and possibly other tiling WMs)

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/xiaq/mindock
• Owner: xiaq
• Created: 2013-04-06T14:12:05.000Z (almost 12 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2014-07-05T07:29:07.000Z (over 10 years ago)
• Last Synced: 2024-12-02T08:56:42.544Z (about 1 month ago)
• Language: Shell
• Homepage:
• Size: 188 KB
• Stars: 1
• Watchers: 3
• Forks: 0
• Open Issues: 1
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md

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README

        
# mindock

`mindock` is a minimal, programmable dock for herbstluftwm (and possibly other

tiling WMs).

Screenshot - it's quite unimpressive :) :

![mindock screenshot](https://raw.github.com/xiaq/mindock/master/screenshot.png)

Windows are roxterm, firefox, kupfer and devhelp, with kupfer being the active

one.

## Why another dock?

[EWMH](http://standards.freedesktop.org/wm-spec/wm-spec-1.3.html) defines 2

properties of the root window to store the list of the windows:

`_NET_CLIENT_LIST` and `_NET_CLIENT_LIST_STACKING`. The former shall be in

"initial mapping order, starting with the oldest window". It's also the order

most stacking WMs use for "Alt-Tab" or like; therefore all docks and panels I

know of (awn, xfce4-panel, etc.) place windows in this order.

However, tiling WMs allow you to adjust the layout of windows, and the order

of navigation is likely changed too. In that case the navigation order becomes

inconsistent with `_NET_CLIENT_LIST`. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way

the WM can indicate the navigation order under this condition.

## Why dock at all? Why not just display a list of window names in dzen?

Docks are much more scalable and intuitive.

## How it works

It follows the model of [dzen](http://robm.github.io/dzen/): it monitors stdin

continuously, and when there is a new line of input, it parses it as a list of

X window IDs. Icons for these windows are then displayed, with the active

window in a different background.

Therefore this requires that you write a script for monitor the list of window

IDs on current workspace, which implies is that your WM has to be scriptable

so that you can monitor and output the list of windows in the first place. I

develop this dock under

[herbstluftwm](http://wwwcip.cs.fau.de/~re06huxa/herbstluftwm/)(hlwm) and for

hlwm; `hlwm-monitor-wid` is a reference bash script just for that.

To use with hlwm, just run

    ./hlwm-monitor-wid | ./mindock

## Dependencies

I developed mindock using Python 2.7.

Unfortunately, since packaging of PyGTK and python-wnck are rather weird, I'm

unable to write a suitable `setup.py` for mindock. So you have to install the

dependencies by hand, preferably using your distro's package manager:

* PyGTK

* PyXDG

* Python binding of libwnck

On Archlinux, `pacman -S pygtk python2-xdg python2-wnck` should suffice as of

2013-04-07.

## Roadmap

It's obvious that a lot is missing, but it's already usable for me. :)

Planned:

* Prettier look (transparency, highlight effect, etc.)

* Support simple elements other than window icons (separators, etc.)

Probably:

* Make icon clicking actually work :)

_Not_ planned:

* System tray

* Graphical configuration interface