Productivity rehash: WM Promiscuity - Ratpoison

I wrote this a while back.

Ever since, things have changed a wee bit.

Yes, the last thing I switched to was Awesome. But then, those folks have this terrible tendency of breaking config files every now and then for no apparent freaking reason. I had quite had enough after they broke Vicious in 3.4.10.

I considered switching to something as featured or less, mostly Xmonad before I stopped caring a shit and switched back to Ratpoison.

With the rats banished, I'm now fairly happy with a WM free of every bloody thing I don't want. I also got rid of both GNOME, KDE and Slim altogether and switched to a mingetty with an autologin.

Here's how stuff looks, with a mostly basic Conkyrc. The background is courtesy of xplanet

Occasionally, I get enough trouble with Eclipse (whenever the heck I need it) to tmpwm switch to either Xmonad or awesome, depending on things. But then that's not all that much trouble.

One of these days, I'm thinking of writing a little hack to sync RPWS workspaces to Awesome tags on switching back and forth for seamlessness.

Some stuff along the way:

# -- Ratpoison config by p6
unmanage panel
unmanage conky
unmanage conky-cli
startup_message on

# -- Mod4-t to escape
escape s-t
bind Escape abort

# {{{ rudeness is a bitwise or of the following values:
# 1 Transient windows may raise.
# 2 Normal windows may raise.
# 4 New transient windows end up in the foreground.
# 8 New normal windows end up in the foreground.
rudeness 12
# }}}

warp on

# {{{ Bar
set wingravity center
set transgravity center
set bargravity n
set border 0 0
set barborder 1
set padding 0 16 0 0
set barpadding 1 1
set inputwidth 100
set font -*-fixed-*-*-*-*-9-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
#set bgcolor black
set fgcolor #4ca04c
msgwait 3
# }}}

# -- Printscreen
definekey top Print exec scrot -d 2 ~/Documents/screenshots/ss-%Y-%m-%d.png && ratpoison -c "echo screenshot saved as `%Y-%m-%d`!"

definekey top s-c exec xterm

# --- Use the name of the program rather than the title in the window list
set winname name

# {{{ Storing layouts in three slots
# -- bind Mod4-! to store the current frame layout in slot #1
definekey top s-exclam exec ratpoison -c "setenv fs1 `ratpoison -c 'fdump'`" && exec ratpoison -c "echo layout stored in slot #1"
# -- bind Mod4-1 to restore the frame layout in slot #1
definekey top s-1 exec ratpoison -c "frestore `ratpoison -c 'getenv fs1'`"
# -- Do the same for slot #2 and bind it to Mod4-@ and Mod4-2, respectively.
definekey top s-at exec ratpoison -c "setenv fs2 `ratpoison -c 'fdump'`" && exec ratpoison -c "echo layout stored in slot #2"
definekey top s-2 exec ratpoison -c "frestore `ratpoison -c 'getenv fs2'`"
# -- Give ourselves another slot on Mod4-# and Mod4-3, respectively.
definekey top s-numbersign exec ratpoison -c "setenv fs3 `ratpoison -c 'fdump'`"&& exec ratpoison -c "echo layout stored in slot #3"
definekey top s-3 exec ratpoison -c "frestore `ratpoison -c 'getenv fs3'`"
# }}}

# {{{ Sticky Windows
bind d dedicate
bind s-d dedicate
# }}}

# {{{ Workspaces
definekey top s-1 exec rpws 1
definekey top s-2 exec rpws 2
definekey top s-3 exec rpws 3
definekey top s-4 exec rpws 4
definekey top s-5 exec rpws 5
definekey top s-6 exec rpws 6
definekey top s-7 exec rpws 7
definekey top s-8 exec rpws 8
definekey top s-9 exec rpws 9
# }}}

# {{{ Startup
# -- Init nine workspaces
exec rpws init 9 -k
exec xsetroot -bg black -cursor_name left_ptr &
# }}}

#virtual desks
#gnewbg one
#gnewbg two

exec xmodmap -quiet ~/.Xmodmap
exec nm-applet
exec scim -d

bind c exec xterm

###Set a background, randomly picking from a certain directory.
####exec cd ~/Pictures/OG/ && xsetbg -border black -fork -type jpeg -fit -onroot -fullscreen `w=(*.jpg); n=${#w[@]}; echo "${w[RANDOM%n]}"` && cd ~/
#exec xsetbg -border black -fork -type jpeg -fit -onroot -fullscreen `w=(*.jpg); n=${#w[@]}; echo "~/pics/${w[RANDOM%n]}"`

###Run unclutter so the mouse hangs around no longer than needed.
exec unclutter -idle 1 -jitter 2 -root

###I use xscreensaver as a screensaver. The first line makes sure any running xscreensaver is killed.
###The second starts and backgrounds xscreensaver
exec xscreensaver-command -exit
exec xscreensaver &

exec conky
exec ratpoison -c "echo Welcome to Ratpoison"
#exec ~/scripts/ratcpi.sh

##aliasing keys within ratpoison
###make semicolon invoke ratpoison command, and colon shell command.
bind semicolon colon
bind colon exec

alias term 'exec xterm'

And a basic Conkyrc

alignment top_left
background no
border_width 1
cpu_avg_samples 2
default_color white
default_outline_color white
default_shade_color white
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders yes
draw_outline no
draw_shades no
use_xft yes
xftfont DejaVu Sans Mono:size=8
gap_x 5
gap_y 0
minimum_size 5 5
net_avg_samples 2
no_buffers yes
out_to_console no
out_to_stderr no
extra_newline no
own_window no
own_window_class Conky
own_window_type desktop
stippled_borders 0
update_interval 1.0
uppercase no
use_spacer none
show_graph_scale no
show_graph_range no

TEXT
$nodename - $sysname $kernel $machine :: ${color grey}Uptime:$color $uptime :: ${color grey}RAM:$color $mem/$memmax - $memperc% :: ${color grey}Swap:$color $swap/$swapmax - $swapperc% :: ${color grey}CPU:$color $cpu% :: ${color grey}Ps:$color $processes ${color grey}:: ${color grey}Fs: $color${fs_used /}/${fs_size /} :: ${color grey}Net:Up:$color ${upspeed eth1} ${color grey} - Down:$color ${downspeed eth1} :: ${color grey}Battery:$color ${battery_percent BAT1}

.profile

# if logging into tty6 (which will autologin), run startx
if [ -z "$DISPLAY" ] && [ $(tty) = /dev/tty6 ] ; then
startx ;
fi

.xinitrc (also gets scim up and running)

ratpoison

export GTK_IM_MODULE=scim-bridge
export XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM
export QT_IM_MODULE=scim-bridge
scim -d

/etc/inittab (probably /etc/init/tty#.conf on Debian, Ubuntu)

respawn
exec /sbin/mingetty --autologin user --noclear tty6

While I'm rather happy with my setup, if you're less performance nazi than I am, you might want to try OpenBox which seems to be very promising.