Configuration the BSPWM

This setting is based on Bspwm: A Bare-Bones Window Manager. The article offers a detailed explanation about the configuration for BSPWM.

Getting started

To start you should install the windows manager and the simple X host key daemon:

yay -S bspwm
yay -S sxhkd

An example of configuration is in /usr/share/doc/bspwm/examples/bspwmrc so you could copy from it:

cp /usr/share/doc/bspwm/examples/bspwmrc ~/.config/bspwm

There is also an example for the sxhkd in /usr/share/doc/bspwm/examples/sxhkdrc

cp /usr/share/doc/bspwm/examples/sxhkdrc ~/.config/sxhkd 

Here we are going to edit the configuration in files located in the corresponding folders in this repository, so only need to link to the corresponding location:

ln -s $PWD/bspwm/bspwmrc ~/.config/bspwm/bspwmrc
ln -s $PWD/sxhkd/sxhkdrc ~/.config/sxhkd/sxhkdrc

Do not forget to add the appropriate permissions for each one:

chmod 755 $PWD/bspwm/bspwmrc
chmod 644 $PWD/sxhkd/sxhkdrc

Adding a bar

Here the polybar status bar is used which is installed via:

yay -S siji-git ttf-unifont xorg-fonts-misc-otb
yay -S polybar
fc-cache -f -v

cp /usr/share/doc/polybar/config ~/.config/polybar/config

In this case we are going to link our configuration located at polybar folder:

ln -s $PWD/polybar/config ~/.config/polybar/config

Don't forget to add the corresponding permissions:

chmod 644 $PWD/polybar/config

In addition to this, it is required that you add a startup script. He it is provided a startup in polybar folder.

You should also add the appropriate permissions:

chmod +x $PWD/polybar/launch.sh

And then add the corresponding link in the appropriate address.

Take into account that in the config file should be a bar definition in [bar/barname] so you should use this name when calling in the launch script.

The current configuration uses also the program networkmanager_dmenu, which should be installed to work appropriately.

yay -S networkmanager-dmenu

All windows in polybar

There is an interesting script by Tam-Carre which es named polywins based on polybar-windows that enables showing all window names and select them in the polybar.

This project is included as submodule in this repository and added to the second polybar configuration.

Multimonitor support

The support for multimonitor is based mainly on https://protesilaos.com/codelog/multihead-bspwm-polybar/. It requires uses by default the HDMI-1 output for external monitor. You can edit the EXTERNAL_MONITOR_NAME in case you use another. You can check also the connected monitors by:

xrandr -q | grep -w connected 

There is also a script named launch_two.sh in the configuration folder for polybar which creates a bar for the attached monitor. It uses the HDMI-1 monitor. If you use another, could change to another in the config file.

Using rofi as launcher

Rofi is an interesting tool which could be use as a launcher and as a window switcher. It could be installed by:

yay -S rofi

Although a powerful tool their appearance is old-fashioned, so, here we use a repository which implements several themes and applets. This repository is located at https://github.com/adi1090x/rofi

The process to install is:

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/adi1090x/rofi.git
cd rofi
chmod +x setup.sh
./setup.sh

This script installs a set of scripts to launch specific features of rofi. All the scripts are located under $HOME/.config/rofi/bin.

Now to these scripts where recognized you should add the following line to xprofile or to the shell config file.

echo "PATH=$PATH:~/.config/rofi/bin" >> ~/.xprofile

To use local themes you could import them via:

rofi-theme-selector

And according to the information the theme could be applied via Alt+a inside the dialog.

Using rofi to select emoji

Employing this repository https://github.com/Mange/rofi-emoji, it adds modi to select an emoji and copy to the clipboard. To use it you can call by:

rofi --show emoji -modi emoj

Trouble: Rambox not shown in rofi windows switcher

When Rambox is configured to start minimized, the window is not recognized by rofi event after being shown. To prevent this issue, disable this option. And the window of Rambox will be recognized.

Trouble: Fixing cursor X

In BSPWM when you are in no active window, appears a cursor with a X shape. According to these references: Reddit answer and Archlinux wiki the solution is add to ~/.xinitrc o bspwm files:

xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr

Trouble with slack and other eletron based apps

When there is a notification, the window of Slack, for example freezes for a while which causes to take some actions such as killing the process and starting it again.

According to this thread Slack-desktop freezes on notification it is due to the inexisting daemon notification service. So to avoid this trouble, you should install such daemon, for example via dunst.

yay -S dunst

References

For polybar there are some interesting styles which could be found at: polybar-themes

For network manager instead of using nm-applet it could be used the project networkmanager-dmenu

To install it:

yay -S networkmanager-dmenu